aimClear Search Marketing Blog

credit: rahady
We’ve reviewed many sites where supposed search engine optimization “experts” damaged a business with archaic techniques and/or outmoded business practices.  While it’s easy to spot most scumbags, it can be much harder for laypersons to sift out previously germane SEO dinosaurs– now dangerously out of step.

To fill the void, this post offers wary small business owners, CMOs and marketing managers a 30,000 guerrilla vendor gut-check litmus test. Use these 20 procedures as first-line-of-defense screenings to evaluate whether your experts have kept current or are messing with your livelihood.  You may be surprised by the results. Read the rest of this entry »

Read it and weep. Google seems to be testing even deeper integration of real-time search in SERPs (search engine results pages). Either that or maybe it’s a bug.  Check out these suggestion results (found at the bottom of the SERP) for our KnowEm friend, Michael Streko.

Obviously, Google is now cruising real-time search and Twitter for SERPs suggestions. Here’s where that suggestion is derived from: Read the rest of this entry »

To begin, this post is not a black hat tutorial teaching how to build spam-scraper-copyright-infringing websites. Rather we’ll highlight simple white hat techniques to successfully republish and rank “duplicate” content, all the while creating new value for users.  Please don’t use these methods for evil. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the onset of personalized search, frustrated SEO sharpshooters have sought tactics to somehow get a grip on the ensuing chaos.  Now that most users  get uniquely-customized search results (SERPs), the days of search engine optimization measurable in the SERPs are long gone.

This post offers a useful method to optimize for micro-demographics in a way that, not only neutralizes, but also assertively exploits personalized search to the SEO’s benefit, one user at a time. Even better: there is no way Google or any other engine will ever defeat this tactic.  Got ya’ interested? Read on for an accidental antidote: SEO for personalized search. Read the rest of this entry »

Rand Fishkin is a singular personality and, to those in the SEO industry,  needs little  introduction.  Having “started playing” with Microsoft FrontPage WYSIWYG web page software in 1993 as a high school student, he’s grown SEOmoz to take its place amongst the most recognized brands in search.

Rand worked his way to thought-leadership by classic pathways: hard work,  experimentation, speaking engagements at early Danny Sullivan/Chris Sherman SearchEngineStrategies conferences, tackling ambitious data-driven research projects, ahead of the times tool-making, endless sharing, participation and blogging. Read the rest of this entry »

Google Insights For Search

What does it take to rank in Facebook’s newly enhanced internal search engine, which now spans the entire user base? This post offers results from aimClear’s study of Facebook search and offers SEO tips & tricks for getting keyword queries ranked in FB’s organic SERPs.

We also examine opportunities for savvy marketers to best exploit Facebook’s expanded social graph search to immediate advantage and share what we learned about ranking factors.   Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a rare experience to have site reviews with present and past Google visionaries in search.  Matt Cutts, Greg Boser, Vanessa Fox and Tiffany Lane collaborated to share expert advice at today’s Search Engine Strategies San Jose Site Clinic Track session Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic

The reviewers didn’t pull any punches, “If you’re a spammer and are having your site reviewed in this clinic now’s the time to bail because we will call you out, you will get de-indexed and it will be funny.” Read the rest of this entry »

Egregiously incompetent, cutthroat, reckless or outright dishonest? No matter how you slither it, the latest generation of predatory SEO creeps proffer blatantly false information camouflaged by pretty reports. Deceptively branded reports aside, buyer beware when the snakes come to call. Here’s some hard facts to dispel this week’s crap-ass haze of myths and misinformation.  [Author's Note: This post is not aimed at any specific SEO firm, rather the amalgamate of experiences we've had over many years.] Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit  (just fragmented link-juice by 2 links to do the right thing): Mykl Roventine

The most important news to come out of  ‘Advanced 2009 is Google’s blurt-of-a-revelation that they removed the algorithmic benefit from internal page rank sculpting, “about a year ago.” The change also affects how Google handles noFollowed outbound links.

Boiled down, noFollow still prevents the passing of link juice (energy) to the internal or external destination page. However the value is no longer divided up amongst the remaining followed links on the page. Though this 180 degree about-face in what Google had been preaching (literally) to webmasters was poorly handled from a public relations perspective, presumably it was made because the tag was overused, abused and had the potential to skew Google’s rankings.

No worries. We actually think the change will bring some positive changes to the SEO process, though as always there are tradeoffs. Here’s what we’re telling our clients: Read the rest of this entry »

On June 3rd, Matt Cutts freaked the technical SEO community by casually stating that PageRank sculpting, the subtle art of flow-managing page value distribution, had changed significantly from what Google had been prescribing.

Who cares, we don’t need noFollow. What bothers many is that know we’ve learned Google flipped the switch a year ago, all the while offering misleading public information. Read the rest of this entry »