Google has announced that it’s algorithm has again been updated to allow a single domain dominate the top 8 results on page one.

In the past, the most a single domain could get was 2 spots on page 1.

Google has done this in an effort to accommodate inquiries that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain.

For example: If someone searches [exhibitions at amnh] they are specific interested in exhibits at the Museum of Natural History.

When a search like this is done Google will give the first 8 search results to the domain for the Museum of Natural History and the final 2 results to another domain to provide link diversity. (that’s if there is a domain with enough good content)

#1 This is a reminder that Google is constantly improving it’s algorithm, so staying ‘in the know’ is vital to the health of your organic rankings

“We’re always reassessing our ranking and user interface, making hundreds of changes each year. We expect today’s improvement will help users find deeper results from a single site, while still providing diversity on the results page.”

#2 This change will greatly increase the traffic of domains focusing on very specific information/niches.

- specific event location (museum, concert hall, expo center)

- An product that is part of a very small/unique niche

- live music listings for a particular city or genre

- Restauraunt Guides for a specific location

And of course if someone searches a term that includes your company name or product name (i.e. custom shelves don taylor austin)

To increase the chance of dominating the entire first page of results:

1- Create enough quality content on your domain that would convince Google it’s content worth listing that much of.

2- Submit a sitemap to Google so that Google can easily crawl and index all of the content on your site.

Do you have an opportunity to dominate the top 8 results? comment below

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Facebook’s privacy woes have been widespread, reported, spun and un-spun to the point where it’s become the ‘Gulf oil-spill’ of the social media world.  We know our info is being leaked because someone got greedy, and we know there is a way to fix it but it nothing seems to be happening.

The truth is, in the end, people don’t like the fact that their personal information isn’t safe, but they aren’t going to do anything about it except stay put and keep their account activity in motion. This is an obvious conclusion seeing that Facebook recently hit the 500 million user milestone.

Adding insult to injury, a ‘jedi’ developer for Nmap Security scanner created a program that broke into 100 million Facebook users and leaked their information for anyone to download.  That’s 20% of Facebook!

Funny thing is, a list of the major companies that downloaded it was released containing AT&T, Novell, Viacom, Wells Fargo, and oddly enough the Church of Scientology.

But once again, Facebook has had holes poked all through its thin shell.  This time around it’s not as detrimental because, of course, they were hacked.  The thing that’s hurting Facebook is the fact that there is something that could be done, but they aren’t willing to do it.

Facebook could up their security features to protect their precious users, but doing so could hurt their relationship with Google and the other big SE’s.  Allowing Google to crawl all over Facebook makes Facebook more and more an integral part of online personal data.

So for now, it appears that keeping leverage with Google is more important than protecting the people that make what they do possible.

I’m not leaving Facebook, and I think the pros vastly outweigh the cons of security issues, but do you think Facebook should be sacrificing more for us? Or would sacrificing for our privacy make Facebook a less effective place for us marketers?

Comment Below and share your thoughts!

A lot goes on every week in the world of Internet marketing, social media and search engines.

#1- Facebook is adding an ‘ask a question’ feature to a select amount of profiles. This feature is available in your status bar, but instead of making some sort of statement, you can pose a question that is visible for everyone in Facebook to answer.

Notice that EVERYONE can view your questions, so to me it sounds like a great way to get a ton of annoying notifications from Facebook and completely unpredictable answers from teenagers.   With that being said, I’m sure Facebook has something bigger in mind. They announced that they won’t be giving search engines access to this info, but I’m guessing it’s because they want to keep it for their own search engine.

#2- Google is dominating the mobile search market. Go figure, right? They hold a modest 98.29% of mobile searches.

Sure, Google can be frustrating, but you can’t deny that they own the search engine market, which means we have to be paying attention to news like this.  And in times like this, SEO for Google is vital for your search engine success because organic Google results are getting the vast majority of search engine clicks.

#3- I’ll end my rant today with one more note about Google. One of their employees made a fantastic statement that,

I can assure you that the last thing we want is for the business who hires the best SEO to win a better slot. But, the SEOs are, unfortunately, pretty good at what they do, and so sometimes they out smart us.

I’m not a Blackhatter, so this isn’t me telling you to go out and take advantage of Google with underhanded tricks. However well they may work, they will eventually get you into serious trouble. But with that said, Google is admitting that they aren’t the all powerful, untouchable that we think they are.

Google has a method to its madness, despite the fact that it changes from time to time, it’s not impossible to figure out. And it’s very possible make Google work for you without getting in a heap of trouble.  Let this statement empower you!

Agree or disagree with any of my opinions? Let me know with a comment below!

Learn More:

If you’re curious about some ways to take advantage of Google’s weaknesses without getting banned or slapped, check out my self-made and tested system to get top rankings with Google. Click Here now to learn about the ‘Perpetual Traffic Formula.”

After having to shut down for 12 hours on Monday due to a database error, Twitter is tired of all the technical issues too, so they’re opening their own Data Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  (sigh of relief)

Until now Twitter used NTT America’s data center where they did not have full control over their network and system configurations to meet their very specific needs.

Here’s what we should be able to expect from Twitter having their own data center.

1- Twitter is tacking on new users at an ever increasing pace, one of the reasons Twitter can’t seem to stay up and running.  A new, dedicated data center will allow Twitter to configure their data center to handle the growth. (the extra power will help as well)

2- With events like the World Cup, people Tweet A LOT more and Twitter has been pretty shaky trying to handle the massive amount traffic.  The increase power of the new database will enable Twitter to facilitate way more Tweets with out interruption.

3- Twitter has had to shut down a lot of applications to conserve space and power to keep up with everything.  The new data center will give them room to expand their applications and push their new Ads layout.

The data center’s potential positive effects are all great, but even Twitter engineer, Cozzatti, stated that “We frequently compare the tasks of scaling, maintaining, and tweaking Twitter to building a rocket in mid-flight,” meaning that this could all take a bit to fix and straighten out.

Do you think Twitter is yet to reach it’s full potential as they still struggle to find a way to accommodate all their new features and users?  Comment Below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Search engine behavior studies have proven that the majority of searches click the top results on a search page, thus the reason we implement SEO campaings.

We spend most of our focus competing against other sites that rank high in our niches, often toggling back and forth for the top spot.  BUT sometimes your biggest competitor can be yourself.

And this is why every successful SEO campaign needs a good SERM (search engine reputation management) campaign behind it. If you’re not keeping an eye out for yourself, a single piece of negative press about you or your product can pop up and taint your search rankings.

Take United Airlines for an example.  Word spread quickly that they had a pilot Arrested in an international airport for trying to fly DRUNK. If you were to Google ‘United Airlines’ at that time, some of the top Google results included youtube videos and articles spreading the negative press about the fiasco.  Not exactly what you want popping up, right?

When you take into consideration instances like these, you can see how not protecting your search rankings has the potential to put a serious halt to your traffic system. As far as I’m concerned SERM is part of SEO, you can’t have the latter without practicing the former.

In the end, they both share the goal of keeping you and your products at the top the search engine totem pole.

One of my top SERM tactics is to set up Google Alerts for keywords like: My name, my products, my colleagues and basically anything that someone might attack that would negatively affect my SEO campaign and search rankings.

What are your guys doing to protect your search rankings from bad press?  Comment Below.

There has been some debate as to whether or not Twitter is an effective or appropriate platform for customer support. Personally, I’ve made my mind up about it. While I’d never use it as my primary customer support desk, I still field concerns from my Twitter followers.

There has been a few times where my customers have utilized Twitter to get a quick response from me when they really needed one, allowing me to delegate a customer representative to take swift care of the person in need.

Even in my case, 140 characters can be extremely limiting when trying to give the appropriate response to a customer in need.  And for those of you who use Twitter primarily for customer support, this is even truer.

Here is how Zendesk is going to help you out.

If you’re not familiar with Zendesk, It’s worth taking a look at if you’re shopping for a good web based customer support desk.  I’ve used it now for a few years, and love it.

Zendesk released an app that allows you to integrate your Zendesk with your Twitter Account. Essentially this will enable a customer to turn a Tweet in to a Twicket (Zendesk Ticket).

I really like this for a few reasons: 1- If you need more than 140 characters, you can easily get it by transforming the Tweet to a Twicket. 2- If you want to pass it to a customer service rep, then you can turn into a Twicket and get it assigned immediately?

What are you using for customer support? Do you see a need for a tool like this?  Comment Below!