PageRank

Google Author Rank and the Have Nots

by Geoff Livingston
March 5, 2013March 4, 2013

Image by Mukumbura

The rush to become officially integrated into the Google Author Rank system or has begun. It’s unfortunate, because Google Authorship forces weighted search rankings that favor popularity and SEO skills over substance.

If content creators want to optimize our chances of being read, what choice do we have but to implement the system? Our search results depend on it.

There have been many blogs about how to implement Google’s Author Rank system, but this isn’t one of them.

Vanessa Fox Discusses Search, Siri and Social

by Geoff Livingston
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

Meet Vanessa Fox, one of the most brilliant minds in the interactive marketing space. I was first introduced to her at an event a couple of years ago here in DC.

In addition to running her own interactive agency Nine By Blue, Vanessa literally created Google’s portal for site owners, Webmaster Central. She just released the second edition of her book, Marketing in the Age of Google, one of the best resources you can buy to understand how search impacts business outcomes, as well as content creation and social media marketing.

Rather than wax poetic about Vanessa’s strengths, I asked her some questions about voice search, semantic data, social networking and more. Her answers are just amazing. And with that, here we go…

Will Voice Search Change Everything?

Geoff: How big of a disruptor does voice based search represent?

Vanessa: For the near term, voice search will likely not be all that disruptive but we’re in early days. The biggest initial change will likely be for searchers.
Read More »Vanessa Fox Discusses Search, Siri and Social

Why You Should Care About Twitter vs. Google+

by Geoff Livingston
January 17, 2012January 26, 2012

Google+ Enters PageRank Algorithm

Perhaps you saw the epic war of words last week between Twitter and Google. The conflict revolves around Google’s inclusion of Plus activity into its search algorithm. Called “Search Plus Your World,” this addition of the Google+ data has far ranging implications for online marketers. It dramatically increases the value of Google+ activity in comparison to its primary competitors Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and, of course, Facebook.

Consider how prominent this change is. In the above screen capture, personalized results are featured right above the top search result for “crux.” Also one of my Google+ posts is featured as the third result.

Search Plus impacts both traditional search marketing and social media. First of all, Google still dominates search with roughly 66 percent of all web based inquiries going through its site.