The algorithm modifications Google implemented to reduce the rankings of content farms has led to an increase in visitor traffic to at least one small ecommerce merchant. An unchanged position in the search rankings is now producing more Google visitor traffic to Shopping Baskets Plus since the Thursday “Farmer Update” .

There has been quite a bit of commentary about how J.C. Penney screwed up by buying links, or at the very least by allowing their agency to buy links for them. J.C. Penney’s denial of knowing that spammy links were being bought on their behalf has about as much credibility as Lindsay Lohan’s claim that the necklace she returned was on loan.

The CommentLuv plugin has earned  plenty of love from publishers that utilizes this feature on their blogs

A frequently stated benefit of this plugin is that adding CommentLuv to a blog is a great way to attract commenters which leads to increased popularity of the site. However, I think this overlooks an even bigger benefit of CommentLuv which is that it enriches the user experience of visitors reading comments.

There are lots of commercial purposes for publishing a blog. Three of the most common motivations for developing a commercial blog are: 1) search engine optimization;  2) credibility enhancement, and 2) income production.  Product and service oriented companies typically publish blogs for the SEO and credibility enhancing benefits. Income producing blogs are usually the realm of entrepreneurs and media companies.

A review of articles on SEO tactics for beginners will lead to lots of advice against buying backlinks. I'm in agreement that if someone has never bought backlinks, now is not the time to get started. However, just because buying backlinks is not appropriate for beginners, it does not negate the fact that there is a thriving underground market for them. 

When was the last time you heard a discussion about manipulating Alexa results? It seems ironic that as utilization of Alexa has decreased, it has become a better source of data. There is less manipulation of the rankings as the perceived value of doing so has lessened.

However, even back in the day when Alexa ranking manipulation was rampant, the trend reports were usually informative. It has always been more challenging to manipulate the trend reports than the traffic rank score.

During the past decade there has been an easy short hand way to measure the importance of web pages and websites. Google's toolbar PageRank was widely utilized to define the value of a website. The PageRank scale of whole numbers from zero to a maximum of ten was widely recognized and utilized to compare websites. However, as the decade went on, Google employees became concerned about the misuse and manipulation of PageRank by Internet marketing firms.

I recently reviewed a link building proposal that was wildly inappropriate for the small business to which it was sent. This business provides a niche service that is unique to their local geography. The proposed campaign was for a generic cookie cutter campaign that would have been better suited to a Fortune 500 company.

Evaluate Site Content

The proposal failed to take into account that effective link building requires that the strategy and tactics be tailored based upon the value to the Internet community of the content on the client's site.  

Google Analytics is a powerful analytics tool, particular considering how much it costs (it’s free). However, new users tend to be a bit overwhelmed by the immense amount information on the standard screens. Once they peak under the hood at “Advanced Segments”, it can seem truly daunting. The goal of this article is to review an advanced segment that is particularly easy to create, yet can yield extremely valuable information. Creating this advanced segment can serve as a gateway to further exploration of how Google Analytics reports can be tailored to provide guidance for improving Website results.

Is your business missing the boat on social media? Frankly, it depends. Social media can be an effective method for promoting your business. It can also be a massive "time suck".