Google Announces New “hreflang” Annotation

• By: Sarah Simmons
• Categories: Google
• Comments: 0

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What’s a hreflang? Besides being one of those crazy noises you make when you first wake up in the morning, “hreflang” is Google’s newest annotation.

According to the Google Webmaster Central Blog, the new x-default hreflang attribute value signals to Google’s algorithms that the international landing page “doesn’t target any specific language or locale and is the default page when no other page is better suited.”

Google announced today a new rel-alternate-hreflang annotation that webmasters can use to identify international landing pages. Supported by both Google and Yandex, the hreflang attribute is specifically for the homepages of multinational and multilingual websites that are configured to point visitors to localized pages “either via redirects or by changing the content to reflect the user’s language.”

As an example, the Google Webmaster Central Blog uses the website example.com, which targets users around the world as follows:

• http://example.com/en-gb: For English-speaking users in the UK
• http://example.com/en-us: For English-speaking users in the USA
• http://example.com/en-au: For English-speaking users in Australia
• http://example.com/: The homepage shows users a country selector and is the default page for users worldwide

In the example, example.com’s webmaster could annotate the cluster of pages using rel-alternate-hreflang using Sitemaps or using HTML link tags.

Additionally, the same rel-alternate-hreflang annotation applies for “homepages that dynamically alter their contents based on a user’s perceived geolocation or the Accept-Language headers.” In the latter case, the x-default hreflang value signals to Google’s algorithms that such a homepage isn’t targeting a specific language or locale.

For more details see the Google blog post.

photo credit: Genista via photopin cc

Countdown to Pandamonium Redux

• By: Garry Grant
• Categories: Search Engine Optimization
• Comments: 0

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It’s only a matter of days (or hours??!) before Google’s
latest Panda Update Hits..

Google’s Matt Cutts hinted at SMX West that the Panda update scheduled to hit either tomorrow or Monday, will be more of a rolling update. Cutts stated that this update will happen gradually over time, rather than big on any given day and will now be integrated into Google’s overall continuous algorithm updates. The last Panda update which was deployed on January 22, affected 1.2% of English queries.

So does this mean we can expect Panda to update in real-time rather than being pushed out manually? I guess we’ll all know soon enough. The Panda algorithm was implemented as a means to quickly and methodically spot and lower the rankings of lower quality sites with the intention of returning higher rankings.

As Google updates continue to evolve so too does our integrated marketing solutions for SEO, Social Media Marketing, PPC Management and Web Design & Development. Staying current and in some cases one-step-ahead ensures our clients continued success.

SEO Inc. Announces New SEO Course

• By: Garry Grant
• Categories: Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
• Comments: 1

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Today I wanted to talk a little about the SEO training course that SEO Inc. teaches
at nearby University of California, San Diego.

Since 2008 we have taught our 3-day search engine optimization training course four times a year, covering all the important topics within search engine optimization and search engine marketing (SEM) for webmasters, small and large business owners and corporate marketers. At the time, when we first launched the 3- credit SEO course, it was believed to be the first of its kind to offer any SEO certification or college credit. Now, five years later, it’s STILL the ultimate fast track SEO class for learning Search Engine Optimization and Marketing.

37 SEO Updates You Should Know From 2012

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Google, Search Engine News
• Comments: 3

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2013 is here and 2012 is gone, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still feeling the effects of Google’s updates in 2012. From Panda refreshes to Penguin updates, many different changes happened last year. Read on to learn about the 37 updates you should know about from 2012.

Google Data Highlighter Tool Makes Waves in the SEO World

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Google, Search Engine Optimization
• Comments: 0

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Structured data is a hot topic in search engine optimization right now. If you hang around the water cooler at SEO Inc. you’ll see people up in arms about the implications for CTR, more traffic and overall user experience regarding this new SEO element. Only adding to this flurry of exacerbated excitement, Google recently released the Google Data Highlighter Tool. And let me tell you, this thing is pretty impressive.

Watch a Video on the New Google Data Highlighter Tool

Below you will find a new video released by Google showing how the highlighter tool works.

As you can see, the Google Data Highlighter Tool allows you to apply structured data to your page, without ever having to touch your code. If you are new to structured data you can learn more here. But briefly, by adding structured data, or in this case telling Google what parts of your site you would like marked up with structured data, you can display different content in search results. Most commonly, websites use structured data to display reviews, events, music and recipes.

Previously, the only way to add structured data to your website was by adding this markup language to your HTML. Now, the data highlighter is an alternative. It is a point and click tool that tells Google how to interpret your pages, without modifying the pages themselves.

As shown in the video, just input the URL you would like to add data to. Next, highlight and label the important fields.

Google will show you how they are interpreting the pages on the right hand side. Furthermore, Google will also reveal similar pages that you can check and confirm if they should also have structured data applied to them. When you are done just hit publish and Google will apply these changes to your entire site.

You can access the new tool here: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Have questions or comments about the new Google Data Highlighter Tool? Let us know!

Redirects and Pinterest Don’t Mesh: Aftermath of Pinterest Spam Updates

• By: SEO Inc
• Categories: Social Media Marketing
• Comments: 0

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This blog post is pretty niche, just FYI. But still important nonetheless. I wanted to write this so that when someone else encountered this issue with Pinterest they didn’t feel alone on the Internet So here we go!

Pinterest is no longer allowing redirects cross subdomain! Let us explain.

Say you have a redirect in place from:

URL 1: http://www.example.com/pinterest-pin