After reading SEOQuake’s tweets this morning, it turns out that Google has simply moved the tool bar query URL.

To fix the PageRank on your SEOQuake tool bar, go to your preferences, on your parameters tab, select ‘Google pagerank’, edit and change the word ‘search’ to ‘tbr’.

Before -

[NAME]=Google pagerank
[TITLE]=PR
[URL_R]=http://toolbarqueries.google.com/search?client=navclient-auto&hl=en&ch={gchecksum}&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&features=Rank&q=info:{url|encode}
[REGEXP]=Rank_.*?:.*?:(\d+)

After -

[NAME]=Google pagerank
[TITLE]=PR
[URL_R]=http://toolbarqueries.google.com/tbr?client=navclient-auto&hl=en&ch={gchecksum}&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&features=Rank&q=info:{url|encode}
[REGEXP]=Rank_.*?:.*?:(\d+)

Then select ok, clear your cache and restart your browser.

PageRank is a measure of the volume and quality of links pointing towards your site, but it shouldn’t be used as the only comparison to how your website is performing. Other factors include the relevancy of the domain, page and domain authority and also the age of the website. We always hear of people who say “SEO’s should ignore PageRank”, but it’s hard for us to ignore a domain if it has a score of 8, for example!

Link building is a main technique used by many SEOs which some people believe may eventually be killed off by Google and its future algorithms, but there’s no need to panic… not just yet anyway…

Firstly, let us introduce you to DialToSave – an international calling website that gives consumers the opportunity to make cheap international calls from as little as 0.5p a minute, and their sister company, SoMobile, a mobile phone comparison website. The search team are looking forward to launching both their SEO campaigns and working with them to help improve their visibility online.

Meanwhile, the development team will also be busy as they have been asked to design and build a new website for another new client, Dermapure, a distributor of advanced skincare products.

We are always excited about having new clients on board with us and we’ll naturally keep you updated with all the latest news.

If you would like to find out about how Gravytrain can help grow your business, please feel free to contact our Business Development Executive, Alex Moran, on 0203 582 6870.

A couple of months ago you couldn’t move for posts about Google+, with everyone talking about its rivalry with Facebook, its sudden influx of 20 million users and hundreds of debates about how it was going to completely change the game! But now when I look around SEOMoz, Econsultancy, Search Engine Land and the rest I see barely a few mentions of this ‘revolutionary’ new social network.

To be fair, I am no better than the rest, when Google+ first came out I was straight on it and published 2 or 3 posts about how it could topple Facebook, change the way we connect online and add a huge new element to SEO, but now I am paying about as much attention to it as I am to AOL.

The fact of the matter is, so far we have seen little to no impact on SEO by Google+, and although it has 20 million+ users I haven’t seen a fresh update from any of my circles in weeks! Meanwhile, Facebook continues to roll out new features, such as the subscribe button, and both Facebook and Twitter are still much better places to interact with friends, fans and customers.

So where do we go from here?

A couple of months ago everyone was discussing how Google was becoming much more social and how we need to adapt to that and move away from traditional SEO tactics. However, in the last month there has been very little impact from Google+ and Google have not renewed their deal with Twitter, effectively losing some of their social element, rather than increasing it.

So should we just forget about Google+ and social networks altogether? Well no, social is obviously still very important for online marketing, with Twitter and Facebook being excellent mediums for creating brand awareness, customer interaction and content distribution, but I do think it is fair to say that the initial hype over Google+ was a bit much and that, although a move into social is good, abandoning traditional SEO tactics in favour of a social only approach might be a bit too presumptuous.

In the past, Google used Twitter for faster indexation of content, to power real time results and also for use in their ranking algorithm. It has been reported that Google removed real time results from Twitter and other websites such as their News and Facebook. However, Google plans to reinstate real time results using Google+.

Even though Google+ is different from Google+1, with each having their own unique functions – they do connect with each other. Users who have a Google+ account or a normal Google account will be able to click on the Google+1 button, which will essentially allow users to vote for their search results and see which websites other connections or friends have “+1ed”. Therefore, the result’s rankings will not only affect you, but also people that you are connected with through Google.

Some of Google+’s features

The main feature of Google+ is the Circles feature, which is similar to Facebook and Twitter Lists. Circles allow you to allocate contacts to Circles e.g. Family, Friends, Snowboarding Group, Acquaintances and whoever else you want in the Circle. You can then publish content to specific Circles or specific individuals, because as Google states, “not all relationships are created equal”.

At the moment, there seems to be more control over privacy on Google+ compared to Facebook. You can share photos with your family in one post, and then publish something publicly in the next post.

Hangout is another feature of Google+. It’s a group video chat feature where you can invite members of a certain group by sending them a notification. An additional feature of the new social networking site is Huddle, which is a mobile group chat service which could also become available from your mobile phone in the near future.

Sparks is an online sharing engine where you can create a topic of interest and share links with group friends who also have the same interests. E.g. you could share results of Snowboarding in France with your “powder chasing” friends.

Why Google+?

Some people may wonder why Google has bothered launching Google+. The reasons are because nowadays, search is about real-time information, people and the relevance of information to them, not just about pages.

Google has been an advocate for real time and social media for a while now, with Google Buzz, Google Places, Google Wave and not to mention the list of its acquisitions of social sites e.g. YouTube and Blogger.com.

The senior vice president who oversees Google’s social product, Vic Gundotra, said “It’s ‘project’ rather than a product because it’s an ongoing set of products and ‘Plus’ because it takes products from Google and makes them better”.

Google doesn’t see itself as a competitor to Facebook or Twitter, as they say that the way people connect online is limited – it’s just a new way to connect online with the people that matter to you.

What’s next?

For now, businesses and organisations have been warned to stay away from Google+. Christian Oestlien, advertising lead on the team behind Google+ explains that the social media site was designed for individuals in mind, “We’re working on building a optimised business experience for Google+ which will hopefully be rolled out later on this year. It will include the ability to connect to other parts of Google such as AdWords and other rich analytics”. However, their main focus at the moment is optimising the consumer experience for Google+.

In terms of SEO, social media won’t replace traditional SEO however, it will indeed help it. SEO practices including link building, content creation, keyword research and targeting will be the foundation for ranking success. Even though social media is gaining more importance and interest, using a combination of both technical SEO techniques and social media are the best steps towards success.

Sadly, we weren’t lucky enough to get our hands on an invite the first time round, but we are looking forward to when we are able to get onboard with the project.

As Kevin points out, the competition is fierce between insurers and brokers. He outlined the importance of SMEs making natural search a priority as part of their online marketing, as even though paid-for search is relatively well understood, natural results appear in search engine listings because of their relevance to the consumers search term.

He states that “Because websites are ranked on quality and relevance instead of how much they are willing to spend, it provides the ideal solution to competing with the big boys”.

You can read the full article and the rest of Kevin’s thoughts on natural search in Insurance Age’s June issue.

The new feature will add a +1 button to the side of natural and paid search results, which will work similarly to the Facebook Like button. As Google put it, you can “Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1’s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.”

So by giving something a +1 you will be promoting it and affecting its position in not only your own personal rankings but in those of your close connections and search as a whole. There is the potential then, for this to have a big impact for SEO and natural rankings.

The impact on SEO
This new +1 feature definitely plays into what appears to be a new social heavy strategy by Google, with Tweets and Facebook likes appearing to have a greater and greater impact on indexation of pages and site rankings.

This new feature also seems to continue the approach of the new Panda update that removed a lot of mass, ‘farmer’ content from Google and the new Blocked feature that allows users to block, what they consider to be, rubbish low value domains from their search results ( a kind of -1).

All in all then this could really change the nature of how websites optimise for Google, with a heavier shift towards social. What’s more, if, as many suspect, Google do purchase Twitter in the coming weeks, then, given the data they will have at their finger tips, a shift to social does make sense.

Problems with +1
However, although +1 does have the potential to make Google much more personalised and social, it is still likely to face one or two teething problems.

For example, if your search results are based on your Tweets, Facebook Likes and +1, what about the people not on these social networks? They exist too! Is it reasonable to base these people’s searches on user behaviour in a sector they take no part in and have no interest in?

Another point is that although this sounds like a great idea, it may just not ever happen. Currently there is no +1 button that people can add to their sites (like the Tweet and Like buttons) which means you have to +1 it in the search results.

Now, if you haven’t been on the site before you won’t know if you want to +1 it. So, this means going onto the site, deciding you like it and then bouncing back off it to +1 it. For some reason, I can’t imagine people taking the time or changing their search behaviour to do this.

If Google +1 works and takes off it could create the biggest social network we have ever seen, trumping both Twitter and Facebook, and completely revolutionise search results.

However, it may well be that we are not yet at the peak of social and that people, on mass, won’t really adapt their search behaviour towards the +1 for a few years.

However, even with all these additions, Google is still trying to make search results more personalised and so this week has introduced a new blocking feature on Google.com which will allow individual users to block whole domains from their search results.

Basically the new process will work like this; when you search for something, i.e. “how to fix a TV”, your usual search results will come up and there will be nothing different about the results. However, if you click on a site and then go straight back to your search results (because the site wasn’t what you were after) you will then see an option to block the website from your search results, located next to the “Cached” button.

So say there is a particular How To or Content site you always see in your results but don’t like, you will be able to block the domain and stop any of their pages from ever appearing in any of your search results.

This new option is linked to Google Accounts and so to keep the block permanent you will need to do it whilst logged in. And don’t worry if you change your mind later there will be an option to undo all of your blocks.

Ramifications for SEO

On the service this is simply a new tool to make search more personalised for individual users and in that sense has very little impact for SEO. However, although they are not doing so yet, Google have mentioned the possibility of using this new feature as a signal in ranking, stating that “we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future”.

In a very simple sense, the way this would work is, the more times a site has been blocked the more damaging to its rankings. So if a sites blocked by 100,000 people it will likely move lower than a similar site blocked by just 100 people.

If this idea were to be used as a new ranking criteria in Google there could be huge ramifications for SEO. With the addition of a block button, businesses could target rivals with negative SEO, setting up hundreds of fake Google accounts through Mechanical Turk and blocking a competitor site over and over.

So how can Google prevent this negative SEO? Well if they were to use this as criteria for rankings they would surely have to use just a select group of user’s activity to determine rankings. Basically, they would have to just look at users who have been around for a long time, have a well built up profile and are blocking domains very selectively.

Is this likely to affect rankings?

In theory this sounds like a great new way for Google to evaluate rankings, but with the huge possibility for negative SEO and the labour in finding a very select group of users doing it properly, it seems unlikely that it will come into practice anytime soon as the logistics are just too large.

However, although we may not see this impacting SEO anytime soon, the new blocking option is another step towards the ultimate personalised results that Google so desire! The new feature has gone live on Google.com this week and will be making its way to Google.co.uk very soon, so look out for it and start thinking of some sites you are sick of seeing in your results.

Google places has many attractive features that can be optimised to meet your requirements, and improve your online presence. You will need to optimise your listings and make them a part of your SEO campaign for more effective results.

Attractive and beneficial key features

1. Google places is now incorporated in the main search engine this shows the importance Google will continue to place on local searches. We’ve noticed some searches now have as many ‘places’ results as regular organic results, Making this an ideal way to promote online presence, particularly for small to medium sized businesses.
2. Claiming your business is the first step. Using city and business keywords within the page title and listing is great for optimisation, resulting in a positive page rank. Your business may already rank so claiming it will only strengthen your positions especially after optimisation. This can really help close out your competitors as well as improve your overall clickthrough share.
3. Google places also comes with a range of tools to help market your business better. Tags are yellow markers that allow you to promote individual aspects of your business, for example, special offers.

The image shows how Google places appears after you have entered a search query.

Mobile phone web users, when downloading Google maps app, searching for any place of interest will automatically bring up local results. This is something I personally rely on especially when visiting a new area in the city. With so many benefits and key features it is hard to believe you have anything lose!

The impacts of the many interface changes in 2010 changes in 2010 were all very modest though, as far as SEO goes (not even the eventual rollout of the infrastructure related ‘caffiene’ update made a huge impact). What is easy to miss is how little these changes affect consumer behaviour – people still use a search engine to find websites and click on one of the top ones, just as they did a year ago. The only difference then, is that new distractions exist – given many distractions (think vertical search) already existed; the impact on traditional search has proved to absolutely minimal. There were some bigger changes to SEO – the heavy places integration in q4 of last year is bound to have a huge impact, but only if you’re competing for ‘local’ type searches.

Despite the hype, the caffiene update didn't provide a rush of traffic for many SEO's

Nevertheless, when these changes happened, they all provoked huge debate ranging from the usual “SEO is dead”, to predictions of more specific impacts on things like click through rates. The blogs were busy, Twitter was trending, and there were doubtlessly thousands of emails received by clients and managers about how these changes would fundamentally change search and how a new strategy was needed ASAP. And yet, if we’re honest, we’re probably entering 2011 largely unchanged.

But rather like the boy who cried wolf, I do think there could be more changes in 2011, from Google in particular. Google could have a huge impact and has the potential to catch many off guard, as we remember all the changes which didn’t change much in 2010. With Google’s algorithm still being hugely dependent on links, despite viable alternative now existing and being used in a limited capacity , Google have the potential to make a change to what really matter to marketers and (particularly) SEO’s – the way websites are ranked.

If any of the below occur to a moderate degree, 2011 would create the biggest challenge to SEO’s in many years:

• Tweets/Likes used heavily in to determine popularity (as opposed to , as I suspect currently , regency)
• User behaviour, such as bounces, folded into main algorithm
• A change to the ‘reasonable surfer’ model to how links are weighted
• A complete , or near complete disregard for Anchor text in the same way as happened with meta tags
• Prevention of duplicate “mill” content from being indexed and passing page rank

For what it’s worth, I’m expecting a least a couple of these things to happen. If they do, it’ll be the year that SEO really does change.

Matthew Oxley Presenting @ Figaro

Earlier this year Gravytrain’s Head of Search Matthew Oxley gave a presentation at Figaro Digital’s “Paid & Natural Search” seminar. Matthew was discussing how best to prepare your natural search strategy a topic which many SEO companies may overlook. The difference between a good or bad strategy in natural search can be millions in extra revenue, or being banned from the Google index entirely. With this in mind, it’s more important than ever to have a clear SEO strategy.

This thought provoking session takes a top down approach to making your business loved by Google, paying attention to often overlooked principles such as sustainability and inimitability to ensure getting to the top means staying there.

To watch Matthew in action click here.