SEO Tips for Featured Snippets
March 26, 2018
We like Google’s Featured Snippets feature, at least when the information it serves up is relevant to the query. That is the tool that places text from, and links to, a site that (ideally) answers the user’s question at the top of search results. Naturally, Search Engine Optimization pros want their clients’ sites to grace these answer boxes as often as possible. That is the idea behind VolumeNine’s blog post, “Featured Snippets in Search: An Overview.” Writer Megan Duffy sees Featured Snippets as an opportunity for those already well-positioned in the search rankings. She explains,
There’s no debate that holding the primary spot on a search engine results page helps drive a ton of traffic. But it takes a long, disciplined approach to climb to the top of an organic search result. The featured snippet provides a bit of a shortcut. The featured snippet is an opportunity for any page ranked in the top ten of results to jump straight to the top with less effort compared to building a page’s search rank from, for example, from eighth to first. Having a featured snippet effectively puts you at search result zero and allows your business to earn traffic as the top search result.
Duffy goes on to make recommendations for maximizing one’s chances of being picked for that Snippet spot. To her credit, she emphasizes that good content is key; we like to see that is still a consideration.
Cynthia Murrell, March 26, 2018
New SEO Predictions May Just Be Spot On
March 7, 2018
What will 2018 bring us? If the past twelve months were any indication, we have no idea what will hit next. However, that doesn’t stop the experts from trying to cash in on their Nostradamus abilities. Some of them actually sound pretty plausible, like Search Engine Journal article, “47 Experts on the Top SEO Trends For 2018.”
There are some real longshots on the list, but also some really insightful thoughts like:
In 2018 there will be an even bigger focus on machine learning and “SEO from data.” Of course, the amplification side of things will continue to integrate increasingly with genuine public relations exercises rather than shallow-relationship link building, which will become increasingly easy to detect by search engines.
Something which was troubling about 2017, and as we head into 2018, is the new wave of organizations merely bolting on SEO as a service without any real appreciation of structuring site architectures and content for both humans and search engine understanding. While social media is absolutely essential as a means of reaching influencers and disrupting a conversation to gain traction, grow trust and positive sentiment, those who do not take the time to learn about how information is extracted for search too may be disappointed.
We especially agree with how the importance of SEO will grow in the new year. Innovative organizations are finding amazing new ways to manipulate the data and we don’t expect that to stop. It’ll be interesting to see where we stand twelve months from now.
Patrick Roland, March 7, 2018
Google Search: Looking for PHIL
March 6, 2018
If you want information about Google’s PHIL (Probabilistic Hierarchical Inferential Learner), you can get a decent run down by two Googlers, who revealed the system and method in 2003.
Here’s the link to Ruchira Datta’s presentation at Ohio State.
How important in the algorithm? Well, since it is at least 15 years old, it’s okay. But one of the most important algorithms at the GOOG? An SEO maven alleges that this single patent is more important than any other Google patent except PageRank. Well, PageRank is assigned to the Stanford University Board of something. In a sense, it is not Google’s anymore because PageRank was funded by US government money. (You know what that means, right?) You can chase down the patent application. Try this number: US Patent 20040068697.
Do you think it is number two on the Algorithm Hit Parade? Remember: I don’t. Why? That bound phrase method is not exactly spot on even though Google uses the jargon “dynamic compounding.” Hey, “bound phrase” works for me.
Stephen E Arnold, March 6, 2018
Not Quite 15 SEO Assertions: Commentary from the Addled Goose
March 1, 2018
I read “Stay in the Online Marketing Game With these 15 SEO Statistics in 2018.” I am sitting in my log cabin in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. The flood waters are rising, and the odor of mine drainage run off fills the morning air. What’s a good use of my time? Commenting on the 15 search engine optimization “statistics.” The write up presents ten items, but, hey, for the SEO wizards that’s close enough. Ten is a really big number. The 15 in the headline is just marketing.
Buckle your seatbelts. Here we go.
| “Statistic” | Beyond Search Honk |
| Desktop search traffic | This is cratering. Most queries are from mobile devices. Web sites and blogs are going the way of the dodo |
| Searches per second | Bogus data because “searches” happen without the user taking action |
| Number of words in a search | Look at results from multi word queries. See the strikeouts. That’s cost reduction and advertising in action |
| Mobile devices | Smart searches mean less user control |
| Link building and high quality content | Nope, the name of the game is buying ads. That triggers relevance |
| Length of content | Baloney |
| Shares and links | Yep, just like the Russia method. Flooding causes some algorithms to go bonkers |
| Focus on SEO | Sure, why not just say, “Hire and SEO expert”? |
| Strategies | Want traffic? Buy ads. See. Simple. |
| Local SEO | Works great if one does business in a area where users rely on their phone for products and services. Here in Harrod’s Creek, I know the stores. |
Now you and I know how to stay in the online marketing game with “statistics”:
- Make up a headline which is inaccurate
- Present generalizations without back up
- Statistics? Hey, who wants to deal with numbers.
Plus I am thrilled that the missing five elements were not in the write. No intellectual loss?
Stephen E Arnold, March 1, 2018
Google Retains Opt-Out Option
February 15, 2018
While the desire by most organizations to land at the top of relevant Internet search results was strong enough to spawn the entire SEO profession, some entities are not so eager for traffic. Now we learn Google will continue to let sites opt out of its search results, even though the legal requirement to do so has expired. Ubergizmo reports, “Google Will Let Websites Opt Out of Surfacing in Search Results.” Writer Adnan Farooqui writes:
Google settled an antitrust investigation by the FTC back in 2012 by promising to change its behavior in several areas. The commitments it made included removing AdWords restrictions that made it harder for advertisers to run multi-platform campaigns and giving websites the option to opt out of being displayed in search results and having their content crawled. Both commitments that Google made to the FTC back in 2012 have expired as of December 27th, 201[7]. It’s under no obligation to continue honoring them but Google has said in a letter to the FTC that it will honor them. ‘We believe that these policies provide additional flexibility for developers and websites, and we will continue them as policies after the commitments expire,’ Google confirmed in the letter.
So, fear not— if you’d prefer your site not be found by drive-by Google traffic, the search engine will continue to have your back.
Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2018
SEO Relevance Killer: Semantic Search
January 22, 2018
I am not sure if this Forbes’ write up is “real” journalism or just a pay-to-play story. Either way, it makes clear that the trajectory of search has been to destroy the once useful methods for determining precision and recall as part of an effort to explain or define relevance.
The write up which made me reach for my bottle of Tum’s is “Why And How Semantic Search Transformed SEO For The Better.”
Here’s a passage I highlighted in bilious yellow:
instead of finding exact matches for keywords, Google looks at the language used by a searcher and analyzes the searcher’s intent. It then uses that intent to find the most relevant search results for that user’s intent. It’s a subtle distinction, but one that demanded a new approach to SEO; rather than focusing on specific, exact-match keywords, you had to start creating content that addressed a user’s needs, using more semantic phrases and synonyms for your primary targets.
So what’s this mean in actual practice.
Navigate to Google and run this query with zero quotes and no additional words or phrases: 4iq Madrid.
Now look at the results:
The information is about the firm’s US office. The company was founded in Madrid and has some R&D facilities in the high-tech section of that city across from what used to be a hunting preserve for a former government leader. No address is Las Rozas, no LinkedIn listings of staff in Madrid, zip.
The world of search as described in the Forbes’ flag waving prose is great for expanding a user’s query. The purpose is not relevance, providing answers, or delivering on point results.
The purpose is to make it possible to broaden a query so more and usually less relevant ads can be displayed.
If you want relevance in search, you have to work very hard.
For example, to get the Spanish information related to 4iq, you set up a proxy in Spain. Google no longer makes it easy to query its index for content in a language different from the one Google decides you speak based on where you are in the world the moment you run your query. Then you enter the query and peruse the Spanish Google index results.
Yeah, that’s something the average eighth grader will do when writing an essay about Madrid. I know lots of adults who cannot perform this workaround.
The Forbes’ essay states:
The SEO community is better off focusing on semantic search optimization, rather than keyword-specific optimization. It’s forcing content producers to produce better, more user-serving content, and relieving some of the pressure of keyword research (which at times is downright annoying).
Why even bother providing results even marginally related to the user’s query. Do what the NFL Sirius Radio Network does. Run ads all the time. Football is a bit of distraction to the real business of pay-to-play information.
Ads, ads, ads.
Stephen E Arnold, January 22, 2018
What Is Wrong with Web Search? Question Answered
January 15, 2018
I read “How People Search: Classifying & Understanding User Intent.” The article is an extract I believe from a new book oriented to those interested in search engine optimization. I will confess. I am not a fan of search engine optimization.
The write up is important, however. The author makes clear why today’s search returns off point, irrelevant, and ad-related content more often than not.
Quick example: I was running a query for information about a company founded in Madrid, Spain. The company has an unusual name consisting of a single digit and two letters. I assumed that the company name would be unique; otherwise, why would a firm choose a sequence of letters and a number which generated false hits. I also theorized that the company’s location in Madrid, Spain, would narrow the result set.
I ran the query on Bing, Google, and Yandex. None of these systems returned the information I wanted. Bing pointed to some biographies in LinkedIn, Google expanded the query to intelligence quotient or IQ, and Yandex just didn’t have much of anything. I don’t fool with metasearch engines; these just send queries to Web indexes with which they are in cahoots.
What to do?
The solution was not easy.
First, I set up a Spain proxy so I could run my query in Spanish against Google’s index for Spain. One can no longer point to a country’s Google search system. A bit of effort is, therefore, required. Who would want to search outside the United States. Stupid, no?
Second, I turned to my directory of specialist search engines. The one which delivered useful results was iseek.com. I know you probably use this system everyday, gentle reader.
As a result, I was able to obtain the information I needed.
The reason I had to go to such lengths was that the information revealed in the SEO oriented article makes clear that search means delivering what most people want.
You want Minnesota Vikings? Well, you are going to get sports. Forget an easy path to those brave warriors who made life miserable to my relatives in the UK.
Here are some highlights from the article which help explain why advertising and appealing to what the author of Democracy in America pointed out as a path toward mediocrity:
- Engineers look at data and shape the system to match the numbers
- Quality is conformance to what sells ads and keeps most users happy
- Disambiguation is resolved by looking at what numbers suggest is the “correct” or “intended” meaning
- You really want to buy something; therefore, pizza is a slam dunk when running a query from a mobile device
- Voice search means “I want information”.
If these observations ring your chimes, you are one of the helpful people who have contributed to the death of relevance, the increasing difficulty of locating on points research, and using tools to obtain specific, on point, highly relevant information. Good job.
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2018
Traveling Content: What? No Border Control?
November 25, 2017
I read “Understanding the Content Journey.” Frankly I was left with a cold fish on my keyboard. I shoved the dead thing aside after I learned:
The next major disruption for marketers will be in the form of embedded machine learning capabilities that augment and automate the content journey — making content more intelligent.
Okay, marketers, how are you going to make content smarter, more intelligent. Indexing, manual tags, plugging into the IBM Watson smart thing, or following the precepts of search engine optimization.
Intelligent content comes from intelligent people. Machines can and do write about sports scores, financial reports, and other information which lends itself to relatively error free parsing.
None of these issues struck me as germane to the “content journey.” What I learned was that intelligent content has several facets; for instance:
- Content ideation and search. What is content ideation? Search is a buzzword which is less clear than words like “mother” and “semantics.” (At least for “mother”, everyone has one. For semantics, I am not sure marketers have the answer.
- Content creation. I think this means writing. Most writing is just okay. Most college students once received average grades. Today, everyone gets a blue ribbon. Unfortunately writing remains difficult for many. I assume that content creation is different and, therefore, easier. One needs “content ideation” and Bing or Google.
- Content management. Frankly I have zero idea what content management means. The organizations with which I am familiar often have one or maybe multiple content management systems. In my experience, these are expensive beasties, and they, like enterprise search, generate considerable user hostility. The idea is to slap a slice and dice system on top of whatever marketers “write” and reuse that content for many purposes. Each purpose requires less and less of the “writing” function I believe.
- Content personalization. Ah, ha. Now I think I understand. A person needs an answer. A customer facing online support system will answer the person’s questions with no humans involved. That’s a close cousin to Facebook and Google keeping track of what a user does and then using that behavior to deliver “more like that.” Yes, that’s true “content ideation.” Reduce costs and reinforce what the user believes is accurate.
- Content delivery. That’s easy for me to understand. One uses social media or search engines to get the fruits of “content ideation” to a user. The only hitch is that free mechanisms are not reliable. The solution, from my perspective, is to buy ads. Facebook, Google, and other online ad mechanisms match the words from the “content ideation” with what the systems perceive is the user’s information need. Yep, that works well for research, fact checking, and analyzing a particular issue.
- Content performance. Now we come to metrics, which means either clicks or sales. At this point we are quite far from “content ideation” because the main point of this write up is that one only writes what produces clicks or sales. Tough luck, Nietzsche.
Net net: I am not sure if this write up would have received a passing grade from my first English 101 professor, a wacky crank named Dr. Pearce. For me, “content ideation” is more than making up a listicle of buzzwords.
But what about the journey? Well, that trope was abandoned because silliness rarely gets from Point A to Point B.
Pretty remarkable analysis even in our era of fake news, made up facts, specious analysis, and lax border controls.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2017
The Power of Search: Forget Precision, Recall, and Accuracy of the Items in the Results List
November 3, 2017
Thank you, search engine optimization. I now have incontrovertible proof that search which is useful to the user is irrelevant. Maybe dead? Maybe buried?
Navigate to “70 SEO Statistics That Prove the Power of Search.” Prepare to be amazed. If you actually know about precision and recall, you will find that those methods for evaluating the efficacy of a search system belong in the grave.
The “power of search” is measured by statistics presented without silliness like sample size, date, confidence level, etc. Who needs these artifacts from Statistics 101?
Let’s look at four of the 70 statistics. Please, consult the original for the full listing which proves the power of search. I like that “proves” angle too.
First, users don’t do much research. Here’s the statistic which proves the assertion “Online users just take what the system serves up”:
75% of users never click past the first page of search results.
So if you, your product, your company, or your “fake news” item does not appear at the top of a search result list or an output determined by a black box algorithm, you, your product, your company, or your “fake news” item does not exist. How’s that grab you?
Second, users are not too swift when it comes to figuring out what’s content and what’s an ad. Amazing assertion, right?
55% of searchers don’t know which links in the Search Engine Results pages are PPC ads, according to a new survey. And up to 50% of users shown a Search engine Results page screenshot could not identify paid ads.
If one can’t figure out what’s an ad, how many users can figure out if a statistic, like those which prove search is powerful, can differentiate accurate information from hogwash?
Third, search results mean trust. Sound crazy to you? No. Well, it sure does to me. Here’s the statistic that proves search eats Wheaties:
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations.
I believe everything I read on the Internet, don’t you?
Third, if you blog, prepare to be inundated with sales calls and maybe money. Here’s the statistics which prove that search has power:
Companies who blog have 434% more indexed pages than those who don’t. That means more leads!
I would suggest that if you company engages in hate speech, certain product sales, or violates terms of use—you will have to chase customers on the Dark Web or via i2p. By the way, I think a company is a thing, so “which” not “who” seems more appropriate. Don’t y’all agree?
Fourth, using pictures is a good thing. Hey, who has time to read? This statistic conflicts with “longer articles are better” but I get the picture:
The Backlinko study also reported that using a single image within content will increase search engine rankings.
Here’s a picture to make this write up more compelling:
Search has power. Really?
Stephen E Arnold, November 3, 2017
Ask Me Anything by Google
August 7, 2017
In a recently released report by Google, the search engine giant says that out of billions of queries searched by its users, around 15% are unique or new queries.
Quartz in an article titled However Strange Your Search, Chances Are Google Has Seen It Before says:
His research shows that people turn to Google to learn about things prohibited by social norms: racist memes, self-induced abortions, and sexual fetishes of all kinds. In India, for example, the most popular query beginning “my husband wants…” is “…me to breastfeed him.
Google has become synonymous with the search for any kind of information, service or product all over the planet. Websites that can cater to audience demand for information thus have an opportunity to capitalize on this opportunity and monetize their websites.
A recent report suggests that SEO, the core of digital marketing is a $90 billion industry and soon will surpass $150 billion in revenues by 2020. It’s thus an excellent opportunity for anyone with niche audience to monetize the idea.
Vishal Ingole, August 7, 2017
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