Matt Cutts Confirms Panda Update Coming This Friday

Late last night Matt Cutts was on stage at SMX talking about Penguin and Panda updates.  When asked about Panda updates and when will be the next one, Matt Cutts confirms a Panda update will be coming this Friday or Monday at the latest.

Cutts also said that they are in a heated battle with spam, trying to take down spammers and people trying to abuse the system.  In an effort to decrease web spam Google said there would be one VERY large Penguin update before the end of the year.  This isn’t that helpful but is interesting that there are additional large updates out there that we all can be waiting for.

Let’s be honest though, if you’re doing everything right and not spamming the world… you should be good!

 

Google Panda Two Years Later: 5 Questions With HubPages CEO Paul Edmondson

(Editor’s Note: This is the final article in a 3-part series looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first two articles in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery and Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility.)
In the two years since Google rolled out the Panda update, many of the “losers” are still losing, and several others have been impacted beyond rankings and SEO.
HubPages.com fits both descriptions.

Launched in 2006, the site currently has about 130,000 authors that have published more than 1.1 million articles, or “hubs” as the site calls them. It was regularly listed as one of Panda’s bigger losers and CEO Paul Edmonson confirms that below when he says Panda “caused a massive loss of traffic and revenue.” But unlike at least some of the other sites that Panda hit hard, HubPages isn’t planning to change course; its focus is on improving quality. 

In the course of researching the first two articles in this series, I reached out to a couple companies that were hit by Panda (and were relatively easy to contact on a tight deadline). HubPages was the first company to respond; others said they were unable to answer questions due to timing, travel, and so forth. With that in mind, our 3-part series on Panda’s second anniversary ends with this email interview with HubPages CEO Paul Edmonson.

Good Bye Anchor Text, Welcome Co-Citations: Revolution in Link Building for 2013 Revealed

The Google Penguin update has changed the link building process forever. Gone are the days when it was easy to rank for desired keywords by building tons of links using exact keywords as the anchor text.

In the wake of Penguin, uncertain exactly where the thresholds and ratios are. Just how well distributed should our anchor text be in order to get the best results?

We have been busy with research on the subject and, not too long ago, discovered what Rand Fishkin at the SEOMoz blog had to say for their Whiteboard Friday series. Much of what we’ve observed has fallen in line with his predictions.

So why might Google think about diminishing Anchor text?

7 eCommerce SEO Tips for 2013

Making eCommerce work is becoming increasingly difficult. Google wants to be the sole affiliate on the Web, and Amazon has gained so much market share that it’s difficult to get noticed as an alternative. The search engines increasingly remove commercial sites from the results, replacing them with their own ads and shopping programs. The search results focus more and more on content, not products. 

 

At the same time, a growing number of consumers who were once afraid of shopping online now feel safe with it. More purchases are happening online than ever before. There is opportunity here for the sites that know how to pull ahead. What can the modern eCommerce site do to stay competitive?

These seven tips should help you pull ahead of the competition by modernizing your SEO and leading the push forward in 2013:

Guide to Bringing Your WordPress Blog Up to Today’s Google Algorithm Standards

Keeping up with Google’s ever-changing algorithm updates on WordPress blogs requires constant monitoring and adjustments, which many webmasters fail to keep up with. Following the Penguin algorithm update, millions of bloggers experienced a halt or decrease in traffic.

Although keeping up with industry trends does require frequent updates to continue performing well in search, most tasks are not time consuming at all. This guide will help you understand recent changes to Google’s algorithm and how to update your WordPress blog to follow the new industry standards.

How to Leverage the Knowledge Graph for SEO

Knowledge is power, as the old saying goes. So what do marketers need to know about Google’s Knowledge Graph to power their SEO and search strategies?

There has been a lot of commentary around the semantic Web. The theory is that search results are becoming smarter by distinguishing between words with different meanings. Whether that is true or not largely depends on who you believe and how much stock you place in search engines’ ability to “learn” the wants and needs of their users.