Evan Pryce

I'd add 'awesome' to this list 

Haha, brilliant work. 

Client 45: We are getting our wall clock installed by the end of this week, we'll let you know the time then.

Still waiting 2 months later...

Nice guide Matt. I really like the way you compile all your own data in excel for thorough analysis which can then be used to make actionable data driven decisions. 

Big fan of your use of GIF's for giving examples in a really simple yet effective way.

I also love parasite SEO for app marketing. Great way to get more visits to your app page and more app downloads.

@victorpan great points. Just what I was thinking when I saw this WBF. 

Slides 9 and 16 are really interesting. I knew improved QS leads to a lower CPC and CPA but have never accurately worked out the actual percentage decrease in CPC/CPA of an above average QS. Great slide deck from @larrykim as I have come to expect, wish I could have made it to SMX.

Nice to finally get some confirmation as to the causes of the recent flux in the SERPs. Rolling Panda and Pay Day algo updates at the same time is gonna cause a real shakeup. I wouldn't bet against Penguin hitting in the next week or so either. I'm seeing some positive gains across a few sites so far so I can't really complain.

I'm finding this double algo drop pretty interesting. It's certainly had the SERPs shaking for a few days now.

So far I've seen some nice gains both last Friday/Saturday and then again today when Panda ran. Most sites have remained kinda stable tho and tbh I am not seeing a massive pattern on the sites that have jumped up apart from they are well structured e-commerce sites with unique descriptions for all products and plenty of other good content across the sites. 

I initially thought it was Penguin related as the sites that saw the BIG jumps I had recently did a preemptive link clean up and submitted a disavow file to negate some crappy links built by the previous SEO company (that old chestnut) but it appears that's not the case.

The big jumps over the weekend related to the so called Pay Day algo update are pretty interesting as while the SERPs aren't exactly clean they aren't the most spammy either with lots of big brand sites ranking page 1 and 2. 

Just need a Penguin update now for the hatrick.

Haha this article made me laugh so hard.

So Google bang on about not spamming their search results but then happily go about spamming the hell out of real people on twitter. Good one Google.

Beat me to the share @matthewmarley.

One of the more interesting articles I have read lately. I pretty much agree with the points Josh makes.

Google are blatantly abusing their monopoly on search to boost their bottom line. I don't blame them for it, they have a legal obligation to put their shareholder interests first before that of anyone else.

Its about time for Google to get some serious checks on their power and get them off their high and mighty 'gods of the internet' power trip. The internet wasn't meant to be run by a cartel of overbearing websites that have more power and money than any government. Due to this I can't see any government bringing them in line due to Google's endless cash reserves and world class legal team.

That leaves it to us the users of Google to do something about all this madness. I would love it if SEO's could stop arguing over silly white hat v black hat BS and focus on the real problem.

I was thinking if enough webmasters were to sign up you would send a pretty strong message to Google by blocking them from your site. I bet their search results wouldn't be so user friendly with a ton of sites missing and the press would have a field day.

International googlebot disallow day anyone?

Np Brian. Nice post and really useful for sites that don't have the time or resources to be constantly creating top content.

I've been getting some great results from BLB recently and would recommend the Broken Link Building tool from Citation Labs to help scour the web for those nuggets of 404 gold.

You can sometimes find whole expired domains that are readily available with some amazing links in their profile for a bit of cheeky 301 action or even use them as a new money site/linking site. 

One thing I love about this industry is the amount of knowledge sharing that goes on across the community. I have personally learned a ton by reading all the useful content out there.

I do however believe that it isn't a good idea to be publisicing anything that may get you into Google's bad books. We have seen recently that Google aren't above targeting individuals to make an example and I for one don't want to risk my clients sites by sharing too much information openly.

At the end of the day Google are smart but not as smart as many think and they only find out about many SEO tactics by people sharing that information on open forums and in blog posts. Transparency is good and all that but I would be very cautious about sharing EVERYTHING I do publicly.

'Messes around on the internet all day' is how I've heard my Mum describe what I do to her friends.

Sounds about right to me :)

Nice post Matt. Buzzstream does a great job of finding most of the obvious emails for outreach targets.

I learnt the rapportive trick from Andrew Warner of Mixergy and it's such a great way to find those hard to get emails. Rapportive is such a sweet plugin and I love that hack.

Another tactic that isn't very sophisticated but I've found effective is, when trying to get a personal email for someone within a big organisation I find just using the general contact form and asking for the persons email address often does the trick.

Really interesting findings.  It appears some people are super share happy and eager to update their twitter feed at every possible opportunity.

I also wonder if some users are tweeting articles after the 25% mark just so they can remember them for later.

I personally won't share anything until I've read it fully and think it would be of interest to my network.

Interesting tool, but after giving it a try I'm just seeing all the text overlapping each other so its impossible to use. If that was fixed it could be a neat little tool.

It would save me pestering my colleagues to proof read my reports.

It certainly is a very risky strategy and not one I would seriously advocate.

It has been an idea playing on my mind the past few weeks after seeing the crazy press coverage these high profile penalties have generated. Who wouldn't kill for that kind of coverage and if it takes a highly managed Google penalty to get it then it could be worth it. It seems like its worked for Rap Genius.

It would only work for a really well known brand though. Google need them in their SERPs as general users would question the validity of their results when they don't see the household names they expect to see. Plus Google makes a ton off these companies in Adwords revenue so they wouldn't want to completely alienate the big brands.

I think every brand that is knowingly engaged in SEO outside Google guidelines (probably most of them) should have a penalty contingency plan in place to make the best of a bad situation if/when they do get hit by big G.

What are Halifax playing at. If your gonna game the system at least do it with some skill & stealth. Using blatant old school tactics like exact match anchors in followed banner links is just asking to get hit.

With all these big brands getting hit you wonder if this could actually turn into a viable SEO tactic for well known brands to pick up legit press links and social mentions. In the past few months we've seen Rap G, Expedia and now Halifax get hit with high profile penalties.

Seems like all you have to do is blast your site with a ton of dodgy links to get a rankings boost and increase traffic knowing full well you will get hit sooner or later. 

When the inevitable penalty does hit you already have a contingency plan in place to remove the links and leverage your brand connections at Google to get a recon through super quick. You spin a whole story around it being a negative SEO attack to save company reputation, all the while milking the whole thing for as many quality press links and social shares as you can get. You can even use the extra revenue from the previously inflated rankings to buy ads to negate the traffic drop. 

Google are happy as they can show they aren't favouring the big brands (they do) and scare everyday webmasters into playing by their rules. The brands that are hit will bounce back after a few weeks of hurt with a stronger link profile than ever.

Now I just need to convince some brand clients to run with the idea.

Some nice tips on how to scale PR efforts.

I love how SEO's (Inbound marketers or whatever title is hot this week) are bringing all the prospecting & productivity hacks to the press and outreach game. Traditional PR folk should be getting worried. You all know SEO's do it better.