Google Penguin Update - April 2103 ??? Happy Anniversary!

Let's see - what day was it - For me: April 24th 2012 was the day Google's initial Penguin update hit my websites - and really there's been NO real recovery since. As Google Intended.

Even the elite of the SEO world are shaking sticks and warning of THE NEXT PENGUIN UPDATE in 2013 that will (once again) rock the internet as you know it and bring another million websites to it's knees into the SEO cesspool of invisibility.

As we approach the 1 year anniversary of Google's Penguin Algo update in 2013 - I just ponder all the juicy details they've amassed from all the self-serving, self-preservationist webmaster Rat-Finks who divulged all their nasty, nasty links with the Disavow Tool - and all that delicious data-mining fodder will be the ammo that blasts the remaining Democracy of Internet Publishing to shreds.

I stopped using Google Search a year ago, if you think their self-serving SERP results contain only a fraction of what's REALLY out there on the internet - wait till the big kahuna "DEATH BLOW" update strikes....

If you had a website or sites that were gasping for their last dying breath for traffic -- Be at peace as the Grim Reaper comes to harvest the cold and still corpse that will be left after this next major Penguin update.

Google February Update 2013 : Check. Checkmate.

In late January and now into early February, Google seems to be afoot with another round of algo tweaks and it isn't pretty: If you already have lost a ton of your website traffic, you're probably losing even more. From what I can tell: More loss of ranking keywords overall, lower ranking for top money keywords, and continued downward pressure on most of your backlink sources that can no longer prop up your site(s). Slow death by STRANGULATION. It's like a bad game of chess and the majority of us are getting backed against the wall. Check. Checkmate!

For all practical purposes, most of our sites are DEAD in Google's eyes - unless there's an obscure, long-tail keyword they can USE you for on occasion. Eventually whatever PageRank you had will decline too because PR isn't just about the authority of backlinks pointing to your site, it's about the traffic you get. And as your traffic erodes, so will your visible PageRank score when it's updated and periodically refreshed.

If you look at the graph above you'll see a consistent pattern. The two traffic charts on the left are just random sites with a pattern I endlessly see at semrush.com : THe fatal Penguin Update of April 2012 destroyed their website traffic - and they simply have not recovered since. It doesn't matter what the domains are. I coulda grabbed 100 graphs - and 90% of them would show this pattern. Penguin didn't just damage YOUR website, it decimated the visibility and ultimately -- the entire DEMOCRACY of the internet. 90% of the internet is GARBAGE in Google's view and it seems 2013 Google updates will just take out the last of the remaining trash.

The graph on the right-hand side is an aggregate chart of dozens of websites I monitor and track. Not just my own - but client sites as well added into the mix - tracked by Quantcast. The pattern is still the same. There's an absolute decimation of traffic that hit in April 2012, and there's absolutely no recovery in the 10 months since. As Google apparently intends... Stick a fork in it. Fold your cards. Tip over your King and concede the game. Google doesn't really care if my sites - or your sites - even exist.

The flatline you see is all that remains: Thank you Bing, Yahoo, FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest -- the crumbs you leave behind are mighty tasty when one is on a starvation diet...

Optimize For Bing SEO - Keep It Simple Stupid

SEO optimization for Bing search is something far too few SEO bloggers talk about. In a greedy web world, so much of the focus is spent on how to evade Google's ever strangling noose and it's horrific grip on the internet. The highly-profitable obsession with ranking in Google has always put Bing SEO in the back seat. For Mac Affiliate Marketers - it's no secret that in the post Penguin - Panda update era, Google has so devalued pages with affiliate links in them, the decimation to your organic website traffic from Google probably has you largely clinging to the crumbs that Bing and Yahoo organic search can still deliver.

In it's recent BING IT ON Bing vs. Google search challenge, Microsoft dared us to compare Google and Bing SERPS and encouraged some to SWITCH their default browser engine to Bing. I did just that a month or two ago. Living with Bing search results has been a frustrating and informative process of understanding Bing and it's quirks and limitations A LOT better.

"KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID" is what I learned foremost. The utter lack of search query handling sophistication became apparent quickly. Bing just can't seem to handle more than 2 or 3 keyword sequences well AT ALL. Typing 4, 5 and 6 word phrases seems to leave Bing utterly confused as to what your search INTENT really is. Try something like a search on Best Fitness Books Of 2012 and Bing will deliver an utterly laughable set of CRAP results. Keep doing this with other 4-5 word phrases -- and you'll soon realize that Bing has some serious problems that Google handles with intelligence. Then try Yahoo - and see how the algo's Yahoo applies to Bing's database is far, far more sophisticated! Yahoo actually delivers modified Bing database results far more in line with your search intent than Bing does.

THE SEO FOR BING TAKE-AWAY: It seems browser Page Title and on-page H1 and H2 tags should be kept short, simple and highly targeted to your top money keywords. "Best Food Blender" or "Cheap Camping Tents" is the most you should go for. I also noted Bing will often grab your on-page H1 header as the first sentence of the Description in your SERP result listing. They seem willing to bypass conventional Meta Description tags you may have crafted and focus on H1 header instead...

BING SHOWS FEW SERP RESULTS: Something interesting - and disconcerting - is the LIMITED NUMBER OF PAGES of results Bing returns. Sometimes it's only 1 or 3 pages -- so unlike Google, there may NOT even be 10 or more pages of results for searchers to dig through! Bing so HEAVILY PRUNES DISPLAYED RESULTS that being past position 30 of SERPS may be utterly irrelevant.

BING FAVORS HUBPAGES: One little thing I noticed trying to live with Bing is it seems to LOVE HUBPAGES.COM - (at least currently...) So one supplimental SEO for Bing strategy might be to create succinct 2-3 keyword loaded Hub Page URL's to try to get them into Bing's top SERPS. (Google on the other hand seems to favor SQUIDOO lenses.)

BING LIKES BLOGS - LESS SO FORUMS: Unlike Google, who seem to be giving Forum Postings VERY high Page One rankings (even if the Thread/Topic is YEARS old!) - Bing doesn't seem to care much for indexing forum threads. Blogs have a clear preference in Bing - and surprisingly they like Google-owned BLOGSPOT blogs!

BING LOCAL LISTINGS AND CITATION SITES:  Of all the Local sites, Bing clearly shows a preference for YELP.com, City-Data, Manta, and MagicYellow -- but as for other local sites....

BING PAYS ATTENTION TO FOOTER LINKS: This one is really strange -- if you have a unique Brand or Company Name - and use that linked in the footer of your (site / sites) Bing seems to pick up on it. I've often done this with several of my affiliate sites (i.e. "Copyright 2013 MacSEOTips" and Bing is more likely to pick up on that linked reference in the footer than from nearly anywhere else on page! Just bizarre.

BING AND BRAND RECOGNITION SEO: Searching Bing for truly UNIQUE names and brands is quite an eye-opener. Your name or brand typed in quotes in Google clearly shows EXACTLY which AUTHORITY DOMAINS - in RANKED ORDER - they know about you on page after page of Google SERPS. Well, try that with Bing and you'll once again see how BRAIN DEAD Bing can be as a search engine in general.

All the above are just casual observations. As I delve deeper into analyzing Bing SEO rankings in depth, I'll post an ACTIONABLE hit-list of "How to SEO optimize for Bing" In the interim, spending some serious time studying and observing your own sites and how well (or not) they rank in Bing SERPS might help you improve your on Bing rankings - and protect your affiliate sites from Google's ever-tightening noose.

Mac Webmaster Tip : Monetizing Parked Domains QUICK!

Sitting on too many parked domains and want to earn income from them in the meantime?



Sometimes a Mac webmaster may have one of those crazy nights where you get a 'brilliant' internet domination idea and go domain name registration happy at a registrar like GoDaddy. They get you with that 'Buy Six and Save!' for discount domains and free private registration -- and the next day you wonder what the hell were you thinking anyways. But there you have it. Even more domains to deal with and try to build sites for -- when you can't hardly manage the websites you already have.

Well, thanks to SEOParking.com and their FREE DOMAIN PARKING, you can literally get those parked domains up and live with automatically placed content and earning money from your affiliate and AdSense links within minutes. With each domain you add to the system, a WordPress auto-blog is created instantly based on the Category, Browser Title, Site Description, Keywords you specify. Custom or Auto posts can be added to the body, and the headers, footer and sidebar can be customized with links, affiliate banners and content of your choosing.


Once you set up a site - simply point your hosting domain servers to the DNS server names they provide and you're custom WordPress blog is up and live within minutes -- to tweak further, build links to, and begin the traffic driving process. Daily or weekly auto-posting of theme related content can let you simply 'Set It And Forget It' after that if you choose.

OSX Mountain Lion Dictation for Mac Internet Marketing

I'm not the only one seeing the Mac SEO - SEM possibilities of Internet Marketing Using Apple Dictation. OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion expands on Apple's existing speech recognition capabilities to now include SPEECH TO TEXT translation with the new Dictation services that work in ANY Mac text editing capable program - or even inside any web page where you can enter text.

Whether you're dictating web page content, a new blog post, or using Apple Dictation to create a status update to FaceBook or Twitter - you can now just say what's on your mind instead of whacking it out on the keyboard. Lots of possibilities here - and it's a FREE part of the update to OSX Mountain Lion.

For many Mac users, the built-in mic of your MacBook or iMac is sufficient to get started with OSX Dictation, but for Mac mini and Macintosh Pro tower owners -- or those with heavy dictation needs -- for the most accurate speech recognition you'll want an external USB microphone or quality headset for Mac text to speech services.

Mac Internet Marketing Using Apple Dictation

Here's a link to a guest post for Apple website owners interested in website content creation using Apple Dictation. As I continue to explore Apple's Speech-To-Text capabilities in OSX Mountain Lion and the new Dictation System Preference - I'm using it more and more often in spite of the fact I'm a reasonably fast and accurate typist.

What I'm finding uniquely beneficial to using my MacBook's newfound dictation abilities is how differently I tend to 'write' when I'm talking about areas of my expertise. It's so much easier for any webmaster to TALK ABOUT their knowledge of a given niche than hammer it out on the keyboard. And what results is far more lengthy and detailed blog posts or webpage content pieces.

Mac webmasters who are into article writing and distribution may find it far easier to write lengthier 300, 400, 500 word or more articles by simply speaking about their field of knowledge rather than having to type it. Apple dictation services really is timesaver when you can simply discuss and talk about your area of knowledge without over-thinking and worrying about keyword usage and length of the article. When you speak using Apple dictation, words just flow easily from your mind onto the page. The end result is much more comprehensive natural and highly readable conversational style of writing that serves your Internet marketing and website promotion needs perfectly.

Anchor Text Ratio Checking Tool At Majestic SEO

The balance of (or lack of it) in your website's backlink anchor text seems to be an important component of the penalties associated with Google's Penguin update. For some website owners having top money keyword heavy backlink ratios - and not enough Brand,  naked URL and Generic anchors could be a toxic combination.

Over at mac-seo-tools I blog about a new feature at MajesticSEO that graphs out a quick and dirty pie-chart of some of your back links and how they're anchored. You also have the option of generating a Top-10 anchor report (with free account) - or more detailed anchor text ratio reports with a paid subscription.

Clearly Google is favoring Branding and raw URL's of your domain, money keywords less so, and apparently really oddball, generic, supposedly naturally occuring things like 'this site', 'here', 'this page', 'this blog post' that someone ELSE might link back to your site with are best done with an even mix.

From my own websites dinged by Google, many top keywords with commercial intent that were disproportionately anchored are now terms with a -50, -100 penalty choking off traffic to the phrases searchers are most likely to use. In effect, the anchored links said the site was about X/Y/Z -- therefore Google no longer ranks them well for X/Y/Z -- because accurately keyworded links are pointing to content that is also about X/Y/Z. "You said you wanted it. So now you can't have it."

Visit MajesticSEO and check how some of your websites - or your competitor's anchor text ratios and diversity compare.

FaceBook Search Engine Rumblings : To Bing or Not Bing?

FaceBook is quickly approaching nearly 1 Billion users. That's a serious user base. But beyond the sheer numbers of people using it -- What's more significant is the amount of TIME folks spend on FaceBook day in and day out. Think of the literal HOURS per day people may spend on FB and compare it to the mere minutes they may actually be active using Google search.

Years back, FaceBook and Bing partnered - with Bing providing what could only be described as 'supplimental' Search Results. By nature, the default of search is to find People or Companies by name from FaceBooks database - and Bing's actual website search results are usually only shown demoted much, much further down. Suggestions for Bing queries  are often 'below the fold' unless a readily identifiable Brand, Group or Person can't be found.  You typically have to scroll down to even see the 'See More Results' divider:

If FaceBook and Bing are to make any SERIOUS dent in Google's dominance, they need to get their search shit together and fast!
WHY should we have to leave FaceBook, go to Google to find something to share, then return to FaceBook to complete the task? Why should we have to leave FaceBook at all? Why isn't Bing web search featured much more prominently IN our feed to make accessing outside information seamless and integrated?

There's talk across the 'net about FaceBook coming up with it's own search engine to challenge Google's dominance. And trust me, with 1+ Billion users, FB could be a MAJOR search destination threat to Google. But why is there even talk of FB reinventing the wheel? Why they've dragged their feet FULLY leveraging Bing's search prowess lurking inside is mind boggling. When will FB wake up and sieze the opportunity to complete the puzzle they already have major pieces of in place?

The problem - and solution - is simply one of exposing and integrating Bing search in such a highly visible and integrated way that it makes STAYING on FaceBook a no-brainer. Wake up FaceBook! The clock is ticking...

Google September Algo Update - SERP Ranking Fluctuations

Google's definitely up to something that's causing rather erratic traffic and keyword ranking position shifts that kicked in just prior to Labor Day weekend. As you can see by the StatCounter traffic chart on the left, something significant happened in September that's visibly affecting daily website traffic and it's very visually apparent.

I'm seeing the same general trend across a dozens of sites. On the left half of the chart you see a 'relatively' smooth undulation of site visitor traffic up until August 30th. I say relatively because frankly day to day variances are pretty normal and midweek, work week traffic is typically different from weekend hits. But note the right half of the chart: On Labor Day weekend the traffic DOUBLED over it's average for a day, slumped for two, spiked again. Rinse, lather and repeat.

Too soon to say if it's significant or trending long-term, but note the SEE-SAW SPIKES are trending downward after each iteration. (Ah, Google - notorious for it's pattern of 'Feeling-Up' web sites with successive crawls - and slowly choking the life out of its victims as they succumb to repeated, progressive algo pressure...)

It should be noted that these are aggregate traffic graphs from ALL sources (which tend to be DWARFED by Google traffic anyways) - and even with some low threshold of baseline Bing/Yahoo 3rd-Party and Social Media referral traffic, Google's particular gyrations are STILL highly visible and sharp.

Bing It On Beeyotch! Bing SERPS vs Google

Over at mac-seo-tools.com I've blogged about Microsoft's "Bing It On" campaign and search engine comparison test: Bing vs Google Search - Bing It On! - It's an eye-opening opportunity to see side-by-site which search engine's results seem more relevant and meaningful to YOU - or if the Top-10 SERPS are organized and presented in a way that seems logical and more useful to you.

Frankly after April 2012's Google Penguin webspam update I found the 'balance' of Googles SERP results to reflect a much narrower 'World View' of the world wide web in all it's free democratic glory.  They seem to be over filtering, over branding, ignoring highly relevant niche sites, and skewing search results to what THEY want me to see - and not necessarily what I'm looking for.

Enough! I switched my default search engine to Bing in Safari preferences. I prefer Pepsi and Google is losing my eyeballs to be splattered with their advert heavy SERPS. Google's search portal has become about as exciting and unwelcome as receiving a VAL-PAK amongst the junk mail in my mailbox. When the 'cover' of a search engine's front page is 80% advertisements instead of 80% actual stories - well - I don't want to read your junk mail anymore...

SEO Desperation - The Branded Naked Inert URL Fiasco

The latest SEO game invented by Google in it's Penguin webspam update had alot to do with link anchor text diversity - or the lack of it. It took a few weeks of 'What The Hell Happened?!?' to ranking and now tanking site analysis for some of the more observant in the SEO community to correlate at least one (of several) aspects of backlink profiling that caused some of the traffic drops that the Penguin update delivered.

Commercial, top-money keywords were often hardest hit and instantly devalued for many sites - simply because the backlink profile and agressive SEO link building tactics had 'over-weighted' them. Whatever money keywords that were used and mattered MOST to your site were now toxic, Toxic, TOXIC!

And so 'Anchor Text RE-BALANCING' was born -- the notion of 'thinning out' money-keyword heavy ratios with even more deliberate, contrived 'naturalness'. A new era of link building tactics towards NAKED URLS like www.mywebsite.com, mywebsite.com, or http://mywebsite.com are becoming quite the fashion, as are BRANDED links of your name or business.

But the real stupidity Penguin update inflicted was a whole new game of going after INERT anchor texts to mimic (ahem) 'Naturally Acquired Links' such as "....visit this site for more info." or "check out this great source of information, or this other one here!"

Thanks to spintax and automated submission tools, Google is now getting exactly what we think it wants - MILLIONS of craplinks aggressively built every day going after inert phrases like these:

{click|{visit|click|check} {|this {|link|site}}|go} {|{||over|right} here} {||now}
{read|learn|see|look at|discover|find out} {{the facts|this {|info}|more {|info}} {|here}|here} {|||now}

And so it goes. For some, this sort of heavy-handed deliberate gibberish anchor link strategy might actually be, well, part of the magical 'Penguin Site Recovery' formula - (a keyword phrase which has become a million-dollar keyword in its own right as of late!)

Sheesh! This is the best Google can come up with? A new, stupid algo that invites the next stupid wave of stupid SEO behavior to get seen on the internet? Is this what the Cat and Mouse game has become: deliberately engineered 'Organic-ness?', contrived 'Natural-ness'?, tilted 'Balance'?

Ugh. I feel sorry for all those "Divorce Attorney Dallas", "Dentist In Los Angeles" anchors which are now sending NO post-Penguin traffic to... uh, websites that actually are about: Dallas Divorce Attorneys or L.A. Dentists... Madness, kids. It's madness.

September Penguin Webspam Update - Is A Major De-Indexing Imminent?

Thanks to all the SEO rat-finks stepping into Google's confessional booth over the past few months since the April Penguin webspam update - http://www.onlywire.com/r/100902110 - I suspect a few hundred thousand backlink sites are going to feel the wrath of Google  - and soon. After all, the Holiday shopping season is coming soon and gray and black hatters musn't spoil the profit potential of all the big retailers and Brands who now dominate Page 1 SERPS. What better way than to totally de-index all those horrible, horrible domains that were propping up a site's authority and PageRank?

If you thought the ROI of link building sucked before - just wait till the axe falls with the next iteration of the Penguin update.