A long time, the meta-tags in the head-section of the document, where extremly usefull for SEO. In case of Google, this era has now officially ended. Here is the video of Matt Cutts, explaning why, on the Google Webmaster Blog.

Does that mean, we now can drop this field? I don´t think so. Since there are other search-engines outside (such as Bing), that still use them, or the opposite is not known.

I still recommend the use of the keywords field in the CMS of big companys, because it´s easier for an search engine optimizer to see, what keywords are relevant for the given article (or which the writer had in mind) and to monitor, if this article ranks for the keywords. The alternative would be, to use the tagging of the article for the keyword meta-tag. Or to use the field for tagging, if the CMS does not have this field. ;-)

Google besinnt sich auf eine alte HTML-Funktion, die in den letzten Jahren an Bedeutung verloren hat: Die “Sprungmarke”. Als man noch Inhalte auf langen Webseiten unterbrachte und nicht mehrere Unterseiten erzeugte, konnte man mit “dateiname.html#sprungmarke” an die relevante Stelle des langes Textes springen.

Diese Sprungmarken können nun in den Sitelinks der Suchergebnisse (SERP´s) mit einfließen. Hier der entsprechende Beitrag im Google-Blog.

Der Google Webmaster-Blog weist gleich darauf hin was zu beachten ist. Wer nicht mehr weiß, wie man solche Sprungmarken umsetzt, der sollte sich das Beispiel auf Selfhtml nochmal anschauen: Verweise definieren (passender Weise natürlich mit einer Sprungmarken-URL verlinkt. ;-)

The most obvious trend when it comes to SEO is “going local”. Ever since Google introduced Google Maps and Local Business Center and later added local search results to Universal Search displaying them on top of everything else businesses everywhere strive to be there. Additionally the proliferation of smartphones and netbooks accelerates this development even more.

You have to perform in local search and on sites that enable users to find local businesses in their respective area. Classic SEO is just not enough anymore for small business owners and location based big business [...]

A very good list of links to dig into the search-engine-optimization for local search.

Read the full article at: SEOptimise

Search is changing though, and there are always new elements coming into play. Since social media has come into its own, more opportunities and questions have come along with it. Now Microsoft is going for Google’s throat with a new search engine and an aggressive marketing campaign. What this means for the future of search market share is yet to be determined, but there’s no denying Bing is capturing some attention, and that means there are people searching with it. Altered your SEO strategy for Bing? Tell us why.

Chris Crum shows how to optimize for Bing and what social media can do for your SEO efforts. Check out the related articles at the bottom of the post.

Read the full article at: WebProNews

Did you know that the number of website hosts that have been submitting Sitemap files has almost tripled over the last year? It’s no wonder: the secret is out – as a recent research study showed, Sitemaps helps search engines to find new and changed content faster. Using Sitemaps doesn’t guarantee that your site will be crawled and indexed completely, but it certainly helps us understand your website better [...]

Google supports now Sitemaps up to 50.000 entries, so enough for the most websites. Also the webmaster tools have been updated. Check out the sitemap-options. There are also links to resources for coders, to produce the sitemap-files with the right syntax.

Read the full article at: Google Webmaster Central Blog

There is no single definition of advanced SEO. There are a few of attempts to describe what it might mean or consist of and what not but there is no entity or authority that could define such a broad term like advanced SEO.
I can’t define advanced SEO either. What I can do though is to collect 30+ advanced SEO tactics, techniques and resources.

These methods are no doubt advanced in the sense that they are new and progressive, sometimes more difficult than basic SEO or require special tools and expertise. Some of the tactics are no short term tactics, they’re probably strategies [...]

Tad Chef did a great job with collecting a big amount of useful links to the different topics of SEO.

Read the full article at: SEOptimise

Ok, we all are, at least a little, scared about the data Google is collecting and what they will do with it in the future. I understand the concerns to use Google Analytics on your website. But with the Google Webmaster-Tools (WT), you can get valueable data from Google, without using one “data-collecting” service of them.
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In case you choose a domain name, that can be misspelled, or you registered different top-levels of the domain, you should redirect the alternatives to the “right” address. Even the use of “www” or not, maybe important for you. And also have in mind, that kpi-agent.com and www.kpi-agent.com are two different domains in the eyes of search-engines and will most likely be seen as duplicate content.
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Some SEOs (search engine optimizers) say, use keywords in your domain-name. OK. You can do that, to push your relevance in Google. But think about it from a different angle.

If your already have a brand name, the people are typing your URL directly into the browserbar, or they use the google search, what more and more “normal” users are doing. Why? Because they are afraid of being redirected to “bad” domains, when they misspelled the URL. So you better be listed at position No. 1 in Google with your brand name.
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