seo

Posted by randfish

Homepages were once the ultra-authoritative one-stop shops of online brands. As people and search engines have become better at understanding what users are looking for, though, the purpose of homepages has become more targeted. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand details several of the changes we’ve seen, and offers his advice for what to include on a truly effective homepage on the web today.

For reference, here’s a still of this week’s whiteboard!

Video transcription

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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!

Continue reading →

Posted by deedpolloffice

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

It’s been two years now since Google announced that they’d be gradually withholding the search terms from referer headers, as secure (SSL) search was rolled out. This has meant that the keyword report in Analytics shows (not provided) for most visitors.

In our own Analytics reports, (not provided) keywords now make up 82% of all organic visitors.

For paid traffic (coming through AdWords) the keywords are still “provided,” which is very helpful, but also very expensive.

And of course there’s also the Search Queries report in Webmaster Tools. This is also useful, but it’s still a disappointing loss of information compared to what we used to have (even if I personally think Google was probably right to go ahead with it).

The ved parameter to the rescue

Back in May, Tim Resnik wrote about patterns he’d spotted in Google’s ved parameter. It turns out that ved codes contain rather useful information about the link that was clicked on in the search engine results page. And as Tim pointed out, this goes some way in replacing what was lost (or rather, killed off) by Google taking away the keyword data.

Three months later, Benjamin Schulz worked out that ved codes are actually encoded in Protocol Buffers (or “Protobuf”). So, as they’re not actually encrypted, it’s not too hard to unencode them (plus we don’t have to feel too guilty about it!).

Google has even released open-source compilers (in several different languages), which you can use to decode ved codes yourself. However these compilers are probably a bit over-the-top for what online marketers need (and probably a bit hard to put into practice).

We’ve written up a guide to decoding and interpreting ved codes—as well as filling in some of the unanswered questions (such as what parameter 1 means). And we’ve also written a JavaScript function for decoding veds, which—as I want to explain—is essential if you want to incorporate this information into your own Analytics reports.

This article is an actionable guide to getting information out of these ved codes, and incorporating it into Analytics.

What is a ved code anyway?

I don’t want to repeat too much what has already been written about in other posts, but it’s a good idea to summarise what veds are, what’s inside them, and how you can access them.

When you click on any of the links in Google’s search results, the URL (address) of the link contains a “ved” parameter.

This “ved” code contains information about the link that you clicked on, and when a user comes to your website through Google’s search results, the ved code is (usually) passed to you in the referer HTTP header.

What’s inside a ved code?

A ved code contains up to five separate parameters, which each tell you something about the link that was clicked on:

Link index (parameter 1)

All the links on the SERP have a numerical index, which gets passed in the ved code.

It only gives you a very rough idea of where the link was in the page (without knowing more about what was on the page), so it’s the least useful of the five parameters inside the ved.

However, it is rather useful when it’s for a ved code coming from an adword, simply because there’s no other information about the position.

Although the link index only gives a rough idea of the position of the adword, there are two concrete things you can take from it:

• If it’s about 45—65 or less (shopping results could go up to 85), then it means the adword was in the main column above the organic results
• If it’s about 170 or over, then it means the adword was in the right-hand column or at the bottom of the page

Link type (parameter 2)

This parameter is a number which corresponds to the type of link that was clicked on.

The most common value is 22, which corresponds to a normal (universal) search result.
Other common values (and their meanings) are:

See the complete list, for other (less common) values.

We’ve actually found well over a hundred distinct values, so this is a small fraction of them! Most of them, though, are very unlikely to appear in referer URLs (bear in mind that these are Google’s parameters; they weren’t really meant for us).

You’ll no doubt have noticed that there are lots of gaps in the values. I don’t really know if this is because a lot have been retired, or if Google has left space for future link types (probably a bit of both, but more of the latter). For example, our reports show the link type 703, but we haven’t worked out what it means yet. It seems like it’s some sort of universal search result just for mobile devices. If you see 703 or other codes in your reports, and you have an idea what they mean—write a comment below, or submit a pull request.

Start result position (parameter 7)

This parameter is the cumulative result position of the first result on the page. On page 2 it will be 10, on page 3 it will be 20, and so on.

It’s better to think of this as the page number of results (after subtracting 1, and multiplying by 10)—because it’s quite a long time ago now that there were always 10 results on every page. Anyhow, you’ll need to interpret it in conjunction with parameter 6.

Result position (parameter 6)

This is very similar to the cd parameter, but there are a few important differences:

• cd is counted from 1 (and upwards), whereas the ved result position is counted from 0.
• On page 2 of the results, cd keeps on counting (i.e. 11, 12, 13…), but the ved result position is reset to 0.
• Sometimes the cd parameter is not passed (e.g. for image thumbnails). In these cases, though, the ved result position does seem to get passed.

The ved result position is the more reliable of the two. If, for example, the cd parameter is 11—you wouldn’t know if this is the 11^th result on page 1, or the first result on page 2. With the ved result position, you can distinguish the two.

Sub-result position (parameter 5)

This parameter is like the result position (parameter 6), except it tells you the position in a list of sub-results, such as breadcrumbs, or one-page sitelinks.

How to decode ved codes and pull the information into Analytics

To import the ved into Analytics, you’ll need to include some Javascript to decode it (and send it to the Analytics servers).

To do this, you can modify your Analytics JavaScript “snippet” as follows:

1. Include the ved-decode and base64 libraries

You need to include these libraries in your HTML, somewhere before your Analytics snippet.

The ved-decode library is needed to decode the ved and extract the information we want.
The base64 library is needed for Internet Explorer users, because they won’t have a native Base64 decoder available in their browser.

Each of the two libraries is licensed under a permissive open-source licence (MIT / Apache v2.0)—which lets you use it in any kind of project.

<!-- Include both these scripts or copy them into your main JavaScript file -->
<!--[if lt IE 10]>
    <script type="text/javascript"
        src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/base64-1.0.min.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
<script type="text/javascript"
    src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/ved_analytics-1.0.min.js"></script>

2. Send the ved data to Analytics

How you do this depends on whether you’re using the old Analytics (ga.js) code, or the new Universal Analytics (analytics.js) code:

If you’re using Analytics (ga.js)

Add this JavaScript code just before the call to _gaq.push(['_trackPageview'])—

    // The custom variable code needs to go *before* you record the pageview
    // (i.e. the call to _trackPageview)
    (function(w) {
        var customVars = [
            { slot: 1, name: 'Google link index',          v: 'linkIndex'         },
            { slot: 2, name: 'Google link type',           v: 'linkType'          },
            { slot: 3, name: 'Google result position',     v: 'resultPosition'    },
            { slot: 4, name: 'Google sub-result position', v: 'subResultPosition' },
            { slot: 5, name: 'Google page',                v: 'page'              }
            ];
        if (w._gaq && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) {
            for (var i = 0, val; i < customVars.length; ++i) {
                val = w.VedDecode[customVars[i].v];
                w._gaq.push([
                    '_setCustomVar',
                    customVars[i].slot,
                    customVars[i].name,
                    val ? val + '' : '(not set)',
                    2 // session scope
                    ]);
            }
        }
    })(window);

If you’re using Universal Analytics (analytics.js)

For Universal Analytics you need to set up custom dimensions corresponding to the five parameters:

(These are suggested names, of course—you can call them whatever you like.)

Then add this JavaScript code just before the call to ga('send', 'pageview'):

    // The custom variable code needs to go *before* recording the pageview
    (function(w) {
        if (w.ga && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) {
            // Send pageview with custom dimension data
            ga('set', {
                dimension1: getVedValue('linkIndex'),
                dimension2: getVedValue('linkType'),
                dimension3: getVedValue('resultPosition'),
                dimension4: getVedValue('subResultPosition'),
                dimension5: getVedValue('page')
                });
        }
        function getVedValue(key) {
            var ret = w.VedDecode[key];
            return ret ? ret + '' : '(not set)';
        }
    })(window);

Make sure that the index generated for each dimension in your control panel corresponds to the dimension number in the JavaScript code.

For example, if the generated index for the Google link index dimension is 7, then you need to refer to it as dimension7 in the code.

Using the data

After a short while, the ved data should show up in your reports!

How you then use the data is up to you.

Clearly, though, it’s going to be useful for optimizing different routes to your site, and looking at how different routes affect your conversion rates.

Personally, I think it’s very interesting—for AdWords customers—to see how adword position (i.e. link index) affects conversion rates. It’s very frustrating only having daily averages to work with, because you can’t see (in the standard reports) how much your adword position varies during the day.

Please let us know what you do with the data in the comments below.

But what if no referer header gets passed?

This is important, because if there’s no referer header, then there’s no ved parameter.

The referer won’t get passed in some cases:

If your site isn’t secured by HTTPS

If your site uses HTTP, or it uses HTTP for some pages (in particular, any landing pages), then the referer header may not get passed. Sometimes—even if a user is using secure (HTTPS) search—Google redirects them through a (non-secure) intermediate HTTP click-tracking page. When this happens, you’ll get the referer (and the ved parameter).

However, if Google passes them through a secure (HTTPS) click-tracking page, then you won’t get the referer (or the ved parameter) unless your site is also using HTTPS.

In conclusion—if you want to be sure of getting the ved parameter for as many users as possible—use HTTPS for your site. (Of course this isn’t the only reason to use HTTPS!)

If the user is on a mobile device

For mobile devices, Google has started to use hyperlink auditing—which should have been called “click tracking”, and is better known as the “ping” attribute—instead of redirects through a click-tracking page. Hyperlink auditing isn’t as reliable as a redirect, though, which is why:

• Google only use it for mobile devices
• all paid results (e.g. adwords) still go through traditional redirects

According to Google, the main motivation for using the ping attribute (only) on mobile devices, is to improve speed—and I’m inclined to believe them. But it probably also helps that:

• mobile users are probably less likely to turn hyperlink auditing off (or know how, or know what it is)
• mobile devices run modern browsers, which support hyperlink auditing

However—you might ask—if mobile devices don’t go through a redirect, and my site is using HTTPS, shouldn’t I get the referer anyway?

Yes, that’s right, you should get the referer!
But sadly, Google has specifically disabled it.

What Google do, if they use hyperlink auditing, is to set the meta referrer element to origin:

    <meta name="referrer" content="origin">

This instructs the user’s browser to include the document’s origin in the referer header rather than the full URL of the document. So the referer will just state (something like) <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/">https://www.google.co.uk/</a>.

Before you think, “How evil!”—there’s a good reason for this. If they didn’t do this, then the search terms would also appear in the referer, and Google has committed to turning this off for privacy reasons.

So, mobile devices are another kettle of fish, and ved code analysis won’t work most of the time. But for most sites, mobile devices will still be in the minority, and things change quickly anyway. (For example, if there was a new anti-privacy law requiring hyperlink auditing to be off by default, that would certainly be the death of it.)

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!

Continue reading →

Posted by deedpolloffice

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

It’s been two years now since Google announced that they’d be gradually withholding the search terms from referer headers, as secure (SSL) search was rolled out. This has meant that the keyword report in Analytics shows (not provided) for most visitors.

In our own Analytics reports, (not provided) keywords now make up 82% of all organic visitors.

For paid traffic (coming through AdWords) the keywords are still “provided,” which is very helpful, but also very expensive.

And of course there’s also the Search Queries report in Webmaster Tools. This is also useful, but it’s still a disappointing loss of information compared to what we used to have (even if I personally think Google was probably right to go ahead with it).

The ved parameter to the rescue

Back in May, Tim Resnik wrote about patterns he’d spotted in Google’s ved parameter. It turns out that ved codes contain rather useful information about the link that was clicked on in the search engine results page. And as Tim pointed out, this goes some way in replacing what was lost (or rather, killed off) by Google taking away the keyword data.

Three months later, Benjamin Schulz worked out that ved codes are actually encoded in Protocol Buffers (or “Protobuf”). So, as they’re not actually encrypted, it’s not too hard to unencode them (plus we don’t have to feel too guilty about it!).

Google has even released open-source compilers (in several different languages), which you can use to decode ved codes yourself. However these compilers are probably a bit over-the-top for what online marketers need (and probably a bit hard to put into practice).

We’ve written up a guide to decoding and interpreting ved codes—as well as filling in some of the unanswered questions (such as what parameter 1 means). And we’ve also written a JavaScript function for decoding veds, which—as I want to explain—is essential if you want to incorporate this information into your own Analytics reports.

This article is an actionable guide to getting information out of these ved codes, and incorporating it into Analytics.

What is a ved code anyway?

I don’t want to repeat too much what has already been written about in other posts, but it’s a good idea to summarise what veds are, what’s inside them, and how you can access them.

When you click on any of the links in Google’s search results, the URL (address) of the link contains a “ved” parameter.

This “ved” code contains information about the link that you clicked on, and when a user comes to your website through Google’s search results, the ved code is (usually) passed to you in the referer HTTP header.

What’s inside a ved code?

A ved code contains up to five separate parameters, which each tell you something about the link that was clicked on:

Link index (parameter 1)

All the links on the SERP have a numerical index, which gets passed in the ved code.

It only gives you a very rough idea of where the link was in the page (without knowing more about what was on the page), so it’s the least useful of the five parameters inside the ved.

However, it is rather useful when it’s for a ved code coming from an adword, simply because there’s no other information about the position.

Although the link index only gives a rough idea of the position of the adword, there are two concrete things you can take from it:

• If it’s about 45—65 or less (shopping results could go up to 85), then it means the adword was in the main column above the organic results
• If it’s about 170 or over, then it means the adword was in the right-hand column or at the bottom of the page

Link type (parameter 2)

This parameter is a number which corresponds to the type of link that was clicked on.

The most common value is 22, which corresponds to a normal (universal) search result.
Other common values (and their meanings) are:

See the complete list, for other (less common) values.

We’ve actually found well over a hundred distinct values, so this is a small fraction of them! Most of them, though, are very unlikely to appear in referer URLs (bear in mind that these are Google’s parameters; they weren’t really meant for us).

You’ll no doubt have noticed that there are lots of gaps in the values. I don’t really know if this is because a lot have been retired, or if Google has left space for future link types (probably a bit of both, but more of the latter). For example, our reports show the link type 703, but we haven’t worked out what it means yet. It seems like it’s some sort of universal search result just for mobile devices. If you see 703 or other codes in your reports, and you have an idea what they mean—write a comment below, or submit a pull request.

Start result position (parameter 7)

This parameter is the cumulative result position of the first result on the page. On page 2 it will be 10, on page 3 it will be 20, and so on.

It’s better to think of this as the page number of results (after subtracting 1, and multiplying by 10)—because it’s quite a long time ago now that there were always 10 results on every page. Anyhow, you’ll need to interpret it in conjunction with parameter 6.

Result position (parameter 6)

This is very similar to the cd parameter, but there are a few important differences:

• cd is counted from 1 (and upwards), whereas the ved result position is counted from 0.
• On page 2 of the results, cd keeps on counting (i.e. 11, 12, 13…), but the ved result position is reset to 0.
• Sometimes the cd parameter is not passed (e.g. for image thumbnails). In these cases, though, the ved result position does seem to get passed.

The ved result position is the more reliable of the two. If, for example, the cd parameter is 11—you wouldn’t know if this is the 11^th result on page 1, or the first result on page 2. With the ved result position, you can distinguish the two.

Sub-result position (parameter 5)

This parameter is like the result position (parameter 6), except it tells you the position in a list of sub-results, such as breadcrumbs, or one-page sitelinks.

How to decode ved codes and pull the information into Analytics

To import the ved into Analytics, you’ll need to include some Javascript to decode it (and send it to the Analytics servers).

To do this, you can modify your Analytics JavaScript “snippet” as follows:

1. Include the ved-decode and base64 libraries

You need to include these libraries in your HTML, somewhere before your Analytics snippet.

The ved-decode library is needed to decode the ved and extract the information we want.
The base64 library is needed for Internet Explorer users, because they won’t have a native Base64 decoder available in their browser.

Each of the two libraries is licensed under a permissive open-source licence (MIT / Apache v2.0)—which lets you use it in any kind of project.

<!-- Include both these scripts or copy them into your main JavaScript file -->
<!--[if lt IE 10]>
    <script type="text/javascript"
        src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/base64-1.0.min.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
<script type="text/javascript"
    src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/ved_analytics-1.0.min.js"></script>

2. Send the ved data to Analytics

How you do this depends on whether you’re using the old Analytics (ga.js) code, or the new Universal Analytics (analytics.js) code:

If you’re using Analytics (ga.js)

Add this JavaScript code just before the call to _gaq.push(['_trackPageview'])—

    // The custom variable code needs to go *before* you record the pageview
    // (i.e. the call to _trackPageview)
    (function(w) {
        var customVars = [
            { slot: 1, name: 'Google link index',          v: 'linkIndex'         },
            { slot: 2, name: 'Google link type',           v: 'linkType'          },
            { slot: 3, name: 'Google result position',     v: 'resultPosition'    },
            { slot: 4, name: 'Google sub-result position', v: 'subResultPosition' },
            { slot: 5, name: 'Google page',                v: 'page'              }
            ];
        if (w._gaq && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) {
            for (var i = 0, val; i < customVars.length; ++i) {
                val = w.VedDecode[customVars[i].v];
                w._gaq.push([
                    '_setCustomVar',
                    customVars[i].slot,
                    customVars[i].name,
                    val ? val + '' : '(not set)',
                    2 // session scope
                    ]);
            }
        }
    })(window);

If you’re using Universal Analytics (analytics.js)

For Universal Analytics you need to set up custom dimensions corresponding to the five parameters:

(These are suggested names, of course—you can call them whatever you like.)

Then add this JavaScript code just before the call to ga('send', 'pageview'):

    // The custom variable code needs to go *before* recording the pageview
    (function(w) {
        if (w.ga && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) {
            // Send pageview with custom dimension data
            ga('set', {
                dimension1: getVedValue('linkIndex'),
                dimension2: getVedValue('linkType'),
                dimension3: getVedValue('resultPosition'),
                dimension4: getVedValue('subResultPosition'),
                dimension5: getVedValue('page')
                });
        }
        function getVedValue(key) {
            var ret = w.VedDecode[key];
            return ret ? ret + '' : '(not set)';
        }
    })(window);

Make sure that the index generated for each dimension in your control panel corresponds to the dimension number in the JavaScript code.

For example, if the generated index for the Google link index dimension is 7, then you need to refer to it as dimension7 in the code.

Using the data

After a short while, the ved data should show up in your reports!

How you then use the data is up to you.

Clearly, though, it’s going to be useful for optimizing different routes to your site, and looking at how different routes affect your conversion rates.

Personally, I think it’s very interesting—for AdWords customers—to see how adword position (i.e. link index) affects conversion rates. It’s very frustrating only having daily averages to work with, because you can’t see (in the standard reports) how much your adword position varies during the day.

Please let us know what you do with the data in the comments below.

But what if no referer header gets passed?

This is important, because if there’s no referer header, then there’s no ved parameter.

The referer won’t get passed in some cases:

If your site isn’t secured by HTTPS

If your site uses HTTP, or it uses HTTP for some pages (in particular, any landing pages), then the referer header may not get passed. Sometimes—even if a user is using secure (HTTPS) search—Google redirects them through a (non-secure) intermediate HTTP click-tracking page. When this happens, you’ll get the referer (and the ved parameter).

However, if Google passes them through a secure (HTTPS) click-tracking page, then you won’t get the referer (or the ved parameter) unless your site is also using HTTPS.

In conclusion—if you want to be sure of getting the ved parameter for as many users as possible—use HTTPS for your site. (Of course this isn’t the only reason to use HTTPS!)

If the user is on a mobile device

For mobile devices, Google has started to use hyperlink auditing—which should have been called “click tracking”, and is better known as the “ping” attribute—instead of redirects through a click-tracking page. Hyperlink auditing isn’t as reliable as a redirect, though, which is why:

• Google only use it for mobile devices
• all paid results (e.g. adwords) still go through traditional redirects

According to Google, the main motivation for using the ping attribute (only) on mobile devices, is to improve speed—and I’m inclined to believe them. But it probably also helps that:

• mobile users are probably less likely to turn hyperlink auditing off (or know how, or know what it is)
• mobile devices run modern browsers, which support hyperlink auditing

However—you might ask—if mobile devices don’t go through a redirect, and my site is using HTTPS, shouldn’t I get the referer anyway?

Yes, that’s right, you should get the referer!
But sadly, Google has specifically disabled it.

What Google do, if they use hyperlink auditing, is to set the meta referrer element to origin:

    <meta name="referrer" content="origin">

This instructs the user’s browser to include the document’s origin in the referer header rather than the full URL of the document. So the referer will just state (something like) <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/">https://www.google.co.uk/</a>.

Before you think, “How evil!”—there’s a good reason for this. If they didn’t do this, then the search terms would also appear in the referer, and Google has committed to turning this off for privacy reasons.

So, mobile devices are another kettle of fish, and ved code analysis won’t work most of the time. But for most sites, mobile devices will still be in the minority, and things change quickly anyway. (For example, if there was a new anti-privacy law requiring hyperlink auditing to be off by default, that would certainly be the death of it.)

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!

Continue reading →

Posted by Trevor-Klein

Continuing what has become an annual tradition at Moz, on the last day of 2013 we’re excited to bring you a roundup of the very best of this year’s posts on the Moz Blog and YouMoz.

After asking Roger to work overtime to crunch these numbers, we’ve whittled the posts down to the cream of the crop, and have organized them in several different ways:

1. The top Moz Blog posts by unique pageviews
2. The top YouMoz Blog posts by unique pageviews
3. The top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up
4. The top Moz Blog posts by number of comments
5. The top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains
6. The top comments from our community by number of thumbs up
7. The most active community members by number of comments posted

This year’s data was more difficult to collect, as we migrated to our new domain in May. My eternal gratitude goes to Cyrus Shepard for helping make sure the right numbers were pulled.

Top posts by unique pageviews

One of the quintessential metrics for a piece of content is its number of unique pageviews. Reflecting our audience’s thirst for advanced SEO, content marketing, and data analysis, these posts were winners from the very beginning.

1. 10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations
February 6 – Posted by Miranda Rensch
Communicating visually is one of the most effective ways to explain complex concepts and relationships, both internally with your teammates and externally with your clients. Our very own Product Manager, Miranda Rensch, offers a list of tools you can use to create beautiful visualizations and let your visual communication skills shine!

2. A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization
August 6 – Posted by randfish
As the “O” in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no “perfectly optimized page,” this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.

3. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0
August 29 – Posted by DannyDover
It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand new version of The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet. This free and downloadable cheat sheet covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

4. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

5. Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings
August 20 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
This year’s Search Ranking Factors Study showed a very strong correlation between Google +1s and higher rankings, and there’s a compelling reason why. Google+ was built for SEO, and is far better optimized for search than other platforms.

6. Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization – 91 Point Checklist and Infographic
January 24 – Posted by CueBlocks.com
Invest in building filthy rich user experience, consistently and throughout your store. That is what stores with deeper pockets (like ASOS, Zappos, and JCPenney) do to achieve better conversion rate than your store. This article will take you away from usual Search Engine Optimization stuff to where the real money lies – Conversion Rate Optimization. What you do with the visitors you bring to your website?

7. 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors
July 9 – Posted by Matt Peters
The results are in! Come check out Moz’s 2013 Ranking Factors as Matt Peters presents a preview of the results from the survey and correlation study.

8. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

9. The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge – Interactive
July 31 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools. Paid tools are essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical features, or professional support. For other tasks, a free tool does the trick. Here you’ll find a collection of the 100 best completely free tools, tools with both free and paid options, and free trials.

10. When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Friday
September 24 – Posted by randfish
The rate at which Google is lumping keywords into “(not provided)” has skyrocketed in the last month, leading to a huge drop in referral data and speculation that 100% of keywords will soon be masked. In this special Whiteboard Tuesday, Rand covers what marketers can do to make up for this drastic change.

Top YouMoz posts by unique pageviews

We saw some real gems come through the YouMoz queue this year. Most of these posts were promoted to the Moz Blog shortly after they were published, as their resonance with the Moz community was readily apparent.

1. Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization – 91 Point Checklist and Infographic
January 24 – Posted by CueBlocks.com
Invest in building filthy rich user experience, consistently and throughout your store. That is what stores with deeper pockets (like ASOS, Zappos, and JCPenney) do to achieve better conversion rate than your store. This article will take you away from usual Search Engine Optimization stuff to where the real money lies – Conversion Rate Optimization. What you do with the visitors you bring to your website?

2. 96 Quick SEO Wins – What Can You Do With an Hour?
January 31 – Posted by kevingibbons
If you want to win at SEO in 2013, you must commit to a solid long-term strategy. However, that’s not to say you can’t build small wins into your long-term strategy to strengthen it along the way. Here are 96 quick wins you can implement in an hour or less to see tremendous results.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging
January 21 – Posted by Pratik.Dholakiya
With “content marketing” being the indisputable SEO buzzword of 2012, we can expect 2013 to see an onslaught of marketers trying to build links with guest posts. The growth in this market will cause some sites to lower their guest posting standards, others to raise them, and still more to stop accepting them altogether. We’re going to help you combat this by sharing how we got posts up on ProBlogger and Search Engine Journal, and by introducing you to our strategy for success with our clients.

4. 33 Link Building Questions Answered
April 4 – Posted by Rhea Drysdale
When it comes to link building idea generation, the sky’s the limit! In today’s post, Rhea Drysdale offers her tips for best practices and a philosophical approach to link building that will help bring your ideas to life.

5. Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study
January 15 – Posted by Court Tuttle
It’s no secret that Google’s Panda and Penguin updates caused a lot of panic. Although I’m pretty turned off to information about these updates, I’ve been really interested in the anchor text issues surrounding the Penguin update. If sites that have over-optimized anchors lost traffic due to the update, it seems to make sense that sites can move up with relatively few (or without any) anchored links. I wanted to test that idea and decided that it was time for a good, old fashioned case study.

6. 5 Lessons Learned from 100,000 Usability Studies
August 28 – Posted by Phil Sharp
As helpful as analytics can be, they simply can’t give as complete a picture as usability studies. This post walks through five of the most important lessons we’ve learned after performing hundreds of thousands of those studies.

7. How to Build Links to Your Blog – A Case Study
June 4 – Posted by MatthewBarby
After a month or so of development, my site was finally ready and I wanted to start thinking about how to get some traffic going on the website. Whilst paid advertising and social media were a huge part of the strategy, I knew that appearing in the search engines for a wide selection of long-tail phrases was going to be instrumental to the blog’s success. This is when I began developing my link building strategy and, after trialing out some very successful approaches, I’ve decided to now share my link building tactics with you all.

8. How to Build a Great Online Fashion Brand – 34 Things that Really Amazing Fashion Retailers Do
May 30 – Posted by ILoveFashionRetail.com
Despite the title, we believe this article can also benefit and inspire retailers in industries outside fashion and help them find their way to success in online retail business in this new social commerce environment. The Online Fashion Retail Industry, particularly at the luxury end, seems to be doing well. Over the past few years, lot of money has been invested into fashion retail businesses. Valuations of these companies might seem inflated, but these companies are growing fast with the help of clear revenue stream and a value proposition that’s beyond price advantage. But while some companies in Fashion technology are successfully raising more money and growing, there is another segment that’s struggling to survive. These businesses are stalling because of their ability to adopt to the shift in the media consumption behavior of the consumer.

9. How To Blog Successfully About Anything
January 9 – Posted by TannerC
In order to create a successful blog, you must be passionately curious about the topic you’re covering. Learn how to turn even the most uninteresting blog post topics into goldmines with these tips for successful bloggers.

10. Semantic Web and Link Building without Links > The Future for SEO?
January 10 – Posted by simonpenson
Rand’s recent WBF about co-occurrence was a real wake up call for those still transfixed with link building practices of old. While anchor text based links may still have some effect, there is little arguing the fact that the factor’s importance is dwindling. In its place are things like social signals, link age, and, most importantly, a growing reliance on relevancy and how that is deciphered.

Top Moz Blog posts by number of thumbs up

While something of a controversial metric, there’s nothing more satisfying for an author (or, I admit, for a publisher!) than seeing a bunch of thumbs up. These posts went far beyond satisfying, though, garnering jaw-dropping numbers of thumbs up.

1. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

2. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

3. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0
August 29 – Posted by DannyDover
It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand new version of The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet. This free and downloadable cheat sheet covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

4. A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization
August 6 – Posted by randfish
As the “O” in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no “perfectly optimized page,” this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.

5. Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings
August 20 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
This year’s Search Ranking Factors Study showed a very strong correlation between Google +1s and higher rankings, and there’s a compelling reason why. Google+ was built for SEO, and is far better optimized for search than other platforms.

6. 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors
July 9 – Posted by Matt Peters
The results are in! Come check out Moz’s 2013 Ranking Factors as Matt Peters presents a preview of the results from the survey and correlation study.

7. The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge – Interactive
July 31 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools. Paid tools are essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical features, or professional support. For other tasks, a free tool does the trick. Here you’ll find a collection of the 100 best completely free tools, tools with both free and paid options, and free trials.

8. From Zero to a Million: 20 Lessons for Starting an Internet Marketing Agency
September 19 – Posted by NiftyMarketing
This post is a combination of stories and thoughts about what I have gone through building Nifty Marketing. My hope is that a few of you who are out there hustling will benefit from doing some of the things that I did, and most of the things that I didn’t.

9. Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study
January 15 – Posted by Court Tuttle
It’s no secret that Google’s Panda and Penguin updates caused a lot of panic. Although I’m pretty turned off to information about these updates, I’ve been really interested in the anchor text issues surrounding the Penguin update. If sites that have over-optimized anchors lost traffic due to the update, it seems to make sense that sites can move up with relatively few (or without any) anchored links. I wanted to test that idea and decided that it was time for a good, old fashioned case study.

10. Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization – 91 Point Checklist and Infographic
January 24 – Posted by CueBlocks.com
Invest in building filthy rich user experience, consistently and throughout your store. That is what stores with deeper pockets (like ASOS, Zappos, and JCPenney) do to achieve better conversion rate than your store. This article will take you away from usual Search Engine Optimization stuff to where the real money lies – Conversion Rate Optimization. What you do with the visitors you bring to your website?

Top Moz Blog posts by number of comments

Some posts, whether due to truly inspired content or a touch of controversy (sometimes a little of both), generate significantly more discussion in the comments than others. Many of these have comment sections that dwarf the original post! We expected our announcement of the shift from SEOmoz to Moz would drum up some conversation, but we were interested to take a look at the rest of this list.

1. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

2. Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study
January 15 – Posted by Court Tuttle
It’s no secret that Google’s Panda and Penguin updates caused a lot of panic. Although I’m pretty turned off to information about these updates, I’ve been really interested in the anchor text issues surrounding the Penguin update. If sites that have over-optimized anchors lost traffic due to the update, it seems to make sense that sites can move up with relatively few (or without any) anchored links. I wanted to test that idea and decided that it was time for a good, old fashioned case study.

3. The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging
January 21 – Posted by Pratik.Dholakiya
With “content marketingâ€� being the indisputable SEO buzzword of 2012, we can expect 2013 to see an onslaught of marketers trying to build links with guest posts. The growth in this market will cause some sites to lower their guest posting standards, others to raise them, and still more to stop accepting them altogether. We’re going to help you combat this by sharing how we got posts up on ProBlogger and Search Engine Journal, and by introducing you to our strategy for success with our clients.

4. Why We Can’t Just Be SEOs Anymore – Whiteboard Friday
May 2 – Posted by randfish
There’s a movement happening in our industry where many SEOs are changing their titles and practices to “inbound marketing.” Where did this shift originate, and how is it shaping our industry at large? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand shares his thoughts on why we can’t just be SEOs anymore if we’re aiming for the bigger picture.

5. The 100 Best Free SEO Tools & Resources for Every Challenge – Interactive
July 31 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
At Moz, we love using premium SEO Tools. Paid tools are essential when you need advanced features, increased limits, historical features, or professional support. For other tasks, a free tool does the trick. Here you’ll find a collection of the 100 best completely free tools, tools with both free and paid options, and free trials.

6. Ultimate Guide to Google Penalty Removal
October 14 – Posted by PinpointDesigns
A few months back, I wrote an article on Moz all about a penalty our web agency received for unnatural links pointing to our website. At first, this was a bit of a shock to the system, but since then, we’ve learned so much about Google’s webmaster guidelines and we’ve helped lots of companies get their businesses back on track and remove manual penalties associated with their websites.

7. From Zero to a Million: 20 Lessons for Starting an Internet Marketing Agency
September 19 – Posted by NiftyMarketing
This post is a combination of stories and thoughts about what I have gone through building Nifty Marketing. My hope is that a few of you who are out there hustling will benefit from doing some of the things that I did, and most of the things that I didn’t.

8. When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday
September 24 – Posted by randfish
The rate at which Google is lumping keywords into “(not provided)” has skyrocketed in the last month, leading to a huge drop in referral data and speculation that 100% of keywords will soon be masked. In this special Whiteboard Tuesday, Rand covers what marketers can do to make up for this drastic change.

9. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

10. Why Google Analytics Tagging Matters – Whiteboard Friday
March 15 – Posted by RachaelGerson
In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rachael Gerson sheds some light on “dark social” and explains why tagging in Google Analytics improves the accuracy of your referrals. Take credit for the work that you’re doing, and tag your links!

Top Moz Blog posts by number of linking root domains

It just wouldn’t seem right to use unique pageviews, thumbs, and comments to judge an SEO-focused blog without throwing in linking root domains as well. Using data from Open Site Explorer, here are the 10 posts that garnered the most attention from unique domains across the web.

1. Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings
August 20 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
This year’s Search Ranking Factors Study showed a very strong correlation between Google +1s and higher rankings, and there’s a compelling reason why. Google+ was built for SEO, and is far better optimized for search than other platforms.

2. 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors
July 9 – Posted by Matt Peters
The results are in! Come check out Moz’s 2013 Ranking Factors as Matt Peters presents a preview of the results from the survey and correlation study.

3. When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday
September 24 – Posted by randfish
The rate at which Google is lumping keywords into “(not provided)” has skyrocketed in the last month, leading to a huge drop in referral data and speculation that 100% of keywords will soon be masked. In this special Whiteboard Tuesday, Rand covers what marketers can do to make up for this drastic change.

4. Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!
May 29 – Posted by randfish
For the last two years, the 130+ Mozzers across product, engineering, marketing, and operations have been working to transform this company to the next stage of our evolution. Today, that incredibly demanding, intense, but ultimately rewarding process has reached its first goal. I’m excited to announce that as of today, SEOmoz is formally transitioning our brand, our products, our company name, and all of our efforts to Moz.

5. The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0
August 29 – Posted by DannyDover
It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand new version of The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet. This free and downloadable cheat sheet covers all of the important SEO code and best practices that are needed by online marketers and developers.

6. A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization
August 6 – Posted by randfish
As the “O” in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no “perfectly optimized page,” this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.

7. How Website Speed Actually Impacts Search Ranking
August 1 – Posted by Zoompf
Google has long stated website performance will impact search ranking, but what exactly does this mean? In this article, Zoompf researches over 40 different speed metrics to determine the most impactful performance changes you can make to your website to improve search ranking.

8. 10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations
February 6 – Posted by Miranda.Rensch
Communicating visually is one of the most effective ways to explain complex concepts and relationships, both internally with your teammates and externally with your clients. Our very own Product Manager, Miranda Rensch, offers a list of tools you can use to create beautiful visualizations and let your visual communication skills shine!

9. The SEO of Responsive Web Design
January 28 – Posted by Kristina Kledzik
Will Critchlow announced back in November that Distilled’s blog was updated with a new responsive design, but it occurred to me recently that we never went into the specifics of why responsive web design is so great. It’s been a hot topic in online marketing for the past few months, but is it really going to become an industry standard? Short answer: yep.

10. How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
May 14 – Posted by Cyrus-Shepard
If you’re like most SEOs, you spend hours each week reading the latest SEO tactics and search engine tidbits. We spend hours learning, but does 90% of it change what we actually do – that is, the basic work of ranking a web page for search? To lend a hand, let me introduce the 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint.

Top comments by number of thumbs up

We’re always impressed by the discussions we see in the comments below blog posts. In addition to the great many insightful points that add to what the authors say, one of our favorite parts is the support our community members show for one another. Here are the most thumbed-up comments from 2013.

1. Stephan_Boehringer | September 24
When Keyword (not provided) is 100 Percent of Organic Referrals, What Should Marketers Do? – Whiteboard Tuesday

2. gfiorelli1 | July 19
Heart to Heart About Link Building – Whiteboard Friday

3. MarkTraphagen | August 20
Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings

4. jcolman | May 29
Goodbye SEOmoz. Hello Moz!

5. randfish | August 29
The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0

6. Dr-Pete | April 15
The Difference Between Penguin and an Unnatural Links Penalty (and some info on Panda too)

7. Bill Sebald | July 16
9 Experts and a Summary: What Makes an Ideal SEO Employee?

8. KeriMorgret | February 7
Going Beyond Moz Metrics to Answer: “Why is this Site Outranking Me?”

9. evolvingSEO | February 12
Stop Clicking Here! 7 Superior SEO Alternatives to Generic Links

10. KeriMorgret | March 8
6 Ways to Use Fresh Links & Mentions to Improve Your Marketing Efforts – Whiteboard Friday

Most active users by number of comments

While quality certainly trumps quantity in most cases, we’re continuously impressed by the ability of our community members to cover both bases. On average, the folks on this list (which intentionally omits our own staff and associates) have left a comment on every second or third post we’ve published, and we couldn’t appreciate their contributions more.

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!

Continue reading →

Posted by David-Mihm

I was wrong about Foursquare.

While five of my 2013 local search prognostications came to fruition, my sixth prediction—that Foursquare would be bought—doesn’t look like it will (unless Apple has silently acquired Foursquare in the last couple of days).

In fact, Foursquare has been turning away from an acquisition path, setting off on a fundraising spree in 2013. While this quest for cash has struck some analysts as a desperate tactic, PR from the company indicates that it remains focused on growing its userbase and its revenues for the foreseeable future. It’s one of the few companies in tech to successfully address both sides of the merchant and consumer marketplace, and as a result, might even have a chance at an IPO.

As the company matures, we hear less and less about mayorships, badges, and social gamification—perhaps a tacit admission that checkins are indeed dying as the motivational factor underlying usage of Foursquare.

Foursquare: the data aggregator

Instead, the company is pivoting into a self-described position as “the location layer for the Internet.”

Google, Bing, Nokia, and other mapping companies have built their own much broader location layers to varying degrees of success, but it’s the human activity associated with location data that makes Foursquare unique. Its growing database of keyword-rich tips and comments and widening network of social interactions even make predictive recommendations possible.

But I’m considerably less excited about these consumer-facing recommendations than I am about Foursquare’s data play. If “location layer for the internet” is not a synonym for “data aggregator,” I’m not sure what would be.

In the last several months, Foursquare has been prompting its users to provide business details about the places they check-in at, like whether a business has wi-fi, its relative price range, delivery and payment options, and more. It’s also accumulating one of the biggest photo libraries in all of local search. For companies that have not yet built their own services like StreetView and Mapmaker, Foursquare “ground truth” position is enviable.

So from my standpoint, Foursquare’s already achieved the status of a major data aggregator, and seems to have its sights set on becoming the data aggregator.

Foursquare: The Data Aggregator?

That statement would have sounded preposterous 18 months ago, with “only” 15 million users and 250,000 claimed venues.

But while many of us in the local search space have been distracted by the shiny objects of Google+ Local and Facebook Graph Search, Foursquare has struck deals with the two largest up-and-coming social apps (Instagram and Pinterest) to provide the location backbone for their geolocation features. Not to mention Uber, WhatsApp, and a host of other conversational and transactional apps.

And buried in the December 5th TechCrunch article about Foursquare’s latest iOS release was this throwaway line:

“Foursquare has a sharing deal with Apple already — it’s one of over a dozen contributors to Apple’s Maps data.”

So, doing some quick math, we have

• Foursquare’s ~20 million users (U.S.)
• Apple Maps’ 35 million users (U.S.)
• Instagram’s 50 million users (U.S.)
• Pinterest’s 55 million users (U.S.)

All of a sudden that’s a substantial number of people contributing location information to Foursquare. Granted, there’s considerable overlap in those users, but even a conservative 80-100 million would be a pretty large number of touchpoints.

In fact, one thing that Wil Reynolds and I realized at a recent get-together in San Diego is that for many people outside the tech world, Foursquare and Instagram are basically the same app (see screenshots below). I’m seeing more and more of my decidedly non-techie Instagram friends tagging their photos with location. And avid Foursquare users like Matthew Brown have always made photography their primary network activity.

Providing the geographic foundation for two apps—Pinterest and Instagram—that are far more popular than Foursquare gives it a strong running start on laying the location foundation for the Internet.

What’s next for Foursquare?

While Facebook is undoubtedly building its own location layer, Zuckerberg and company have long ignored local search. And they’ve got plenty of other short- and mid-term priorities. Exposing Facebook check-in data to the extent Foursquare has, and forcing Instagram to update a very successful API integration, would seem to be pretty far down the list.

As I suggested in my Local Search Ecosystem update in August, to challenge established players like Infogroup, Neustar, and Acxiom, in the long run Foursquare does need to build out its index considerably beyond the current sweetspots of food, drink, and entertainment.

But in the short run, the quality and depth of Foursquare’s popular venue information in major cities gives start-up app developers everything they need to launch and attract users to their apps. And Foursquare’s independence from Google, Facebook, and Apple is appealing for many of them—particularly for non-U.S. app developers who have a hard time finding publicly-available location databases outside of Google or Facebook.

Foursquare’s success with Instagram and Pinterest has created a self-perpetuating growth strategy: it will continue to be the location API of choice for most “hot” local startups.

TL;DR

Foursquare venues have been contributing to a business’s citation profile for years, so hopefully most of you have included venue creation and management in your local SEO service packages already. Even if you optimize non-retail locations like insurance agencies, accounting offices, and the like, make one of your 2014 New Year’s resolutions be a higher level of engagement with Foursquare.

The bottom line is that irrespective of its user growth and beyond just SEO, Foursquare is going to get more important to the SoLoMo ecosystem in the coming year.

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!

Continue reading →