Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

I just found out about this one earlier today and I have to say - that the big three got together on this one is a great step for their respective indexes and a great way to control duplicate content issues.

I can't possibly outline what the new tag is an does any better than Matt Cutts.

And to make matters worse (in the form of making the sources I reference appear VERY small) I've got another video for you. So that's two posts in one day, both referencing Matt Cutts and both with interviews from WebProNews. There are more resources below. :) But first - the video:


Here some additional followups and resources related to the new Canonical tag:

Joost comes up with some great plugins for common content systems. Click here for more information and perhaps to contact Joost directly and find out when he sleeps.

Jim Hedger writes about this over on the Webmaster Radio blog (Note: link removed as the post has been removed in a redesign).

Labels: canonical tag, google, matt cutts, msn, webpronews, yahoo

Our friends at Google are kind enough to outline on their site the do's and don'ts of SEO. They call it their Webmaster Guidelines and it's become the 10 Commandments of SEO.

When one reads it one can't help but view it as a best practices list and really - there isn't much anyone can say about it to claim it's a bad set of rules. Basically it reads, "Don't cheat and you'll be OK." which can be likened to the seventh commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

But what happens when the one who makes the rules breaks them? A parent who scolds their child for smoking and then is caught with a cigarette in their mouth loses a lot of their fight and a lot of their justifications. Will the same happen to Google.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, "For goodness sake Dave - get on with it - what rule did Google break?" Alright, I'll get right to it. They broken the most "sacred". "Thou shalt not buy links just to improve your rankings.

As it turns out, old Google Japan has been buying links in the form of blog posts to help increase their rankings. Of course, it wasn't actually Google - it was a third party (of course) and Google Japan's PageRank has been dropped to a 5 from the 9 it was at.

So a black eye for Google. Of course, they have a good explanation but then - who doesn't. :) All the same, the one person who came out of this looking great - Matt Cutts who once more represents Google well and you just want to trust him to do no evil. :)

You can watch a video interview with Matt to get a better idea of what went on below.

Labels: google japan, paid links, webpronews

As part of our ongoing series on optimization, Jim Hedger published part 4 in the series - content optimization. It's a lengthy read (with a topic such as content optimization, how could it be otherwise).

This article is released in conjunction with a special on Webcology (a Webmaster Radio show hosted by Jim and myself). Be sure to tune in on Thursday at 2PM EST to listen to some great interviews to go along with the article. If you've reading this too late to catch the show don't worry - you can download the podcast free of charge on the Webcology page here.

Jim Hedger, aside from being a great friend to me and the entire SEO community, is an SEO consultant for Metamend Web Marketing also out of Victoria, BC, Canada.

Labels: jim hedger, metamend, seo article, webmaster radio, webpronews

When one thinks of Internet marketing's rockstars the list is fairly short. Rand Fishkin, Matt Cutts, Neil Patel and a notable few others. These are the people that have not only made a splash based on their skills but have also become the voices and faces of the industry. For this reason above most, I love publishing news on them (always good for some traffic) and good for the health of the Beanstalk blog (good quality information).

Well I discovered today on the WebProNews.com site that Neil Patel is giving away the secrets to becoming an expert Digger. For those of you who don't know, a Digger is one who uses the social bookmarking site Digg. Due to it's popularity, experts are those who can also use Digg to generate large volumes of traffic for their clients. Neil is such a person and is the face most closely associated with social media marketing and today he's put out a video explaining how to do it yourself. I won't bother describing the content, it's only 2 minutes and 51 seconds. You can watch it below:

Labels: digg, neil patel, rand fishkin, social media, webpronews

There's a great article posted earlier today on the SiteProNews.com site. The article, written by Bill Platt, discussed the recent controversy surrounding paid links and some comments on them made by Matt Cutts. While you may not gain great insight into the buying or selling of paid links (it's not that kind of article) it does lend some interesting analysis of the issue and how the engines (mainly Google) are addressing it.

The article also provides some great links to forums posts discussions of the topic including forums that Matt himself is commenting in. You can read the article on the SiteProNews.com site here. I'd put this article in the "recommended but not mandatory" category of reading. There aren't any "how to's" but if you're engaging in paid links as a buyer or a seller it's always good to know what the feelings of the engines are and what they can and cannot do.

Three hours later ...

Well well well, I just had the great fortune of reading a very interesting article on the WebProNews.com site. It discusses Cutts' recent silence on t he topic of paid links AND (this is the fun part) the fact that VP of Advertising for Google, Mr. Tim Armstrong himself co-founded the company Associated Content, which pays writers to produce sontent (200,000+ pages and growing at a rate of 2,000 pages/day) for the AdSense ad revenue AND (wait for it, wait for it ...) BUYS LINKS. Oh ya gotta love the irony.

You can read the article on the WebProNews.com site here.

Labels: google, matt cutts, paid links, sitepronews, webpronews

On my daily journey through some top webmaster resources I stumbled upon an article feature over at WebProNews on net neutrality. It's odd that I didn't think to cover this in a previous post as I did touch on it on Webmaster Radio last week. The issue at hand was the neutrality of the Internet which, while the Republicans held Congress the fate of the democracy of the Internet and the way it functions was being threatened. Republican Senator Ted Stevens lead the charge though, as WebPro author Jason Miller so delicately reminded us, he has no real understanding of the way the Internet function referring to it as,"a series of tubes." And as Jon Stewart would point out, "that's OK, he's only the one in charge of regulating it." (See the video below if you're up for a chuckle)

The issue at hand is the placing of control over the Internet and how all those 1's and 0's are handled into the hands of the major telco's such as AT&T. What this would effectively do is allow them to charge for preferential treatment to those who could pay for it giving enormous advantages to major corporations and reducing those who can't afford to pay the extra to settle for slower access to their websites from visitors. Hosting companies should fear this as should small companies that couldn't afford to pay the extra fees (and we all know how "fair" telco's are when they hold monopolies right?)

There is still a chance that the bill could be pushed through in the time it takes for the Democrats to takeover in the Congress and Senate however this may be difficult as any opposing Republicans (and there were some) are more likely to vote with their conscience rather than tow the party line.

While I try keep away from politics in the blog (though I love it as a hobby) I'm truly grateful that the Internet just might maintain its democratic structure. We might not always like what we find there but when we do, it's almost worth the 300 spam emails we had to weed through to find it ;)

The article by Jason Miller on the issue is definitely worth a read and can be found here. You can also find a number of interesting information on the subject through Google News here. And now, enjoy the video. :)

Labels: net neutrality, ted stevens, webpronews