#Infographic: The ins and outs of Google authorship

Google isn’t just interested in content. They want to know who’s writing it and how they fit in within a given niche. That was one of the original concepts surrounding their alleged Author Rank project, something that few outside of Google truly understand and that nobody within Google is talking about with the public.

What Google did officially release is Authorship, a way that writers can be tagged to their content through their Google+ account. When a user is an official Google author (something that sounds more official than it really is), their articles will often carry their profile picture to the left of the listing on Google’s search results page. In theory, Google is able to use this type of information and everything they gather from both users and readers and make determinations about whether or not an author is trustworthy when writing about particular topics.

Some in the search marketing world say that it’s a must-have, that it’s already in place, and that Google may never officially announce it for fear of sparking SEOs to take it more seriously. Others are saying it’s a red herring, that Google really doesn’t apply it to any parts of their search ranking algorithm, and that spending so much time building authority in subjects is a partial waste of time.

Regardless of who is correct, this infographic from Internet Marketing Inc. tells a pretty strong story about the fabled Google Author Rank.

Google gives a pass to J2’s unethical SEO practices

J2 Global Communications is a holding company that has online properties specializing in a variety of services. The services include cloud storage, email marketing, and online fax. The company has used unethical SEO practices to promote its services, and Google hasn’t done anything so far to prevent it.

Not yet.

A clever camouflage

If you Google “online fax,” you’ll find that you get multiple results. You’ll see results from domains like efax.com and myfax.com. Depending on variations of that search expression, you might also see other domain names like metrofax.com and smartfax.com.

All of those results might lead you to think that you have a lot of options when it comes to online faxing. However, all of those domain names are owned by the same company. As it turns out, that company is J2 Global Communications.

The road to monopoly

How did J2 come to own so many similar domain names? The company has a two-pronged approach to cornering the market. First, the company engages in a practice known as “patent trolling.”

J2 sues competitors for infringing on its patent for sending faxes by email. Not that this is not to say J2’s competitors are actually infringing on the patent, only that J2 accuses its competitors of infringing on the patent. J2 has enough resources at its disposal to drive competitors out of business with lawsuits of dubious worth.

After Step 1 is completed, Step 2 is simple. J2 acquires the company that it just hamstrung with the patent lawsuit. Along with everything else associated with the company, J2 acquires the domain name. As a result, one company owns several domain names related to online faxing.

Fortunately, there are a few online fax services that have not yet been acquired by J2. These include Nextiva, Fax87, and Ring Central.

What does this have to do with Google and SEO?

As noted previously, if you use Google to search for “online fax,” you’ll get multiple results from domains that are all owned by one company. Since Google is by far the most popular search engine in the world, the vast majority of traffic driven to these sites (again, all owned by J2) comes from Google.

This practice is in clear violation of the Google AdWords “double serving policy.” Simply put, multiple ads from accounts that are owned by a single legal entity (i.e., a corporation or LLC) are prohibited within the result set of specific keyword search. There can be no doubt, based on what you’ll see if you Google “online fax,” that J2 is in violation of this policy.

Since Google prides itself on quality search results, the search engine giant should not allow J2 to get away with gaming the system the way it’s currently doing it. As of this writing, Google is showing its users results that are basically the same service, with subtle price and service variations, under the guise of multiple, competing companies.

It’s easy to think that maybe Google doesn’t have a problem with monopolistic endeavors … perhaps because Google has monopolistic aspirations, as well.

J2’s properties also figure prominently in organic or non-paid search results, as well as the ads. Because J2 owns and operates so many different fax-related websites, the company is able to utilize cross-domain linking. This is considered to be “grey hat SEO” by many people familiar with the practice.

Google has, to its credit, attempted to put a stop to the successful implementation of cross-domain linking. Obviously, a case study of J2 proves that it has not yet been fully successful in that effort.

Restaurant searches just got more interactive on Google

Google innovated the way people find their next meal or drinking hole yesterday by adding a carousel of local restaurants to their desktop search listings for keywords such as “Mexican Restaurant Orange County”.

Hotels and other local venues have been given a similar search results makeover. The listings include their Google review score, address, phone number, and photos.

This isn’t brand new for Google. They’ve offered this type of display on other devices such as the iPad and Nexus tablet since late last year. According to their Google+ post:

Give it a go—type or say “mexican restaurants,” or try any similar search for restaurants, bars or hotels. Click on one of the places in the carousel to get more details on it, including its overall review-based score, address and photos. If you want to see more places, click the arrow at the right of the carousel. And you can zoom in on the map that appears below the carousel to restrict your search to only places in a specific area.

No word about whether this will start to apply to retail stores or other types of searches.

26 key points to know prior to building a website

So, you’re considering building a new website. You have an idea for a product, you’re starting a new company, or you’ve been charged with taking your 2002 antiquated website and modernizing it. The challenges you’ll face are many. The list of consolidated resources are few. There are schools dedicated to helping people to develop a website but you simply don’t have the time to go back to school.

There’s nothing to worry about. Pixaal has a checklist for you. Granted, it doesn’t actually show you how to do any of the things you need such as creating a site map or deciding what sort of buttons you need, but at least it will give you the scope of concepts that you must consider before starting the process. Thankfully, this infographic combined with Google and a little reading should be enough to get your website up and running at a high level.

Here’s the list, followed by the visualization of the list.

Domain
Hosting
Tech
Purpose
Layout & Color
Site Map
Content
Audience
Advertisement
Pop Up Message
Attractive Design
Buttons
Background
Image
Easy Navigation
Unique
Fresh
Optimized
Cross Browser
Screen Resolution
Social Media
Typography
Registration
Tracking and Analytics
Provide Security
Footer

In search, having the right website is more important than (almost) ever

Back in the days when Yahoo was fighting against Alta Vista, when Bing was still called Microsoft Live, and when Google was trying to get the big Y to buy them, onsite content and meta tags were search. It was a day of keyword stuff, of hidden text, and of content scraping that helped porn sites rank for the term “toys” while male enhancement drugs could be found on searches for “big fun”. Google emerged as the leader in part because of their pure design, but also because they started looking offsite for signals about search rankings.

The days before Google’s innovation were the peak of onsite SEO. Google turned search on its head by focusing more on what other websites were saying about your website through links rather than anything you put on your site itself. PageRank changed search forever and helped to eliminate some of the poor spammy techniques that websites employed for the sake of getting search engine traffic. Of course, with any good thing comes the bad parts and spammers started learning how to manipulate offsite signals as well.

This persisted until about a year ago. It was at SXSW 2012 that Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester told SEO guru Danny Sullivan that changes were in the works to help rein in offsite link spamming. A month and a half later on April 24th, search was changed forever with the introduction of the Penguin search algorithm update. It helped to eliminate a lot of the offsite spamming techniques, enough so to take some companies out of the SEO business (or out of business altogether).

The pre-PageRank days were the only ones when having the right website made more of a difference than it does today. With the rise of content marketing as a hub for SEO and social media marketing rather than a component of the two disciplines, having the strongest possible website content is essential in promoting a brand on search as well as social media sites like Facebook. You can’t just have a website and drive links to it anymore. Today, you have to “bring it” from a quality perspective. While it’s possible to have a business website that stays completely focused on the task of selling your products and services, it’s better to have one that’s diverse with information, articles, and other pieces of content that bring value to the visitors whether they want to buy something or not.

Google is smart. Bing may be smarter, albeit not at marketing themselves. They can tell the difference between SEO content and valuable content for the website visitors much better than most are will to admit. SEO spam is dying. Bulk is dying. Today, the search engines want to see effort. They want you to amaze people with the content you put on your website.

In the coming weeks, we will be talking more about this subject. It’s not a focal point of this tech blog, but it’s important to mix in useful information about such topics that are close to the heart of many of our readers. Be sure to subscribe in the box to the right so you’ll know when we post similar articles. In the meantime, check out this amazing collection of 8-bit pop culture Donkey Kong art.Here’s an infographic about modern link-building by Kings Web Media. While I don’t agree 100% with their conclusions, it’s a strong basic overview of the way that link-building has changed. It’s not that link building is dead and onsite SEO rules. It’s that link-building should be geared around high-quality content on the website.Link Building Basics 2013

Google is officially the 800-dollar gorilla

Forget the 800-lb gorilla. Google has billions of dollars more to worry about now that its shares have surpassed the $800 mark for the first time.

According to Mercury News:

The milestone comes more than five years after Google’s shares initially hit $700. Not long after breaking that barrier in October 2007, the economy collapsed into the worst recession since World War II and Google’s stock tumbled into a prolonged malaise that eventually led to a change in leadership.

Things have changed lately. Google is hot. Their mobile is booming despite having challenges with Motorola. Their search domination hasn’t seen a dip. Their direction is strong.

Mark Zuckerberg on privacy

Facebook graph search has the potential to be a great thing for Facebook and its users. Perhaps more importantly, this is the first major play that Facebook has made in a long time that has not been attacked as another attempt by Facebook to attack our user privacy.

That didn’t stop the folks at Geek Culture from creating a comic about it.

AuthorRank: Google’s rising algorithm masterplay is yours for the taking

Google Authorship has been around for a while. It has helped many bloggers and journalists stand out by having their images appear directly in search results next to the articles they publish. It highlights the number of people that have them in their Google+ circles and gives a link to other writings by the author. This is nothing new.

Google AuthorRank has been given much speculation for about a year now. The idea is simple – Google will give higher rankings to those who have demonstrated expertise in a particular field. If someone is prolific at writing about a subject and their writing is well received by the community, the content itself and the domain on which the content appears can be ranked higher than competitors. Nobody knows exactly what criteria Google will consider when determining AuthorRank, but much of the speculation makes too much sense to be completely off.

They want quality. They want content that can be shared. They want resources and value. They believe that there are people who tend to be more influential about one topic or another because they have demonstrated a proficiency at writing about the topic and their content gets the type of activity that one would expect from something of importance. Here are some of the speculations about what may influence AuthorRank:

Shares, particularly on Google+, but also on Twitter, Facebook, and possibly others such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Tumblr
Comments – is anyone reacting to the content?
Google+ circle authority. It should be noted that I said “authority” and not “count” as I’m sure Google will look at quality of followers over quantity
Authority level of the sources will still have an affect but not in the traditional PageRank way they once did (seen this first hand already)

What does all of this mean for businesses? For larger companies, it’s easy. Get better at blogging. Do more than just promote your products and services. Be informative. Bring value. Hire top-notch journalists rather than marketing copywriters and press release agencies to fill your website will strong content in an engaging format.

For localized businesses, it’s a little more challenging. The rise of outsourced social media tells us that there is already a clear shortage of time when it comes to search and social. Content marketing is the ~~future~~ present and it centers around a word that has been used too many times already in this post, value. It continues to be used because it cannot be stated enough. You have to bring value through quality content if you want to advance well beyond the competition. The good news – very few at the local level will participate. The bad news – it isn’t easy. It isn’t cheap. This isn’t the type of content that you can pay $5 for on an offshore content spinning service and expect to get results. The content has to ring true. The author has to get out there and become an expert, a trust adviser on the topics you need them to dominate. The path isn’t an easy one, but take note: if you do it successfully, you increase your ability to rank well on Google and be amazing on social media by leaps and bounds.

This isn’t a quick tip. It’s not a trick. Bring value to the table and do it the right way and you’ll be rewarded by Google. Why? Because that’s exactly what they want you to do.

Valuable commentary is the alternative to straight syndication or spinning

There was a time when the search engines rewarded content of all types. If a website syndicated content from elsewhere on the web and exposed it to their audience, it wasn’t as good as unique content but at least it didn’t hurt. Some of the content would be de-indexed as duplicate but the overall health of the domain itself was not harmed.

Today, it’s harmful. Websites that are taking a lot of content from others and posting it on their own websites, even if they link to the original source, are finding that their overall rankings are dropping as a result. It’s one of many changes in the string of content attacks Google has been building upon ever since introducing the first variation of Panda back in February, 2011.

Some have gone to “spinning” content as an alternative. In spinning, content is taken and many of the individual words are changed in an effort to beat Google’s duplicate content filter. This worked for a little while and is still somewhat effective today but Google has come out against spinning in several public statements. It, too, is dying.

With Google’s focus on quality being hammered into us from all sides, it’s clear that their orchestrating a shift towards real content. This is a challenge for many businesses who aren’t really journalists and do not have the time to do the research necessary to create strong content. The alternative: commentary.

Thankfully, humans are loaded with opinions. The internet is a venue through which opinions can be shared. Share yours. It can be difficult to pick a topic that’s relevant to your industry and write an article about something, but it’s easier if the research and writing are already done for us, leaving our role as one of reaction rather than investigation.

The process is pretty simple. Read an article or two that pertains to your industry, then respond to it. For example, you may see an article on Smart Planet about how Ford and GM are opening their APIs to third-party developers. A car dealer probably doesn’t want to do the research about the developments, but they don’t have to. They just have to read the article and respond to it from their own perspective within the industry.

The research has already been done. The news has already been stated. Nobody will go to a car dealer’s website to read the news, but they may be interested in seeing the response about the development from the perspective of those who will be affected, in this case a car dealer embedded in the automotive industry.

This gives websites the ability to add value and participate in the conversation without having to do the technical research surrounding the news itself. It makes bringing valuable content to the table a much easier process and allows businesses to focus on what they know and what they have time to do rather than branching out and becoming the content researchers.

There is plenty out there on any topic through which a business can add valuable commentary. You don’t have to break the news to be valuable in the eyes of both visitors and search engines. You just have to have a unique perspective.

A clever camouflage

The road to monopoly

What does this have to do with Google and SEO?

Things to do on TECHi

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