Google has rolled out the +1 button for websites, which allows users to upvote pages, sites, or products that they like. The results of those votes can affect search engine rankings. Google’s +1 button is their latest attempt to add social results to search — much like Bing and Facebook. Here’s how to add the Google +1 button to your site.
Search engine Bing’s integration with Facebook just went into hyperspeed. If you’re logged into Facebook, Bing will now show you Facebook results throughout their search engine results page. They’ll encourage you to Like pages on the internet, direct you to friends, display your friends’ recommendations, strangers’ recommendations, and even automatically post to your Facebook feed.
A question that comes up from time to time in the SEO world from small business owners is “Why pay for SEO? Can’t I just learn to do it myself?” This is especially prevalent after reading an article giving a broad overview of SEO techniques. The answer is simple: yes you can learn SEO, just like you can learn to be a veterinarian. But don’t try to operate on your cat after reading a few online articles.
Google’s Amit Singhal has come out and talked about what kind of things Google looks for in a quality website, and what specific signals indicate high quality vs. low quality that they try to build their algorithm around. He also discusses the Panda update, and why some sites might have had their rankings hurt by it.
Watching the rankings of your relevant keywords is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your search engine optimization efforts. However, before you get too obsessed with that number, realize that rankings aren’t always what they seem — in fact here we see an example where ranking #3 is actually exactly the same as ranking #1.
