Archive of Universal Search Posts

A recent Technorati blog post poses the question as to whether the expanded Google personalized search will challenge the SEO market.

Background: If you don’t know about this development, here is Google’s video explaining the change:

In my opinion, Google personalized search could very well be the best thing to happen to the SEO industry since…well…since Google itself. While there certainly will be discussions on privacy, here are four reasons why I think personalized search will change the SEO industry for the better.  ... Read the full post

• “Reputable SEO Firms Don’t Promise Guaranteed Search Engine Rankings” says SEOmoz.
• “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” gloats Google.
• “There are no guarantees in SEO except change… and maybe Danny Sullivan.” SEOrefugee states.

But I laugh in the faces of all of them!  I see my clients in the number one positions every day!  Yup, I – am – the – master!  Wait, what?  You don’t have that on your screen?  Those are personalized results?  Oh…crap.  ... Read the full post

Yesterday someone asked me “Is a site’s SEO improved at all if it is tagged using RDFa?”

My first step in answering this was to ask Derek!  His technical skills and in-depth knowledge of cutting edge SEO developments far outweigh mine.

Derek’s answer was:

“RDFa is a web design/development standard (RDFa details here).  SE’s take into account some of the variables but being RDFa compliant does not ensure a better ranking.  It’s like being W3C compliant; proper code helps improve an SE’s ability to crawl and interpret the website but does not necessarily improve rankings.”  ... Read the full post

I am a self-admitted fan of celebrity gossip. I don’t know how it happened or when it happened but I have been sucked in and I can’t get out. Needless to say on Monday I was skimming through the various ‘entertainment’ blogs and I came across a few stories on how John Mayer Googles himself every morning and how he responded to the accusation. A lot of the authors were making fun of him but I don’t blame the guy one bit.  ... Read the full post

Derek and I attended a SEMNE event last night where Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR spoke on Universal search and in particular video. He discussed not only YouTube but the increased frequency of YouTube and other videos showing up in Google search results. He also provided us with a statistic that really caught my attention:

In September, YouTube was the 3rd leading search engine with over 1 million searches (ComScore Data)

First of all, I had no idea that many people were searching in YouTube. Second, with 1 million searches on YouTube, 5 billion searches on Google, and the advent of universal search, I don’t think the question is ‘Should I use video?’ but instead ‘How do I use video?‘.  ... Read the full post