The SEO community is sometimes thought of being a stuffy industry, but we like to have fun like any other group of people. For example, you probably would never have guessed that there are online games specifically aimed at the optimization community.
Yet, in the past week two such games have been found, both very SEO-centric. They’re a cool novelty and they offer about as much fun as the games they are based on.
First we have Donkey Cutts, a Donkey Kong knock-off, using prominent SEO personalities and tech imagery in the place of an oversized monkey and barrels. Obviously Matt Cutts from Google is featured, but players are also able to pick from other SEO personalities (though there is some disagreement who exactly the characters are).
There is also Madoogle, a clone of Angry Birds which lets you attack black hat SEOs with some more easily recognizable SEO faces. This one includes versions of Matt Cutts (again), Rand Fishkin, Lisa Barone, and Barry Schwartz.
They probably won’t help you rank much higher, but these games might allow you to relax for a few minutes while still keeping SEO fresh in your mind.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-02-18 13:00:272014-02-18 13:00:27SEO Games, Making Optimization Fun
Despite not being available to the public any time soon, Google Glass has already raised quite a bit of a stir. But, not all of the stories have been good.
Source: WikiCommons
While plenty of testers or “Google Glass Explorers” have used the technology to engage with the world around them in a new way, there have been concerns about the safety of wearing Glass while driving or doing other activities. There have also been reports of those wearing Google Glass getting into confrontations with others for various reasons surrounding the technology.
Now, Google has released an official list of do’s and don’t’s for Google Glass to help mitigate the more negative stories that keep popping up. If you’re one of the lucky few getting to test drive Google Glass before its public release, you might consider heeding the guidelines they shared for the best experience possible.
The Google Glass Do’s:
Explore the world around you. Glass puts you more in control of your technology and frees you to look up and engage with the world around you rather than look down and be distracted from it. Have a hangout with your friends, get walking directions to a fantastic new restaurant, or get an update on that delayed flight.
Take advantage of the Glass voice commands. Glass can free your hands up to do other things like golfing, cooking, or juggling flaming torches while balancing on a beach ball (but also see Don’ts #2). This is great for looking up how many ounces in a cup while you cook, or taking a one-of-a-kind photo from your unique perspective.
Ask for permission. Standing alone in the corner of a room staring at people while recording them through Glass is not going to win you any friends (see Don’ts #4). The Glass camera function is no different from a cell phone so behave as you would with your phone and ask permission before taking photos or videos of others.
Use screen lock. Glass screen lock works like your smartphone’s screen lock: it passcode-protects your device to help prevent others from using it. If you ever lose your device or have it stolen by a budding online resale entrepreneur, you can turn off Glassware and perform a remote wipe (e.g. factory reset) of the device, removing all your information from the device. All you need to do is go to your MyGlass page on your browser, or the MyGlass App on your phone.
Be an active and vocal member of the Glass Explorer Community. The Explorer Program was created in order to have a place where our Explorers can give feedback, share content and communicate with the Glass team. It’s been hugely successful over the past year and this is due to our wonderful group of Explorers. They are constantly sharing their worlds with us and with each other, allowing us to hear and work on all the great feedback and stories our Explorers give us (and, wow, do they give us a lot!).
The Google Glass Don’t’s:
Glass-out. Glass was built for short bursts of information and interactions that allow you to quickly get back to doing the other things you love. If you find yourself staring off into the prism for long periods of time you’re probably looking pretty weird to the people around you. So don’t read War and Peace on Glass. Things like that are better done on bigger screens.
Rock Glass while doing high-impact sports. Glass is a piece of technology, so use common sense. Water skiing, bull riding or cage fighting with Glass are probably not good ideas.
Wear it and expect to be ignored. Let’s face it, you’re gonna get some questions. Be patient and explain that Glass has a lot of the same features as a mobile phone (camera, maps, email, etc.). Also, develop your own etiquette. If you’re worried about someone interrupting that romantic dinner at a nice restaurant with a question about Glass, just take it off and put it around the back of your neck or in your bag.
Be creepy or rude (aka, a “Glasshole”). Respect others and if they have questions about Glass don’t get snappy. Be polite and explain what Glass does and remember, a quick demo can go a long way. In places where cell phone cameras aren’t allowed, the same rules will apply to Glass. If you’re asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well. Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-02-18 12:45:312014-02-18 12:45:31Google Releases Do’s and Don’t’s for Google Glass Explorers
Looking for your favorite music video? Since MTV hasn’t shown music videos for the past 20 years, you will probably turn to Google. Now, Google is making it easier to find the videos your searching for by giving more prominence to the top playable music video result. So, if you’re searching for “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, it will be hard to miss the official version of the video at the top of the page.
The thumbnail images for the videos look like they would be playable on the page, but in actuality they link back to the page for the video. It’s possible they play icon on the image might hint towards future usability for YouTube videos, or it might just be a little misleading.
Of course, the tool isn’t perfect, and you shouldn’t expect to get the “official” video or a video from the artist’s official account every time. For example, Search Engine Watch highlights a case where searching for “Let Me Ride” by Dr. Dre doesn’t pull up a video from the DrDreVEVO account, because that video hasn’t been uploaded to the official account.
Similarly, searching for “I Need a Doctor” by Dr. Dre doesn’t trigger the new large YouTube thumbnails, even though there is an official video uploaded to the account.
“This was already available in September 2013 when you searched for an artist and then clicked on a song – you’d see a preview of the music video if it was available to display,” said a Google spokesperson. “Yesterday we made it easier to get to – you can now just search for a song directly and see the video screenshot right away.”
It is notable that the huge thumbnail appears to be exclusive to YouTube. When Google pulls from other sources like Dailymotion, it shows the smaller thumbnail and link layout. For example, the video for “Simply Beautiful” by Queen Latifah looks like this:
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-02-10 10:48:562014-02-10 10:48:56Google Gives Music Videos More Prominence On the Results Page
No one is calling a clear winner for the Big Game Sunday Night. As numerous sports analysts have pointed out, it is rare that both of the best teams from the past season actually make it to the Super Bowl, but this year the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos match-up should make for a truly exciting game.
While the game will likely be close, Bing says the Seahawks have already been dominating the Broncos online. Bing examined U.S. search volume for both NFL teams, and the Seattle team has taken the lead in 33 states.
Obviously, the Seattle Seahawks absolutely dominated searches from The Evergreen State (95 percent), but they also have a clear lead in Oregon (82 percent), Idaho (79 percent), Alaska (78 percent), Hawaii (73 percent), and California (64 percent).
Of the 17 states where the Broncos held the most search volume, they had a less significant lead. Their home state of Colorado had the most significant difference with 85 percent of searches, while neighboring Wyoming had (77 percent). South Dakota and Indiana brought up the lead with 66 and 64 percent respectively.
In total, Bing users searched for the Seahawks 26 percent more often than the Broncos.
Of course, outside factors could explain the differences in search volume.
As Search Engine Watch points out, searches for the Seahawks spiked across the nation immediately following Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s infamous post-game interview. The controversy and excitement surrounding the over-the-top interview made the Seahawks’ search volume jump over 80 percent.
http://youtu.be/PPD_Lgq7IyI
The Broncos have had their own moment of viral fame, with tons of clips compiling Peyton Manning yelling “Omaha”, but the larger focus after the Championship games two weeks ago was easily favoring Sherman. Without his spectacular outburst, search volume would likely have been more even across the country.
http://youtu.be/hBqwWe0S8jw
What are you thoughts? Who are you favoring in Super Bowl 48?
With Google’s constant updates, it is easy to miss some of the new features they roll out with less publicity than their biggest products receive. However, even the smaller revisions to Google Search make a huge affect on how we search and use the internet in general. Jessica Lee recently rounded up some of the less talked about changes Google has been making so you can be sure you haven’t missed anything lately.
1) Date Selector in Hotel Carousel Search Results
The Carousel results box at the top of localized searches for hotels and restaurants has only been around for a few months now, and Google is already making regular updates to the function. While most of the work has gone into normalizing what queries get carousel results.
But, they’ve also implemented some new, interesting features such as a date selector for hotel searches. Now, you can easily weed out hotels that aren’t available on the days you will need lodging.
We’re always adding features to search to help people find what they need and get things done faster — you can now more easily research hotels when planning a trip and filter by user ratings and hotel class, as well as select specific dates.
2) Cards for Local Results
“Answer Cards” have slowly been spreading across Google’s platform for a while, but they were largely reserved for specific questions or brands. You needed a specific and targeted search to wind up with the convenient card at the top of the search results. But, lately the cards have begun to deliver more detailed answers such as the address of a nearby retailer. Mike Blumenthal highlighted the change with an example of searching for a brand name + location (Dress Barn locations Amherst):
But, queries with multiple results still get the traditional pack results:
3) Answers to Complex Questions
The answer cards have also gotten better at providing answers for trickier questions in general. The people running the Google Operating System spent a good amount of time trying to stump Google’s answer feature, but they’ve found the task has gotten much harder as the feature has been improved.
Google used to only answer simple questions like “who’s the prime minister of Canada?” or “what’s the population of China?” Thanks to the Knowledge Graph project, Google can answer more complicated questions like “who played Batman?”, “what’s the latest album of Celine Dion?”, “what are the main attractions in Spain?”.
To test this out, one of the authors asked Google a question without a definitive answer: what is the “distance to Mars”.
Google can even tell you why the sky is blue.
4) Distance Results
Google is able to tell the distance from most locations other than planets. In fact, Google announced on Google+ that users can now get the distance from any two locations on earth, no matter how far apart they are. The example Google offered was the “distance between Siberia and Hawaii.”
5) Streamlined Search Options
The Google Operating System blog explained how they have updated search options to be more responsive to your individual search query:
Google removed a few specialized search options that were usually displayed in the “more” drop-down: recipes, patents, discussions, blogs, places. The list of links to services like Maps, Images, News, Flights, Shopping is reordered based on your query. This isn’t a new idea, it was implemented a long time ago by Google, but now it’s used more often.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-01-31 13:00:162014-01-31 13:00:165 Recent Google Search Changes That Have Slipped Under The Radar
Everyone knows that Google is a fan of hiding little easter eggs throughout their services, especially in Google Maps and Google Earth. Many of the most well known “secrets” of Google Maps involve objects that actually exist in real life, such as the popular giant pink rabbit in Italy. However, Google also creates some fun little tricks on their own. I learned of two such treasures this week and thought I would share them with you.
The first has been around for a few years, but it recently began making the rounds again. Michael Gray on Twitter noticed that Google Maps gives a particularly funny response if you happen to search for walking directions from The Shire to Mordor, as you can see below.
It is a good time for the little trick to be popping back up, considering the new The Hobbit film is just now leaving theaters, with one more on the way. Plus, many like me never saw it when it was first discovered in earlier versions of Google Maps.
The other secret Google Maps holds is much newer, but equally (if not more) exciting for the fans of Doctor Who. It seems the Tardis was hiding inconspicuously along Earl’s Court Road in London when the Maps team was in the area, because stepping into the blue police box sitting nearby when using Streetview.
If you click on the double-white arrow, you’ll notice the police box is bigger on the inside, and you can explore the (limited) depths of the Tardis, The Doctor’s infamous time machine. Of course, it doesn’t have the endless new rooms and corridors that often appear in the show, but you get a good look at the controls and interior.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-01-16 15:27:282014-01-16 15:27:28Google Maps Lets You Explore The Tardis and Warns You About Walking Into Mordor
Recently Rap Genius, a popular lyric website focused on hip-hop music, became the talk of the internet as they basically disappeared from Google’s search results. They were hit with a penalty for link schemes, and the event may have been one of the most talked about SEO stories in recent history.
Now, 10 days after they were essentially removed from the search results, Rap Genius is ranking when searching for it on Google by name. It should be noted, the site was never completely removed from Google, but their content was showing up six and seven pages back in the results, which is pretty much just as bad.
Source: Search Engine Land
We know the site lost a huge amount of traffic when they were penalized, but it is unclear how they are faring now that they are back. Most likely, Rap Genius will still struggle to regain their former foothold, at least temporarily. When searching by name, the actual website for Rap Genius is still listed below several news stories about their SEO troubles.
The site is also not ranking as well for many lyric searches they previously would have been listed for. Some lyric searches show Rap Genius, but Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land shows they are still stuck on page seven for several searches.
Rap Genius is definitely the most publicly discussed SEO penalty so far. It has been reported on by Rolling Stone, NBC News, Huffington Post, and several other major news outlets. It is also the perfect case study for why you should never attempt to game the search engines for better rankings.
Rap Genius has been consistently transparent about the issues that occurred and what they have done to fix them, as well as what they can do in the future. You can read their initial apology here, as well as their more detailed blog post here. The blog post also concludes with an apology:
To Google and our fans: we’re sorry for being such morons. We regret our foray into irrelevant unnatural linking. We’re focused on building the best site in the world for understanding lyrics, poetry, and prose and watching it naturally rise to the top of the search results.
Rap Genius is seeing a relatively quick return to the search results, thanks to their dutiful efforts to fix the problems and their transparency. However, it will still be a long time before they reach their former status. It just shows that illegal SEO may get you results in the short-term, but you will eventually get caught.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2014-01-06 15:31:052014-01-06 15:31:05Rap Genius Returns to Google After Link Scheme Penalty
The New Year is here and many are already looking forward, making resolutions and formulating predictions about the year to come. But, we can’t know what is going to look for in the future without looking back at 2013. The past year brought big changes to online marketing thanks to some big revisions in Google’s policies and the ever-changing world of design.
Whether you spent the past year doing the Harlem Shake or actively following all the notable blogs to keep your site up to the latest standards, you might want to refresh yourself on the big events and articles from the past year. With that in mind, we thought we would share our most popular posts from 2013. You can remind yourself what mattered in 2013, and see what might be important in 2014.
Many out there are still enjoying some extra time off thanks to the holiday season. But, chances are most are already worn down by the Christmas shopping period and the surplus time with the extended family. The majority of us will be relaxing and taking comfort in some quiet nights until the the year finally comes to a close.
If you’re a Netflix customer, you might consider spending that extra time to indulge yourself and take in a few great movies before they disappear from the streaming service. When the clock ticks out on 2013 and the New Year has been officially rung in, many titles will be taken off of instant streaming, and there is no telling if or when they will return.
Netflix does their best to keep the expiration dates for their movies a secret, but some especially cunning Reddit users managed to figure out what movies will be going away with the passing of 2013. As Gizmodo points out, you can see the date the license on a film or TV show is up by adding the title to your queue.
So what will be taken off Netflix? Gizmodo has a list of the most notable films that will disappear, but you can also explore the more list compiled by Reddit here.
It should be noted, it is possible some of these films could have their licenses renewed quickly, but why take a chance when there’s still plenty of relaxation time before 2014 gets here? Plus, with all these films’ licenses expiring, there will be plenty of new content to binge on soon.
00Taylor Ballhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTaylor Ball2013-12-27 14:53:102013-12-27 14:53:1020 Movies You Should Watch On Netflix Before Their License Expires
Santa’s Little Helpers work year round to help Santa deliver presents to the little boys and girls around the world. But, now that Christmas has just passed, you have to wonder how they might spend their little free time at the North Pole. Apparently, they have a hobby in common with us in the human world: taking selfies. Or, as the elves call them, #elfies.
Maria Scrivan made a comic for Christmas showing what it might look like if the elves took to Instagram, and it is just shows the magical little creatures can be just as vain as us (though they don’t seem to use as many filters).
Oh, and watch out or Frosty the Snowman will photobomb you at the last second.
The New Year is here and many are already looking forward, making resolutions and formulating predictions about the year to come. But, we can’t know what is going to look for in the future without looking back at 2013. The past year brought big changes to online marketing thanks to some big revisions in Google’s policies and the ever-changing world of design.
