Twitter is officially testing a new feature that allows users to prohibit entire groups of people from replying to individual tweets.

Unlike some test features that are rolled out unannounced, Twitter is actively encouraging people to try this one.

Unwanted replies make it hard to have meaningful conversations,” Twitter states in an announcement.

To remedy that, Twitter is giving users the ability to choose who can contribute to a…

Perhaps you’ve heard that GitHub is a code sharing and publishing service, or that it’s a social networking site for programmers.

While both statements are true, neither explains exactly what GitHub really is.

GitHub is a Git repository hosting service providing a web-based graphical interface allowing for access control and additional collaboration features, such as wikis, basic task management tools for projects through issues, coordinating teams, and so much…

There are a few definitions for universal search on the web, but I prefer hearing it from the horse’s mouth on things like this.

While Google hasn’t given a strict definition that I know of as to what universal search is from an SEO standpoint, they have used the following definitio

On top of this, there are additional databases that information is drawn from (hotels, sports scores, calculators, weather, etc.) and additional databases with user-generated information to…

In a Webmaster Central hangout, a publisher asked Google’s John Mueller why their meta description was being rewritten. Mueller’s answer offered a peek into how Google’s algorithm chooses when to rewrite meta descriptions.

The question was specifically about a meta description on the home page being rewritten on the Google search results pages (SERPs) for branded search queries. The publisher used the example of using the modifier “UK” with the brand name.

There are no…

Let me begin this with a full disclaimer. I begin each day by ransacking the news to make sure I know what’s going on in the search world around me.

Follow me on Twitter and at some point, in the morning you’ll find a flurry of Tweets – that’s when.

For a slide deck I had put together recently, I decided to publish each change in the SERP (search engine results pages) layouts for the month prior. There were 18 slides in that section. And that was just for February…

In the world of SEO, it’s important to understand the system you’re optimizing for.

You need to understand how:

• Search engines crawl and index websites.
• Search algorithms function.
• Search engines treat user intent as a ranking signal (and where they’re likely going with it).

Another crucial area to understand is machine learning.

Now, the term “machine learning” gets thrown around a lot these days.

But how does machine…

In this age of search, it’s not enough to know what ranking signals may-or-may-not be at play.

You also need to understand the environment in which those signals operate.

This chapter will look at how user behavior is – and isn’t – used by search engines.

Unlike the previous three installments, which focused on principles, this post will rely on more specific examples and applications.

Most of this chapter will discuss Google because they are the leader in this…

February 2013 was the year “content marketing” started picking up real steam.

It got so popular that businesses grew curious and started searching Google for any information they could get on creating content that would help them grow.

It’s become significantly harder for these teams to get results from the content they’re publishing – especially for those that don’t already have an engaged audience.

A 2019 SEMrush survey revealed that 54% of 1,200 marketers in a 2019…

Content marketing is more successful than traditional marketing when it comes to communicating a product or service online.

In fact, roughly 26.4% of internet users will use ad blocking software this year, according to Statista.

With almost 4.57 billion active internet users, that equates to a lot of missed opportunities.

Why are so many people using ad blocking software?

The most commonly cited reason is that consumers want to view relevant content without…

The demand for SEO is trending to an all-time high, with more than 1.5 million searches in the month of April.

Marketers are searching for the most affordable and cost-effective ways to understand shifts in consumer behaviour and demand volatility while optimizing content for all of their digital channels.

SEO is now mission-critical – it is the front and centre of digital marketing strategies spanning paid media, local, mobile, video, email, and across verticals like Amazon…

The response to Google's May 2020 Core Update has been largely negative, as large brands rank in Positions 1 and 2 for a wide range of keywords.

Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan has declared that the May 2020 Google Update rollout is officially over.

What that means is that the process of rolling out the update around the world is done and the search results should now be stable.

The response from the search community indicated a perception of…

Google Ads is a powerful platform for driving awareness, traffic, and conversions.

A finely tuned and optimized account can provide a tremendous return on investment and deliver against digital marketing goals.

Odds are that you have a dedicated resource on your team, an outsourced resource, or maybe you’re that person or team that’s charged with properly managing the Google Ads account.

Regardless of structure and responsibility, it is important to remember that no…

You must use SEO tools if you want to succeed. But you can't just buy a tool and be done with your SEO. You will be disappointed. Here's why.

When I first started in SEO, there was pretty much only one major tool dedicated to SEO on the market.

WebPosition Gold was the standard for SEO professionals of the time.

With WebPosition Gold, or WPG as it was referred too, you could run ranking reports, analyze pages against a knowledge base (that was updated and…

If your rankings dropped, or you cannot find the keywords driving traffic to your pages in Google Analytics, this post walks you through fixing both.

Great question! I’m going to answer this in two parts.

The first is how to identify the keywords or pages that fell in Google search, and the second is diagnosing the problem.

• How to find the keywords you lost SEO rankings for or pages that fell.
• Ways to start diagnosing the…

A publisher told Google’s John Mueller that Google Search Console (GSC) reported over five hundred backlinks from two domains. The publisher reported that the backlinks correlated with a 50% traffic drop.

Google’s John Mueller commented on the correlation between referral links and a drop in traffic.

The publisher related that GSC showed backlinks from two domains to every page of their site.

When visiting those pages the publisher saw that they were empty, there was no…

LinkedIn is updating the algorithm used to rank content in its feed by factoring in the number of time users spend with each post.

In a blog article, LinkedIn pulls back the curtain on its algorithm and offers a detailed overview of how content is ranked.

When a user logs into LinkedIn there are tens of thousands of “candidate” posts that could show up in their feed.

Those posts go through a first-pass, candidate generation layer.

At this…

When COVID-19 first hit, we were all surprised and frightened.

When its economic impact began to become clear, many companies went into risk management mode and started reducing costs.

From what I’ve heard, at many companies, slashing PPC budgets were high on the list of cost reductions.

Thankfully for many in digital marketing, SEO wasn’t hit as hard. And sometimes it wasn’t affected at all, or companies started investing even more into SEO.

Companies understand…

The reports are in and video is winning for small and medium-sized businesses business, especially during COVID-19.

A new study on small business marketer behavior reveals an increased focus on video marketing and as well as using videos to get found on search.

According to the study, 64% responded that video is the most effective form of online marketing content. And almost half of the respondents agreed that they must create videos in order to grow their business.

This…

Instagram is testing pinned comments on posts as part of a larger effort to combat bullying on the platform.

This feature allows users to highlight positive sentiments and, hopefully, encourage more of the same.

Pinned comments will soon be rolled out as a test, which will make Instagram the first of the top social networks to offer the feature.

If YouTube is anything to go by, which has had pinned comments since 2016, this feature has the potential to add a whole other…

Some in the SEO community have noticed linked related patterns in sites that have lost rankings. Is there anything to it?

He also noted that thin pages that were supported by off-page factors like links were also suffering, as if those links were no longer helping.

It’s good to be aware of the change. But it’s prudent to not make assumptions based on that knowledge.

Jeff did not say that those were the reasons for the changes. What he described were unusual…