SEO News
Yahoo and Bing Get Ready to Challenge Google
Thursday 2 September, 2010Second and third place search engines, Yahoo and Bing, have teamed up and Yahoo searches across North America are powered by the Microsoft platform. In July of last year, the two companies signed a ten-year agreement in which Microsoft provides back-end support for Yahoo's searches in an attempt to compete with top ranked Google, who owns almost two-thirds of the search engine market. Will the change shake up Google? How will SEO or PPC be affected? Even with the Yahoo/Bing merger, Google still outperforms at almost double the rate. Michael Kordahi, a Microsoft employee, developed a program called Blind Search to test the market's opinion...[more]
SEOs: Social Media Is Not Going Away
Tuesday 31 August, 2010We have heard before that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populated in the world; the social networking site's account holders outnumber the citizens of the Japan, Germany, and the United States combined. While a dominant force to be sure, Facebook is far from the only social media that has great reach and influence. Twitter enjoys annual growth of about 1000 percent; YouTube saw over 375 million unique visitors this year, with 24 hours of content being uploaded every minute. There are 900,000 posts per day from 133 million blogs. Involving yourself in these forums is no longer optional if you want to compete in...[more]
Blackhat SEO Banks on Justin Bieber’s Clean Name
Monday 30 August, 2010Justin Bieber is a poster child for the efficacy of marketing yourself on YouTube. Even before he was “discovered,” he was followed by millions of fans who loved his homemade videos. But the basic search engine optimisation tactics that have helped Bieber shoot to pop fame have also helped blackhat SEOs capitalise on his name. Panda security researchers discovered a BHSEO campaign that hoped to draw visitors to malicious sites. This is not new; blackhat SEOs often target popular and trending topics. What is different, according to Panda, is that these sites create sensational stories about Bieber, stuffing the false stories with malicious links. The infected...[more]
If You Have Anything to Say about Brett Favre, Now Is the Time
Thursday 26 August, 2010Brett Favre, an American football player, has endeared himself to fans and enraged them over and over again, as he retires, and then comes out of retirement to play. His name is, according to, US publication SBNation, “gold.” What does Mr. Favre have to do with SEO? If you have a sports-related or current events site or blog, then he may have quite a lot to do with your optimisation efforts. This same publication writes, “I don’t buy for a minute that Favre is retiring. It shames me that a man can pull the same trick, now three times, and generate buzz every time. But site views are king and Favre is instant blah blah blah. So add me to the...[more]
Facebook “Questions”
Wednesday 25 August, 2010Facebook is set to make its first foray into the search field. The tremendously popular social networking site boasted having 500 million users last week, and their new feature will allow users to ask questions from fellow users. Will “Questions” pose a threat to search giant Google or smaller Yahoo? And will it change the way we approach SEO? The premise behind Questions is that Facebook users can ask their peers questions, seek advice, or find suggestions for products or services. This is hardly a groundbreaking idea: Yahoo Answers has done this for years, allowing a community of people to answer each others’ questions. The difference,...[more]
Simon Cowell Hoping for Some SEO Magic?
Tuesday 24 August, 2010Simon Cowell is a love him or hate him type of person; particularly numerous are those among the latter group, especially hapless contestants who have been on the wrong side of his sharp tongue. Buzzing around the SEO community is word that Cowell may be trying to use optimisation techniques to enhance his online image and show a newer, kinder side. While his UK spokesperson Ann-Marie Thompson says she smells a “conspiracy theory” at work, SEO SEO makes perfect sense for the music mogul.Those who think that Cowell is relying on SEO to increase positive search results point to the top Google results, which are heavily Cowell-friendly. The New York Daily...[more]
US FTC Shuts Down Canadian SEO and Domain Name Schemes
Friday 20 August, 2010What is 1646153 Ontario? Many internet users thought that this Toronto-based company provided domain registering, as well as search engine optimisation services. And why would they think this? Because 1646153 Ontario told them this was so, and even sent them invoices for service rendered. Many, believing that their internet service may be interrupted if they did not pay, came up with the cash. Recently, a federal court judge in the United States found that the defendants were liable for misrepresenting their services. US District Judge Robert M. Dow, Jr., of Illinois, issued his decision that the company, as well as four of its employees, had extorted...[more]
Argentinean Government Sites Used in Blackhat SEO
Thursday 19 August, 2010Security firm, Sucuri, have reported that as many as a dozen Argentinean government sites have been used in “spamdexing” by black hat SEO campaigns. As is always the goal of BHSEO, the use of these official sites is intended to manipulate search engine results, drawing viewers to malicious sites. Black hat SEOs were able to hack into the government’s sites and use the links as part of their link farm to achieve favorable search rankings. Similar spamdexing has been widely seen in Brazil. The black hat SEOs create links within the legitimate government sites, targeting medications used to treat depression and erectile dysfunction, as well as...[more]
Jambool - Yet Another Google’s Purchase
Tuesday 17 August, 2010To many of us it seems that Google has made it a habit to buy a new company every week, the most recent ones being Slide ($182 million) and Zynga ($100 million). Now as the search engine giant continues to ramp up its efforts in the social gaming space, it has acquired another company called Jambool, which developed Social Gold, a virtual goods monetisation platform. The acquisition price reportedly amounts to $70 million USD. Jambool’s Social Gold monetisation platform enables game developers to integrate payment system into their games. It also gives developers detailed analytics about your in-game virtual economies. Social Gold was very popular with many...[more]
Twitter Keeps Growing at a Fast Clip, comScore Says
Monday 16 August, 2010According to the latest report from comScore, the renowned web analytics company, Twitter usage is growing at a mind-boggling rate around the world. The company’s research showed that in June nearly 93 million Internet users worldwide visited Twitter.com, which is an increase of 109% over the previous year. The micro-blogging giant is seeing increased traffic from international markets, particularly in Latin America (up 305%) and Asia Pacific (up 243%). Interestingly, all the regions studied except North America showed triple-digit growth. Indonesia reported the highest Twitter penetration (the ratio of Twitter users to internet users), with 20.8 percent of...[more]
