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Social media marketing is a fussy and ever-evolving beast. New platforms are continually arising, while others lose their luster and fade into obscurity.
In 2015, nowhere was that more evident than with Google+, which went from a "ghost town" to the announcement that the platform would be split, to a rebirth of sorts with a big redesign and a focus on Communities and Collections. What will the new Google+ mean for marketers, and should it even stay on our radar? Mark Traphagen's piece provided some insight into this as well as some predictions on where it's headed next.
Readers were also interested in understanding the key components that make up a successful social media marketing strategy. From increasing brand awareness to building social influence, readers were looking for ways to take their social media campaigns to the next level.
And of course, we can't ignore the social media behemoths, Facebook and Twitter. When Facebook updated its News Feed algorithm earlier this year, marketers were left wondering if it would hurt their reach. Jordan Kretchmer's piece addressed these concerns with some advice on how to switch up your Facebook strategy. Meanwhile, an exploration of Twitter Analytics also sparked interest among readers, along with an article that delved into the ins and outs of Twitter's Promoted Video ads.
Following are the top 10 Social Media Marketing columns published on Marketing Land in 2015.
Methodology: Columns published in 2015 are ranked in order of pageviews measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2015. Social data provided by SharedCount.
About The Author Desiree Everts DeNunzio is Associate Features Editor at Search Engine Land and Marketing Land and a longtime digital media editor and writer. Formerly, she was an associate editor at PBS MediaShift, where she contributed to Digital Content Next's Intelligence Report. She's also worked for CNET, GigaOm and Wired magazine. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
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When Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller said earlier this year that webmasters should "try to avoid" link building for SEO, many took this as a clear and unambiguous sign that link building as a practice was done for.
As search engines continue to crack down on spammy and manipulative links, quite a number of search marketers have begun to forgo link building altogether (often in favor of content marketing), fearing that the tactic is simply too risky.
But the fact remains that links are the most important off-page signal for search engine rankings, and strategic link acquisition is therefore critical for effective search engine optimization. For SEO efforts to reach their full potential, businesses and online marketers simply cannot opt out of link building.
It's no surprise, then, that readers were very interested in how to build links in a safe and white-hat manner — and Neil Patel's piece on how to do just that earned top honors within the Link Week columns this year.
As technology improves and automation becomes the norm, columnists also made the case for the value of manual link building this year. Link building expert Eric Ward's piece on why manual link building will never be obsolete was one of the top Link Week columns of 2015, and Andrew Dennis' response to this piece, which discussed why link building will never be replaced by content marketing, also made it onto the list.
Want more? Check out our top 10 link building columns of 2015:
Methodology: Columns published in 2015 are ranked in order of page views measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2015. Social data provided by SharedCount.
About The Author Jessica Thompson is Associate Features Editor at Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. She is a well-rounded digital media enthusiast with a keen interest in all things Internet marketing. Jessica earned her B.A. in English from Drew University and has since gone on to fill a wide variety of roles over the course of her career, including web designer, copywriter, editor, SEO consultant, online marketing specialist and marketing manager. Most recently, she worked at Advance Digital, where she conducted digital optimization training for journalists and provided high-level SEO and social media recommendations for 12 major regional news websites, including NJ.com. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
We will send the script to your PayPal email within few hours,Please add FullContentRSS@gmail.com to your email contact.Search engine optimization, or SEO, and pay per click advertising, or PPC, together comprise the bulk of search engine marketing, or SEM. SEO is all about boosting page rankings on search engines through third party links, articles, directory placements, and other means. PPC, on the other hand, involves an auction. With PPC, an advertiser pays whenever someone clicks on an ad appearing in the "Sponsored" or "Paid" area of the search engine results page. The more the advertiser is willing to pay per clickthrough, the higher that ad's position on the search page.
So which is better, PPC or SEO?
Spending PatternsAll PPC providers (with Google being the largest) automatically include daily and campaign budget limits. Keywords can be easily moved up or down in search engine position by raising or lowering keyword bid rates. Furthermore, PPC campaigns are generally easier to measure and track than SEO. These factors all make it easier for advertising and marketing managers to get PPC approved over SEO. The result is that marketing managers clearly prefer PPC over SEO. According to SEMPO, The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, a total of 87% of SEM spending goes to PPC and 11% goes to SEO.
Different Payment ModelsWhereas PPC is pay as you go, SEO requires an upfront investment with no guarantee of performance. A small business can start a PPC campaign with no money down, try it out for a month with a budget as small as $50, and see immediate results. The same firm would probably have to pay anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000 up front to hire an SEO consultant and wait a month or two before seeing any results, all without any performance guarantee, and very little transparency. It is no wonder so many small businesses with small budgets choose PPC over SEO.
Fine TuningWith PPC, advertisers can add, subtract, or change keywords at will. If all of a sudden you run out of "blue suede shoes" and only stock "red suede shoes" you can instantly swap out "blue" and replace it with "red".
Another useful feature of PPC is "negative keywords". Negative keywords allow advertisers to specify what they DON'T want to pay for. Here's an example, suppose a window distributor sells Pella windows but does not sell Andersen windows. Then it makes sense to create a set of negative keywords that contain the word "Andersen" to avoid paying for searches for Andersen windows. The judicious use of negative keywords can frequently mean the difference between being profitable and being unprofitable.
These features have no counterpart in SEO. SEO advertisers have much less control over when their pages show up, but since SEO traffic is "free", the lower level of control isn't an issue to most advertisers.
Measurement and TrackingPPC has the edge over SEO when it comes to measurement and tracking. Google Adwords in particular has a wide range of tools that help advertisers identify the best keywords, estimate traffic, report on previous campaigns, and test and compare different ads with each other to see which phrases yield the best results. These tools are even more powerful when combined with Google Analytics — Google's system for tracking and measuring website traffic and usage patterns. Google Adwords' tools alone make PPC indispensable for most search engine marketers.
Timing
PPC advertisers have precise control over when their ads appear (at least with Google Adwords). For instance, an ad can be turned on at 3:00 o'clock ad turned off at 4:00 o'clock, or run on weekdays and turned off on weekends and holidays. This is not the case with SEO. Since page ark is determined by the collective effect of thousands, or tens of thousands, of other websites, timing is much less precise with SEO. In fact the whole concept of "timing" with SEO is fuzzy, since the only control one has is over page rank. In practice, a page can be "turned on" or "turned off" by gradually raising or lowering its page rank, but for most sites this mesa response times o the order of a few days to a few weeks. This is one reason why ecommerce sites often favor PPC over SEO.
Stability
The previous argument can be turned on its head. The fact that SEO campaigns cannot be timed precisely can be viewed as an advantage: SEO traffic is more stable and generally lasts longer than with PPC. An investment in a well-designed SEO effort can lead to high page raking for several months, even years, whereas a PPC campaign only yields results until the budget runs out. Tom Casale, co-founder of Simplified Solutions, an Internet marketing firm located in Chicago, likens PPC to a "sugar high", whereas SEO is more like a long term commitment to a balanced diet and moderate exercise.
Real EstatePPC ads only appear at the top or the side of search results pages, whereas "organic" or SEO ads appear in the middle of the page. About 60%-70% of the average search page devoted to SEO results, compared to about 30%-40% for PPC. In other words, SEO occupies more "real estate" than PPC. Furthermore, many people have a negative reaction to PPC ads — PPC ads are "more commercial" and "easier to manipulate" than organic listings. The result is that SEO tends to yield higher clickthrough rates than PPC ads. According to Business Week, SEO clicks convert at a 25% higher rate than PPC. Marketing Sherpa found that SEO clickthroughs convert (to a sale) at a rate of 4.2% whereas PPC ads covert at 3.6%.
Fraud
"Click fraud" occurs when someone clicks on a keyword in order to force an advertiser to pay for the clickthrough. Unscrupulous firms pay people to click on competitors' ads to drain their advertising budget. In other cases affiliate sites pay people to click on ads appearing on their site, so the affiliates generate more revenue. A few years ago there was a lot of concern about PPC advertising click fraud. Some advertisers claimed that as many as 50% of their PPC clickthroughs were fraudulent. This led to a concerted and aggressive crackdown by the major search engines ad PPC providers to more closely monitor and reduce click fraud. While some amount of fraud is probably unavoidable, it appears these efforts have largely been successful.
But fraud can also occur with SEO. Some SEO firms use tricks to quickly boost search engine rankings. These tricks, such as "keyword stuffing", lead to a sharp increase in page ranking, followed by a crash when the search engines punish the advertiser for violating their rules. Another type of fraud is harder to detect. Since nobody can absolutely guarantee a specific page ranking, very few SEO firms offer any guarantee. They simply say they will do their best. Fine, but how does an advertiser know if they did anything at all? Unscrupulous SEO firms lure customers in through slick advertising and low fees, and then do as little actual work as possible. While the vast majority of professional SEO firms are honest and do exactly what they say, a small number of unscrupulous firms damage the industry's reputation. This may be another reason why PPC advertising gets so much more money from advertisers.
Return on Investment
The traditional wisdom among marketing professionals is that SEO yields a higher ROI than PPC. But the world of PPC has changed over the past few years, mostly driven by Google AdWords. Google has created dozens of tools for implementing and measuring PPC campaigns. These tools when properly used, allow advertisers to systematically increase targeted traffic while decreasing costs. Actual results will depend on specifics such as industry, competition, the state of the economy, and other factors, but anecdotal evidence shows that PPC can generate ROI results similar to those from SEO.
Summary
While advertisers spend more money on PPC than SEO, most experts believe SEO delivers a better value over time. It is harder for advertisers with big budgets to game SEO, and SEO investments have a longer shelf life than PPC investments. O the other hand, Google is continuously improving PPC so a higher ROI is achievable now than ever before. In the past, smaller firms (especially service firms) have avoided PPC, whereas ecommerce firms have voided SEO. This is changing quickly as smaller service firms discover that PPC affords increased flexibility and larger firms become more comfortable with SEO.
The PPC vs SEO debate will probably continue for a long time. However, the vast majority of businesses could benefit from some combination of SEO and PPC. The ideal proportion of PPC to SEO for any particular advertiser will probably vary over time, as competitors and products change. Smart marketers understand that SEO and PPC are complementary and neither one is "better" than the other. In the long run, instead of trying to outdo each other they will need to work together in order to enable the user to make the most of both methods of obtaining traffic.
By Mitch Carson
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Search engine optimization attempts to improve past organic search performance. You must know how your site performed this year before you can optimize anything in 2016. You may have theories about what was supposed to happen based on plans that were made during the year, or launches of new products and initiatives that were supposed to be strong traffic drivers. You may have assumptions that SEO mirrored the overall performance of the site.
Do not act on theories and assumptions. Always analyze first. And analyze now, before you forget the nuances of campaign strategy, the online and offline channels that supported it, and when different aspects launched and ended.
You must know how your site performed this year before you can optimize anything in 2016.
This may sound like obvious advice. Who would optimize without analysis? Well, many marketers do just that. That's how assumptions and beliefs work: They color your judgment and you're not even aware of it.
Play devil's advocate with your beliefs. Try to disprove the results you expect to find. If you can do that, you're ready to start 2016 with an analytical, skeptical SEO outlook.
SEO Performance: Strengths and WeaknessesIt's tempting just to analyze the positive aspects of performance, or to put a positive spin on the negative aspects. We are marketers, after all. Fight the urge.
Honest analysis of underperforming areas will usually give you much more insight than highlighting the winning aspects. Note the areas that performed well so you can reproduce them. But spend more time focusing on what didn't work so that you can optimize for greater success.
Gather as much data about performance as you can. Start with Google Search Console — formerly Google Webmaster Tools — because the data there will only be available for the last 90 days. If you download the top keywords and top pages data on January 4, for example, you'll only have a view back to October. Every day you wait is another day's worth of data lost. See "Essential SEO Data, to Manage Performance" for more on the different types of data you need to optimize your site for organic search.
Honest analysis of underperforming areas will usually give you much more insight than highlighting the winning aspects.
Be certain to analyze keywords and organic search entry pages — those pages at which searchers entered your site. Keyword data hasn't been reliable for a couple of years, since most sites see around 90 percent of their keyword data as "not provided." However, comparing entry page data with keyword data, especially in Google Search Console where keyword data is supposedly more accurate for Google searches at least, can give you a more complete picture of which content was most successful and which phrases searchers used to find it.
When analyzing your wealth of data, be certain to compare year over year rather than month over month. It's tempting, especially in the holiday season, to dwell on the increasing monthly trend. Looking solely at monthly — or weekly or daily — changes in performance hides true seasonal performance trends. What looks like a fantastic month may actually be a decrease from the performance driven in years past.
'Gifting' and SEOIf your site does not primarily sell gifts, it's highly unlikely that you'll experience a huge amount of success over holidays for "gift" keywords. Even if you have gift sets or sell products that may be given as gifts, the sites that sell gifts all year and target their entire SEO strategy toward gifting keywords are more than likely going to continue to dominate the rankings.
Using "gifts for her" keywords on a new landing page is about as likely to drive strong organic search performance as offering a single new book on your site and expecting to rank better than Amazon and Barnes & Noble for "books."
By all means, use gifting keywords in conjunction with your seasonal gifting promotional pages. But be certain that your marketing team understands that SEO is not likely to be a strong performance driver for that promotion.
If this was a key strategy for holiday 2015, make sure to analyze its performance carefully so that you can report on its effectiveness for SEO. And note that this is an assumption that I'm making based on past history with many ecommerce sites. Using my own advice above, I would absolutely analyze the effectiveness of gifting and attempt to prove myself wrong using the data.
Archiving Pages for Future HolidaysSearch engines factor a URL's age into authority, and authority is one of the most important keys to SEO performance. Creating a brand new page for holiday content each year means that your most important promotions of the year have to start all over again without any previously acquired authority. That's hard work
Archive your landing pages for your important seasonal periods and refresh the same page year after year. The links and shares those pages acquire one year will benefit the page's performance the next year instead of being lost.
Search engines factor a URL's age into authority, and authority is one of the most important keys to SEO performance.
Archiving sounds simple, but it requires two critical elements that developers and marketers typically do not want to do: The URL cannot change, and the content must be linked to consistently, even when the holiday is over.
If the new holiday page has a different URL than the last holiday page, the page is different. Even if it uses the same template or has the same design, as soon as that URL changes, it's a new page.
For example, your holiday page this year may have been Site.com/holiday. Next year it also needs to be Site.com/holiday, not Site.com/holiday-2016 or Site.com/holidays. If you had the year in your URL this year, such as Site.com/holiday-2015, change the URL now to Site.com/holiday and ask your developers to 301 redirect Site.com/holiday-2015 to Site.com/holiday. Doing the 301 redirect now will pass the authority from Site.com/holiday-2015 to Site.com/holiday, and ensure that the page has had months to show its trustworthiness before it's needed again.
The holiday or other seasonal pages you want to drive performance each year must be linked to somehow — they cannot be orphaned without links, as search engines cannot access them. Think of it like the oxygen line to a deep-sea diver. That thin tube delivers the oxygen mix that the diver requires to stay alive. The link to currently unused seasonal content pages is the lifeline that keeps their authority alive and ready to spring into use next season.
You need just a single link from somewhere on your site. It could be a link from an HTML sitemap to a "past promotions" page, which in turn links to all of your seasonal content. It's unlikely that shoppers would stumble onto these pages, but they're still accessible to search engines through the lifeline link.
The pages themselves would look and act like normal pages with the same navigational template. But the pages would be stripped of their promotional product content, such as sale prices and product details. You don't want shoppers to think they can still buy last year's Cyber Monday deals in April.
A small amount of holiday text should be included on the page so that it isn't blank, and so that it has some relevance to the holiday it's promoting. Just three or four sentences talking about your brand and your relevance to the holiday is all that is needed to keep the page in hibernation safely until it's needed again.
In the same way that some sites have humorous 404 error pages, for example, you could also choose to make the text on the hibernating page funny. Include a short video, or whatever is in keeping with your brand and will delight the tiny number of customers who actually find themselves on the page accidentally.
A small amount of holiday text should be included on the page so that it isn't blank, and so that it has some relevance to the holiday it's promoting.
Monitor the performance of the hibernating holiday pages throughout the year to make sure that one doesn't accidentally begin rankings for promotional or special keywords. If they do happen to start ranking, change the text to remove the keywords they're ranking for, and to play up the seasonality of the page more. Just don't panic and remove the page from the index or you'll undo all the benefit of archiving that page for next holiday's benefit.
For example, if your Cyber Monday page starts driving traffic in April, look at the keywords it's performing on and remove those. It is likely an accidental combination of high authority due to the high number of links from deals sites and an accidental combination of text on the page that mimics something more searchers are searching for. You can likely take care of the problem by adding more instances of "Cyber Monday" and "November" keywords, and lowering the instances of the keywords "coupons," "deals," or "specials" that occur without "Cyber Monday" and "November."
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Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any business with an online presence — but for those that serve a specific geographical area, it's crucial. While the basic tenets of traditional SEO do indeed apply to local businesses, the fact is that local search is its own beast, and it requires a particular set of skills.
Optimizing a local business website for search engines requires some additional work that goes beyond traditional SEO, and our readers took a particular interest in tactical pieces this year, from how to do local content marketing to how to structure local landing pages. Matthew Barby's comprehensive guide to local SEO was by far the most widely read local search column on Search Engine Land in 2015, serving as both an excellent starting point for newbies and a handy refresher for veterans in the space.
Google threw local search marketers for a loop earlier this year when it made some changes to how local results are displayed, getting rid of the 7-pack in favor of a more condensed, more mobile-friendly 3-pack. While this change may have created a better user experience for searchers, many local businesses were left with questions — and Jason Decker's piece provided some much-needed insight into the implications of this new display format for searchers and businesses alike.
Finally, in addition to learning about what to do for local SEO, readers were just as concerned about what not to do. Four of the top 10 columns this year were focused on mistakes to avoid when performing local search engine optimization.
Following are the top 10 Local Search columns published on Search Engine Land in 2015.
Methodology: Columns published in 2015 are ranked in order of page views measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2015. Social data provided by SharedCount.
About The Author Jessica Thompson is Associate Features Editor at Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. She is a well-rounded digital media enthusiast with a keen interest in all things Internet marketing. Jessica earned her B.A. in English from Drew University and has since gone on to fill a wide variety of roles over the course of her career, including web designer, copywriter, editor, SEO consultant, online marketing specialist and marketing manager. Most recently, she worked at Advance Digital, where she conducted digital optimization training for journalists and provided high-level SEO and social media recommendations for 12 major regional news websites, including NJ.com. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
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December 25, 2015 03:00 ET
NAPLES, FL--(Marketwired - December 25, 2015) - topseos.com has reported the rankings of the 100 best search engine optimization services for December 2015. Straight North has been named the fifth best company due to their strong performance during the topseos.com thorough evaluation process. The rankings are released each month to assist clients of online marketing services in selecting reputable services.
The process for analyzing and listing the top agencies offering search engine optimization solutions involves a meticulous investigation of their key strengths. The five verticals of evaluation associated with successful search engine optimization campaigns include on page optimization, reporting methods, needs analysis, off page optimization, and keyword analysis. The results of this process are used to identify which companies to include within the ratings each month. The ratings are updated monthly to account for the latest developments within the industry.
For a more in-depth examination, the independent research team connects with customer references. Clients are interviewed to obtain their insight on the solutions provided to them. This provides valuable insight into the internal processes and methodologies of the firm offering the solution. In many cases clients contact topseos.com directly to voice their opinions.
Based on a pattern of remarkable results, a continued dedication towards exceptional client satisfaction, and the results of a rigorous evaluation, topseos.com has named Straight North the fifth best search engine optimization agency. Those looking for a reliable agency to assist them should consider Straight North.
About Straight North
Straight North is a leading SEO company offering lead validation and reports in a real time basis through an online dashboard. They provide their clients with a process to eliminate submissions and leads which do not measure up to their expectations to reduce time wasted and allow their clients to focus on actual business.
About topseos.com
topseos.com is an organizer of search engine marketing information. The key goal of topseos.com is to determine and publish those individuals or firms producing top search engine marketing solutions available. Search engine optimization firms are put through a in-depth analysis to ensure the rankings contain the absolute best firms the search engine marketing industry has to offer.
Those interested in applying for the rankings can visit:
http://www.topseos.com/apply-for-rankings-research/
For a better experience using this site, please upgrade to a modern web browser.
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We will send the script to your PayPal email within few hours,Please add FullContentRSS@gmail.com to your email contact.Get the latest news in local search marketing each week.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any business with an online presence — but for those that serve a specific geographical area, it's crucial. While the basic tenets of traditional SEO do indeed apply to local businesses, the fact is that local search is its own beast, and it requires a particular set of skills.
Optimizing a local business website for search engines requires some additional work that goes beyond traditional SEO, and our readers took a particular interest in tactical pieces this year, from how to do local content marketing to how to structure local landing pages. Matthew Barby's comprehensive guide to local SEO was by far the most widely read local search column on Search Engine Land in 2015, serving as both an excellent starting point for newbies and a handy refresher for veterans in the space.
Google threw local search marketers for a loop earlier this year when it made some changes to how local results are displayed, getting rid of the 7-pack in favor of a more condensed, more mobile-friendly 3-pack. While this change may have created a better user experience for searchers, many local businesses were left with questions — and Jason Decker's piece provided some much-needed insight into the implications of this new display format for searchers and businesses alike.
Finally, in addition to learning about what to do for local SEO, readers were just as concerned about what not to do. Four of the top 10 columns this year were focused on mistakes to avoid when performing local search engine optimization.
Following are the top 10 Local Search columns published on Search Engine Land in 2015.
Methodology: Columns published in 2015 are ranked in order of page views measured by Google Analytics. Data includes all columns published through November 30, 2015. Social data provided by SharedCount.
About The Author Jessica Thompson is Associate Features Editor at Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. She is a well-rounded digital media enthusiast with a keen interest in all things Internet marketing. Jessica earned her B.A. in English from Drew University and has since gone on to fill a wide variety of roles over the course of her career, including web designer, copywriter, editor, SEO consultant, online marketing specialist and marketing manager. Most recently, she worked at Advance Digital, where she conducted digital optimization training for journalists and provided high-level SEO and social media recommendations for 12 major regional news websites, including NJ.com. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
We will send the script to your PayPal email within few hours,Please add FullContentRSS@gmail.com to your email contact.Get the best search news, tips and resources, delivered each day.
If there was one buzzword that permeated the world of online search in 2015, it was "mobilegeddon."
Google's decision to begin ranking mobile-friendly web pages higher in its mobile search results made news across marketing and tech websites, as well as in numerous traditional media outlets. Mobilegeddon wasn't the most-read single news article of the year here on Search Engine Land, but it does have two of the top 10 spots — and another story about the growth of mobile search also makes our list.
Unlike 2014, which was dominated by Google's animal-themed updates, only one of this year's top 10 stories was about Panda, Penguin or Pigeon. Replacing those? The Quality Update, RankBrain, and even a couple of Google Doodle articles.
Between now and the end of the year, we'll be looking back at the most-read articles and columns we published in 2015. Recaps from our SEO- and PPC-related columns will start to arrive tomorrow, but we begin today with a look at the most popular news stories of the year.
This list is based on page views and includes news stories published between January 1 and December 19, 2015.
1.) Love Quotes & Tech-Themed Valentine's Day Google Logos Help Searchers Get In The Mood
Amy Gesenhues, February 14: "Google is spreading the love today with five animated Valentine's Day-themed Doodles and quick answer romantic quotes from writers like Sylvia Plath, Carson McCullers, e.e. cummings, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Dr. Seuss and more."
2.) The Quality Update: Google Confirms Changing How Quality Is Assessed, Resulting In Rankings Shake-Up
Barry Schwartz, May 19: "It's not your imagination. Google's results have changed since the beginning of this month, and Google's officially confirmed to Search Engine Land that this is due to a change with how it assesses content quality. Call it 'The Quality Update,' if you will."
3.) FAQ: All About The New Google RankBrain Algorithm
Danny Sullivan, October 27: "Among those can be complex, multi-word queries, also called 'long-tail' queries. RankBrain is designed to help better interpret those queries and effectively translate them, behind the scenes in a way, to find the best pages for the searcher. As Google told us, it can see patterns between seemingly unconnected complex searches to understand how they're actually similar to each other."
4.) Google Panda 4.2 Is Here; Slowly Rolling Out After Waiting Almost 10 Months
Barry Schwartz, July 22: "The rollout means anyone who was penalized by Panda in the last update has a chance to emerge if they made the right changes. So if you were hit by Panda, you unfortunately won't notice the full impact immediately, but you should see changes in your organic rankings gradually over time. This is not how many of the past Panda updates rolled out, where typically you'd see a significant increase or decline in your Google traffic more quickly."
5.) Mobilegeddon Checklist: How To Prepare For This Week's Google Mobile Friendly Update
Barry Schwartz, April 20: "Early tests show that it can take anywhere from a few hours to over 72 hours if you do everything right for Google to show your web pages as mobile friendly. I would not be surprised if large sites can take up to a month to be displayed as fully mobile friendly."6.) Google Is Hiring An SEO Manager To Improve Its Rankings In Google
Barry Schwartz, July 15: "Google is hiring an SEO manager, based on a recent job posting on the Google Careers portal. The job listing is for a 'Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization.' The description of the job makes it clear that this is about marketing…"
7.) Mobilegeddon Cometh: New Google "Mobile Friendly Update" To Reward Sites Beginning April 21
Barry Schwartz, February 26: "Google said that on April 21, 2015, Google's mobile ranking factors will not only label your site as mobile-friendly, but will also use that to determine if your site should rank higher in the search results. Google said this algorithmic change will have a 'significant impact' in the mobile search results, impacting all languages worldwide."
8.) Independence Day USA Google Logo Reflects Timeless Fourth of July Traditions
Amy Gesenhues, July 4: "Today's Google Doodle by Brian Kaas celebrates Independence Day with a classic Fourth of July scene: aluminum lawn chairs, a cooler and flip-flops."9.) Google Releases The Full Version Of Their Search Quality Rating Guidelines
Barry Schwartz, November 19: "Google's Mimi Underwood said that 'ratings from evaluators do not determine individual site rankings, but are used to help us understand our experiments.' She added, 'The evaluators base their ratings on guidelines we give them; the guidelines reflect what Google thinks search users want.'"
10.) It's Official: Google Says More Searches Now On Mobile Than On Desktop
Greg Sterling, May 5: "With this revelation that mobile search has now overtaken desktop search we get a bit more color and context for the recent mobile-friendly algorithm update. I've been arguing for well over a year that mobile is now the 'primary screen' for marketers. That now extends to search marketers as well."
So there you have it — the most read news stories of the year on Search Engine Land. In case you missed it earlier this week, we already published the top 10 news stories of 2015 on Marketing Land, our sister site. Tomorrow, we'll begin posting a daily look back at the top columns that we published here on Search Engine Land throughout the year.
On behalf of the Search Engine Land editorial team, thanks for reading us during 2015. Happy holidays to you and best wishes for 2016!
About The Author Matt McGee is the Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. After leaving traditional media in the mid-1990s, he began developing and marketing websites and continued to provide consulting services for more than 15 years. His SEO and social media clients ranged from mom-and-pop small businesses to one of the Top 5 online retailers. Matt is a longtime speaker at marketing events around the U.S., including keynote and panelist roles. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. You can reach Matt via email using our Contact page. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)Buy AutoTrafficRSS script now for $27 only!
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