Marcus Tober says, “Managing your online reputation in search is not something you can leave to chance. What are the key things you should consider? UC Davis (part of the University of California) is an example of what happens when things go wrong: the school was reportedly forced to spend $175,000 to help clean up negative references about it that appeared online after an incident when student protesters were sprayed with pepper spray by campus police. As so much of what people do online starts with search, a big part of managing your online reputation relates to search engines: trying... [...]

Danny Sullivan says, “The past few months have been bad for Google’s search reputation. Long considered the “gold standard” in search, Google has seen its search results questioned as never before. It’s a body blow to a core service that should be safe as Google tries to grow in new directions. Recovering from that blow isn’t easy. What’s happened to Google search is on par with the Apple Maps fiasco or Samsung’s exploding Galaxy Note7 phones. To this day, people still joke about Apple Maps being bad, even though it’s greatly improved. As for Samsung, the phones might... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google has confirmed to Search Engine Land that they are experimenting with a new feature in the search results. I happened to stumble upon a search results snippet in Google that showed “tags” within the snippet. The unusual part of this was that the “tags” didn’t offer any additional functionality. Google would list “tags” relevant to the page content in the actual search results listing snippets. You were not able to filter by those tags, click on them or anything. It just listed “tags” in the snippets without showing you anything more”. Google... [...]

Nate Dame says, “Last month, Google released a video detailing best practices for hiring an SEO company, and it is positioned to become the go-to guide for hiring an SEO. After all, who better to tell companies what they should look for in an SEO than the operators of the world’s most popular search engine? The advice in the video is useful, but it’s biased and incomplete — like so much of the information the company distributes. For example, Ohye states that valid recommendations from an SEO must be corroborated by official Google statements, but the search giant frequently declines... [...]

Megan Hannay says, “Just last October at the Street Fight Summit, many marketers ranked voice search as the most “over-hyped” marketing tactic of the year. I think this is because many of them aren’t seeing the full scope of the technology. We’re putting on our consumer brains and thinking about the current awkwardness of speaking to Siri in public, not of a future inside self-driving cars or those moments when we just don’t want to get up from the couch. Currently, most voice searches happen on mobile phones. But within the next few years, it seems likely that devices with... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Don’t freak out. That’s what Google’s Gary Illyes repeated this week — at least three times — to SEOs and webmasters who might be concerned about the upcoming switch to a mobile-first index. “The team behind the mobile-first index wants it to launch this year,” Illyes told our SMX West conference on Wednesday. “We’re still experimenting. We don’t have a timeline. It could be a few months or quarters, but it’s definitely not weeks [away]. Don’t freak out, especially if you have a responsive site.” Illyes first revealed plans to create a separate... [...]

Adam Dorfman says, “A year ago, I wrote in Search Engine Land about how Google is making entities smarter. Since that time, entities have become more important to Google — which means they are more important to businesses that want to be found on Google. It’s time for brands to get better acquainted with entities and why they matter. What are entities, and how have they shaped Google search? An entity, as defined by Google in a recent patent, is: [a] thing or concept that is singular, unique, well-defined and distinguishable. For example, an entity may be a person, place, item, idea,... [...]

Michael Cottam says, “When Penguin 4.0 launched in September 2016, the story from Gary Illyes of Google was that Penguin now just devalued spammy links, rather than penalizing a site by adjusting the site’s ranking downward, AKA a penalty. Apparently for Penguin there is now “less need” for a disavow, according to a Facebook discussion between Gary Illyes and Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land back in September. He suggested that webmasters can help Google find spammy sites by disavowing links they know are bad. He also mentioned that manual actions still happen — and... [...]

Danny Sullivan says, “Here we are again. Google’s in hot water because of what I call its “One True Answer” feature, where it especially highlights one search listing over all others as if that’s the very best answer. It’s a problem because sometimes these answers are terribly wrong. When Google gets facts wrong At the end of last month, Google was spotted listing several US presidents as being members of the Ku Klux Klan, even though there’s no conclusive evidence of any of this. What’s happening there is called a “featured snippet,” where Google has taken one of... [...]

SBM team says, “What’s Happening? An update will soon come to the conversion tracking tool in AdWords. Since 2001, AdWords has used “Converted Clicks” to track whether or not users complete desired outcomes on ads and websites. Historically, converted clicks have shown whether or not an ad click led to the desired action on your website, and will be retired in its simplicity. Why? In its absence, the “Conversions” section within AdWords will remain, becoming the default tool for measuring user action. This is better, because Conversions tracks behavior across a bigger stretch... [...]