Posted by admin on January 17, 2012 under Bing, Google, Search Engines, Social Networking, Yahoo! | 
Matt Cutts announced on Twitter today that Google would discuss the details on SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). To add to the energy, Wikipedia has announced that they are going to go black tomorrow to oppose SOPA. There has been a wealth of talk about it and many still don’t fully grasp what it even is or why they should even care. But for anyone that posts content online, it’s a big deal.
SOPA is basically a legislation designed very simply to stop online piracy. Essentially it allows police, authorities, and copyright holders to be able to get court orders that will essentially force service providers (Comcast, AOL, etc.), hosting providers (GoDaddy, BlueGator, etc.), payment services (Paypal, 2Checkout, etc.) and search engines (really?) to literally shut off or stop doing business with websites that they allege are stealing or even enabling potential copyright infringement.
Just in case SOPA gets passed, we got this image from http://endoftheamericandream.com
While it seems good in theory in order to curb online pirating of music, movies, files, and the like, there’s something much more sinister in the background. The biggest target would be torrent sites that facilitate illegal distribution of files such as PirateBay, ISOHunt, and similar sites. But other sites that have user generated content like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook could be shut down if SOPA gets enacted.
A site could be removed from the search engines, have their advertising revenue yanked, payment processing blocked, website shut off and even up to 5 years of prison time if someone alleges that a site is in violation and gets a court order against them. It also gives the government a LOT of power over what can and can’t be posted online. An example that may hit closer to home would be if you posted a photo on your blog that you acquired somewhere online and that you believed to be “free to use”. If the person that owns the rights to that photo (even indirectly) decides that you’ve violated their copyright, they can get a court order to put all of those aforementioned detrimental factors into play on your very own website. If you’re in a competitive industry, one of your competitors could reasonably shut you down over a photo buried on your site thousands of pages deep.
While it may seem far fetched, SOPA makes that completely possible. SOPA has a laundry list of big name opponents including Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Youtube, Mozilla and many others. Google is exceptionally concerned because of the fact that there are many anti-Google folks just itching to tie them to something potentially copyrighted that could cause a lot of problems for the search giant. Hosting and domain megamart GoDaddy initially supported the SOPA project, but customers pulled over 72,000 domains from the registrar and moved them elsewhere as a result. GoDaddy got the point quickly and immediately pulled support once it truly understood the ramifications of the SOPA bill.
So tomorrow, Google will officially weigh in on SOPA, Wikipedia will go black (among others as well) and we’ll potentially get more details on where they stand. Actually, we know where they stand. It’s where you should stand. Even if you think SOPA won’t affect you, you’d be shocked how much it would impact your online experience. It’s a bad, bad idea.
Posted by admin on January 11, 2012 under Google, Search Engines, SEO, Social Networking |
Google+ has been becoming increasingly involved in your search results starting with the footnoted results that allowed you to see links or places that you or people in your circles had visited previously. This was a great tip to let you know where you had been before or what your friends or coworkers found value in.
As of today, however, Google Plus has taken it even further by now including your personal photos, friends photos, etc into the SERP’s. It initially shows personal image results that are relevant to your search, but when you click on “Show Personal Results”, whoa Nelly. It shows you the image results you had seen previously, along with all relevant content posted from friends and family that contain that keyword term that you searched for.
Now while this is all neat ans fancy, what implications does this have for SEO? Let’s ask some questions and assume answers.
Will sites that relied on image results take a hit on that first SERP?
If you look at what’s happening now, the end result is Yes. Stock photo communities stand to lose quite a bit when that first page real estate they once had is now replaced by a person’s personal images. While it’s understood that there would have to be a relevant term that matched a personal photo for their images to be pushed out, the possibility still exists and will be worth watching.
Even in our example below, you can see that the image results show three rows of our personal images before displaying images on other sites even without clicking for personal results. A cause for alarm for photographers and stock photo companies.
How will it affect the first page results?
A lot. A Google search for the term “SEO Experts” gave us two results on the first page because we were logged into our Google account. The other notable thing is that the SERP’s were then increased from 10 spots to 11 when you’re logged in, which doesn’t count shopping or image results. Log out and perform the same search and not only is it less real estate, but the results are back down to 10. The increase to 11 slots was most definitely to account for the personalized entries, but if you notice, THREE of the entries on the “logged in” page are not present on the “logged out” version. Which begs to question, was adding 1 slot enough?
It’s designed to make it personal right out of the gate without even clicking on personal results, but people not involved with SEO or how Google makes those decisions may make incorrect assumptions based on those results. And we can’t think of many people that don’t have a Google account in some form or fashion for Gmail, Google+, Reader or something else. And if they are, they’ll get a whole new SERP and not even know why. We’re waiting for the uninitiated to start bragging about how they’re on the first page of Google. While it’s an anomaly that’s nothing new, it’s even more prevalent now.
Will it be harder to get on the first page of Google now?
The short answer is No, but as time progresses and more people sign on to Google’s various services, the answer inevitably becomes Yes. Especially since in our random tests, 30% to as much as 50% of the results on the “logged in” version aren’t present when compared to the “logged out” version.
That means at minimum, there’s a 30% less chance that your business won’t be on that first page if a person is logged into their Google account. Or if you’re a “glass half full” type of person, a 30% chance that you will be on that page when the person logs out. But just how many folks do you think that will be at the rate Google is pushing their services?
And we’re sure there are tons more questions that need to be answered, but for now, this opens the doors for all types of questions for SEO professionals. While the changes are positive for the user, it makes the front page real estate even more difficult to master and as more people begin to utilize the Google+ service, the less probability that a new site will be able to crack that top 11.
Needless to say there’s a lot of positive things that will come of it, not to mention that Google will most certainly utilize your personal information even more to push relevant ads to you, steer you first to content residing on Google, or very simply making mad money off of you and all under the guise of “a personal experience”. You read that fine print when you signed up for Google services, right?
But the real question is figuring out how you, as a small business owner, can capitalize on these changes. That’s not an electrical fire you’re smelling. That’s your brain on Google+.
