All Of Google's Manual Actions For Search Spam

All Of Google's Manual Actions For Search Spam
As I mentioned a few minutes ago in my story about Google's new manual spam action viewer - Google has documented all of the manual actions a site may receive for spamming their search results.
Here are the eleven documents from Google on these manual spam actions:

• Manual Actions
• Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects
• Hacked site
• Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing
• Pure spam
• Spammy freehosts
• Thin content with little or no added value
• Unnatural links from your site
• Unnatural links to your site
• Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
• User-generated spam

With that, Google produced a total of nine videos, I believe only seven being new videos, on these manual actions.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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2013 Local SEO Ranking Factors Released

2013 Local SEO Ranking Factors Released
 David Mihm and the folks at Moz released their 2013 local search ranking factors last night. They polled dozens of local SEO experts on 104 different ranking factors and asked hundreds of questions to come up with this report.
You can read the details at moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors but here is just an overview chart:

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google's Matt Cutts: Don't Worry About Bad Links, Just Disavow Them

Google's Matt Cutts: Don't Worry About Bad Links, Just Disavow Them
In one of his shortest video responses, Matt Cutts, the head of search spam at Google, answered the question:

Should I be worried if a couple of sites that I don't want to be associated with are linking to me?

He said as long as you disavow the links or the domain that has the links pointing to your site that you do not want to be associated with, then it will all be fine. He said, as long as you've taken those steps [disavow] then "I wouldn't worry."

Matt did warn that when you do disavow, you should do so likely at the domain name like you would when you use a machete.
I am sure many webmasters have disavow and still didn't see much of a difference and there are plenty of reasons for that.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google In-Depth Articles Goes Live, Here Is How To Be Included

Google In-Depth Articles Goes Live, Here Is How To Be Included
A month ago, we reported tests of in-depth search snippets from Google - well that test is now a reality. Google announced last night that they will show these in-depth articles in the search results when the query is about understanding a broader topic. Google said this will help 10% of the queries that are seeking more than just a quick answer, really dive deeper into broader topics.

This is launching on google.com in English to start but Google promises to expand this feature to other regions and languages.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google: We Fight Spam All Around The World But English Spam Gets More Attention

Google: We Fight Spam All Around The World But English Spam Gets More Attention
Google's Matt Cutts said Google does indeed fight spam at a global level both algorithmically and manually.
In a recent video, Matt said they have Googlers who fight spam manually in over 40 different languages and regions. He added that with most of their algorithms, they do their best to make sure they work in all languages and not just English.

If you remember, Panda first rolled out on English queries only and then began rolling out to other languages such as Asian languages later. But with Penguin it launched in most all of the countries.

Google's Matt Cutts did admit that English language queries in Google.com do get more attention because (1) there are more searchers there and (2) there are more engineers who speak the language and use Google.com.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google's Page Speed Insights Tool Updated

Google's Page Speed Insights Tool Updated
Ilya Grigorik, Google's Developer Advocate for Google Chrome and all things speed on the web, has announced on Google+ that Google has updated the PageInsights Tool.

The major change you may notice is that you can now see a visual representation of the web site. I.e. how it looks in mobile versus desktop. You still get the useful tips on how to improve your page speed for both mobile and desktop. I do wish they would also validate that you are properly doing the right SEO set up for your mobile or responsive design site. I know it is not a speed thing but I assume it is easy for them to validate.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google Tests Sitelinks That Expand Out

Google Tests Sitelinks That Expand Out

Two SEOs spotted Google testing a new design for Google Sitelinks. The new design has sitelinks that expand and show sub-sitelinks in a gray background area. Google tested something similar on mobile sitelinks a few months ago.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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Google's Matt Cutts On Using ccTLDs

Google's Matt Cutts On Using ccTLDs
Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, in another video answer, responds to the question about using ccTLDs (country code top level domain names). The question was "Should I use ccTLDs for sites not targeted to those countries?"

The answer is pretty straight forward. If it is part of the list of generic ccTLDs that Google has specifically said there is enough use to warrant them to be generic, then go ahead and use them. If they are not on that list, then be warned, the site on that ccTLD may be localized to the country of the ccTLD.

Author: Barry Schwartz

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