The Moz Blog

Separating Web Spam from Quality Content - What are the Metrics?

Let's try a little excercise... Common features of spam domains include: Long domain names .info, .cc, .us and other cheap, easy to grab TLDs Short registration period (1 year, maybe 2) High ratio of ad blocks to content Javascript redirects from initial landing pages Use of common, high-commer...

Use 'What Googlebot Sees' to Find Scrapers

Most of you are aware I recently took a position at Tribune as their in-house SEO Manager.One of the first things I did was get a current state of the union. After working through the issues of verification for the dozens of sites (another post, perhaps), I realized that 'What Googlebot Sees' for a handful o...

A Deeper Look at Vertical Search - Interview with Iri Amirav & Amir Leitersdorf from iMedix

I've talked in the past about the various possibilities of the future of search engines and the biggest threats to Google's dominance, and today I've been able to follow up on some of that prodding into that "vertical search fracturing" possibility. iMedix is one of ...

Yo SMX, Where My Devs At?

Jeff, our CTO and lead developer-with-a-beard, had recently expressed to me his desire to speak at conferences and events. Fantastic! ...except for one problem. There are no developer-centric tracks at any SEO conferences. SES? Zip. SMX? Zilch. Pubcon has had a smattering of developer-related sessions that were, according to Jeff, weak sauce. SXSW is the only conference to offer developer sessions...

Taking [true knowledge] Out for a Test Drive

I had asked for an account for some time now, but today the email finally reached my inbox. And I was really excited about seeing what all the hype was about [true knowledge]™! Ps: getting really excited to test out a search engine, must mean I'm in the right job... So what is [true knowledge]™?In simple terms,...

FTC Orders ValueClick to Pay 2.9 Million

The FTC announced today that Valueclick has agreed to pay 2.9 million dollars to settle the charges. This is the largest cash settlement since the inception of the Can-Spam Act in 2003. In addition, Valueclick is barred from future violations of the Can-Spam Act. It must also place conspicuous disclaimers indicating that consumers are required to participate and spend money on other obligations in order to qualify for "free" promotions. The settlement also requires them to provide a list of the obligations – such as applying for credit cards, purchasing products, or obtaining a car loan – that consumers must incur to qualify for a free product. Valueclick must also put in place strict measures to protect consumer information. Valueclick's compliance with these measure must be monitored by an independent party for 20 years.

Results of Google Experimentation - Only the First Anchor Text Counts

Before I was inundated with the responsibilities of running a company and managing a few hundred emails a day, I used to spend a lot of time testing theories about how the search engines handled certain elements on a site or page. I'd test the engines to find answers to questions like: Does a keyword perform better or worse if it's higher up in the code of a page? (yep)...

Whiteboard Friday - Inside Webmaster Central with Susan Moskwa

This week, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, Susan Moskwa, stops by Whiteboard studios to discuss some of the wonderful features that lie within Webmaster Central. From how to use the Google Groups Webmaster Help Forum, to covering your bases before submitting for reinclusion, their new...

Did You Mean? - No, I Didn't

I'm sure we have all seen it, or have had it happen to us. You are doing a search on Google and you get a results page that says "Did you mean, ####" at the top of the page. I firmly believe that this is a helpful tool to many people who are either horrible spellers, or had a momentary "brain-fart"! But what do you do when this affects your own search engine traffic?...

The Holy Grail of Long Tail Information Finally Trackable

This is a feature I've been asking for in analytics packages for the last 2 years: This report lets a search marketer actually visualize the healthiness and distribution of their site's keyword-based search traffic. In the example above, I'm showing the repor...

Bait and Switch - A Case Study (of sorts)

Bait and Switch is a well known Link building strategy, which in my opinion works well with a viral campaign. In most cases its used for sites that don’t have very appealing content...Because I am inherently lazy, and do not want to particularly bore most of you with what this tactic is, I will just link to Jane’s prese...

Is Google Making Site Search Redundant?

So here's an interesting thought... You're Google. You have every page on everyone's site in the world (or near as makes no odds) indexed. What more can you do with that information?Well, how about providing a search function for that person's site. Looks like that's what the big G is thinking at the moment at any rate. Have a look at the following examples, and see w...