SEO Update

Google’s AJAX Proposal

With Google’s proposal, an AJAX-generated URL that contains a hash mark (#) would also be replaced with a URL that uses #! in place of #. So, the second URL above would become http://www.buffy.com.seasons.php#!best=2. When Googlebot encounters the exclamation point after the hash mark, it would then request the URL from the server using a syntax that would replace the #! with ?_escaped_fragment_=.

Still with me? All this means is that when Googlebot encounters:

http://www.buffy.com/seasons.php#!best=2

it will request the following URL from the server:

http://www.buffy.com/seasons.php?_escaped_fragment_=best=2

Why, you ask? Well because ?_escaped_fragment_= in the URL tells the server to route the URL request to the headless browser to execute the AJAX code and render a static page.

But, you might protest, I don’t want my URLs in the search results to look like that! Not to worry, Google requests the URL using that syntax, but then translates the ?_escaped_fragment_= back into #! when displaying it to searchers.

via Google May Be Crawling AJAX Now – How To Best Take Advantage Of It.

Check your back-links as Google knows them

There are at least three ways how you can explore your back-links in Google:

Google Webmaster Tool (specifically the Links to your Site-section) gives the best and most complete overview on how Google sees your back-links. However it is important to note that only the webmaster/owner of a website who has been verified can see these back-links. For your convenience you can even download all the links in a spreadsheet format and process them on your own computer.

The Link-operator in Google Web Search (link:yourdomain.com) shows anyone a number of the back-links of any website. It is very important to note that this overview is just a sample from a much larger set of back-links. The Link-operator in Google Web Search will never give you the total overview, just a number of back-links and even the total of this number can change every time you submit your query to Google.

Since the Link-operator only gives you a limited view of back-links, several people have found that you get a better (and more complete) sample of back-links with the following query: “yourdomain.com” -site:yourdomain.com. So let me translate this query for you: the first part means you are looking for any reference to yourdomain.com (note that the quotes are important), and the second part means that you want to ignore any reference to yourdomain.com from the domain yourdomain.com (more information on the Site-operator and other advanced operators can be found here). If a SEO or competitor performs an analysis of the back-links to your website, and does not have access to your Google Webmaster Tool account, then this will be one of the queries they will perform.

via Explore Your Back-Links. Here’s How! — Fili Wiese.

Duplicate content detection tools;

Here are some of the best duplicate content tools on the web that will not only check for other copies of your content on the web, but will identify internal issues you may have with your site.

1. Copyscape

Copyscape is probably the most popular duplicate content tool out there. This free service detects copies of your web pages across the web. The free version only returns no more than 10 results for any search, and you are limited to the number of searches you can perform. However they do offer two other premium services for users who need to be able to gather more in-depth duplicate content research. Copyscape premium offers a more comprehensive search for plagiarism detection along with features like batch search (up to 10,000 pages), copy and paste, manage cases of plagiarism, exclude certain sites, compare two urls, and automatic checks using the API.

copyscape-screenshot

2. Plagiarism Checker

This tool will allow you to enter a keyword, phrase, or sentence into the search field and it will return Google results of any other sites that have the same words entered. One cool feature the tool will allow you to do is set up a google alert, so it notifies you if someone copies your content.
plagiarism-checker

3. Plagiarism Detect

Plagiarism detect offers a free and premium version, similar to Copyscape. The free version of this tool will allow you to upload text and word doc files for analysis and will return detections found. The premium version has many other features including comparing two documents side-by-side, a more advanced algorithm and a Microsoft Word plugin, so you can check for plagiarism directly from word.

plagiarism-detect

4. Plagium

This plagiarism tool will display a visually pleasing diagram of detections of other websites that have copied your content. Plagium will show a calendar of when it was discovered. This tool will allow you to search over the entire web or strictly news sources. You may also refine by language and only check for duplicates in a specific language.
copy-usage

5. Virante

Virante offers a different type of duplicate content tool, that checks more for internal duplicate content issues. The issues it will check include www vs non-www redirect issues, similar pages on your site, issues with index.html vs /, properly returning 404 error pages for any pages that are missing, any PR issues between the www and non-www.virante

6. WebConfs

The WebConfs tool will take two urls and determine the percentage of similarity between the two urls. The lower the percentage the less similar the two pages are. webconfs

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Benefits of a title tag formula:

• Keeps SERP listings consistent across a site
• Simplifies things for vast content networks and multiple contributors
• Reinforces branding

Home page?

• attract the lion’s share of authority links; and
• have the strongest PageRank.

‘Action Words’

• Informational Action Words – learn, discover, find, read, see

• Transactional Action Words – try, get, buy, download

Read all

Introduction

Much has happened in the world of Local Search since last year’s edition of the Local Search Ranking Factors was published. We’ve seen a major quantitative study of Google Maps, detailed interviews with the heads of both Google Maps and Yahoo Local, the launch of a number of new portals, and just in the last few weeks, Google’s introduction of the Local 10-pack for generic keywords.

It is my hope that this study will help small business owners confused by Local Search, or those strapped for time, to prioritize their marketing efforts.

With that in mind, I felt that it was time to survey the experts once more to gauge the factors most helpful for ranking well in the Google and Yahoo Local algorithms, as well as techniques to be avoided. This year’s edition of the LSRF contains responses from 27 prominent bloggers and practitioners.

Read more

Top 5 Ranking Factors

1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
73% very high importance

2. External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
71% very high importance

3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)
67% very high importance

4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
66% very high importance

5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)
66% very high importance

via Search Engine Ranking Factors | SEOmoz.

PalettePress is happy to announce the release of Portico a new Google AdSense ready WordPress theme available for free download.

Portico: Free WordPress AdSense Ready Theme

Portico is a simple, elegant and easy to customize Googel AdSense ready WordPress theme with a two-column fixed-width design. The free Portico WordPress theme has a widget-ready sidebar and also has built-in space for advertising, which can support a variety advertising including, but not limited to, Google AdSense.

Here’s a list of the free Portico WordPress Theme features:

• Simple two-column design
• Elegant style and color scheme
• Built-in space for advertising including, but not limited to, Google AdSense
• Supports both WordPress 2.7.x and 2.8.x
• Supports widgets
• Support for gravatars

via Free Portico Google AdSense Ready WordPress Theme is now available! – PalettePress.

Built-in Conditionals

In this version, you can freely mix and match these predefined rules which gives you control of where the widget should be displayed:

• Everywhere on your site (new)
• The front page
• All posts
• All author pages
• All or selected pages and subpages
• Pages or posts with comments enabled
• Pages or posts belongs to selected categories
• Pages or posts with selected tags
• All (new) or selected category archive pages
• All (new) or selected tags archive pages
• All date-based archive pages
• Search results page (new)
• “404″ not found page (new)

Please note:
JavaScript is required for the widget interface to display correctly.
This plugin will only run on Wordpress 2.8+.

via WordPress › Section Widget « WordPress Plugins.