Google's Matt Cutts on SEO: A Retrospective (2006-2010)

Welcome to the years of paid links. link bait, Caffeine, Google bombs, and page speed as a ranking factor. By this point, Google's Matt Cutts had plenty of important things to teach us all about the evolving landscape of search and SEO.

Our story continues by looking back at some of Cutts' blog posts, videos, and thoughts from 2006 to 2010 to get a better understanding of where Google's been, which in turn can be a great way to get a feel for where Google (and therefore SEO) is going next.

If you're just joining us, we've been going year by year, highlighting two or three of the biggest splashes he made. This post has been split into three time periods:

2000-20052006-20102011-2013

And away we go...

Matt Cutts in 2006

2006 is a hard year to consolidate into just a few snippets (as is pretty much every year after it) but a few moments stood out most.

BMW

For those who don't know, BMW got busted for hidden content doorway pages on February 4. Tsk tsk, BMW. On the Feb. 7, Cutts posted the following:

"I appreciate BMW's quick response on removing Javascript-redirecting pages from BMW properties. The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW, and Google has reincluded bmw.de in our index. Likewise, ricoh.de has also removed similar doorway pages and has been reincluded in Google's index."

OK – so the quote itself is nothing special, but I needed to include this as it let the world know something very specific. Google is like George Orwell's "Animal Farm". In that book the commandment is, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." It seems the same is true at Google.

I don't expect that if I got busted for cloaking that Google would be in touch with me personally and that I'd actually get an expression of appreciation from Cutts for addressing a violation of their guidelines. This animal is less equal it seems.

Paid Links

On his blog, Cutts often answers user-submitted questions. Here's one:

Q: If one were to offer to sell space on their site (or consider purchasing it on another), would it be a good idea to offer to add a NOFOLLOW tag so to generate the traffic from the advertisement, but not have the appearance of artificial PR manipulation through purchasing of links?

A: Yes, if you sell links, you should mark them with the nofollow tag. Not doing so can affect your reputation in Google.

While Cutts was careful to say it will affect reputation and not that you're get penalized, he's reiterating that paid links (either buying or selling) can and likely will have a negative impact on your rankings. One could easily add "if caught" as it was 2006 and for those who remember, paid links tended to work far better at the time than they do now.

There was always a lot of flak pointed at Google for statements about nofollowing paid links with the assertion that webmaster's shouldn't have to do Google's job for them (I've heard the same about schema). Either way, it's an important Q&A from the context of highlighting the continuing battle between Google and SEOs in the area of paid links. We'll see more on this below.

GoogleGuy on Google Video

I'd love to be able to post Cutts' initial videos from their original source, but alas, they were published over on Google Video before Google had purchased YouTube. Yes, even before YouTube, Cutts was making videos to help webmasters understand how to deal with Google.

On a similar tangent (and as alluded to above) in August Cutts admitted to being GoogleGuy. GoogleGuy was a username he used on a variety of forums to answer questions and at SES San Jose 2007 (a conference I had the pleasure of speaking at giving me the opportunity to witness this confession live).

While not directly related to a Cutts statement, it was on October 9 that the announcement was made that Google would be acquiring YouTube (for a paltry $1.65 billion).

Matt Cutts in 2007

Let's just cut straight to it as 2007 was an interesting year in search.

Privacy

In discussing privacy, Cutts said in his blog:

"I've seen firsthand how much Google works to protect users' privacy. I personally believe that we take more precautions and safeguards than any other major search engine. We also strongly protect users' privacy outside of Google (e.g. last year when the DOJ tried to get access to users' queries, and Google was the only company out of 30+ that said 'no' and went to court about it – and won)."

I'm going to give credit where it's due, say what you will, given the data stores Google has, he's right in that Google has done a decent job of protecting user data from outside access. He goes on to say:

"... your ISP has a superset of data that Google has, because everything you do passes through your ISP. So your ISP may have much more detailed records about places where you go on the net, plus they have a verified identity with something like a credit card, and they actually know which IPs you're on."

Suddenly the switch to "(not provided)" in 2013 makes a lot more sense.

Snippets

Let's begin with a video Cutts produced with the help of Google's Kirkland offices:

In the video, Cutts talks about how the data is selected to appear in the search results. Aside from just being interesting in-and-of-itself, it's a unique opportunity to hear how it was done in 2007. I also find it interesting that when the office had Cutts at their disposal and an hour to kill the first thing they thought to do was create some videos.

SEO Emails and Other Pubcon Musings

Probably my favorite note from Cutts in all of 2007 was when he stated in his keynote at Pubcon, "[The cold call emailers] even e-mail Google with automated messages that say 'we can increase the visibility of Google.com.' Here I thought we were a pretty well-known site."

But that's more for humor. Other great quotes from Pubcon were:

"Linkbaiting is essentially white hat SEO."

As true today is it was then, assuming the bait itself is ethical (i.e., just good content). And:

"Building your strategy around showing up #1 for your trophy phrase is not a good approach. If you're going after that, it's fantastic if you get it, but diversification is even better."

From copy to links to keywords, diversity is security. Write it on your hand so you don't forget.

Essentially Cutts spent Pubcon and much of 2007 taking Google's message from, "Here's what not to do," and adding in the part about, "Here's what you should be doing," in ways that gave webmasters actual action items and not just confusing jargon that left us more confused than helped and worried that the next thing we dreamt up would get added to their naughty list anyways.

Matt Cutts in 2008Free Links

We all love links right? The only problem is that they take so darned long to develop (assuming you're not looking for ones to trigger an "unnatural links" warning/penalty. With this in mind it's the wording Cutts used to announce the launch of what is probably one of the best features in Webmaster Tools. He wrote:

"I can't believe a new feature from Google isn't getting more notice, because it converts already-existing links to your site into much higher quality links, for free. The Google webmaster blog just announced that you can find the pages that link to 404 pages on your site."

Even today this feature doesn't get the attention it deserves, but that's OK. Let's just keep it between us.

Matt Cutts Likes Keyword Cramming

OK, that's obviously tongue in cheek, but a video interview with Cutts helps illustrate the limitations Google faced then and the contradicting nature of what webmasters are told to do.

What Cutts says here is that we need to make sure to get in all the keywords people might search. The problem is twofold:

This isn't going to read properly and is going to use terms people might not be familiar with as synonyms. Fortunately Google has addressed this and is much better and filling in there blanks themselves (e.g., understanding that "usb drive" and "thumb drive" are likely meant to produce the same results).The worse problem: This is exactly the opposite of what would be recommended today. It's this conflicting element that results in animosity and confusion. How can Google hold against me today what they told me to do yesterday?

I include this as a critical bit of Cutts from the year as, while the information itself is interesting enough, it's more this conflict that makes this memorable.

Irrelevant Link Bait

In an interview with Eric Enge, Cutts went on record stating:

"So, what are the links that will stand the test of time? Those links are typically given voluntarily. It is an editorial link by someone, and it's someone that's informed. They are not misinformed, they are not tricked; there is no bait and switch involved. It's because somebody thinks that something is so cool, so useful, or so helpful that they want to make little sign posts so that other people on the web can find that out.

Now, there is also the notion of link bait or things that are just cool; maybe not helpful, but really interesting. And those can stand the test of time as well. Those links are links generated because of the sheer quality of your business or the value add proposition that you have that's unique about your business. Those are the things that no one else can get, because no one else has them or offers the exact same thing that your business offers."

So the interesting thing here that made it one of my favorite tidbits of the year was that Cutts essentially told the truth (for the time) despite the fact that it contradicts previous statements. Here he's saying that a link to a resource that isn't particularly helpful but is cool holds weight which could be construed as meaning that the voluntary nature of a link is more important than its relevancy or usefulness.

Matt Cutts in 2009PageRank Evaporation

The premise of PageRank sculpting is simple: if you have 10 internal links on a page the PageRank internally will flow with 1/10th heading to each target page (I'm brutally over-simplifying here but I'm hoping you'll forgive me).

The idea behind PageRank sculpting was that if you nofollow 5 of those links (e.g., to your privacy policy or other non-keyword-targeting page), then you would pass 1/5th weight to the remaining 5. And in fact, that was exactly the way it worked. Until he revealed that:

"So what happens when you have a page with "ten PageRank points" and ten outgoing links, and five of those links are nofollowed? Let's leave aside the decay factor to focus on the core part of the question. Originally, the five links without nofollow would have flowed two points of PageRank each (in essence, the nofollowed links didn't count toward the denominator when dividing PageRank by the outdegree of the page). More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the five links without nofollow would flow one point of PageRank each."

Essentially this turned everything upside down. Fortunately I personally didn't chase after PageRank sculpting as a strategy as it didn't make sense but rather than it going from being a positive, it turned into a negative with (in the example above) 50 percent of the internal PageRank going absolutely nowhere. This became known as PageRank Evaporation.

Of everything from Cutts in 2009, this may be the more important.

Or was it...

Caffeine

In an interview, Cutts was asked about the Caffeine update. While the full update didn't roll out across Google until 2010 they had put it in a publically accessible sandbox location in August and rolled it out on one live data center later in the year. This video gives great insight into how Google works.

As an infrastructure update, rather than algorithmic, the changes were huge and far-reaching and really showed the push into speed and faster indexing to allow for a broader spectrum of search capabilities predicting advances into new areas of search and new features.

Google Bombs

And one I'm going to include in my shortlist of important tidbits from Cutts was when he wrote on his blog about Google bombs. In answer to a question regarding how automated the detection of Google bombs are when Obama's White House page no longer ranked for "failure" only a few hours after it became public he replied:

"The short answer is that we do two different things – both of them algorithmic – to handle Google bombs: detect Google bombs and then mitigate their impact. The second algorithm (mitigating the impact of Google bombs) is always running in our productionized systems. The first algorithm (detecting Google bombs) has to process our entire web index, so in most typical cases we tend not to run that algorithm every single time we crawl new web data. I think that during 2008 we re-ran the Google bomb detection algorithm 5-6 times, for example.

The defusing algorithm is running all the time, but the algorithm to detect Google bombs is only run occasionally. We re-ran our algorithm last week and it detected both the 'failure' and the 'cheerful achievement' Google bombs, so our system now minimizes the impact of those Google bombs. Instead of a whitehouse.gov URL, you now see discussion and commentary about those queries."

This discussion with Cutts is important for two reasons:

It illustrates the legitimate questioning about the highly coincidental timing of a Google bomb being publically mentioned and it's solving by Google. Are there manual actions being taken? Not if you ask Cutts, but I do sometimes wonder.Nostalgia. I remember the Google bombs well and it's fun to think back to them.

If you don't know about the Google bombs you can find a bit more info on his blog at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/defuse-googlebomb/.

And a Quote ...

To end the 2009 section of this post I'd like to end with a great quote from Cutts in his blog:

"The objective is not to 'make your links appear natural', the objective is that your links are natural."

Good advice.

Matt Cutts in 2010Google I/O

The video is an hour long but it's an interesting enough watch when you have time. Cutts hosts a session at the Google I/O conference and tears some sites apart:

The funniest part comes in at about 5:48 where he essentially recommends being lazy. If you closed your eyes and didn't know who was speaking you'd almost think he was a black hat during this part.

The video itself has nothing revolutionary in it, but I referenced it a number of times and if you want to get a good understanding of where Google was at in 2010, this is great video. It also gave me personally a different take on Cutts and reinforced to me that:

He's a human.He quasi-contradicts himself over time. (See previous point)Page Speed

In February, Cutts put out a video discussing the important of page speed vs. relevancy:

In this he alluded to Google potentially using this as a factor in ranking.

Two months later he discussed the announcement that they were doing just that in his blog. On the subject he wrote:

"I know that there will be a lot of discussion about this change, and some people won't like it. But I'm glad that Google is making this step, both for the sake of transparency (letting webmasters know more about how to do better in Google) and because I think this change will make the web better. My takeaway messages would be three-fold: first, this is actually a relatively small-impact change, so you don't need to panic. Second, speeding up your website is a great thing to do in general. Visitors to your site will be happier (and might convert more or use your site more), and a faster web will be better for all. Third, this change highlights that there are very constructive things that can directly improve your website's user experience. Instead of wasting time on keyword meta tags, you can focus on some very easy, straightforward, small steps that can really improve how users perceive your site."

This was a pivotal moment in SEO. Until this point all we'd heard from Cutts in regards to rankings had mainly to do with content, links, link structure, and making sure the code allowed the bots to get through and prioritize.

This was the first time crawlable code was compared with other crawlable code and one deemed better than the other to a point where it was made a ranking factor. SEO was no longer just about getting good content in front of visitors; it had become about making changes no one would notice to eek fractions of seconds improvements in things like load time.

SEO grew up then and Cutts was the one who announced it.

The saga continues... Continue reading Google's Matt Cutts on SEO: A Retrospective (2011-2013).

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The Aftermath: Clarifications & Expert Reactions To Google’s Move To Secure Paid Search Queries

Yesterday, Google announced it is expanding secure search to clicks on paid ads. The change means that the search query a user typed in before clicking on an ad will be dropped from the referrer string in the URL and won’t be passed to analytics or other software other than AdWords.

The move is aimed at bringing parity to the treatment of search query referrer data from search ad clicks and organic clicks, which have had search query referrer data stripped from all Google secure search queries since last year.

This Not A Huge Disruption

As Jeremy Hull, director of bought media at iProspect, said by phone yesterday, the change sounded panic-inducing when they were first told by Google reps about it. In reality, he says, the move won’t have a significant impact on the work that most search marketers do or the platforms many of them rely on.

That sentiment was also echoed yesterday by Matt Ackley, CMO at Marin Software, who told me before the announcement was official that it �would not be that big a deal,� and George Michie RKG co-founder and chief marketing scientist, who wrote, “This is an annoyance, but in the great scheme of things, it�s not a major problem” in his Search Engine Land column.

Data Access In AdWords Is Status Quo

First, to clear up some basic definitions in paid search: the keyword is the term an advertiser bids on; the search query is the term a user types in the search bar. Using them interchangeably can cause confusion. And, telling search marketers they won’t have access to keyword data in analytics is a lot different than saying they won’t have search query data in analytics.

There has also been confusion around whether advertisers would still have access to search query data at all. WordStream CTO Larry Kim summed up why removing the search query from the URL isn’t going to cause massive disruption to paid search in the title of his post: Paid Search Query Data Is Not Dead. AdWords interface and AdWords API users will still have access to search query data. The beloved search term report in AdWords is still available.

Paid search advertisers have had, and will continue to have, access to both keyword data and search query data. The change in access is that search query data will no longer be available in analytics if the click came through Google secure search. If you’re plugged into AdWords, you’ll still get search query data.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we know.

What’s NOT changing:As stated above, advertisers will still have access to search query (the words users search on before clicking on an ad) data in AdWordsThe API Search Query Performance report and AdWords scripts Report service will still allow companies to automate keyword management with query dataKeyword (the words advertisers bid on) performance data will still be available in analytics and AdWordsAdvertisers will still be able to bid on all keyword match types and see which search queries triggered those keywords by match typeGoogle Analytics data at the keyword level (what’s actually being bid on) in AdWords will still be available if the accounts are linkedWhat IS changing:For clicks derived from Google secure search, the “q=search+query” referrer (as shown in this example http://www.google.com/search?q=pink+jeans) will be dropped from the referrer string in the URLThus, the search query referrer data won’t pass to analtyics packages, and will show up as matched search query “(not provided)”. This is a big bummer from an analysis point of view. Lots of marketers use the depth of metrics provided in analytics — and only analytics — to make decisions based on the performance of matched search queries.Reporting in analytics will increasingly reflect the change with a rising percentage of (not provided) clicks from paid searchSoftware that pulls search queries from the referrer — to populate dynamic landing pages, for example — will need to move to using the keyword the advertiser bid on. Others like keyword expansion tools can switch to getting query data out of AdWords.Bid Management Platforms Remain Largely Unaffected

Again, this is a key point. This move does not spell the end of paid search management platforms, as I wrote yesterday. Google notified many of the large paid search management platforms in advance that this change was coming so they could figure out what the implications might be. Marin’s Ackley has said that platform would not be affected because, like most other paid search platforms, Marin’s�analtyics, bidding and optimization functionality relies on keyword data — not search queries. Other platforms including Adobe, WordStream and other AdWords API partners are also not affected.

Kenshoo posted on the subject today, “Our core bidding, optimization, measurement, and forecasting capabilities will continue to function normally because keyword data, not search query data, is used for most of our algorithmic analysis and optimization.”

Some companies had been using the search query referrer in their keyword expansion tools. Again, this is not a huge set back. They can switch to get this data from the AdWords API and Webmaster Tools instead, which is what Kenshoo, for example, says it does already.

Google Tags Become More Important

Chris Halua, product manager for Adobe Media Optimizer, said by phone yesterday that they have been working to apply Google tags for clients in addition to their existing Adobe tags in order to get the search query�conversion data in AdWords into their systems. “If you’ve been living without a Google tag, it’s now necessary,” says, Halua. He stressed that now is a good time to consider a tag manager “so next time there’s a change, you’re not having to re-tag everything”.

Outstanding Questions

There are still several unknowns here which Google has not provided comment on. One of which is whether the AdWords Matched Search Queries report will continue to live on in Google Analytics. Valuetrack parameters pass exact match keyword referrer data as of this morning. Will that functionality end? And, I’m sure there are others.

I’ve also heard that Google will be aggregating search query data in ways it doesn’t currently, in part to prevent advertisers from being able to tie a specific search query to a specific conversion in order to identify that customer. Halua at Adobe said Google would not specify how the aggregation would happen — by time block, traffic block, etc. — but that it would happen. Again, we haven’t been able to verify if the aggregation practices will change and if so, how, with Google.

We’ll begin to see the results of this move over the next month or so. For now, most search marketers and service providers will continue to proceed as normal.

4 Essential Trends in Social Media Marketing in 2014

The energy was sky high at Social Media Marketing World this year.

Marketers, brands, consultants and business owners from over 40 different countries gathered together to learn about the latest innovations in social media marketing, rub shoulders with social media rockstars, and enjoy unprecedented networking opportunities. Having the event in beautiful San Diego CA didn�t hurt either.

I had the pleasure of sitting in the opening keynote speech from the conference organizer Michael Stelzner, and he did not disappoint. Setting the tone for the days to come, Michael discussed the trends that he thinks will be making the biggest impact in social media marketing in 2014. Smart marketers should take note, because his presentation was chock full of excellent opportunities for businesses to increase the value they are getting from social throughout the coming year and beyond. Below are four key takeaways:

Visual Content will be a HUGE focus in Social in 2014

From memes to infographics to in-the-moment instagram images, brands big and small are already getting huge engagement from visual content, and 2014 will be the year that visual content truly takes over in social.

A common misconception is that visual content requires significant resources to create, which is simply not true. In fact simple, easy to digest content often receives the highest volume of engagement. For example, the image below from Social Media Examiner was one of the most popular posts ever to grace their Facebook page.

According to research from Social Media Examiner, 70% of marketers plan to increase their use of visual assets in 2014; will you be one of them?

Blogging will Continue to Rule

Business blogging has seen a meteoric rise in the last few years, and all signs point to the trend continuing in force in 2014. Unlike your social brand pages, a successful business blog is a platform you own, and thus should serve as the hub of your social presence.

While curated content is a key piece of a successful content strategy, 58% of marketers say that original content is still the most important content asset for their business. Blogging is a great way to speak your brands unique voice.

Google Plus will Graduate from Ghost Town to Metropolis

Google Plus had a somewhat rocky start, with many calling it a ghost town or complaining that it was being forced upon YouTube users, but it�s come a long way since. According to recent research from Social Media Examiner, Google+ tops the list of social networks that marketers want to learn and master in 2014.

Particularly with the recent changes to Facebook�s Newsfeed Algorithm�and their statements about marketers needing to pay for traffic, the ad free environment of Google+ is a breath of fresh air. Similar to search, this means that Google+ is a truly organic platform where brands who create and promote the best quality content will be the winners. Also, unlike Facebook, where currently only 6% of brand posts ever make it into your audience�s newsfeed� without paid promotion, every Google+ update makes it into your follower feeds. Need I even mention the search benefits from Google+?

Major brands such as Dell, Experian, and The Huffington Post are investing in Google+ in a big way, and all businesses should be taking action.

Podcasting will Dramatically Increase in Popularity and Reach

Starting out primarily as a means to increase registrations to SMMW, Michael explained how the�Social Media Marketing Podcast has turned into much more, and today is one of his company�s most important marketing assets.

In Michaels words, �podcast listeners are super fans�, which he backed up with some very impressive stats, including that 75% of SMM podcast listeners are also blog subscribers and 26% of them were #SMMW14 attendees. Being a regular listener myself, I can certainly understand why.

One of the biggest advantages of podcasts is that the format lends itself to reaching your audience at a time when few other digital channels can, in the car. What other channel can you routinely expect to engage with your audience in an intimate environment for such an extended period of time (the avg podcast episode is 45 minutes)?

Michael predicts that soon all vehicles will have podcast support built in, making this a golden opportunity for marketers and businesses to get in the podcasting game.

With social media evolving at an incredible speed, it�s vitally important for businesses to stay on top of the changes in order to get the most value from their social marketing investment. How will you be taking advantage of these trends in your social media marketing strategy in 2014?

Google Tests Video Search Results Without Thumbnail Images

For the longest time, videos found within Google’s search results contained thumbnail images of a frame within the video. That is how Google has displayed richer search results, ever since the days of Universal Search.

It seems like Google is testing making those video results a bit less rich by removing the video thumbnail image and replacing it with a small, gray, play button followed by the time of the video.

Craig Gilhooly posted a screen shot of the new user interface test on Twitter. Here is a picture:

Here is what it currently looks like to the average searcher:

News Flash: Paid Search Query Data Isn't Going Away (Duh)

This week there have been all sorts of rumors and even official news reports in various search marketing publications claiming that search query data for paid search is dead, along the same lines as how organic search query data was eliminated last year.

Unfortunately, the reporting on this story to date has been rather heavy on speculation and ambiguity and light on hard facts. It's one of the most butchered stories on paid search that I've witnessed in recent memory. In my article today, I'll clarify everything I know about this issue – but before going into all the details, there are just two very simple, yet critical points that you need to know:

You Can Still See Your Paid Search Queries: One of the most common uses for search query data in AdWords is keyword expansion and negative keyword expansion via the search terms report in AdWords. Google ad execs told me clearly today: "No changes to search terms report."Major Third-Party SEM Platform Providers Not Impacted: If you use an SEM platform like, Acquisio, WordStream, Marin Software, Kenshoo, Adobe (etc.), then you can still access your AdWords search term report as you've been doing in the past.

At this point you might be wondering, so what the heck is all the fuss about? It's a good question.

I emailed AdWords director of product management Paul Feng yesterday morning to see if he could shed some light on the reported "leaked Google document" that's been circulating the past few days. He then published a post on the Google Developer's blog to clear up the confusion. Let's analyze it in detail together.

Official Google Announcement

We've long worked to keep your searches on Google secure. We provided SSL encryption for signed-in searches in 2011 and have rolled that out to searches from the omnibox in the Chrome browser. Today, we are extending our efforts to keep search secure by removing the query from the referer on ad clicks originating from SSL searches on Google.com.

Translation

Previously, when you clicked on a paid search ad, for example, a search for an "emergency locksmith service," the referring URL looked something like this:

Notice how the user's search query (the user's search that triggered the ad, highlighted in yellow) shows up in the referring URL – going forward, citing security reasons, this is pretty much all going away. But as I said earlier, the vast majority of you don't need to worry about this – it's not at all the same situation as how your organic search query data went away.

You can still get this data, just like you used to do. How?

Official Google Announcement

Advertisers will continue to have access to useful data to optimize and improve their campaigns and landing pages. For example, you can access detailed information in the AdWords search terms report and the Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report.

Translation

This is pretty self-explanatory. You can just keep on using the detailed, useful information in search terms report as you were previously using. I seriously don't know how this could be any clearer.

Official Google Announcement

The AdWords search terms report (previously known as the search query performance report) lets you see search queries that generated ad clicks along with key performance data. And the Search Queries report available in Google Webmaster Tools provides aggregate information about the top 2000 queries, each day that generated organic clicks.

Translation

Again, pretty self-explanatory. They're basically just explaining what a search term report is for people who haven't ever used it before.

Basically, the search term report is a super valuable tool to figure out what search queries triggered the ads that your users clicked on, so that you can analyze and optimize your paid search campaigns. This isn't a new report (despite reports to the contrary), nor is it changing!

Official Google Announcement

If you use the query in the referer for reporting, automated keyword generation or landing page customization, then we suggest using the following alternatives:

For generating reports or automating keyword management with query data, we suggest using the AdWords API Search Query Performance report or the AdWords scripts Report service.For customizing landing pages, we suggest using the keyword that generated the ad click, rather than the query. The keyword and match type can be passed to your web server by using a ValueTrack parameter in your destination URLs.Translation

If for some reason you were using that referral URL, which used to contain the user's search query, there are still plenty of easy workarounds here. As mentioned earlier, you can just run a report in AdWords, or using a dynamic parameter called ValueTrack (which isn't a new feature) you can append your keyword data back into your destination URL in a non-encrypted way.

Official Google Announcement

We understand that some partners may need to make changes to their systems and operations, but we think that this is the right path forward for the security of our users searching on Google.com.

Translation

What Google has done here is that that they've made it so that only AdWords customers can access their own paid search data. They're citing security as the reason for doing this, which is definitely true but there are other benefits to Google for having made this change.

For example, third-party retargeting ad networks that leveraged paid search query data as a signal to determine what ads to show to what people will no longer have that information. Same with competing search engines, etc.

Key TakeawaysPretty much all the early coverage of this issue to date has been inaccurate. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. Instead, try asking for proof from a credible source.Comparing what is happening here with paid search data to last year's keyword "(not provided)" debacle is totally inaccurate.Specifically, while the actual referral URL will be changing, Google is still making that data accessible via the search terms report, which isn't even a new thing despite reports to the contrary. And if you still for whatever reason need search query data appended to your destination URLs, using ValueTrack parameters gets you very close.

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56% of Marketers Using Mobile PLAs [Study]

Understanding how your competitors leverage data and manage campaigns is important, especially for competitive advertising platforms like Google Shopping.

Digital marketing software company Kenshoo has released a study outlining how 89 search marketers use product listing ads (PLAs) in their marketing campaigns. Below are some of the key findings, and how they impact your Google Shopping ads.

What Are Marketers Doing on PLAs?Most Marketers Think PLAs Are a Good Investment

83 percent of marketers find PLA performance to be on par with, or better than, traditional text ads.

Of the Google advertisers polled, only 17 percent believe PLAs perform worse than traditional paid search text ads, while 67 percent think PLAs perform better than paid search ads.

What Does It Mean for You?

For most merchants, PLAs will bring much more traffic and spend due to the nature of the PLAs in a retail-based search on Google. Advertisers are using PLAs to generate revenue, often more than their current paid search campaigns.

If you aren't running Google Shopping ads, you're in the minority. Be sure to continue to test PLA structure, bids, and budget for optimal performance.

More Than Half of Google PLA Marketers Don't Have a Separate PLA budget

62 percent of marketers bundle PLA budgets in with their traditional search budgets, while 29 percent allocate new, incremental budgets to support PLAs.

So while 83 percent of advertisers think PLAs perform as good as or better than paid search, only just more than half of them are allocating a portion of their total paid search ad budget to Google Shopping ads.

What Does It Mean for You?

Only 29 percent of Google PLA advertisers have a separate budget for product listing ads, even though most admit the program has a better ROI than paid search. It's easy to create a separate budget for PLAs within AdWords with a separate campaign, and PLAs are likely to perform better for you. If you can afford it, you most likely want a separate PLA ad budget.

Note: This isn't always true for merchants with very large PPC campaigns that are built out and mature or websites which are selling specialized products (e.g., FSA Stores) or services.

Almost 60 Percent of PLA Merchants Use Mobile PLAs

56 percent of Google Advertisers are using mobile PLAs.

Among Google's newer features, mobile has a significant adoption rate for advertisers, which notes how valuable advertisers deem mobile. In comparison, 67 percent of advertisers aren't using local storefronts, another newer feature. Local storefronts aren't widely available to merchants yet, but 17 percent of advertisers don't even know they exist – compared to 7 percent for mobile PLAs.

What Does It Mean for You?

Advertisers are using mobile PLAs to increase traffic and conversions across devices. Depending on your site and inventory, you may want to test mobile for your PLAs. If you are eligible, you should also experiment with local storefronts, as most advertisers aren't yet using that Google feature.

What Marketers Are Doing Wrong on PLAsIncluding Their PLA Budget in Paid Search

The majority of Google advertisers include their PLA budget as part of paid search, even though 83 percent of those marketers admit PLAs traditionally perform better.

Having All Products in One Product Group

Ten percent of Google advertisers are still using one product group for PLAs (e.g., all products). While this is a good introductory structure when you're first testing PLAs, you should build out your campaign structure. Only 42 percent of the advertisers polled have multiple category levels for ad groups, which is the type of campaign structure you should have for PLAs.

Conclusion

Product listing ads are transitioning into Google Shopping Campaigns in less than 100 days, which is how long you have to learn how to use the new campaign structure, and figure out what your competitors are doing on Google.

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The 4 Most Interesting Features in Google Shopping Campaigns

Last week, Google confirmed that it would be forcing migrations from the current PLA format to the new Shopping Campaigns by August. Immediately many compared it to last year’s enhanced campaign migration.

While last year’s update seemed to serve Google only, by forcing a combination of campaign types that advertisers wanted to keep separate, this update should be very beneficial to advertisers. Here are the most compelling new features Google is rolling out, with some color on how they will benefit retailers going forward.

1. SKU Level Reporting

With this update, Google is finally giving retailers SKU level detail around their PLA performance in both the interface and via their API. Previously this was only available in analytics or campaign management tools that were configured appropriately to track SKU level PLA data.

By opening this up to the masses, Google is enabling retailers to glean some of the following insights:

How Google matches SKUs to queries. Which variants within an item group are actually displaying. Frequency of sale items being displayed vs. non-sale items. What happens when you set priority on certain items.2. Custom Labels

By adding five custom feed labels, Google has given retail marketers who can manipulate feeds more flexibility around how they manage campaigns. Historically you would give Google a feed and let the chips fall where they may – now this feature allows you to better control your merchandise within the channel.

Custom labeling will allow retailers to integrate more detailed product information into their feeds and ultimately their campaigns. If you wanted to heavily promote distressed inventory, high margin offerings, products where you have limited price competition, or loss leaders, you can now create your product groups to align with those buckets.

3. Campaign Prioritization

Google now gives the ability to prioritize certain products or segments within the campaign so that retailers can drive traffic to those products without the complexity of having to adjust bids up and down to hope that they might trump others.

One example of this is the ability to create a campaign around all items that are on promotion such that promotional products always have priority when a set of products is triggered by a user query.

4. Impression Share

PLA bidding seemed like something of a black box prior to this update. Often advertisers bid quite a bit higher and not increase their traffic/revenue due to the fact that they were already in top positions, while others needed only slight bid increases to move into position and generate considerably more traffic.

With the inclusion of impression share in reporting, Google is offering a glimpse into what is necessary to gain coveted PLA positioning, which should help decision making going forward.

Impression share isn't the share of all of your possible traffic that you are occupying. Rather, it just represents the marketplaces that you are eligible for today. Bidding more is thus not the only way to improve impression volume off of these reports – if you improve your feed content, you should see more matching and higher impression volume as well.

Summary

There is a lot to like in this Google update and there are many more features to benefit marketers above and beyond the ones listed here. However, if you're fearful that you won’t be up to speed by August on everything that will change in PLA, focusing on these four will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

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Was the Outrage Over the Links in This Matt Cutts Interview Warranted?

Ever been curious about the types of products that Google's Matt Cutts uses in his day-to-day life? He shared this information last week in an interview with The Setup detailing his day-to-day hardware and software, and his dreams on how to get things done.

As you can imagine, the interview is extremely link heavy. Not surprisingly it sparked a discussion about affiliate links, paid links, and whether the linking in this type of interview is natural.

Suspicious Links?

When you do take a look at the links within the article, while there are a lot of them, there's nothing suspicious about any of them. They all link to the various company sites for the individual products he mentions. And there were many generic products that weren't linked at all. None of them were affiliate links within the interview.

Cutts somewhat surprised by the way people reacted to the links he supplied to the site – and yes, he supplied the links, it wasn't the website adding their own links. And to be fair, if anyone is going to be linking anything with a white hat firmly atop his head, it's Cutts.

In fact, the only link on the entire sites that I could find, including interviews with other people, is the simple affiliate link for the web hosting the footer, something that is still incredibly common these days.

That One Affiliate Link...

Many people also jumped on that affiliate link in the footer – something that was obviously well outside of the scope of Cutts' interview, but which was a full PageRank passing link.

But Cutts was called out about it. However, on April 7, the link was changed to have a nofollow attribute on it, and the change was made site wide.

After the link had been changed, Cutts tweeted that the link was nofollow.

And That Keyword-Rich Anchor Text

In regards to the many links within the interview, the links have great anchor text, and no they aren't no followed, but in that regards, does Microsoft or Apple really benefit from those links? Even the smaller companies rank first for their company names – which is the keyword or keyword phrase linked – so there is not the benefit directly from anchor text.

There are lots of people talking about how it is a guest post, right on the heels of both Cutts seeing that guest blogging is dead, and the widely publicized penalty recently given to MyBlogGuest. But clearly it's not a guest post, is simply an interview, which follows the exact same formats as all the other interviews on the site. MyBlogGuest has a very strong and vocal supporter crowd who were trying to use this as an example of why MyBlogGuest shouldn't be penalized if Cutts could do a "guest blog."

The fact is that there are also several hundred interviews, all with non-affiliate product links that link to the company page, and no one has had a problem with it before. In fact many Googlers have participated - including those who have had involvement with the Google search in some capacity.

So is Matt Cutts a Hypocrite?

The debate about this one post has pretty interesting to watch on Twitter. Some are arguing that it was a spam guest blog post, others are arguing that nothing to do with link spam because it's simply linking to products he mentions – products that were the main purpose of the interview in the first place. And then there were some who are commenting about the products themselves.

Cutts seems to firmly practice what he preaches. He has often posted links for his many "what to read" blog posts he has done on his personal blog, and not once has he slipped an affiliate link in, although if he did, he would probably earn enough Amazon affiliate revenue to make even hardened affiliate marketers envious. And yes, the links were links that pass PageRank, but again, a company such as Amazon doesn't really need to worry about link juice.

But for many in our industry, particularly those who have either been penalized by Google or who live in fear of it, tend to see Cutts as the head of the spam team, and as the sole person to blame for their search ranking woes. And unless you are pretty high on the radar, or openly flaunt Google's rules, it definitely isn't personal. But it does mean that Cutts gets scrutinized for everything from any interview he does, tweet he makes, or even the T-shirt he happens to wear at a conference or in a webmaster help video.

Bottom Line

Cutts' interview, while it certainly looked link heavy at first glance, was not spammy as it linked product names and company names to the company's own homepage. It followed an identical linking profile as all of the other interviews on the site. The one affiliate link that was outside of the scope of his interview was no-followed a few days later.

Will this be the last time that Cutts does something that will raise the ire of webmasters and SEOs? Certainly not, especially as we know a Google SERP shakeup is coming. But Cutts as the head of the spam team is the perfect target for those looking for a way to fight back at Google and Cutts, even when the accusation is not fair.

It is clearly an interview, not a "Matt Cutts guest blog post" and the links were perfectly legitimate links directed at relevant company sites for products, not "paid links." And the drama surrounding it was unwarranted, with the slight exception for that affiliate footer link that has since been corrected.

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80% of Local Searches on Mobile Phones Convert [Study]

We’re operating in a multi-screen world, where users turn to multiple devices to find what they need. This is especially true in the world of local search, where, according to recent survey findings, 63 percent now using multiple devices to find a local business. And, 79 percent of them are mobile phone users, while 81 percent are tablet owners, according to the research.

But what are they searching for, and what do they expect to find? More importantly, do they convert? These are the questions sought to be answered by research commissioned by Neustar and 15miles, and conducted by comScore. Let’s look at a few highlights of the findings.

What People are Searching for Locally

The survey results show categories of businesses that are the most popular in local search, and no surprise, restaurants are among the top: 

According to the survey:

Restaurants are searched for 23 percent of the time. Auto service establishments and dealerships at a rate of 10 percent.Arts and entertainment at 9 percent.What Results Mobile Searchers Expect

Many businesses today are looking past the initial hurdle of having a mobile-optimized site, and asking, “What content do we serve our mobile users?” Well, 65 percent of smartphone users said their searches were “driven by a need for information on the go.” 

“As a result, mobile phone and tablet searchers don’t want to be overwhelmed with content, but do expect details like addresses (mobile) and basic product/service information (mobile and tablet),” the survey announcement said. 

How Local Searches Convert

Four out of five searches via mobile devices lead to a purchase, often within a few hours, the survey said. Compared with other devices, the mobile phone showed the highest conversion rate, with nearly 80 percent of mobile phone searches ending in a purchase. 

And, nearly three out of four of those mobile phone searches that converted brought the customer into a brick-and-mortar store. 

“This research may be our clearest indication yet of the ongoing maturation of the mobile market,” said Brian Wool, vice president of content distribution at Neustar. He added that consumers “expect a consistent and navigable search functionality that serves up exactly the depth and quality of information they need.” 

For more on the findings, here is an infographic highlighting the survey results:  

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Google Takes Action On Seven Link Networks In Japan

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced on Twitter this morning that Google has “taken action” on seven different link networks in Japan.

Over the past several months, Google has not only been manual taking action against link networks or link schemes in the US, but they have been widening their efforts across the world.

Google’s Cutts said the action they took on the seven Japanese link networks happened over the past “few months.” How would you know if your site was impacted? Well, it likely only impacts Japanese related sites that participated in link networks within that region. But if you were hit, you should have seen a notification in your Google Webmaster Tools account or see a “manual action” in the same place.

Here is Matt’s tweet from this morning:

Incredibly proud of Japanese webspam team. Over last few months they’ve taken action on seven link networks! Makes playing field more level.

� Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) April 8, 2014

 

Related EntriesGoogle Penalizes Two German Link Networks; One Being efamousGoogle Targets Two Polish Link Networks While Continuing To Target German Link NetworksGoogle Penalized A Germany Agency & Their Clients For Link Schemes, Says Matt CuttsGoogle Takes Down Another Link Network, France’s BuzzeaGoogle May Have Penalized Another Major Link Network: Ghost Rank 2.0“Text Link Ads” Was Latest Hit By Google’s Actions Against Link SellersGoogle Zaps Another Link Network, ‘Several Thousand’ Link Sellers HitDid Google Just Penalize Another Link Network? SAPE LinksGoogle Eliminates Another Link Network, BuildMyRank.com – Just One Of Several?

5 Steps to Content Marketing Awesome – You Can Do This!

Successful content marketing programs are ongoing communications efforts that empathize with customers and deliver useful experiences. Each content object published is a promise to the community that something relevant, useful and info-raining is in store.

Consistently producing content experiences that inform and inspire creates one of the most powerful customer states: anticipation. Few things are more powerful for attracting a loyal following of customers and advocates than the anticipation to see what�s coming next.

But how can companies with slim budgets create such a content marketing program? While there are entire books on the subject, I think these are the 5 essential components for initiating a growing momentum of content awesome.

1. Identify customer segments – Start with something as simple as best and worst customer scenarios. What are the common characteristics of the customers you want to do business with? What distinguishes the need or reason to buy your products and services for one group of customers compared to another? What are the demographic and behavioral differences amongst groups of customers? Create profiles or personas for each distinct customer group.

2. Map the buying journey – For each customer segment, what are their preferences for information discovery, consumption and taking action? What channels are influential during the buying cycle? Do they use search? Do they use social? Do they respond to paid or social ads? Do they subscribe? What is it like for them to buy from you from awareness to interest to consideration to purchase. Map it out – for each customer segment.

3. What questions do buyers have during the sales cycle? – Every customer has questions that lead them to purchase. What are your customers asking? For each customer segment and each customer journey from awareness to purchase, identify the important questions your buyers need answered into order to gain the confidence and certainty needed to buy from you. Survey your customers, look at your on-site search engine for logged queries to find questions used as search terms, look at social networks for relevant common questions as well.

4. Leverage those Q & A�s for your content plan – The most fundamental and impactful thing a business with little marketing resources can do to create awesome content marketing results is to answer the questions customers have as they go from awareness to purchase. BUT: Don’t just inform your customers, help them feel that your business is the best answer by providing experiences. Articles are great, but videos, interactive tools and engagement with other customers in the same situation is even better.

5. Optimize for search, social, and user experience – �Don’t fall victim to random acts of marketing disease. Organize your content Q and A according to customer segment and how they will discover, consume and be inspired to act on your content. Optimize your content for what buyers are searching for – use the language of the active buyer, who is looking for solutions. Optimize for social discovery and sharing too. Also optimize to info-tain and to create a great user experience. Make it easy to find the right information and for buyers to act with speed and convenience. Solve information problems with your content but also create great experiences when finding, consuming and acting on that content as well.

If you have to, start small focusing on your best customer segment with a blog, video and one or two social networks. Walk before you run and develop some kind of hypothesis for your initial experiments with answers based content. Just understand that these 5 steps are the content marketing muscles you�ll need to exercise on a regular basis to create momentum, anticipation and content awesome that builds community and grows revenue.

Photo: Shutterstock

Report: Google To Block Paid Search Keyword Data With Not Provided; Like Organic “Not Provided”

There are reports we are receiving from a few sources, including AJ Ghergich who posted it on his blog, that Google will soon stop passing keyword data to analytics software, even for AdWords advertisers.

We expected changes to not provided in the near future, and based on these reports, the likelihood of advertisers being stripped of keyword data is high.

When Google moved to secure search in October 2011, it was a major setback to publishers, who began losing data about the keywords used to reach their sites. That opened up Google to claims of hypocrisy, in that advertisers continued to receive the terms while others didn’t. By Google applying this to advertisers as well, it would close that claim of hypocrisy by setting the same standard for organic search terms and paid search terms.

Search Engine Land has spoken to our own trusted sources as well, and these sources have confirmed the reports that Google will soon stop passing keyword data to advertisers. This means:

Google will likely cease stop providing referrer data for paid clicks on AdWords adsAdvertisers may see [not provided] in their Google Analytics reports or other analytics provider reports for paid search clicksThe AdWords reports will remain unaffected

Our sources says Google is likely to announce this within the week, and the change may go live as soon as a few weeks from now.

Google would not confirm these reports with us when we asked them today.

Postscript: Google has now announced the change. See Official: Google Brings �Not Provided� To Ads, Will Withhold Search Query Data From Paid Clicks

The Future of Link Building: 5 Important Messages

Best practices rapidly change within SEO as technologies (and Google's guidelines) evolve. But one thing hasn't changed: the importance of links.

Obviously there are other fundamental concerns (e.g., indexation, crawlability, duplicate content, site architecture), but link acquisition needs to be an active consideration.

Links are still the strongest signal we can give to Google about the importance of our content and site. So, if you're working to increase search visibility, links need to be a primary consideration.

The water is muddy right now though with Google's war on spam links, and from what I've observed attending recent conferences I think a few messages need to be addressed within SEO:

Links are still the core of Google's search algorithm.Link building and content marketing are fundamentally different.Content marketing is difficult to do well. SEO pros often don't have the required skill set for high-level content creation.Link building can supercharge your content marketing efforts.You can still build links even if you don't have great content.1. Links are Still the Core of Google's Search Algorithm

Links are still immensely powerful.

This is confirmed by:

1. Moz's 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors.

2. Matt Cutts, Google's distinguished engineer, in two different webmaster videos:

3. Amit Singhal, Google's head of search.

But we're all aware of Google's recent crackdown on link building activities. We're aware that MyBlogGuest didn't really deserve the penalty, and that more realistically it was a PR move.

But because we represent real, legitimate companies who are looking to grow their online visibility long term, we need to make sure our strategies are safe, effective, and just as long term. This has led SEO professionals to search for new ways to ensure safe and powerful links are created.

Because links are still the core of Google's search algorithm, and we all know it.

This has led many people who were previously doing SEO toward content marketing, with their primary concern being links.

2. Link Building and Content Marketing are Fundamentally Different

Let's be honest: there are many right now who think that content marketing is the new link building, and have labeled it "link acquisition" or "link earning."

But content marketing is not link building. Nor is it even SEO – there's no guarantee that your content will be visible in search, nor is creating more content guaranteed to make your site more visible in search. And you're certainly not going to get the links if you don't do the work.

Content marketing is wholly different than link building or SEO. SEO is about increasing search visibility. Content marketing is about creating valuable content worth sharing.

You shouldn't be approaching content marketing from a link building/SEO perspective – it'll lead to terrible content, I guarantee it.

How often do we complain about yet another garbage blog post, infographic, roundup, whatever the current content flavor is? Content fatigue (and content shock) is a very real problem. We certainly see it more than most.

Your primary concern when building content should be providing value, furthering your brand message/values, and engaging with your target audience.

Sounds easy, but it's really, really difficult.

3. Content Marketing is Difficult to do Well

SEO pros often don't have the required skillset for high-level content creation.

Content creation potentially requires:

Industry expertsWritersEditorsDesignersTechnical (coders, web dev, app dev, etc.)

Content marketing requires the support of a host of people with diverse skills, including creative, technical, industry experts, graphic, etc. Without significant investment to ensure the content remains unique, valuable, and engaging, you're simply wasting your time, money, and resources.

Thinking a single person can do all this work is daft. Thinking that those skilled at SEO naturally have all these skills is just as bad. Will some be able to make the transition? Sure. Will all? Definitely not, nor should they.

SEO pros don't have to become content marketers.

4. Link Building Can Supercharge Your Content Marketing Efforts

Every content marketing campaign should involve SEO.

Creating amazing content isn't enough – you still need to market it. SEO can help increase the visibility of content, especially if your team has a strong link building background.

SEO pros have the skill set to:

Find similar content and:Find people and websites who have shared, mentioned, or linked previously.Find people and websites who would be interested in sharing, mentioning, or linking.Outreach persuasively to generate links, shares, and mentions.Help determine future content ideas that have a high chance of success.Ensure best practices for search are used on-page and on-site, within the content.Leverage previous relationships and industry understanding (assuming they've worked in the niche before).Advise paid options as well – most SEO folks are capable when it comes to both social media and PPC.

If you're going to invest in content, you need to invest in visibility. Having an if-you-build-it-they-will-come attitude it today's content era is ridiculous, considering the amount of content produced and the very real content fatigue happening online.

Without intelligent marketing you're leaving valuable opportunities on the table. A good SEO can supercharge great content, promote decent content, and even salvage mediocre content.

5. You Can Still Build Links Even if You Don't Have Great Content

Content marketing and link building are definitely compatible, and can create a marketing flywheel.

However, that doesn't mean you have to be involved in content marketing to build links.

For many sites content marketing simply doesn't make sense – either due to their size, target audience, culture, resources, or products. There is no one-size-fits-all online marketing solution. But there's other ways to build good links that make sense.

Without content, you can build links using:

Fresh MentionsLocal linksHAROBroken link buildingRelevant niche or local directoriesContestsReviewsCommunity engagement

Focus on the human value – build links that you would want even if Google didn't exist. Build links that are for the betterment of mankind, and the web. Build links that you wouldn't hesitate to show a friend, colleague, or even competitor.

Real link building has always been a creative endeavor, requiring added value. And content certainly isn't the only way to add value to the web.

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Google Takes Action On Seven Link Networks In Japan

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced on Twitter this morning that Google has “taken action” on seven different link networks in Japan.

Over the past several months, Google has not only been manual taking action against link networks or link schemes in the US, but they have been widening their efforts across the world.

Google’s Cutts said the action they took on the seven Japanese link networks happened over the past “few months.” How would you know if your site was impacted? Well, it likely only impacts Japanese related sites that participated in link networks within that region. But if you were hit, you should have seen a notification in your Google Webmaster Tools account or see a “manual action” in the same place.

Here is Matt’s tweet from this morning:

Incredibly proud of Japanese webspam team. Over last few months they’ve taken action on seven link networks! Makes playing field more level.

� Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) April 8, 2014

 

Related EntriesGoogle Penalizes Two German Link Networks; One Being efamousGoogle Targets Two Polish Link Networks While Continuing To Target German Link NetworksGoogle Penalized A Germany Agency & Their Clients For Link Schemes, Says Matt CuttsGoogle Takes Down Another Link Network, France’s BuzzeaGoogle May Have Penalized Another Major Link Network: Ghost Rank 2.0“Text Link Ads” Was Latest Hit By Google’s Actions Against Link SellersGoogle Zaps Another Link Network, ‘Several Thousand’ Link Sellers HitDid Google Just Penalize Another Link Network? SAPE LinksGoogle Eliminates Another Link Network, BuildMyRank.com – Just One Of Several?

How Long Can RetailMeNot’s “SEO Empire” Survive?

RetailMeNot is having remarkable SEO success. According to an analysis by Priceonomics, RetailMeNot is first for numerous coupon-related and “promo code” searches — an amazing 71 percent of the time.

This is what the company said based on an analysis of nearly 300 coupon-related keywords:

RetailMeNot ranks first in Google search results for an astounding 187 out of the 263 keywords we track. Dealcatcher.com, the next closest company, only ranks first for 7 keywords. Coupons.com, another recent IPO in this space, only has the number one spot in the Google rankings a single time.

RetailMeNot is now public and has a market cap of $1.7 billion. The company was started by two Australians and acquired by WhaleShark Media in 2010.�WhaleShark then rebranded itself (wisely) as RetailMeNot and went public in 2013.

RetailMeNot claims more than 450 million consumer visits to its sites. It made more than $200 million in affiliate revenue in 2013, driving visits to retailer sites. Basically it does a much better job of optimization and ranking for “retailer name + promo code” than the retailers themselves do.

The reason that RetailMeNot, originally a crowd-sourced coupon aggregator, climbed to the top of the online coupon mountain and was acquired is SEO. The following chart from Priceonomics visually illustrates how dominant the site is on Google for coupon-related keywords (RetailMeNot is in red).

Source: Priceonomics

While RetailMeNot has some name recognition it doesn’t really qualify as a brand. Most visitors to the site are searching on Google rather than visiting it directly. Its most engaged and loyal users are those of its mobile app.

As the Priceonomics analysis points out a company this dependent on SEO is potentially highly vulnerable to Google algorithm changes. If future updates bump RetailMeNot from its top slot across coupon keywords it would immediately hit the company’s bottom line.

How long can RetailMeNot stay on top?

Are Guest Blogs Forked?

The last couple of weeks have given rise to a lot of cussing and discussing, regarding penalties levied against sites on both ends of the guest-blog spectrum. Both logic and emotions have run high, as people try to sort out what the new "acceptable" is, in Google's view.

So I thought I'd try to clear up a few things, based upon my observations and opinions. Nobody outside the GooglePlex really knows anything – anyone that claims to is either a fool, or they think you are.

The best we can do is make an educated guess, based upon what we've seen and what Google tells us. If we're objective, then we'll have a better chance of guessing right.

Stick a Fork in it

Matt Cutts' blog post in January raised a few eyebrows, as he made a point of saying "So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy."

At first, his post was titled "The decay and fall of guest blogging", but as the comments on the post started heating up, he went back and edited the title, adding "for SEO" at the end, then softened his stance a little in the comments.

I'll readily admit that he has a point about guest blogging getting spammy. The rise of guest blogging for link building purposes created an entire sub-industry. As is often the case with a good thing, too many people run it into the ground and Google feels it has to rein in the abuse.

Unfortunately, at that point, the people that are responsibly guest blogging for others or allowing only occasional guest posts on their site get lumped in with the abusers in a storm of penalty flags.

Cutting Deeply

Google has decided that the abusive use of guest blogging needs to stop, and characteristically, they're giving the nod to the inevitable inclusion of innocent or marginal cases amongst the casualties. As usual, a general outcry has been raised, but if past history is any indication, there isn't likely to be any softening of their stance.

There's no denying that there has been plenty of abuse. Sites have popped up selling posts throughout their network, others charge for writers' membership, in exchange for links, some others offer reciprocal guest blogging (with the attendant links, naturally).

There are other variations... as Google makes their enforcement efforts more strict, abusers try to make their tactics more subtle. Most of them fail miserably at doing so.

Avoiding the Axe

But guest blogging hasn't suddenly become a totally illegitimate practice – it just requires a great deal of caution, now that Google is paying more attention. So I thought I'd share some things to watch out for and some ways to mitigate the risks.

1. The Ultra-Safe Approach

If you're a publisher, stricken by fear, uncertainty and doubt, you could simply add a nofollow attribute to any external links in a guest post, as well as links in the author bio. That will protect you from any accusations of link-scheming.

2. The Moderated Approach

If you're unwilling to nofollow all outbound links from the post, then you really should check out the destination site and page carefully. If there's any possibility that Google could see that site in a poor light, then linking to it isn't a good idea. Bear in mind, too, that the fact that the site may look squeaky clean today won't protect you from a possible backlash if they get in trouble a year or two down the road.

Here, I recommend that links to the author's site be very carefully screened as well. If in doubt, nofollow them. Alternatively, you could link to their Google+ profile, where they can provide all the links they like.

3. The Devil May Care Approach

We've already seen what this approach is doing for a lot of folks... and it's only going to get worse. But if you have a stubborn streak or if you just don't care about suddenly disappearing from the top 100 or so SERPs, knock yourself out.

Google can spot guest posts pretty easily, especially now that most contributors have a Google+ profile. If you decide to go this route, I see a manual penalty in your future.

The Damage

The extent of penalization can vary. A manual penalty may be partial or sitewide, and can be tied to either unnatural outbound links or inbound links, depending upon which end of the food chain you're on.

Outbound Link Penalty

As a publisher, unless you simply don't care, because you get no traffic from Google, you'll need to clean up your act and submit a reconsideration request. If you have a lot of posts on your blog, this can be a tedious task.

Personally, I think that it has to deal with your entire outbound link profile... not just those on guest posts. I think a good argument could be made that the manual review is likely to put your entire site under a microscope, at least in terms of your outbound linking practices... don't even waste your time submitting a reconsideration request until you're sure of approval.

Inbound Link Penalty

As a guest blogger on several sites, if your posts are linking back to your site, you may get an inbound link penalty. We haven't seen a lot of these yet, tied to the recent guest blogging purge, so I can't say if they're giving any partial penalties or only sitewide.

Either way, you'll have to clean up your link profile, just like any other inbound link penalty, before a reconsideration request can possibly be successful. Contact the sites you've blogged on and ask for a nofollow to be added to all your links (or remove them altogether), then submit a disavow file for any that you couldn't get removed, before you submit your reconsideration request.

Some Rules of Thumb

Here are a few things that should help keep you safe from a guest blogging-related penalty. Some of these may seem extreme, but with all the doubt that exists about what Google sees as acceptable, I'm proposing a safe approach.

Only accept guest posts from people you know are authentic, will provide your readers with real value, and aren't guest posting all over the 'net like a lawn sprinkler.Be very critical of any site you link out to from the body of a post. If in doubt, nofollow.Unless you're 100 percent sure that Google will see your guest poster as a credible authority for that topic on your blog, either nofollow the links from the author bio or only link to their Google+ profile.Quality and relevance are more important than ever. Don't accept any guest posts just to fill a slot in your calendar. Every post you put on your blog should be high quality... that means well-written, relevant, and of real interest to your readers. If you lower that bar, be prepared for Google to lower the boom.Only allow outbound links that add value to your readers. 'Nuff said!

Toronto Early Bird Rates Expire Next Week
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*Early Bird Rates expire April 11.

Are Guest Blogs Forked?

The last couple of weeks have given rise to a lot of cussing and discussing, regarding penalties levied against sites on both ends of the guest-blog spectrum. Both logic and emotions have run high, as people try to sort out what the new "acceptable" is, in Google's view.

So I thought I'd try to clear up a few things, based upon my observations and opinions. Nobody outside the GooglePlex really knows anything – anyone that claims to is either a fool, or they think you are.

The best we can do is make an educated guess, based upon what we've seen and what Google tells us. If we're objective, then we'll have a better chance of guessing right.

Stick a Fork in it

Matt Cutts' blog post in January raised a few eyebrows, as he made a point of saying "So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy."

At first, his post was titled "The decay and fall of guest blogging", but as the comments on the post started heating up, he went back and edited the title, adding "for SEO" at the end, then softened his stance a little in the comments.

I'll readily admit that he has a point about guest blogging getting spammy. The rise of guest blogging for link building purposes created an entire sub-industry. As is often the case with a good thing, too many people run it into the ground and Google feels it has to rein in the abuse.

Unfortunately, at that point, the people that are responsibly guest blogging for others or allowing only occasional guest posts on their site get lumped in with the abusers in a storm of penalty flags.

Cutting Deeply

Google has decided that the abusive use of guest blogging needs to stop, and characteristically, they're giving the nod to the inevitable inclusion of innocent or marginal cases amongst the casualties. As usual, a general outcry has been raised, but if past history is any indication, there isn't likely to be any softening of their stance.

There's no denying that there has been plenty of abuse. Sites have popped up selling posts throughout their network, others charge for writers' membership, in exchange for links, some others offer reciprocal guest blogging (with the attendant links, naturally).

There are other variations... as Google makes their enforcement efforts more strict, abusers try to make their tactics more subtle. Most of them fail miserably at doing so.

Avoiding the Axe

But guest blogging hasn't suddenly become a totally illegitimate practice – it just requires a great deal of caution, now that Google is paying more attention. So I thought I'd share some things to watch out for and some ways to mitigate the risks.

1. The Ultra-Safe Approach

If you're a publisher, stricken by fear, uncertainty and doubt, you could simply add a nofollow attribute to any external links in a guest post, as well as links in the author bio. That will protect you from any accusations of link-scheming.

2. The Moderated Approach

If you're unwilling to nofollow all outbound links from the post, then you really should check out the destination site and page carefully. If there's any possibility that Google could see that site in a poor light, then linking to it isn't a good idea. Bear in mind, too, that the fact that the site may look squeaky clean today won't protect you from a possible backlash if they get in trouble a year or two down the road.

Here, I recommend that links to the author's site be very carefully screened as well. If in doubt, nofollow them. Alternatively, you could link to their Google+ profile, where they can provide all the links they like.

3. The Devil May Care Approach

We've already seen what this approach is doing for a lot of folks... and it's only going to get worse. But if you have a stubborn streak or if you just don't care about suddenly disappearing from the top 100 or so SERPs, knock yourself out.

Google can spot guest posts pretty easily, especially now that most contributors have a Google+ profile. If you decide to go this route, I see a manual penalty in your future.

The Damage

The extent of penalization can vary. A manual penalty may be partial or sitewide, and can be tied to either unnatural outbound links or inbound links, depending upon which end of the food chain you're on.

Outbound Link Penalty

As a publisher, unless you simply don't care, because you get no traffic from Google, you'll need to clean up your act and submit a reconsideration request. If you have a lot of posts on your blog, this can be a tedious task.

Personally, I think that it has to deal with your entire outbound link profile... not just those on guest posts. I think a good argument could be made that the manual review is likely to put your entire site under a microscope, at least in terms of your outbound linking practices... don't even waste your time submitting a reconsideration request until you're sure of approval.

Inbound Link Penalty

As a guest blogger on several sites, if your posts are linking back to your site, you may get an inbound link penalty. We haven't seen a lot of these yet, tied to the recent guest blogging purge, so I can't say if they're giving any partial penalties or only sitewide.

Either way, you'll have to clean up your link profile, just like any other inbound link penalty, before a reconsideration request can possibly be successful. Contact the sites you've blogged on and ask for a nofollow to be added to all your links (or remove them altogether), then submit a disavow file for any that you couldn't get removed, before you submit your reconsideration request.

Some Rules of Thumb

Here are a few things that should help keep you safe from a guest blogging-related penalty. Some of these may seem extreme, but with all the doubt that exists about what Google sees as acceptable, I'm proposing a safe approach.

Only accept guest posts from people you know are authentic, will provide your readers with real value, and aren't guest posting all over the 'net like a lawn sprinkler.Be very critical of any site you link out to from the body of a post. If in doubt, nofollow.Unless you're 100 percent sure that Google will see your guest poster as a credible authority for that topic on your blog, either nofollow the links from the author bio or only link to their Google+ profile.Quality and relevance are more important than ever. Don't accept any guest posts just to fill a slot in your calendar. Every post you put on your blog should be high quality... that means well-written, relevant, and of real interest to your readers. If you lower that bar, be prepared for Google to lower the boom.Only allow outbound links that add value to your readers. 'Nuff said!

Toronto Early Bird Rates Expire Next Week
ClickZ Live is coming to Toronto May 14-16. This new event addresses the rapidly changing landscape that digital marketers face, covering email, display, attribution, big data, social, content integration and more! Register now and save!
*Early Bird Rates expire April 11.

Top 5 Restaurant Stocks To Buy For 2014

Top 5 Restaurant Stocks To Buy For 2014: Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc (FRGI)

Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. (Fiesta Restaurant Group), incorporated on April 27, 2011, owns, operates and franchises two fast-casual restaurant brands, Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana. The Company's Pollo Tropical restaurants offer a range of tropical and Caribbean inspired food, while the Company's Taco Cabana restaurants offers a range of fresh, authentic Mexican food. As of December 30, 2012 , the Company owned and operated a total of 251 restaurants across four states, which included 91 Pollo Tropical and 160 Taco Cabana restaurants. The Company franchises its Pollo Tropical restaurants internationally. As of December 30, 2012 , the Company had 35 franchised Pollo Tropical restaurants located in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Honduras, Trinidad, the Bahamas, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama and on several college campuses in Florida. As of December 30, 2012 , the Company had eight Taco Cabana franchised restaurants located in Georgia, New Mexico and Texas.

Pollo Tro pical

The Company's Pollo Tropical restaurants offer tropical and Caribbean inspired menu items, featuring grilled chicken marinated in the Company's blend of tropical fruit juices and spices. The Company's diverse menu also includes a line of TropiChops (a casserole bowl of grilled chicken, roast pork or grilled vegetables served over white, brown or yellow rice and red or black beans and topped with a range of condiments and sauces), a range of chicken sandwiches, wraps, salads, roast pork, grilled ribs and wings offered with a range of salsas, sauces and Caribbean style made from scratch side dishes, including black beans and rice, Yucatan fries and sweet plantains, as well as menu items, such as french fries, corn and salads. The Company also offers Hispanic desserts, such as flan and tres leches, and at certain locations, the Company offers a! range of sangria, wine and beer.

The Company's Pollo Tropical restaurants feature signature dining ar eas. In additiona, the Company's Pollo Tropical restaurants ! provide its guests the option of take-out, as well as the convenience of drive-thru windows. The Company's Pollo Tropical restaurants are open for lunch, dinner and late night orders seven days per week. As of December 30, 2012, its company-owned Pollo Tropical restaurants were freestanding buildings. The Company's typical free-standing Pollo Tropical restaurant ranges from 2,800 to 3,500 square feet and provide interior seating for approximately 70 guests. As of December 30, 2012 , the Company owned and operated a total of 91 Pollo Tropical restaurants, of which 89 were located in Florida and two were located in Georgia. The Company is franchising its Pollo Tropical restaurants internationally. As of December 30, 2012, the Company had 35 franchised Pollo Tropical restaurants located in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Honduras, Trinidad, the Bahamas, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama and on college campuses in Florida. The Company also has agreements for the future development of franchis ed Pollo Tropical restaurants in Tobago, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, Guatemala and India.

Taco Cabana

The Company's Taco Cabana restaurants serve Mexican food, including flame-grilled beef and chicken fajitas served on sizzling iron skillets, quesadillas, hand-rolled flautas, enchiladas, burritos, tacos, fresh-made flour tortillas, a selection of made from scratch salsas and sauces, customizable salads served in a Cabana bowl, traditional Mexican and American breakfasts and other Mexican dishes. The Company's Taco Cabana restaurants also offer a range of beverage choices, including soft drinks, frozen margaritas and beer.

The Company's Taco Cabana restaurants feature interior dining areas, as well as semi-enclosed and outdoor patio areas. In addition, the Company's Taco Cabana restaurants provide its guests the opti! on of tak! e-out. The Company's freestanding Taco Cabana restaurants average approximately 3,500 square feet (exclusive of th e exterior dining area) and provide seating for approximatel! y 80 gues! ts, with additional outside patio seating for approximately 50 guests. As of December 30, 2012, its company-owned Taco Cabana restaurants were freestanding buildings. As of December 30, 2012, the Company owned and operated 160 Taco Cabana restaurants, of which 156 are located in Texas and four in Oklahoma.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By GURUFOCUS]

  Fiesta Restaurant Group (FRGI) was the Fund's best performing position in the fourth quarter and for all of 2013. Over the past year the stock g ained over 240 percent and added 212 basis points of return. The fast-food chain has con tinued to restructure after spinning off Burger King restaurants and is now successfully ach ieving organic growth. We continue to believe the stock is undervalued and expect further growth ahead.

• [By Seth Jayson]

  Calling all cash flows
  When you are trying to buy the market's best stocks, it's worth checking up on your companies' free cash flow once a quarter or so, to see whether it bears any relationship to the net income in the headlines. That's what we do with this series. Today, we're checking in on Fiesta Restaurant Group (Nasdaq: FRGI  ) , whose recent revenue and earnings are plotted below.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  Fiesta Restaurant Group (FRGI) owns, operates and franchises fast-casual restaurants under the Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana brand names. This stock closed up 10.5% to $34.73 in Friday's trading session.

  Friday's Volume: 552,000
  
  Three-Month Average Volume: 220,525
  
  Volume % Change: 140%

  From a technical perspective, FRGI ripped sharply higher here right off some near-term support at $30.89 and back above its 50-day moving average of $34.23 with strong upside volume. This move pushed shares of FRGI into breakou! t territo! ry, since the stock took out some near-term overhead resistance at $33.14. Shares of FRGI are now starting to move within range of triggering another key breakout trade. That trade will hit if FRGI manages to take out some near-term overhead resistance at $35.73 with high volume.

  Traders should now look for long-biased trades in FRGI as long as it's trending above its 50-day at $34.23 or above $33 and then once it sustains a move or close above $35.75 with volume that hits near or above 220,525 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then FRGI will set up to re-test or possibly take out its all-time high at $38.84. Any high-volume move above that level will then give FRGI a chance to trend north of $40.

source from Top Stocks Blog:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-5-restaurant-stocks-to-buy-for-2014.html

Top 10 Casino Companies To Watch For 2014

Top 10 Casino Companies To Watch For 2014: Wynn Resorts Limited(WYNN)

Wynn Resorts, Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the development, ownership, and operation of destination casino resorts. The company owns and operates Wynn Las Vegas casino resort in Las Vegas, which includes approximately 22 food and beverage outlets comprising 5 dining restaurants; 2 nightclubs; 1 spa and salon; 1 Ferrari and Maserati automobile dealership; wedding chapels; an 18-hole golf course; meeting space; and foot retail promenade featuring boutiques. Wynn Las Vegas casino resort also features approximately 147 table games, 1 baccarat salon, private VIP gaming rooms, 1 poker room, 1,842 slot machines, and 1 race and sports book. It also owns and operates an Encore at Wynn Las Vegas resort, a destination casino resort located adjacent to Wynn Las Vegas that features a 2,034 all-suite hotel, as well as a casino with 95 table games, 1 sky casino, 1 baccarat salon, private VIP gaming rooms, and 778 slot machines. In addition, the company operates Wyn n Macau casino resort located in the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People?s Republic of China. Wynn Macau casino resort features approximately 595 hotel rooms and suites, 410 table games, 935 slot machines, 1 poker room, 1 sky casino, 6 restaurants, 1 spa and salon, lounges, meeting facilities, and retail space featuring boutiques. Further, it operates Encore at Wynn Macau resort located adjacent to Wynn Macau. Encore at Wynn Macau resort features approximately 410 luxury suites and 4 villas, as well as casino gaming space, including a sky casino consisting of 60 table games and 80 slot machines, 2 restaurants, 1 luxury spa, and retail space. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Will Ashworth]

  PENN separated its gaming operations from the real estate in order to op! erate an asset-light business model. While the hospitality side of the casino business is all about glitz and glamour, nothing happens without big-time real estate. Don't be surprised if other large casino operators choose to split their businesses. Will Las Vegas Sands (LVS) or Wynn Resorts (WYNN) do it? I doubt it. They run different establishments than PENN. However, anyone running casino operations in places outside Las Vegas or Macau might want to consider it — it just makes too much sense.

• [By Louis Navellier]

  Wynn Resorts (WYNN) has two casinos in Las Vegas and has two locations in Macau — the hottest gaming market in the world today. The company is showing extraordinary growth this year, with earnings up 48% so far. The latest quarter was up 98% year-over-year so the pace is accelerating as results from the Macau locations have been exceptionally strong.

source from Top Stocks Blog:http://www.topstocksblog.com/top-10-casino-companies-to-watch-for-2014.html