MAYDAY, MAYDAY

Filed under: Algorithm Changes, Google, News, SEO, Search Engines, Updates — Tags: , — Amye Saunders @ Friday, May 14th, 2010

In previous posts I wrote about some potential changes for Google’s infrastructure which Matt Cutts called Caffeine. Now, Matt did say (I guess we are on a first name basis) that they were going to hold off on this update until after Christmas 2009. This was done because last time a big update occurred it was right before Christmas and it negatively affected online retail sales. So, a bit of love – just in case Caffeine would have a significant affect in the SERP’s.

Then there was a ranking change which introduced the idea of how web page speed is being factored into the ranking criteria. I will reiterate here – relevancy is still the key metric.

But, something significant happened in Q1-Q2 2010 and Webmasterworld, as has always been done in the past, called a new, noticed algorithm changed “Mayday”.

Google's algorithm change dubbed Mayday 

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Faster, Faster!! Page Speed and How Your Site Ranks in Google

Filed under: Google, SEO — Tags: , , , , — Amye Saunders @ Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

There is a lot of talk in the traps about website page speed. Google (via Matt Cutts and Webmaster Tools) has openly stated that page speed will be a factor into the ranking algorithm for 2010 and will likely roll out with Caffeine – faster the better and you’ll be rewarded for it.

Google Webmaster tools have been reporting sample data from sites that have page speed issues (you can find this in the Labs section under Site Performance). Within Google Webmaster it also suggests the supplied Page Speed Firefox plug-in (installs as part of Firebug) should be used to get more accurate and full data. This has been available since July 2009 so I guess we have had plenty of notice. This is already in play for AdWords where page speed will affect your quality score.

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Google Caffeine – What You Should Expect for the Beta

Filed under: Google, News, SEO, Updates — Tags: , , , — Amye Saunders @ Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Over the last few days it was announced that Google will be making changes to its algorithm; a sizable modification which we may have not seen since the likes of Big Daddy and Jagger’s 1-3 in 2006.

Google has stated:

“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.

Some parts of this system aren’t completely finished yet, so we’d welcome feedback on any issues you see.” (more…)



Bada Bing! – Microsoft Bing Launches

Filed under: Updates — Tags: , , , — Amye Saunders @ Monday, June 1st, 2009

So, its official – Bing is rolling out worldwide!

I have just left a demo of the product here in Australia and I am impressed. While the layout of organic and paid advertising seems to have remained in tact, this could be a great product and its certainly got some bells and whistles.

Here are a few stats:
- 42% of sessions require refinements
- only 1 in 4 queries are successful
- 66% of people use search more frequently to make decisions and are often disappointed

This is where the opportunities lie. Microsoft is attempting to give users more confidence that the link they click is the one that will best satisfy their query. (more…)



International and Multi-lingual SEO

Filed under: SEO — Tags: , , , , — Amye Saunders @ Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I have worked on sites for multi-national clients targeting different regions and languages. The first question that always arises is “what is going to be the best way to localise my site?”

Everyone – this is a loaded question!

My answer is: get a ccTLD (country code top level domain such as .au) and/or have the site hosted in the country that it is targeting. Simple, right?

OK – this blog post is now complete…….

Oh, but wait, I did say it was a loaded question and it truly is because it is rarely that simple. This post hopes to cover off a fair few situations.

There are a number of ways, or indicators, that tell search engines what your target region is. (more…)