Hi everyone! Hope you had a great and productive week. Undoubtedly, Google’s announcement about updating their TOS (to go live on November 11, 2013) is one of the news that has been on the spotlight this week. While the announcement mentions stuff about security and all, the most important is that of the so called “shared endorsements”. To skip complications, here’s the highlights of the announcement, according to Google.
- First, clarifying how your Profile name and photo might appear in Google products (including in reviews, advertising and other commercial contexts). You can control whether your image and name appear in ads via the Shared Endorsements setting.
- Second, a reminder to use your mobile devices safely.
- Third, details on the importance of keeping your password confidential.
As you can see, what really matters is the fact that your profile name, photo, etc. may appear in ads served by Google. This is actually very similar to that of FaceBook’s version, the difference being that you can opt-out of it. From what I can tell it is on by default so if you want to turn it off, just follow Matt’s Tweet and should be good to go. If you want to know more about the shared endorsement ads, check this article from MarketingLand.
To opt out of shared endorsements where Google shows your name/photo in an ad, go here: https://t.co/AYdyPZ0oHo
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) October 11, 2013
SEO Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation 2013 for Bing USA
Not so long ago, SearchMetrics.com has released their study of SEO ranking factors for Google. More recently, they also released the ranking factors for Bing. This study deals with the definition and evaluation of factors that differentiate better-positioned websites from pages placed further back in the organic search results – i.e.: pages that have a positive rank correlation. Very interesting!
Top highlights of Bing Ranking Correlations 2013:
- Keyword domain and backlink diversity filters are more unspecific
- Ranking preference but rather insufficient distinction of Brands
- Social signals correlate very well with better rankings too
- Good content is important: it comes to quality and relevance!
- The number of backlinks is immensely important too
- On-page technology belongs to the basics
Finally, Authorship is for Google and “Klout-orship” is for Bing. SearchEngineLand reported this week that Bing and Klout have teamed up to form a puesdo-authorship alliance that will appear in the search results pages. A new Klout-verified ‘Snapshot’ will show in Bing along with social icons, Klout scores and lots more. Klout is becoming a much more powerful tool than simply measuring social significance, and perhaps it would be a good time to take another peak on how things are doing and verify your “klout” with Bing. Here’s the full article.
As usual, in no particular order:
SEO & Internet Marketing
- The Essence of SEO: What Is High-Quality Content?
- 101+ SEO Experts Reveal Their Favorite SEO Browser Plugins/ExtensionsMy picks
- The Definitive Guide to Copywriting
- The Beginner’s Guide to the #Hashtag
- New Facebook Marketing Research Shows What Works
Social/Blogging/Small Business Bites
- 5 Ways PPC Can Make You A Smarter Marketer
- 60 Sensational Social Media Facts and Statistics on Twitter in 2013
- Send Google Plus Posts To Other Social Networks With Friends+Me
More cool stuff!
Why isn’t my site’s PageRank changing?
That’s it! Enjoy and have a great weekend!
Google is always making changes and is on news almost consistently these days! Some changes are good and appreciated by people while some are not. Now just like many features in Facebook, this shared endorsement is an opt out feature which I don’t like.
Thanks for the links and the video Fran ๐
Susan Velez
Hello,
It seems like every time you turn around Google is making some type of change. I haven’t heard of the upcoming one on November 11. So thanks for taking the time to share this.
I try not to worry too much what Google does, but we all know if we have a website online we at least have to know what’s going on. I will definitely check out the link to Klout thanks for this information.
Nancy Badillo
Hi,
Great informative article! I appreciate the list of Google changes. Google is always changing their rules. As soon I feel the hang of something they change the rules again.
Thank you for sharing the tool Klout. I am actually registered but do not use it very much. ๐
Thanks for this helpful post. I was thinking that its very typical to rank on the Google due to its changing algorithms and various updates. Why not try to optimize for Bing. We may rank better there and get business too.
After all our requirement is business only.
Brian Hawkins
You have a couple of VERY important Bing updates that I missed. It’s easy to forget about Bing and that’s a missed opportunity. Thanks for including our Friends+Me post, I’m honored. ๐
Scott Craighead
Hm, that’s interesting. I’m suprised Google+ shares are being spammed to death if that’s what calls for a higher ranking. If so it won’t last that’s for sure. It’s probably a momentary thing so people will start using google+ more. – Scott Craighead