Google Algorithm January 2011 update means big penalties for Duplicate Content
Last week Google’s Matt Cutts announced an algorithm update that has a substantial effect on duplicate content. This much anticipated update is already sending ripples through the SEO community.
“My [previous] post mentioned that ‘we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.’ That change was approved at our weekly quality launch meeting last Thursday and launched earlier this week.”
This means that the duplicate content filters have been tightened and Google is using more sophisticated ways of identifying original content. This is great news if your content is fresh and constantly updated, and bad news for the increasing number of sites that ‘scrape’ existing content from the web. Of course there will always be casualties, some site owners are claiming that Google has mistakenly identified their site as having duplicate or low value content.
So What Can I do About Duplicate Content?
If your site has recently lost ranking, the first thing you can do is to identify whether any other sites have copied or scraped your content.
The Facebook Registration Tool is a great way to attract loyal followers. The tool enables websites to offer quick and easy social options for users to sign-up, which could increase the number of users on your Facebook pages by up to 300% – definitely worth trying then!
This short guide explains the benefits and how to install the code. You can learn more about marketing your business or organisation via Facebook on our Social Media Training course.
You can register at new sites easily — there is no need to re-enter your information or remember usernames and passwords.
Facebook Registration Tool allows you or your web friends to bring friends with them
When you Log into sites with Facebook you will see what’s popular with your friends and read their comments and recommendations.
Your users don’t even need a Facebook account to sign up
This eliminates the need to provide two separate login experiences.
Facebook Registration tool is a great alternative to the old Facebook Connect because it allows you to provide an option for those users who don’t have Facebook account (yes they do still exist). It also allows to design the login page any what you wish and even ask for extra information from your users. Be careful though, asking too much information can encourage people to click out of your registration process, so best keep it simple.
What’s really valuable about Facebook’s registration it how easy it is for people to sign up to bring their friends with them. It’s proven that people are more likely to follow through with the sign up process, will be active on sites longer, share more content, and return more often.
When FriendFeed beta tested the tool their sign ups by users with Facebook increased by 300%, quite a result!
Goldman Sachs $450m investment in Facebook suggests Zuckerberg may be preparing to float
Rumours of the floatation of Facebook have been fuelled by the first investment by a Wall Street bank valuing the company founded in 2004 at $50bn (£33bn). Google, by contrast, is valued at $190bn and Apple at more than $300bn. The floatation is expected to happen next year. It’s difficult to comprehend how such a relatively new business could possibly be worth so much?
Goldman Sachs invest $450m (£290m) in Facebook
The biggest part of the investment came from Goldman Sachs. Alongside Goldman’s $450m (that’s £290m), Digital Sky Technologies (DST), a Russian investment firm and existing Facebook shareholder, put in a further $50m. Facebook is still almost entirely private equity owned – you have to be invited to invest. Facebook investors include entrepreneur Marc Andreessen and Elevation Partners, a private equity firm with U2 leader singer Bono as one of its founders.
Facebook ended 2010 on a high after being ranked the top site by Google and Zuckerberg’s quarter of Facebook may now be worth as much as $14billion. Zuckerberg was Time magazine’s person of the year 2010 not bad for a 26 year old.
The deal caps a remarkable 12 months for Facebook that saw it recruit over 500m users and, according to analysts’ estimates, generates about $2bn in revenues.
Mark Zuckerberg said last year that Facebook will float on the stock exchange when “it makes sense.” He rejected a $1bn takeover offer from Yahoo in 2006.
Facebook’s cultural and social influence has exploded over the past two years, overtaking Google to become the most visited website last year.
Revenue from Facebook is generated by advertising though this has not deterred users who willingly display a large range of private information on their pages, including photos. Over the New Year’s weekend, Facebook saw 750 million photo uploads from its users. The enormous value that has been estimated for Facebook is directly related to the value of that information, our personal information is one of the most sought after and valuable commodities of this century, and Zuckerberg has it all in his pocket . Now there’s a thought.
2010 was the Social Media explosion. Instead of focusing on search engine optimisation (SEO), in 2011 we’ll see social media optimisation becoming a priority as businesses continue to see ‘social’ close the gap on referrals to their sites. That’s not to say you can ignore SEO (in fact if you don’t know what you are doing you should enrol on our Search Engine Optimisation Course in Brighton, Sussex) but that you will need Social Media to compete in business.
Social networks have become the fastest growing source of traffic referrals for many sites. For those who are harnessing the power of social media Facebookand Twitter account for a large percentage of overall referrals and that percentage is growing rapidly. For news startups, the results are even heavier on social. And of course, the quality of these referrals is often better than readers who come from search.
If you haven’t already started your Social Media campaign then why not come on our Social Media Training course. Then you can come on our Google Analytics training courses to analyse the results.
2) Advertisers will harness Social commerce
Complete strangers will start coming together to benefit from massive bulk-buying schemes, and advertisers will find a way to capitalise on this trend. Google has already recognized this trend and a deal to collaborate was turned down by Groupon earlier this year. Only two years old, Groupon is now a one-billion dollar company with hundreds of employees.
Groupon is leading the way but many more brands will emerge in this sphere over the coming year.
3) Leaks and espionage
WikiLeaks has taken centre stage this year, although this is just the beginning. Somehow in 2011founder Julian Assange will be prosecuted for his role in disseminating classified documents. But even if WikiLeaks itself gets shut down something else will take its place, everyone demands a voice and the internet makes that possible, so expect lots of WikiLeaks style sites to pop up and hit the headlines. They will be bigger and better.
4) Mobile Payments and Near field communications (NFC)
Near field communication chips are nothing new but we predict that their time is now. Your mobile phone will become your credit card. The NFC mobile-payment application is currently in trials in the United States, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and a few other countries, with transportation ticketing as a primary use. Google’s Nexus S already includes this technology, and rumours are that Apple’s new iPhone will follow.
Buildings have begun to build NFC chips into their signs so customers can automatically add contact details.
5) Location-based apps become even more popular.
Whilst Foursquare and Facebook pages are nothing new, people are becoming more comfortable sharing where they are indiscriminately with complete strangers. It is becoming just too attractive to be able to “check in” to unlock discounts and participate in competitions for the “checked in”.
6) IPTV
In the UK there has been an explosion of digital TV services being delivered over a Broadband Internet connection , including BBC iPlayer, BT Vision, Virgin’s On Demand service, Sky Anytime+, Seesaw and YouView.
The drive for digital TV has been driven in the UK by the release of YouView, timetabled for launch by mid 2011 and is expected to be the ‘next generation’ of Freeview. TV schedules can go backwards as well as forwards in time. This will be the hottest technology shift during 2011, with Google TV soon to arrive in the UK.
7) Privicy Issues will get serious
I know this is in the news all the time, so much so that we are all getting a bit blasé about the threat. Sooner or later a huge social network – probably Facebook, will accidently share everyone’s information with everyone. Already with a simple hack, everything listed in a person’s “Basic Information” section is visible, no matter what their privacy settings are. This information includes networks, sex, birthday, hometown, siblings, parents, relationship status, interested in, looking for, political views and religious views.
With Social Networking exploding advertisers have only just scratched the surface of what is possible. Despite the complex issues of privacy social networks such as Facebook will find ways of capitalising on the fact that users are sharing huge amounts of information. We are not the consumers – all the information these sites have about us is a priceless commodity.
Privacy laws will be tightened leading to more advertising to cover costs.
8) Tablets become Mainstream Business and Social Tools
With the introduction of a camera and mic to the IPad or Google android tablet video conferencing will become ever more popular. Prices will come down and tablets will be as commonplace as laptops.
9) Your body will be your games controller
Nintendo Wii started the ball rolling and took the world by storm down to the motion-controlled gaming interface which put players inside games for the first time. Now Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 takes centre stage, your body is the controller. Kinect games and apps use the camera and microphone to work out what you’re doing and what you’re saying, and to interpret your commands in the appropriate fashion.
10) Chips with everything
Again not a new concept but this trend will accelerate throughout 2011. Every device, from your television, phone or fridge can have a web address. Home automation will allow lights, energy heating and more to be controlled remotely. The technology is now widely available and affordable. A bit worrying though – what happens when your internet connection gets disconnected?
Using its Street View service, Google has broken Canadian privacy laws by obtaining private information from open wireless networks. Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, said in a statement that “Google did capture personal information — and, in some cases, highly sensitive personal information such as complete emails”, Google also apparently collected names, telephones numbers, addresses and usernames and passwords.
People who already use mobile phones and laptops and run specific Google apps are, sometimes unwittingly, sharing location information with Google. When people use Google Maps they are asked to fix their location, the phone or laptop then sends Google a list of all the nearby wireless hotspots and is then added to Google’s database. But Google says it doesn’t collect any other personal information this way. Google does mention this in it privacy policy but warms that if you decide to opt out, then you may not be able to use Wi-Fi hotspots to triangulate your location.
Sensitive Information Gathered
Potentially, thousands of Canadians could be concerned about these reports and some more than others as several particularly sensitive pieces of information where collected, such as a list of people who are suffering from different medical conditions, including their names and all their contact details.
In early June the Office of the Privacy Commissioner began investigating Google’s data collection technique after several other countries started to do so. This all arose from one of Google’s engineers testing a new bit of code that was supposed to pick up Wi-Fi transmission points to develop for other location-based services, but they inadvertently ended up collecting private information that was not encrypted or password protected.
As soon as Google realised what they had done they stopped its Street View car fleet and told the appropriate authorities. Google then released a statement on its blog, explaining that the data collected was an accident.
Jennifer Stoddarthas given Google till 1st February to delete all of the personal data that was obtained but they are allowed to keep any relevant useful data as long as it is secured and access to it is restricted.
Facebook and Google vying for World Domination with Skype, Bing and Google Voice.
Facebook and Skype
Facebook and Skype have now combined which makes it easier for you to call and message your Facebook contacts. The merge now allows Skype users to go through the Facebook feed where they can like or comment on posts just like on Facebook normally.
Now you can use Skype to call or message your Facebook contacts, and if they have a Skype number, your calls will be free. If one of your Facebook contacts hasn’t put their phone number on Facebook, then you can request that they do so by sending them a message.
This move by Facebook is another natural progression for them into allowing users to contact their friends and family as quickly and as easily as they can, but with the added ability to call other Skype users for free, this will surely be a big hit.
This could mean a change in the way mobile service providers’ work; I am thinking there will be a bigger shift towards the sale of Data packages more than just standard minutes and texts. The service providers need to think more about the future and how people could be using Skype calls more than their minutes. Plus with Skype to Skype calls free on Wi-Fi networks, the service providers will have to think more carefully about how they can capitalise/ compete with this.
Skype V Google
Skype on the other hand is facing a threat from Google; the search engine giant has now integrated Google Voice within Gmail so they can call and message their Gmail contacts.
Facebook and Bing
To add to the controversy earlier this week Facebook and Bing launched their integrated recommendation search. Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner, said the partnership announcement was less about Facebook and Microsoft than it was about Facebook versus Google.
Facebook V Google
“The real importance of [this week's] announcement is that it highlights the growing strategic conflict between Facebook and Google,” Valdes said. “There is a battle for the future of the Web, and it is not about search engines, but about the social Web. The competition is between the new and the old – between Facebook as the early leader in the social Web, and Google as the dominant player in the content Web. Everyone else, such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Twitter, will play a secondary role, and will start lining up on one side or the other.”
Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said there’s a big battle brewing between Google and Facebook, and Microsoft may have found a way to use that conflict to chip away at Google’s massive market lead.
Google V Skype
Google hasn’t yet released its faux-VoIP service internationally, but it has already launched its group video chat in beta. Google’s presence in Skype’s backyard could spell disaster as Google could easily undercut Skype’s prices in order to attract more users. Google hasn’t yet shown much strength in the social networking arena though. Google Wave was shut down in August and reviews of Google Buzz were lacklustre. But the company has learned from its failures and may be ready to try to snare some of those advertising dollars away from Facebook.
Google V Facebook
Although Facebook has 500 million plus users, there is always the possibility that Google could enter the social networking wars in the future in an attempt to displace Facebook as the social networking king. Rumoured to be dubbed, Google Me, the Google social network is considered to be the search giant’s shot at creating a Facebook killer.
Right now Facebook and Skype are aware how important they are to each other, as together they stand more chance of competing with Google.
What Happens at the Beginning of an SEO Campaign by Zachary Colbert
You will start off by doing some keyword research, these are certain words or phrases that you will want to rank higher in search engines for. Try to find out what keywords you want to target for the business you’re working for, aiming for about two or three keywords per landing page.
Work on the anchor text, this is the text that makes the link to your page, the bit that is underlined that you click on.
You need to make sure that images have alt tags as search engines cannot read them, another good practice is to name the file names with your key words in, in stead of having them saved as ‘IMG_00628′
Urls also need to be well structured e.g. http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/seo/ rather than http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/klerj2rf895e/vdjr67ge/4580gjg/ this can make a big difference to your page rank.
When you have decided on your keywords you are then limiting the amount of terms you can use for anchor text, this should all be based on what you think the user will be searching for.
You may want to use other search engine data keyword research tools, such as:
How to Persuade Managers and Stakeholders to Invest in SEO by Rishi Lakhani
Start off by getting to know the important people above you, there’s a reason why they are above you and you need to learn how to influence them.
Don’t go too overboard with the SEO talk, all the managers, clients and other bosses just want to know the bottom line. They want to know the basics, not the intricate ins and outs of everything.
Don’t make your reports sing and dance in the boardroom; you need to get your point across quickly and simply to these people, as they have a lot of things to go through throughout the day.
Use arguments that sway decisions in the stakeholders mind, not your own. If your boss wants to be top of Google search results then that’s where you want the meeting to sway and how you’ll do it.
We attended Brighton SEO (organised by Kelvin Newman of site Visibility) this year and filmed Simon Dance talking about search engine optimisation and online marketing. He had some very interesting things to share and mentioned some useful hints and tips for all SEO people.
Last week Google’s Matt Cutts announced an algorithm update that has a substantial effect on duplicate content. This much anticipated update is already sending ripples through the SEO community.
The 
