Posted by jennita

Today we mourn the loss of our dear friend, long-time community member, and constant shining star in the industry, Dana Lookadoo.

She passed away early Monday morning after struggling with pain and other issues she endured resulting from her bicycle accident in 2013. Her husband Ed posted about her passing in a private Facebook group many folks were a part of. They will be setting up an education fund that we’ll post more about when we have all the details.

Earlier this year we wrote more about the accident, and more importantly about how much Dana has given to this community. From her comments on the blog, to running webinars, and speaking at MozCon, she’s been an active, welcoming member for as long as I can remember.

In early 2009, I was the newest member of the SEOmoz SEO Consulting team (yea, we had that back in the day). Let’s just say I was slightly scared to death because I was a big nobody, and everyone else on my team was a “somebody” in the SEO industry. What I found, though, was a community of folks who welcomed me, and who made me feel right at home.

During my first SEOmoz Training Seminar (now known as MozCon) that year, Dana Lookadoo made a point to find me and welcome me personally to Moz. She asked if she could get a picture of the two of us. I thought she had to be crazy to want a picture with me. Some nobody. But that’s who Dana was. She would go out of her way to make you feel comfortable, to introduce you to other folks, and she always had that big warm smile.

From that point on, Dana and I became industry friends and would run into each other at conferences all over the country. She would inevitably take lots of photos and introduce me to people I was too shy to talk to (yes, I can be shy).

One time at SMX West 2010, I had decided I was going to make a video asking people industry-related questions to see if they knew the answers. But I was having a hard time asking people. I mentioned this to Dana. Of course, she had no problem talking to folks, so she began helping me, introducing me to people, getting the conversation started. She was so dang good at it, so I simply let her roll with it. What came out of it was a silly, somewhat awkward (and a bit horrifying to see the old me), wonderful video.

I’ll never forget telling her in 2010 that I had just found out I had colon cancer and that I’d be having surgery in a week. She was concerned and worried, but all her thoughts were about how to ensure my recovery went well. We talked about changing diet habits, then went on and on about how to be healthy.

Then in 2011, after I’d been going through chemo treatments for almost eight months, one morning I couldn’t get out of bed. I had pushed myself too hard, fallen into a deep depression and my body had given up on me. Dana often called me, and although I didn’t actually want to talk to anyone, I would answer, and then just cry. She’d just listen to me cry and tell me how much I was loved. She was concerned and went through the trouble of finding me a well regarded naturopath, made me an appointment and offered to pay for the services! I will never forget her love and her generosity during that horrible time.

After her accident, I went to visit her at her home. I remember feeling so happy to be able to return the love and friendship she had given me during my time of need. Dana will forever be a shining star; she will live on in our hearts and memories.

Dana was always full of love and light. She cared deeply about helping others and connecting people. We all have a story about Dana. I’d love to hear yours.

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Posted by randfish

Today, it’s my pleasure to announce some exciting news. First, if you haven’t already seen it via his blog post, I’m thrilled to welcome Russ Jones, a longtime community member and great contributor to the SEO world, to Moz. He’ll be joining our team as a Principal Search Scientist, joining the likes of Dr. Pete, Jay Leary, and myself as a high-level individual contributor on research and development projects.

If you’re not familiar with Mr. Jones’ work, let me embarrass my new coworker for a minute. Russ:

• Was Angular’s CTO after having held a number of roles with the company (previously known as Virante)
• Is the creator of not just SERPscape, but the keyword data API, Grepwords, too (which Moz isn’t acquiring—Russ will continue operating that service independently)
• Runs a great Twitter profile sharing observations & posts about some of the most interesting, hardcore-nerdy stuff in SEO
• Operates The Google Cache, a superb blog about SEO that’s long been on my personal must-read list
• Contributes regularly to the Moz blog through excellent posts and comments
• Was, most recently, the author of this superb post on Moz comparing link indices (you can bet we’re going to ask for his help to improve Mozscape)
• And, perhaps most impressively, replies to emails almost as fast as I do 🙂

Russ joins the team in concert with Moz’s acquisition of a dataset and tool he built called SERPscape. SERPscape contains data on 40,000,000 US search results and includes an API capable of querying loads of interesting data about what appears in those results (e.g. the relative presence of a given domain, keywords that particular pages rank for, search rankings by industry, and more). For now, SERPscape is remaining separate from the Moz toolset, but over time, we’ll be integrating it with some cool new projects currently underway (more on that below).

I’m also excited to share a little bit of a sneak preview of a project that I’ve been working on at Moz that we’ve taken to calling “Keyword Explorer.” Russ, in his new role, will be helping out with that, and SERPscape’s data and APIs will be part of that work, too.

In Q1 of this year, I pitched our executive team and product strategy folks for permission to work on Keyword Explorer and, after some struggles (welcome to bigger company life and not being CEO, Rand!), got approval to tackle what I think remains one of the most frustrating parts of SEO: effective, scalable, strategically-informed keyword research. Some of the problems Russ, I, and the entire Keyword Explorer team hope to solve include:

• Getting more accurate estimates around relative keyword volumes when doing research outside AdWords
• Having critical metrics like Difficulty, Volume, Opportunity, and Business Value included alongside our keywords as we’re selecting and prioritizing them
• A tool that lets us build lists of keywords, compare lists against one another, and upload sets of keywords for data and metrics collections
• A single place to research keyword suggestions, uncover keyword metrics (like Difficulty, Opportunity, and Volume), and select keywords for lists that can be directly used for prioritization and tactical targeting

You can see some of this early work in Dr. Pete’s KW Opportunity model, which debuted at Mozcon, in our existing Keyword Difficulty & SERP Analysis tool (an early inspiration for this next step), and in a few visuals below:

BTW: Please don’t hold the final product to any of these; they’re not actual shots of the tool, but rather design comps. What’s eventually released almost certainly won’t match these exactly, and we’re still working on features, functionality, and data. We’re also not announcing a release date yet. That said, if you’re especially passionate about Keyword Explorer, want to see more, and don’t mind giving us some feedback, feel free to email me (rand at moz dot com), and I’ll have more to share privately in the near future.

But, new tools aren’t the only place Russ will be contributing. As he noted in his post, he’s especially passionate about research that helps the entire SEO field advance. His passion is contagious, and I hope it infects our entire team and community. After all, a huge part of Moz’s mission is to help make SEO more transparent and accessible to everyone. With Russ’ addition to the team, I’m confident we’ll be able to make even greater strides in that direction.

Please join me in welcoming him and SERPscape to Moz!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Posted by randfish

Today, it’s my pleasure to announce some exciting news. First, if you haven’t already seen it via his blog post, I’m thrilled to welcome Russ Jones, a longtime community member and great contributor to the SEO world, to Moz. He’ll be joining our team as a Principal Search Scientist, joining the likes of Dr. Pete, Jay Leary, and myself as a high-level individual contributor on research and development projects.

If you’re not familiar with Mr. Jones’ work, let me embarrass my new coworker for a minute. Russ:

• Was Angular’s CTO after having held a number of roles with the company (previously known as Virante)
• Is the creator of not just SERPscape, but the keyword data API, Grepwords, too (which Moz isn’t acquiring—Russ will continue operating that service independently)
• Runs a great Twitter profile sharing observations & posts about some of the most interesting, hardcore-nerdy stuff in SEO
• Operates The Google Cache, a superb blog about SEO that’s long been on my personal must-read list
• Contributes regularly to the Moz blog through excellent posts and comments
• Was, most recently, the author of this superb post on Moz comparing link indices (you can bet we’re going to ask for his help to improve Mozscape)
• And, perhaps most impressively, replies to emails almost as fast as I do 🙂

Russ joins the team in concert with Moz’s acquisition of a dataset and tool he built called SERPscape. SERPscape contains data on 40,000,000 US search results and includes an API capable of querying loads of interesting data about what appears in those results (e.g. the relative presence of a given domain, keywords that particular pages rank for, search rankings by industry, and more). For now, SERPscape is remaining separate from the Moz toolset, but over time, we’ll be integrating it with some cool new projects currently underway (more on that below).

I’m also excited to share a little bit of a sneak preview of a project that I’ve been working on at Moz that we’ve taken to calling “Keyword Explorer.” Russ, in his new role, will be helping out with that, and SERPscape’s data and APIs will be part of that work, too.

In Q1 of this year, I pitched our executive team and product strategy folks for permission to work on Keyword Explorer and, after some struggles (welcome to bigger company life and not being CEO, Rand!), got approval to tackle what I think remains one of the most frustrating parts of SEO: effective, scalable, strategically-informed keyword research. Some of the problems Russ, I, and the entire Keyword Explorer team hope to solve include:

• Getting more accurate estimates around relative keyword volumes when doing research outside AdWords
• Having critical metrics like Difficulty, Volume, Opportunity, and Business Value included alongside our keywords as we’re selecting and prioritizing them
• A tool that lets us build lists of keywords, compare lists against one another, and upload sets of keywords for data and metrics collections
• A single place to research keyword suggestions, uncover keyword metrics (like Difficulty, Opportunity, and Volume), and select keywords for lists that can be directly used for prioritization and tactical targeting

You can see some of this early work in Dr. Pete’s KW Opportunity model, which debuted at Mozcon, in our existing Keyword Difficulty & SERP Analysis tool (an early inspiration for this next step), and in a few visuals below:

BTW: Please don’t hold the final product to any of these; they’re not actual shots of the tool, but rather design comps. What’s eventually released almost certainly won’t match these exactly, and we’re still working on features, functionality, and data. We’re also not announcing a release date yet. That said, if you’re especially passionate about Keyword Explorer, want to see more, and don’t mind giving us some feedback, feel free to email me (rand at moz dot com), and I’ll have more to share privately in the near future.

But, new tools aren’t the only place Russ will be contributing. As he noted in his post, he’s especially passionate about research that helps the entire SEO field advance. His passion is contagious, and I hope it infects our entire team and community. After all, a huge part of Moz’s mission is to help make SEO more transparent and accessible to everyone. With Russ’ addition to the team, I’m confident we’ll be able to make even greater strides in that direction.

Please join me in welcoming him and SERPscape to Moz!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!