New Type of Manual Action Appears in Webmaster Tools

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Google-Webmaster-Tools-LogoThere’s a new manual action showing up in Google Webmaster Tools, according to Jessica Lee from Search Engine Watch. Webmaster Tools was updated over the summer so that site owners could be notified when a specific type of manual action had been taken against the site, and since then the waters have been fairly quiet. This new type of manual action, referred to as “image mismatch” is the first change we’ve seen since then.

Google says:

If you see this message on the Manual Actions page, it means that some of your site’s images may be displaying differently on Google’s search results pages than they are when viewed on your site.

As a result, Google has applied a manual action to the affected portions of your site, which will affect how your site’s images are displayed in Google. Actions that affect your whole site are listed under Site-wide matches. Actions that affect only part of your site are listed under Partial matches.

If you end up receiving that message, it is up to you to ensure that your site is showing the same images to users both on your site and within Google image search results. It is possible “anti-hotlinking” tools can cause the issue, so you may have to look through your site’s code on the server.

As with all manual penalties, once the problem is fixed you have to submit your site for reconsideration and wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, after you’ve waited for what seems like forever, you’ll get a message in your Webmaster Tools account informing whether the manual action will be revoked after review.

Manual actions are penalties at real, living Google employees have placed against your site after determining that you are violating Google’s guidelines. The majority of manual penalties have related to outright spammy practices such as user-generated spam, hidden text, and unnatural links.

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New Report Estimates 28 Percent of All Traffic Now Mobile

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It is hard to ignore how quickly mobile traffic has grown to become an essential part of how people access the internet, but there are still a fair amount of brands burying their heads in the sand and pretending nothing has really changed. It is almost astounding to see how many are stuck in the past and refuse to invest in going mobile. With some brands estimating that half of their traffic comes from mobile devices, it is clear that brands who refuse to step-up are going to begin suffering very soon.

We know how popular smartphones and tablets are now, but we don’t actually know how much of all online traffic comes from these devices. Some analysts estimate as low as 15 percent of all traffic is coming from mobile devices, while others have said that as much as a third is coming from non-desktop devices. With such a large range, it has difficult to discern what the exact amount of mobile traffic is, but these studies do give us insight into the direction things are going.

Mobile Traffic Report

For example, Greg Sterling reports that public relations firm Walker Sands released their latest quarterly index of mobile traffic to their clients’ websites, and they estimate 28 percent of their clients’ traffic is coming from smartphones and tablets. The problem is their sample is too small for their estimate to be very relevant when dealing with the big picture. However, because of how regularly they compile and release this data, we can use their report to see the direction the market is going, and the market is largely going mobile.

Walker Sands actually found a small drop from 29 percent of traffic coming from mobile devices to 28 percent, but those numbers are a big leap from 17.5 percent at this time last year, and a one percent drop in mobile traffic isn’t large enough to draw any conclusions that mobile traffic is faltering.

It becomes even more apparent that mobile is becoming a hugely important consideration for online marketing when you consider that Facebook currently estimates that a third of their users access the site strictly from mobile devices and Yelp says that 59 percent of their searches are now coming from mobile.

The big takeaway, as Sterling points out, is that marketers are doing themselves a massive disservice by ignoring mobile traffic or even by just treating mobile traffic as secondary. Every marketer should be taking mobile traffic seriously, and not treating it as secondary. For some markets, it may even be best to put mobile ahead of desktop in their priorities.

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Android App Content Begins to Be Indexed By Google

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Android

Source: Google

Smartphones have revolutionized how we browse the web, but most browsing still happens within the same web browsers we have all grown accustomed to. For the most part, we do our searches and actual browsing from Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, while we limit our apps to games, reading the news, or taking care of business. But, that all could change in the near future.

Google announced late last week that they would begin allowing Android app developers to have their app content indexed. That content will then be able to be opened directly through apps on Android devices. It is a large step towards a more seamless user experience on smartphones and tablets, rather than the disjointed experience we currently enjoy.

Googlebot has been improved to be able to index the content of apps, either through a sitemap file or through Google’s Webmaster Tools, though the feature is currently only in the testing phase. This means the indexing is only currently available to a small selection of developers, and signed-in users won’t begin to see the app content in their result for a few weeks.

The update means that searches will be able to return information from app content, which will then open directly in the intended app. For websites which tend to offer the same content on both their website and their app, such as news sites, it means users will be able to pick their desired experience, whether it be from within the browser or within the app.

Jennifer Slegg reports that app developers can sign up to let Google know they are interested in having their apps indexed by filling out an application of interest. Before you do though, you should know that your app must have deep linking enabled, and you will have to provide Google with information about alternate URLs either within their sitemap or in a link element within the pages of their site.

Indexing is only available for Android apps currently, and Google has yet to comment on when or if they will extend the capability to iPhone or Windows apps.

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Avoid These Two Mistakes Which Keep Google From Indexing Your Site

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No matter how bad of shape your website is in, Google will crawl it. Google crawls and indexes seemingly the entire internet. Though we know they may not look as deep into low-quality websites, that doesn’t mean they haven’t at least crawled and indexed the landing page. It takes something truly special to keep Google from crawling and indexing a page, but there are two common mistakes that can actually manage to keep Google away.

Technical SEO is one of the most difficult aspects of optimization to grasp, but if you are making these two simple mistakes, it can keep search engines, especially Google, from correctly indexing your websites. If your site isn’t getting correctly indexed, you have absolutely no chance of ranking well. Until you fix the problem your site is going to be severely crippled, so it is imperative you aren’t ignoring these issues.

1. The 301 Redirects on Your Website are Broken

It is a commonly accepted practice to use 301 redirects after a website redesign. As Free-SEO-News mentioned in their latest newsletter, using these redirects properly allows you to retain the ranking equity you’ve built with your website, rather than having to start again from the bottom.

The problem is when these 301 redirects aren’t implemented properly. Even worse, sometimes properly working redirects can suddenly falter, so you can’t place your faith in the redirects working correctly forever. Code changes, new plugins, or broken databases can cause your working 301’s to begin linking to non-existing pages.

Broken links are an automatic wrecking ball to all your efforts building a solid link portfolio. The best way to ensure that all your links are working is to download a website audit tool, such as SEOprofiler, which automatically checks all of your links and redirects. If your links or redirects suddenly stop working, you will be warned before you start getting punished by the search engines.

2. Rel=canonical Attributes Are Causing Problems

Just as with 301 redirects, the rel=canonical attribute serves a legitimate purpose when used correctly. The attribute can help you avoid problems with duplicate content, but those using the tag without knowing what they are doing can find themselves with some major issues.

Two of the biggest faux pas that we see regularly committed by site owners are to add a rel=canonical attribute which points to the index page to all web pages or to other pages that use the ‘noindex’ attribute. In both scenarios, Google won’t index the web pages at all.

The best advise is to simply stay away from the rel=canonical attribute unless you are absolutely sure what you’re doing. The only proper time to use the attribute is on duplicate pages, and anywhere else will result in significant problems. The problems that can come from using the attribute incorrectly are much worse than those you might see by failing to use the tag on duplicate pages.

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Bing Unveils Full Page Hero Ads For Branded Searches

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You may remember that Google recently started testing large banner ads on branded searches. It raised quite a stir in the online community, mostly because it seemed that Google blatantly broke an older promise to never show banner ads. But, Bing is taking branded search result ads to the next level.

Larry Kim reports that last week, at the Bing Ads Next conference, Bing Ads announced their new ad format for exact match keyword searches, specifically those done within the latest Windows 8 update. Instead of a relatively small banner ad, Bing Ads are rolling out Bing Hero Ads, a full landing-page like layout that aggressively promotes the exact brand.

Just as with Google’s banner ads, Bing Hero Ads are only starting with a small number of prominent brand advertisers, such as Disney, Home Depot, Land Rover, and Volkswagen. It will also be a while before you can expect to see Hero Ads on your average search. For the moment, they are only appearing in a small selection of searches done in Windows 8.1 within the US.

It will be interesting to see how the public reacts to these types of branded semi-landing pages. Google’s banner ads looked fairly customized for each brand, , and only take up a relatively small amount of on-page real estate. A full-page ad experience for exact match branded searches may be welcomed as a quick and efficient way to connect with the brand searchers are looking for. It is also possible that consumers will be turned off by the seemingly uniform ad experience.

The one clear advantage Bing’s Hero Ads have over Google’s banner ads is their ability to deep link directly to a larger amount of pages on a site. They offer links such as “contact us”, “find a store” and “request a quote” which speed up users experiences and allow them to convert more quickly.

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The iPad Still Dominates Tablet Traffic

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Last week, Apple announced their new iPads, the iPad Air, a thinner, lighter, and more powerful version of their full-size tablet, as well as an updated iPad mini with Retina Display. The broad public response to Apple’s latest products seems to be underwhelming, but it hasn’t seemed to sway how popular Apple products are with consumers.

The day of Apple’s big announcement, ad network Chitika released their analysis of tablet traffic from North America, and it appears the negative market analysis has done little to diminish Apple’s grip on mobile traffic. The iPhone owned mobile traffic through the entire rise of smartphones, and now it seems the iPad has just as strong of a stranglehold on tablet traffic, raking in 81 percent of the market.

According to Marketing Land, this is actually a decrease from their 84 percent traffic share in June, but Chitika says no other single competitor has directly benefited. Their traffic may be down, but not a remarkable level by any means.

Recent data from the Pew Research Center says that 35 percent of Americans over the age of 16 own a tablet, and clearly the iPad is the most popular option for browsing the internet. However, the Kindle has proven to be the most successful Android tablet in North America, so it may be that consumers are simply choosing the tablet most suited for their needs: e-books or the internet.

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Matt Cutts Says More Indexed Pages Doesn’t Always Lead To Better Rankings

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If there is one way to concisely explain the changes Google’s search algorithms have gone through in the past couple years, it would boil down to “bigger is not always better.” Gone are the days that you can jam as many keywords as you could fit into a paragraph of text, or buy up countless thousands of links and hope to rank highly.

However, the more you do to offer quality content and information to your users while staying in line with Google’s practices, the more success you’ll see.

Those two ideas are fairly common knowledge now, but they have created their own fair share of questions. Where should the balance between quantity and quality lie? How is this content evaluated? Does quantity of content outweigh quality of content?

Google has given some insight into how content is evaluated in the past, and it is clear that you won’t get far with an excessive amount of paper-thin content. Still, the number of indexed pages your site has does indeed have an effect on your ranking. So how exactly does this work and what is the balance?

Matt Cutts, Google’s head of Webspam, addressed this type of issue head-on in his most recent Webmaster Chat video. He was asked, “Does a website get a better overall ranking if it has a large amount of indexed pages?”

Cutts explained that having more indexed pages isn’t a magic ticket to higher rankings. He said, “I wouldn’t assume that just because you have a large number of indexed pages that you automatically get a high-ranking. That’s not the case.”

However, having more indexed pages does have some clear benefits. The more pages you have, the more opportunities you have to rank for different keywords. But, this is only because you should be covering a larger variety of keywords and topics across that larger group of pages.

A larger number of indexed pages is also likely to improve your overall links and PageRank, which can affect your ranking. But, the link isn’t direct. Simply having more pages won’t improve much for you. Instead, you have to use those extra pages to deliver valuable content and information to your users. If you’re just filling your site with a meaningless wealth of pages to be indexed, you won’t be seeing any improvement anytime soon.

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Google Tests Banner Ads For Branded Searches

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Last week some people began noticing that large banner ads were appearing on Google for a select few branded search results. This test of huge banner ads has caused quite a bit of a stir across the internet, especially because it seems to break a promise Google made all the way back in 2005.

When Google partnered with AOL eight years ago, Marissa Mayer, then Google VP of search products and user experience, issued a promise that users would never see banner ads on their results. She said:

“There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search result pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping all over the Google site. Ever.”

One could argue that some of the Google Doodle homepage logos commemorating special events would qualify as “crazy, flashy, graphical doodads”, those have never caused any worry because they are simply a flourish added to the homepage logo. However, it is indisputable that the new ad tests Google is running breaks their “no banner ads” promise outright. But, is it a bad thing?

The most notable aspect of the banner ads is that they only appear for branded searches. That means, if you search for Crate & Barrel, you might be shown the banner for Crate & Barrel. You won’t, however, be seeing any ads for random companies unrelated to your search, as you would normally associate with the term ‘banner ad’.

These ads are also linked to the brand’s website, providing users with an obvious, visually pleasing way to immediately find the business they are looking for. With careful moderation of banners, they could potentially allow businesses to essentially own their branded searches.

One of the biggest concerns for consumers regarding these ads is how they are used. Few users will be upset for the easily identifiable link with an aesthetically pleasing image showing when they search for a specific brand. However, if this test expands and advertisers are ever allowed to use these banners to advertise sales or other more advertising-styled banners, there may be a backlash.

Currently, it is estimated that 30 advertisers are currently being involved in the test, including Southwest Airlines, Virgin America, and Crate & Barrel. The test banner ads are also only being shown for 5 percent or less of search queries, so it is entirely possible you won’t run into one for quite a while.

Search Engine Land has created a FAQ for advertisers curious how this might affect the future of Google marketing, and Google released a statement on Friday, which read:

“We’re currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries. Advertisers have long been able to add informative visual elements to their search ads, with features like Media Ads, Product Listing Ads and Image Extensions.”

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4 Ways Responsive Design Is Great For SEO

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Now that the dust has settled after some extended debate, it seems clear that responsive design is here to stay. It won’t last forever, but it certainly isn’t a flashy trend that is going to fade away soon. It makes sense responsive design would catch on like it has, as it makes designing for the multitude of devices used to access the internet much easier than ever before.

Almost as many people accessing the internet right this moment are doing so using a smartphone or tablet, but they aren’t all using the same devices. A normal website designed to look great on a desktop won’t look good on a smartphone, but similarly a site designed to work well on the new iPhone won’t have the same results on a Galaxy Note 3.

This problem has two feasible solutions for designers. Either you can design multiple versions of a website, so that there is a workable option for smartphones, tablets, and desktops, or you can create a responsive website which will look good on every device. Both options require you to test your site on numerous devices to ensure it actually works great across the board, but a responsive site means you only have to actually design one site. The rest of the work is in the tweaking to optimize the site for individual devices.

That all explains why designers love responsive design as a solution for the greatly expanding internet browsing options, but we have to please other people with our designs as well. Thankfully, responsive design has benefits for everyone involved. The design solution is even great for search engine optimization, which is normally not the case with design and optimization working together. Saurabh Tyagi explains how responsive design benefits SEO as much as it does consumers.

Google Favors Responsive Sites

SEO professionals spend a lot of their time and efforts simply trying to appease the Google Gods, or trying to follow the current best practices while also managing to outplay their competition. Google has officially included responsive design into its best practice guidelines, as well as issuing public statements calling for websites to adopt the design strategy, so naturally SEOs have come to love it.

One of the biggest reasons Google loves responsive sites is that it allows websites to use the same URL for a mobile site as they do for a desktop site, instead of redirecting users. A site with separate URLs will have a harder time gaining in the rankings than one with a single functional URL.

Improves the Bounce Rate

Getting users to stay on your page is actually easier than you might think. If you represent yourself honestly to search engines, and offer a functional, readable, and generally enjoyable website, users that click on your page are likely to stay there. By ensuring your website is functional and enjoyable on nearly every device, you ensure users are less likely to hit the back button.

Save on SEO

Having a separate mobile site from your desktop site means double the SEO work. Optimization is neither cheap, fast, or easy, so it doesn’t make sense to waste all that extra time and work on basically duplicate efforts. Instead of having to optimize two sites, responsive websites allow SEOs to put all their efforts into one site, saving you money and providing a more focused optimization effort.

Avoids Duplicate Content

When you’re having to manage running two sites for the same business, it is highly likely you will eventually end up accidentally placing duplicate content on one of the sites. If this becomes a regular problem, you can expect punishments from search engines which could be easily avoidable by simply having one site. Responsive design also makes it easier to direct users to the right content. One of Google’s biggest mobile pet peeves of the moment is the practice of consistently redirecting mobile users to the front page of the mobile site, rather than to the mobile version of the content they asked for. Responsive design avoids these types of issues altogether.

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4 Reasons You Should Be Including Infographics in Your Content Strategy

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If you’ve spent much time online in the past year or two, it is almost certain you’ve come across an infographic. They are highly enjoyed by the public, as well as being educational. This is why more companies and content creators are using infographics to communicate and share knowledge with the public than ever before. Some may say it is just a trend, but either way the data shows that searches for infographics have risen over 800 percent in just two years, from 2010 to 2012.

Even if you don’t know what an infographic is, the chances still favor that you have seen one either in your Facebook feed, a news article, or maybe even your email. Infographics are images intended to share information, data, or knowledge in a quick and easily comprehensible way. They turn boring information into interesting visuals which not only make the information easier to understand, but also make the average viewer more interested in what is being communicated.

According to Albert Costill, multiple studies have found that 90 percent of the information we retain and remember is based on visual impact. Considering how much information take in on a day to day basis, and that means you’re content should be visually impressive if you want to have a hope of viewers remembering it. If you’re still unsure about infographics, there are several reasons you should consider at least including them occasionally within your content strategy.

  1. Infographics are naturally more eye-catching than printed words, and a well laid-out infographic will catch viewers attention in ways standard text can’t. You’re free to use more images, colors, and even movement which are more immediately visually appealing.
  2. The average online reader tends to scan text rather than reading every single word. Infographics combat this tendency by making viewers more likely to engage all of the information on the screen, but they also make it easier for those who still scan to find the information most important to them.
  3. Infographics are more easily sharable than most other types of content. Most social networks are image friendly, so users are given two very simple ways to show their friends their favorite infographics. Readers can share a link directly to your site, or they can save the image and share it directly. The more easily content can be shared, the more likely it is to go viral.
  4. Infographics can subliminally help reinforce your brand image, so long as you are consistent. Using consistent colors, shapes, and messages, combined with your logo all work to raise your brand awareness. You can see how well this works when you notice that every infographic relating to Facebook naturally uses “Facebook Blue” and reflects the style of their brand.

Obviously you shouldn’t be putting out an infographic every day. Blog posts still have their place in any content strategy. Plus, if you are creating infographics daily, it is likely their quality will suffer. Treat infographics as a tool that can be reserved for special occasions or pulled out when necessary. With the right balance, you’ll find your infographics can be more powerful and popular than you ever imagined.

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