Search Engines
Understanding how search engines work, Google in particular, is important when working in SEO. The basics of crawling and indexing are amazingly useful to understand if you want to rank your own content.
Additionally, Google updates its algorithm several times a year. Understanding the more significant updates, and how they work, can help you to craft content and SEO strategies that are up-to-date.
We've written extensively about how search engines work, and included some of the top resources here. You can also browse the latest posts on search engines from the Moz blog below.
How Search Engines Work : New to SEO? Start with the basics of how search engines operate with our free beginner's guide.
Search Engine Ranking and Visibility : Learn the fundamentals of how search engines rank content on search engine result pages.
Google Algorithm Update History : A complete history of Google algorithm updates since 2000. This includes important links and references for understanding how Google works.
How Search Engines Value Links : Search engines work off a number of signals, but two of the most important are content and links. In this video, Rand Fishkin explains the basics of link evaluation.
MozCast : Is Google updating it's algorithm as we speak? MozCast is the Google algorithm weather report, so you can see how much Google results are changing each day.
How to Choose a URL
Lately more customers are serious about SEO and are wondering if it's a good idea to choose an extra or new URL for their website. And I could not give a clear answer to this because I hear and read different stories on this topic. I decided to do alittle test and hope you guys will share your experiences on this issue with me.
How Google's Rankings Algorithm Has Changed Over Time
Tonight, as I was writing another blog post, I started working on a graphic that probably deserves a post and discussion of its own. Below is my personal opinion of how some of the key factors in Google's ranking system have changed through the years I've been in SEO: ...
Page-Level Algorithmic Penalties On The Rise From Google
Hello, I'm here today to talk about Google penalties. There's much talk and confusion in the SEO industry about penalties. We're always seeing in Q&A questions like: Do I have a penalty? Why do I have a penalty? How can I get rid of my penalty? ...
Google's Sandbox Still Exists: Exemplified by Grader.com
For many in the SEO field, Google's "sandbox," a filter the search quality team created to help fight spam, is a relic of days gone by. However, we've been spotting new cases over the last few years, and I finally found a great example to share publicly (and got permission from the site owner). Grader.com, and the four subdomains underneath it - Twitter.Grader.com, PressRelease.Grader.com, Website.Grader.com & Facebook.Grader.com - are all under pronounced effects that highlight this algorithmic element's impact.
Google Won't Remove that Page You Don't Like, But You (or Your SEO) Can
Google's head of web spam (a division of the engine's search quality division) recently posted a piece entitled, Why Google Won't Remove that Page You Don't Like. An excerpt: Every few weeks or so, someone contacts me and says “Hey Matt, there’s page out on ...Level Up Your SEO Skills With Our Free Training
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AJAX: Great for Scrubbing Analytics Clean!
I was pinging people on Twitter about what to blog about, and Michael Vandemar suggested I take a look at his post about Google web search switching to AJAX. He and some other SEOs have recently noticed that Google search results URLs have been displaying the search query string after a ha...
Struggling Against Google's Greatest Advantage
Thousands of posts, news articles and analysis pieces have covered the central topic of battling Google's dominance in web search, but I've seen very few that have discussed what is, in my opinion, the most telling example of the search giant's dominance. The latest (made popular across Techmeme and many individual blogs) was this piece from C|Net's Don Reisinger:
Search Is Changing Forever, Rand :).
With every tweak and change that Google brings to its search result pages, the "potential-ROI" balance on search tips ever more towards PPC and away from SEO. I realized this when I read Aaron Wall's Marketing Lessons from Google. Search marketing leaders demand results, so it's irrelevant that the means of practicing SEO remain the same. What is relevant is that Google is decreasing the ability of SEO to provide stable, measurable results. As Aaron points out in his post, Google seeks to undermine competing business models.
Why a Google Monopoly is Bad for Search Marketers
When search marketers get together at a pub and talk, the conversation inevitably turns to Google's near-monopolistic share of web search. For many of us that are new to the field, Google has always been the market leader and the focus of most of our efforts. But historically, this wasn't the case. Have a look from a historical perspective: ...
Differential Diagnosis: A Broken Website Ranking Atop Google
As I was stumbling around the web today, building some slides out for my Pubcon sessions next week, I came across some search results I couldn't help but blog about. Have a peek: ...