searchmetrics email facebook github gplus instagram linkedin phone rss twitter whatsapp youtube arrow-right chevron-up chevron-down chevron-left chevron-right clock close menu search
35943594

SEO News: Between media release and travel preparations

Time for our weekly SEO News. This week is an incredibly exciting one for us here in Berlin: Searchmetrics is undergoing a huge, highly anticipated change.  We’ll tell you more about it from the press room in the upcoming days. However, here’s a small indication to start with: The favorite app Whatsapp will finally begin requiring payment from Android users as well. The app has had more than 100,000,000 downloads in the Google app market; when every one of those downloads would actually pay 99 cents, somebody could make a lot of money. But whether Android users will really be so generous with their wallets as Apple users (who have always paid for the app) remains to be seen. That aside…

On to the SEO News of the week before we head off to Salzburg for the SEOKomm 2012. A very relaxing conference taking place on Friday at which we gladly appeared as the main sponsor. Yesterday we already took part in the Toolbattle.

  • We think that all tasks should be quantifiable. That’s why this “23 Tips on How to A/B Test like a Badass” is exactly the right thing. Some of the tips are simply common sense, but they are still worth reading and considering. It’s exactly when you have a little extra time that you can not only use our Optimization Tool but also directly do the A/B tests with us.
  • The traffic from Bing is rapidly growing among some user groups, reason being probably Windows 8 and the new Surface. A good moment to monitor Bing not only as a search machine from the couch but also to read the current Bing Webmaster Guidelines. It’s a very good summary and includes a couple of declarations of what should probably be left alone.
  • Sudan Patel of SEJ has put together a couple of good tips about how to deal with the Conversion Rate Problems. Simply read through it quickly for what applies to you and then get started with the A/B tests.
  • Amanda King has written an interesting introduction on Link Relationship Building . It also includes a lot that makes sense for a ‘normal’ business operation as well.
  • Do you want to make your website more secure and completely switch to HTTPS but feel unsure about how Google is going to handle it? Then Barry Schwartz has some good beginning information for you. According to Matt Cutts, it should work and not cause any problems, so you can get started. However, be aware that it can also lead to performance problems if your server isn’t powerful enough. That’s because the HTTPS requires machines with more capacity. By the way if you think with that you get back to your query parameter: that will not work; Barry unfortunately tried this unsuccessfully.
  • Speaking of Matt Cutts: Viktor Dite tested his blog for the best known SEO tips. And, surprise: Matt doesn’t even stick to his own tips. No ALT tags for images, no XML sitemap. Somebody has a lot of trust in his employer. Nevertheless, Matt Cutt’s presentation in Las Vegas at the PubCon 2012 is definitely worth a read: “State of the Index.”
  • And here’s a humorous story from the world of Googlers: A Webmaster at Webmasterworld reported that he broke down after receiving a penalty and registered all (!) of the links he found in Google Webmaster Tools per disavow links tool. Then, he waited for a period of time, and requested reconsideration. His answer? “We’ve reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines.” Ooops! How can that be? He probably just used the wrong tools to identify the links  😉

That was our SEO News for the week. I hope that you found a few interesting topics and join us again as a reader. You can follow us on Facebook if you don’t already. Information on all the new topics is there and as soon as we publish the newest ranking factors, you’ll be the first to know.

To close, here’s a story with a moral: Besides good content, honesty is always important. If you try to fool your users, sometimes it comes out and then you look pretty bad. Oprah Winfrey just discovered that personally: She tweeted about how much she liked her new Microsoft Surface, however, she tweeted from an iPad – which, duh, of course people found out.

Have a great week and if we don’t see you in Salzburg, then let’s read here again next week…

Matthias Bachor

Matthias Bachor

Matthias has been the leader of the Searchmetrics Marketing team. Here, you can find all his posts about SEO and Online Marketing.

6 thoughts on “SEO News: Between media release and travel preparations


  • Dear Mathias, great post! I missed this event but I would be interested in a upcoming one. Could you put me on your list.

    thanks

  • Is 2014 and the favorite app Whatsapp is not requiring any sort of payment from Android users.

  • The idea of making whatsapp available only for paying users quickly fell. it’s still a free service and at this point, if things do change, people will just use the facebook chat which got very good in the meantime.

  • Spot on with this write-up, I honestly believe this websaite needs a lot more attention. I’ll probably be returjing to see more, thanks for the
    advice!

  • www.artonmyplate.com 2014/11/22 at 11:49 am

    Insert desired texts, your logo style, change button names if
    required and the internet site i. Knowing the fact that Google controls 60% of website traffic in the internet, getting your online business advertised here
    allows you to confident that it’s going to surely be recognized all around
    the globe. However, the traditional press release has undergone some changes in order to
    be properly found by news search engines.

  • Thanks for the advices Matthias ! =) One question about the story, what is the best tool to identify toxic links nowadays? Link Detox or another ? Thanks in advance


Write a Comment

Note: If you enter something other than a name here (such as a keyword), or if your entry seems to have been made for commercial or advertising purposes, we reserve the right to delete or edit your comment. So please only post genuine comments here!

Also, please note that, with the submission of your comment, you allow your data to be stored by blog.searchmetrics.com/us/. To enable comments to be reviewed and to prevent abuse, this website stores the name, email address, comment text, and the IP address and timestamp of your comment. The comments can be deleted at any time. Detailed information can be found in our privacy statement.