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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'The Evolution of Search'


Posted by dannysullivan

Knowing where we're going often means knowing where we've come from. The
history of search engines is a short one, but one of constant change.


In today's Whiteboard Friday, Danny Sullivan takes a look at how search has
evolved into the complicated engine it's become, and what that means for its
neon-lit, rocket-car future.







Whiteboard Friday - Evolution of Search - Danny Sullivan - 20130610







For reference, here is a still image of this week's whiteboard.




Video Transcription



Hey Moz fans. Welcome to Whiteboard Friday. I'm not Rand. I'm Danny Sullivan,
the founding editor of SearchEngineLand.com and MarketingLand.com. Because it's
8,000 degrees here in Seattle, Rand has decided not to be around, and I am here
sweating like a pig, because I walked over here. So I'm very excited to be doing
a Whiteboard Friday. This is my first solo one, and I'm told I have to do it in
11 minutes, and in 1.5 takes. No, just one take. The topic today will be the
evolution of search, trademark Google. No, they don't own search.


There was a time when they didn't own search, which brings us to Search 1.0.
Did you know, kids, that search engines used to be multiple, that we didn't talk
about Googling things? We actually used things like Alta Vista, Lycos, and
WebCrawler. Do you remember those names? There were things like OpenText, and
what was that other one, Magellan. Well, these were search engines that existed
before Google, and they went out onto the web and they crawled up all the pages,
about a dozen pages that existed at the time, and then we would do our searches
and try to find how to rank them all up.


That was all determined by just the words that were out on the page. So if
you wanted to rank well for, I don't know, something like movies, you would put
movies on your page 100 times in a row. Then if somebody else wanted to outrank
you, they'd put movies on their page 150 times in a row, because a search engine
said, "Hey, we think relevancy is all about the number of words of the page, and
a little bit about the location of those words." The words at the top of the
page would count for a little bit more than if they were further on down below.


Bottom line is this was pretty easy to spam. The search engines didn't
really want you to be doing better for movies because you said the word "movies"
150 times over somebody who said it 100 times. They needed to come up with a
better signal. That signal, they took their time getting around to.


Long story short, they weren't making a lot of money off of search so they
really didn't pay attention to it. But Google, they were sitting over there
thinking, "You know what? If we create a search engine, someday someone might
make a movie with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. So let's go out there and come
up with a better system," and that brought us into Search 2.0.


We are now here. Search 2.0 started looking at things that we refer to as
off-the-page ranking factors, because all of the on-the-page stuff was in the
complete control of the publisher. The publisher could change it all around.
There was even a time, when you used Infoseek, where you could submit a web
page, and it was instantly added to the index, and you could see how well you
ranked. If you didn't like it, you'd instantly make a change and put it back out
again. Then you could move up that way. So off-the-page kind of said, "Let's go
out there and get some recommendations from beyond the publisher and decide what
other people think about these web pages, because maybe that's less spammable
and would give us better quality search results."


By the way, I said not Yahoo over here, because I'm talking about search
engines in terms of crawler-based search engines, the ones that use automation
to go out there and find web pages. Yahoo for the longest time - well it feels
that way to me - was a directory, or a human-based search engine where they
listed stuff because some human being actually went to a website, wrote up a
review, and added it.


Now back to Search 2.0, Google came along and started making much more use
of something called link analysis. So the other search engines kind of played
with it, but hadn't really gotten the formula right and didn't really depend on
it so much.


But Google, new kid on the block, said, "We're going to do this a lot. We're
going to consider links to be like votes, and people with a lot of links
pointing at them, maybe they got a lot of votes, and we should count them a
little bit higher and rank them better." It wasn't just in sheer amount of
numbers, however. Google also then wanted to know who has the best votes, who is
the real authority out there. So they tried to look at the quality of those
links as well.


You've got other people who were doing some off-the-page stuff. One of them,
you might recall, was by the name of Direct Hit. They actually looked at things
like click through. They would look and they'd say, "Well, we've looked at 10
search results, and we can see that people are clicking on the third search
result completely out of proportion to the normal way that we would expect.
Rather than it getting say 20% of the clicks, it's pulling 80% of the clicks."
That might tell them that they should move it up to number one, and then they
could move things that were down a bit further.


These are some of the things that we started doing, but it was really links
that carried us along for about a decade. Now links, off-the-page stuff, that's
been powering and still to this day kind of powers the web search results and
how they start ranking better, but we have a little bit of an intermission,
which we would call or I call Search 3.0. By the way, I made all this stuff up,
so you can disagree with it or you can figure out however you want to kind of go
with it. But a few years ago I was trying to explain how I had seen the
evolution of search and some of these changes that were coming along.


What happened in this Search 3.0 era is that, even though we were using
these links and we were getting better quality results, it was also so much
information that was coming in that the signals alone weren't enough. You needed
another way to get more relevancy, and the way the search engines started doing
that was saying, "Let's take, instead of having you search through 100 billion
pages, let you search through a smaller collection of pages of just focused
content." That's called vertical search.


Now in horizontal search, you'd do a search for things like news, sports,
entertainment, shopping, and you just throw it all into one big search box. It
goes out there, and it tries to come back with all the pages from across the web
that it thinks is relevant to whatever you searched for. In vertical search,
it's like a vertical slice, and that vertical slice of the web is just only the
news content. Then when you do a search for something like NSA, it's only going
to look through the news content to find the answers about news that is relating
to the NSA at the moment. Not trying to go over there and see if maybe there is
some sports information or shopping information that may match up with that as
well.


That's important right now, by the way. You have all this talk about
something like PRISM that is happening. It's a spy program or an eavesdropping
program or a data mining program, depending on who you want to talk to, that the
US government is running. Prism is also something that you use just to filter
light, and so if you are doing a search and you are just trying to get
information about filtering light, you probably don't want to turn to a news
search engine because right now the news stuff is full of the PRISM stuff. On
the other hand, if you want the latest stuff that is happening just within this
whole Prism area, then turning to the news search engine is important, because
you won't get all of the other stuff that is not necessarily related.


So we have this Search 3.0 thing, vertical search, and Google, in
particular, referred to it as universal search. Trying to solve that problem
that, if someone types into a box "pictures of flowers," they should actually
show you pictures of flowers, rather than 10 links that lead you to maybe
pictures of flowers. Now we're pretty solid on this right now. Bing does these
sorts of things as well. They have their own blending that goes on there.


Then it's Search 4.0. Now we are here, or right here just because I feel
compelled to write something on that board. Search 4.0 is kind of a return to
what Yahoo over here was using, which was human beings. By the way, I don't
write very much anymore because the typing thing.


To refer to using human beings, one of the biggest things that has happened
with search engines is that they, in a very short period, completely changed how
we sought out information. For thousands of years, if you needed to know
something, you talked to a human being. Even when we had libraries and people
had all that kind of data, typically you would go into a library and you would
talk to a librarian and say, "Hey, I'm trying to find some information about
such and such." Or you would need a plumber, you would ask somebody, "Hey, you
know a good plumber?" Babysitter, doctor, or is this a good product? Does
anybody know this TV? Does this work well? Should I buy that? You would tend to
turn to human beings or things that were written by human beings.


Then all of a sudden we had these search engines come along, and they just
took all these pages out there, and they really weren't using a huge amount of
human data. Yeah, the links were put in there by human beings. Yeah, some human
being had to write the content as well, but we kind of lost another aspect of
the human element that was out there, the recommendations that were out there en
masse.


That is kind of what has been going on with Search 4.0. The first thing that
is going on with Search 4.0 is that they started looking at the things that we
had searched for over time. If they can tell that you constantly go back to say
a computing site, like Diverge or CNET, then they might say, "Well, the next
time you search for something, let me give the weight of those sites a little
bit higher bump, because you really seem to like the stuff that's there. So
let's kind of reward them in that regard." Or "I can see that you're searching
for travel right now, and I can see that you just searched for New York. Rather
than me pretend that these things are disconnected, let me put them together on
your subsequent searches because you are probably looking for information about
New York travel, even though you didn't put in all those words. So I'll take use
of your history that's going there."


The other thing that they have been doing, and some of this mixes across in
the earlier times, but they are looking at your location. You do a search for
football in the UK, you really don't want to get information about the NFL for
the most part. You want information about what Americans would call soccer. So
looking and knowing that you're in the UK when you do a search for football, it
helps the search engine say, "We should go through and we should just come up
with information that is relevant to the UK, or relevant to the US, based on
where you're at." That greatly changed though, and these days it goes down even
to your metropolitan area. You do a search for zoos, you're in Seattle, you're
going to get information about zoos that are in Seattle rather than the
Washington Zoo, or zoos that are in Detroit or so on.


The last thing, the really, really exciting thing is the use of social,
which the search engines are still trying to get their head around. I talked
earlier about the idea of links as being like votes, and I always like to use
this analogy that, if links are like votes and links are somehow the democracy
of the web, which is how Google still will describe them on some of their pages,
then the democracy of the web is how the democracy in the United States started
when to vote, you had to be 25 years and older, white, and own property. That
wasn't really representative of everybody that was out there.


In order for you to vote in this kind of system, you really have to say,
"Wow, that was a great restaurant I went to. I want to go through now and I want
to write a blog post about that restaurant, and I'm going to link to the
restaurant, and I'm going to make sure that when I link to it, I'm going to use
a platform that doesn't automatically put things like no follow on top of the
link so that the link doesn't pass credit. Oh, and because it's a great
restaurant, I'm going to remember to make sure that the anchor text, or the
words near the anchor text, say things like great restaurant because I need to
make sure that the link is relevant and passing along that kind of context. Now
when I've done all that, I've cast my vote."


Probably the 99 other people that went to the restaurant are not going to do
that. But what those people are likely to do is like it on Facebook, plus it on
Google+, make a recommendation on Yelp, use any one of the number of social
systems that effectively enable people to vote much more easily. So I think a
lot of the future where we are going to be going is in this social direction.
These social signals are very, very important in the future as to how the search
engines will determine what are the best pages that are out there.


Unfortunately, they've put so much into this whole link system and figuring
out that this is a good link, this is a bad link, this is a link that we are
going to disavow, this is a link that you disavowed, and so on and so on and so
on, that they still need to work on making all this social stuff better. That's
going to become important as well. Not saying the links are going to go away,
but I think the social stuff is going to be coming up much more heavily as we go
forward into the future.


Now on the way up here I was thinking, because I was asked, "Will you talk
about the evolution of search?" I'm like, "Yeah, no problem because I've done
this whole Search 1 through 4 thing before." There's a whole blog post if you
search for Search 4.0. Search for Search 4.0 and you'll find it.


I was thinking, "What is coming after that?" On the way up, as I was
sweating coming up the staircase, not the staircase here. There's a staircase,
because I was at sea level and I had to apparently climb up to 300 feet here,
where we are located in the Moz building. If there was a swear jar, I would put
a dollar into it.


Search 5.0, and this is really about search where it's no page at all.
Remember on-the-page factors, off-the-page factors, which are really off this
page but on some other page, this stuff is I don't even care that it's a page. I
did a blog post, and I can't remember the title of it. But if you search for
"Google conversational search," you'll find it. If you don't find it, clearly
Google is a very bad search engine.


In the conversational search thing that I was demonstrating, if you have
Chrome and you click on the microphone, you can talk to Google now on your
desktop, kind of like how you can do it on the phone. You can say, "Barack
Obama," and Google will come along and it will show you results for Barack
Obama, and it will talk back to you and say, "Barack Obama is President of the
United States," blah blah blah blah. It gives you a little box for him, and he
appears and there is a little description they pull from Wikipedia.


Then you can say to it, "How old is he," or something very similar to that.
Then the search engine will come back, Google will come back and will say,
"Barack Obama is . . ." I can't remember how old he is. But you should Google it
and use that voice search thing. It will come back and say Barack Obama is this
age. You can go further and say, 'Well, how tall is he?" It will say, "Barack
Obama is . . ." I think he is 6 foot 1. And you say, "Who is he married to?"
Then it comes back and it says, "Barack Obama is married to Michelle Obama." And
you say, "How old is she?" Then Google will come back and say, "It's really an
impolite thing to ask a woman, but she's a certain age." I believe 39. Yeah,
you're usually safe with that.


To do all of that it has to understand that Barack Obama, when you searched
for him, wasn't just these letters on a web page. It had to understand that he
is a person, that he is an entity, if you will, a person, place, or thing, a
noun, but an entity, that there is a thing out there called Barack Obama that it
can link up to and know about. When you ask for its age, and you said, "How old
is he," it had to understand that "he" wasn't just words, but that actually "he"
refers to an entity that you had specified before, the entity being Barack
Obama. When you said, "his age," that age wasn't just a bunch of letters that
match on a web page, but age is equal to a value that it knows of because Barack
Obama has an age value over here, and it's connecting it there.


When you said, "How tall is he," same thing. That tall wasn't just letters,
but tall is actually a height element that it knows. That says height, trust me.
When you said, "Who's his wife," that wife, with an f kids, not a v, later we'll
do potatoes without an e, that his wife is a person that is equal to spouse,
which is a thing that it understands, an entity. It's not just words again. It's
like a thing that it actually understands, and that actually that that is
Michelle and that she has all of these things about her, and [inaudible 15:38].
All those sorts of things along there.


That is much different than Search 1.0 where, when we were searching, we
were really just looking for letters on a page. When you typed in "movies," its
going, "How many pages out there do I have that have these six letters in this
order? Start counting them up and putting it together."


We are looking for entities, and that the Google knowledge graph is that
kind of demonstration of where things are going to be going forward. That's all
very exciting as well, because, for one thing as a marketer, it's always
exciting when your space changes because if you're staying on top of things and
you're seeing where it's going, there are always new opportunities that come
along. It's also exciting because some of these things are broken and they don't
work as well, so this has the opportunity to better reward things that are
coming along.


It's a little scary though because as Google learns about entities and it
learns about things like facts, it also decides that, "You know what, you're
looking for movies in a place. I have a database of all those movies. I no
longer need to point at a web page that has that sort of stuff." The big
takeaway from that is, if your job is just creating web pages that are all about
known facts that are out there, it's going to get harder, because people are no
longer going to get pointed to you facts that are off of Google. People are
going to get pointed to facts that Google can answer directly. Your job is to
make sure that you always have the information that Google doesn't have, the
facts that aren't easily found that are out there.


As for Search 6.0, it involved this PRISM system, but we can't talk about
that anymore, so that's sort of gone away, and we'll leave that off. In a few
years from, it won't make any sense. Right now, hopefully, it's still very
timely.


I think that's probably it. So I thank you for your indulgence with my first
solo Whiteboard Friday. I hope didn't go too fast. I hope that all makes sense,
and thank you very much.




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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'Analysis: Revealing the Highest
Earning Blogs that Sell Advertising'

It has been a long time since I published a data-centric blog post, even though
theyre often my favourite to write and tend to get the best response. Today Im
going to share with you some of the biggest earning blogs (and a few non-blogs)
on the web that dont rely on affiliate links or [...]

You may view the latest post at
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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'Early Look at Google's June 25
Algo Update'


Posted by Dr-Pete

If you follow our MozCast Google "weather" tracker, you may have noticed
something unusual this morning â a record algorithm flux temperature of
113.3F (the previous high was 102.2, set on December 13, 2012). While the
weather has been a bit stormy off and on since Penguin 2.0 and the announcement
of 10-day rolling Panda updates, this one was still off the charts:




Iâm usually cautious about over-interpreting any single day's data
â measuring algorithm change is a very difficult and noisy task. Given the
unprecedented scope, though, and reports coming in of major ranking shake-ups in
some verticals, I've decided to post an early analysis. Please understand that
the Google algorithm is incredibly dynamic, and weâll know more over the
next few days.

Temperatures by Category

Some industry verticals are naturally more volatile than others, but
hereâs a breakdown of the major categories we track in order by the
largest percentage change over the 7-day average. The temperature for June 25th
along with the 7-day average for each category is shown in parentheses:



68.5% (125/74) â Home & Garden


58.2% (119/75) â Computers & Consumer Electronics

58.1% (114/72) â Occasions & Gifts


57.8% (121/77) â Apparel

54.8% (107/69) â Real Estate


54.1% (107/69) â Jobs & Education

50.6% (112/74) â Internet & Telecom


49.4% (112/75) â Hobbies & Leisure

49.4% (102/68) â Health


44.9% (105/73) â Finance

44.5% (116/80) â Beauty & Personal Care


43.0% (116/81) â Vehicles

39.7% (104/74) â Family & Community


38.0% (109/79) â Sports & Fitness

37.3% (89/65) â Retailers & General Merchandise


34.7% (101/75) â Food & Groceries

32.4% (107/81) â Arts & Entertainment


25.9% (92/73) â Travel & Tourism

25.6% (93/74) â Law & Government


25.5% (92/73) â Dining & Nightlife


Every vertical we track showed a solid temperature spike, but âHome &
Gardenâ led the way with a massive 51 difference between the single-day
temperature and its 7-day average.

Some Sample Queries

There are so many reasons that a query can change that looking at individual
cases is often a one-way ticket to insanity, but that doesnât seem to stop
me from riding the train. Just to illustrate the point, the query âgay
rightsâ showed a massive temperature of 250F. Of course, if you know about
the Supreme Court rulings announced the morning of June 26th, then this is
hardly surprising. News results were being churned out fast and furious by very
high-authority sites, and the SERP landscape for that topic was changing by the
hour.


Sometimes, though, we can spot an example that seems to tell a compelling
story, especially when that example hasnât historically been a
high-temperature query. Itâs not Capital-S Science, but it can help us
look for clues in the broader data. Here are a couple of interesting
examplesâ

Example 1: âlimousine serviceâ

On the morning of June 25th, a de-localized and de-personalized query for
âlimousine serviceâ returned the following results:


http://www.ultralimousineservice.com/
http://www.uslimoservice.com/
http://www.fivediamondslimo.com/
http://www.davesbestlimoservice.com/
http://www.aftonlimousine.com/
http://www.awardslimo.com/
http://www.lynetteslimousines.com/
http://www.chicagolandlimo.com/
http://www.a1limousine.com/
http://www.sterlinglimoservice.com/

The following morning, the Top 10 for the same query was completely rewritten
(yielding the maximum possible MozCast temperature of 280).
http://www.carmellimo.com/
http://www.crestwoodlimo.com/
http://www.dial7.com/
http://www.telavivlimo.com/
http://www.willowwindcarriagelimo.com/
http://www.asavannahnite.com/
http://www.markofelegance.com/
http://tomscruz.com/
https://www.legrandeaffaire.com/
http://www.ohare-midway.com/


One possible pattern is that there are no domains in the new Top 10 with either
the phrase âlimousine serviceâ or âlimo serviceâ in
them, which could indicate a crack-down on partial-match domains (PMDs).
Interestingly, the term âlimousineâ disappeared altogether in the
post-update domain list, although âlimoâ still fares well. This
could also indicate some sort of tweak in how Google treats similar words
("limo" vs. "limousine").

Example 2: âauto auctionâ

Hereâs another query that shows a similar PMD pattern, clocking in at a
MozCast temperature of 239. The morning of June 25th, âauto auctionâ
showed the following Top 10:


http://www.iaai.com/
http://www.autoauctions.gsa.gov/
http://www.americasautoauction.com/
http://www.copart.com/
http://www.interstateautoauction.com/
http://www.indianaautoauction.net/
http://www.houstonautoauction.com/
http://www.ranchoautoauction.com/
http://www.southbayautoauction.com/
http://velocity.discovery.com/tv-shows/mecum-auto-auctions

Just one day later, all but the #1 spot had changedâ

http://www.iaai.com/
http://www.copart.com/
http://www.autoauctions.gsa.gov/
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/
http://www.naaa.com/
http://www.mecum.com/
http://www.desertviewauto.com/
http://www.adesa.com/
http://www.brasherssacramento.com/
http://www.voaautoauction.org/


In the first SERP, eight of the top ten had âauto auction(s)â in
the URL; in the second, only two remained, and one of those was an official US
government sub-domain (even that site lost a ranking spot).

Top-View PMD Influence

Ultimately, these are anecdotes. The question is: do we see any pattern across
the broader set? As luck would have it, we do track the influence of
partial-match domains (PMDs) in the MozCast metrics. Our PMD Influence metric
looks at the percentage of total Top 10 URLs where the root or sub-domain
contains either âkeywordstringâ or âkeyword-stringâ, but
is not an exact-match. Hereâs a graph of PMD influence over the past 90
days:




Please note that the vertical axis is scaled to more clearly show rises and
falls over time. Across our data set, thereâs been a trend toward steady
decline of PMD influence in 2013, but today showed a fairly dramatic drop-off
and a record low across our historical data (back to April 2012). This data
comes from our smaller (1K) query set, but the pattern is also showing up in our
10K data set.


For reference and further investigation, here are a few examples of PMDs that
fell out of the Top 10, and the queries they fell out of (including some from
the same queries):


"appliance parts" â www.appliancepartscenter.com
"appliance parts" â www.appliancepartscenter.us
"appliance parts" â www.appliancepartssuppliers.com
"bass boats" â www.phoenixbassboats.com
"campagnolo" â www.campagnolorestaurant.com
"divorce papers" â www.mydivorcepapers.com
"driving school" â www.dollardrivingschool.com
"driving school" â www.elitedrivingschool.biz
"driving school" â www.ferraridrivingschool.com
"driving school" â www.firstchoicedrivingschool.net
"driving school" â www.fitzgeraldsdrivingschool.com
"mario game" â www.mariogames98.com
"monogrammed gifts" â www.monogrammedgiftshop.com
"monogrammed gifts" â www.preppymonogrammedgifts.com
"nickelback songs" â www.nickelback-songs.com
"pressure washer" â www.pressurewashersdirect.com
"tanzanite" â www.etanzanite.com
"vibram" â www.vibramdiscgolf.com
"wine racks" â www.wineracksamerica.com
"yahtzee" â www.yahtzeeonline.org

Iâm not making any statements about the quality of these sites (except
nickelback-songs.com), since I havenât dug into them individually. If
anyone wants to take that on, though, please be my guest.
The âMulti-Weekâ Update

Recently, Matt Cutts warned of a multi-week algorithm update ending just after
July 4th â could this be that update? The short answer is that we have no
good way to tell, since Mattâs tweet didnât tell us anything about
the nature of the update. This single-day spike certainly doesnât look
like a gradual roll-out of anything, but itâs possible that weâll
see large-scale instability during this period.

Some (Quite a Few) Caveats

This is an imperfect exercise at best, and one day of data can be misleading.
The situation is also constantly changing â Google claims Panda data is
updating 10 days out of every 30 now, or 1/3 of the time, for example. At this
early stage, I can only confirm that weâve tracked this algorithm flux
across multiple data centers and there is no evidence of any system errors or
obvious data anomalies (we track many metrics, and some of them look relatively
normal).


Finally, itâs important to note that, just because a metric drops, it
doesnât mean Google pulled a lever to directly impact that metric. In
other words, Google could release a quality adjustment that just happened to hit
a lot of PMDs, even though PMDs werenât specifically the target. I would
welcome any evidence people have seen on their own sites, in webmaster chatter,
in unofficial Google statements, etc. (even if itâs evidence against
something Iâm saying in this post).

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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'The International SEO Checklist'


Posted by Aleyda Solis

In less than two weeks I will have the pleasure to speak at MozCon about
international SEO, in a session called "International SEO and the Future of your
ROI." Before I do, I wanted to compile a checklist of the most fundamental
aspects to consider when developing an international SEO process â
something to which we can quickly refer that can facilitate our everyday work,
and something that would also be easy to digest for our clients at some point.


As a result, I've created this International SEO Checklist, with a
step-by-step guide to everything from assessing the international SEO potential
to targeting our international audience and the development of an
internationally targeted site:




I've also uploaded a higher resolution version of the checklist image, in case
you want to download and print it.


I hope the checklist is useful, and if you're looking to learn more about
international SEO or ask me anything about it, I look forward to seeing you at
MozCon! If for some reason you're not going to MozCon and have a question,
please let me know in the comments. :)

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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
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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, '5 Questions About Semantic SEO'

Posted by Matthew Brown
Earlier this month, I attended the SemTechBiz2013 conference in San Francisco.
This is a gathering of creators and designers of the semantic tech stack, folks
who work on semantic web standards, and representatives from th...

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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'The New Science of Web Psychology:
Interview with Nathalie Nahai'


Posted by Erica McGillivray

We all want to influence our customers and our clients to follow the path to
conversion. But what if that path fails to draw them in? That's where Nathalie
Nahai, the web psychologist, comes into play. She helps nudge your audience
toward the right path and make your goals in Google Analytics happy, not to
mention your boss or clients.


Nathalie recently authored the new book Webs of Influence: The Psychology of
Online Persuasion. We were so impressed with Nathalie that we invited her to
speak at this year's MozCon, July 8th-10th in Seattle. Get your ticket today
because you don't want to miss this:





How'd you get your start working in inbound marketing as a psychologist?


I have a mixed background in psychology, the arts, and web design, and it
wasnât until I met some of the digi/tech entrepreneurs in East London that
I even considered applying my psychology to online interaction. I became curious
about how weâre influenced online and started looking for books on the
subject. When I realised that there was a huge gap in the market, I decided to
write the book myself. That was the real launching point.


Those of us working with data sometimes have to fight "common wisdom." What web
psychology optimization tip always shocks people?


I think the most obvious one is based around a comfortable assumption
regarding website visitors, to which my response is always, "If you think you
know your target audience, youâre wrong. Whereâs your research?" No
matter how well you think you know your audience, you should always research
them, and never assume that the knowledge you have about them is carved in
stone. People change â so must your strategy.


What's your favorite social media medium to engage in?


Iâd have to say Twitter, or Instagram when Iâm travelling. Though
recently there have been so many genuinely fascinating updates running through
my Facebook feed, including my favourite, I Fucking Love Science, that a lot of
my productivity has been lost to that particular black hole.


You recently wrote a post about why people troll online. How do you recommend
dealing with trolls?


Honestly? I usually write a polite, reasoned response back, and if they retort
with something obnoxious (which thankfully happens fairly rarely), then I ignore
the thread. Thereâs no point fuelling the fire.


" ...given that a great proportion of our communication is non-verbal [8], and
that we rely heavily on facial recognition to connect with and understand one
another, it may be that losing eye-contact online actually cuts out our main
avenue for empathetic communication â without which we become emotionally
disconnected and more predisposed towards hostile behaviour."


Now for some fun stuff, what's inspired you lately?


I went to an incredible gig by Susheela Raman, an extraordinary Tamil-London
musician whose skill and smouldering charisma make for spellbinding,
trance-inducing performances. Iâve loved her music for years, and every
time I go to one of her shows, I end up on a high for days. If you ever get the
chance to see her live, grab all your friends and go. Sheâll blow your
mind.




Susheela Raman performs "Kamakshi."


Okay, since I know you're a Trekkie (I'm one too), what was your favorite
non-spoilery part of Star Trek Into Darkness?


I LOVED the new Star Trek!


My favourite bit was the tribble cameo. It was a cheeky nod to one of my
favourite episodes, "The Trouble With Tribbles," where someone sneaks a tribble
onto the Enterprise and they multiply so fast they clog up the whole ship.


Thank you so much, Nathalie, for sharing a bit about web psychology, some
beautiful music, and a couple types of geekiness with us. :)


If you're interested in seeing more from Nathalie, she'll be at this year's
MozCon, July 8th-10th, talking about "How Gender and Cultural Differences in Web
Psychology Affect the Customer Experience." You can also follow her on Twitter
@TheWebPsych and read her book, Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online
Persuasion.




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hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, '8 New and Underappreciated
Marketing Resources from Google'


Posted by MikeTek

We have a bit of a complicated relationship with Google In the SEO/inbound
community. We are often the first, and loudest, to call them out when they get
their priorities messed up or hoard data for questionable reasons.


But on the whole, we use more of Google's wares than probably any other
industry.


At Distilled, we use Google Apps for email, calendars, document collaboration,
reporting, Google+ for internal sharing discussions, Hangouts for live video,
chat, and webinars. Most of our clients use Google Analytics (as we do for our
own websites). Our PPC specialists have core expertise in AdWords. Our keyword
research work invariably turns to the AdWords Keywords Tool for search volume
estimates.


While working with our Creative team to plan a data visualization project
recently, I learned about a relatively new service from Google (Consumer Surveys
â see below), and it got me thinking about other Google projects that have
proven to be useful for our work and those that promise to be in the future.


This guide is intended for those SEOs/inbound marketers who are familiar the
fundamental Google resources (Google Analytics, Apps, the AdWords Keywords Tool)
but may not be aware of what else is out there and what is coming soon.


Analytics & Tagging


1. Universal Analytics

This is not particular to inbound at all, but it affects all disciplines of
web marketing. Most online marketers have some familiarity with Google
Analytics. Itâs the most widely-adopted analytics platform on the web, and
it's about to evolve.


Universal Analytics (in beta) is apt to change the way we use and think about
marketing analytics. This successor of the Google Analytics we know will bring
improved performance and, most importantly, new functionality and flexibility to
your reporting.


Uses & benefits of Universal Analytics:



Cross device tracking of individual users: We live in a multi-device world. To
date, Google Analytics has not had core functionality that allowed for tracking
users across all of their devices (one user is tracked as multiple "unique
visits," one for each device). Universal Analytics creates a User ID for the
individual and allows you to track their interactions with your site/app across
their devices allowing for cross-device optimization.

The ability to push "offline" data into the system: Using the same User ID
functionality, you can tie this data to a single user â across devices and
interactions â over the lifetime of their relationship with your business.
While passing any "Personally Identifiable Information" into GA is strictly a
violation of the Terms of Service, this doesn't mean you can't securely keep
that information together on your end and (respectfully) use it to manage your
customer relationships and otherwise learn who your best customers are.


Performance enhancements: The current iteration of GA passes a lot of data to GA
servers from multiple cookies. Universal Analytics (UA) uses a single, simple
cookie and stores most data on GA servers. Faster pages = happier users.

20 custom dimensions, 20 custom metrics: You can do a lot with GA's customer
variables, but this is really going to open things up. If you want to push
offline and other data into your reports, these are going to come in handy.

Set your own session and campaign expirations: Sessions can be set up to 4
hours, campaigns up to 2 years.


Justin Cutroni, one of the most well-informed analytics gurus you'll find
publishing online, wrote a nice post about the potential of UA, using his local
gardening supply store as a case study of sorts. It is highly recommended
reading.


There is so much here that even if you don't start implementing for live
campaigns yet, getting your head around the possibilities of UA (if not the
measurement protocol itself) is only going to benefit you as this next iteration
bridges the chasm to wide adoption.


Note: before you dive in and start using Universal Analytics on your website,
keep in mind there are some things still missing: AdSense, DoubleClick, Content
Experiments, and Remarketing are not yet integrated. You'll probably want to run
UA tracking concurrently with your existing GA tracking. The next resource in
the list will help with that.

2. Tag Manager



Again, not particular to inbound, but big enough to matter to everyone. Google
Tag Manager was released in late 2012 and has seen strong growth, but many
marketers are still unaware of its benefits. Google is certainly not the first
entrant into the tag management space, but they may well (and quickly) become
the most popular.


Mike Pantoliano wrote a solid technical overview of Tag Manager (and tag
management in general) here on the Moz blog that is well worth a read.


Essentially, Tag Manager gives you central control of tracking tags firing in
the <head> of any given page, without having to touch the page code itself
once you've added the main container. The rules to trigger tag firing are
flexible enough that the possibilities here are broad and powerful.


Uses & benefits of Tag Manager:



Central, organized management of your tags/scripts: Targeting a given page with
a rule is a lot faster than adding it via a CMS or to the source code directly.

Cuts dev cycle bottlenecks out of the equation: No more waiting a week for your
colleagues in dev to update your tracking snippets: Tag Manager takes the work
off the dev team's plate, so everybody wins.

Improved performance: Flexible firing rules allow you to load resources only on
the pages that require them, cleaning up code on other pages and optimizing page
loads.


While Tag Manager's benefits will be greatest for organizations with
significant web operations and drawn-out dev cycles, it'll save most web
marketers some time and headache, and signup/setup is relatively painless.
There's a lot of flexibility here, and I expect more clever uses will emerge as
the community gets comfortable with this tool.

3. Tag Assistant



If you are using (or intend to use) Tag Manager, Tag Assistant is a Google
Chrome extension that will make double-checking your tag/rule configurations a
lot easier.


Here's how it looks:








As above, you can quickly see the details of any tag by clicking the blue
arrow to the right of its status.


Uses & benefits of Tag Assistant:


In short, it makes checking your Tag Manager configuration a lot easier.


Market Research
4. Think Insights



Think Insights has been around for a couple of years and recently updated
their site. While there is a lot of self-serving promotional material here,
there is also a great deal of value.


Organized by industry, marketing objectives, and ad types, this resource
includes a wealth of research studies, most of which were co-conducted with
Google and partners (often research firms) to come to some data-driven
conclusions on the way specific markets and demographics use the web. It also
serves as an inspiration center for digital marketing campaigns, linking out to
some compelling and innovative pieces.




Uses & benefits of Think Insights:



Free, searchable access to market research studies, organized by industry,
marketing objectives, and ad type

Visualization of the most common multi-touch paths by industry with âThe
Customer Journey to Online Purchase"

Inspiration for your next data visualization project with Chrome Experiments.
The "500" home page alone is worth the time to click.
There's also the Creative Sandbox gallery, showcasing creative online campaigns
that "blend creative genius and digital innovation." This is skewed toward paid
channels, but there are a lot of creative approaches here from which we can
learn.

5. Consumer Surveys



Consumer Surveys is the only paid service in this post, but research with
surveys, if you want to step outside of your customer email list, will always
require an investment. Google's offering is relatively affordable at $.10 a
response ($.50 if you need to target a specific demographic).


We are using Google Consumer Surveys for a client project currently at
Distilled, and so far the straightforward pricing model and predictable
timelines for turnaround are promising.


Matt Cutts ran a playful survey with this service to determine how many people
have heard of "search engine optimization." The answer: about one out of five.




Uses & benefits of Google Consumer Surveys:



Relatively fast turnaround
Accurate data
Affordable cost


Search History & Data
6. Trends



Trends is a relatively well-known but often overlooked source of historical
search volume data.


Search behavior is fluid. If you work in SEO you probably rely heavily on the
AdWords Keywords Tool for volume estimates. But if your campaigns are planned
for the long term, Trends provides data that tells you something about how users
will search in the future.


For example, here's an interesting comparison:




Note: "News headlines" (at top right) can be useful for identifying the cause
behind spikes/drops in search traffic. I'd take the "Forecast" option with a
sizable grain of salt.


Trends is also useful for measuring client brand recognition over time (vs.
competitors), and for discovering the seasonal pattern for a given keyword
throughout the year.


The new Top Charts section provides an engaging visual navigation through
current trending searches. Perfect for brainstorming content angles.


Also check out the new live visualization of Hot Searches. Useful? Maybe.
Entertaining? Yep.


Uses & benefits of Trends:


View historical data for a single keyword, or compare two or more
Discover seasonality in search volume
Browse current trending searches
Export to CSV for your Excel/other reports

7. Zeitgeist



Zeitgeist isnât exactly a tool or a data set but more of an interactive
recap of the year in search. You select the year (and/or country), and Google
walks you through the biggest search trends and the related events around the
world.


The most recent Zeitgeist for the year 2012 included a well-produced video
recapping what the world searched for (and therefore experienced) in 2012:






At 15 million views, not a bad example of content done well in itself


If youâre looking for a large data source for a rich visualization, this
is not the place. But Zeitgeist can be useful for brainstorming historical
context and content angles.


Uses & benefits of Zeitgeist:


Rich visual "story" experience of historical data
Helpful for brainstorming historical content angles
General nostalgia/inspiration (What? That counts.)


8. Public Data Explorer

Public Data Explorer is Google's portal into government and institutional data
sets. While you won't find anything uniquely available here data-wise, the
ability to search and browse data sets from one tool can make your research and
brainstorming around data visualization concepts far more efficient.




This tool will also allow you to upload your own data sets and visualize them,
which might not give you much of a share-worthy result for publishing purposes,
but it is a handy way to play with the different ways to present a given data
set before the dev team goes to work building the beautiful version.


Uses & benefits of Public Data Explorer:



Search/browse many public data sets from one interface
Upload your own data set
Quickly switch between different chart/visualization approaches for a given
data set



This is not an exhaustive list; there are no doubt some other Google
applications and features you use for marketing (Related Searches, Ngram Viewer,
etc). I am sure I have also missed some uses and benefits of the resources
included here. Please share your favorites in the comments!

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hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'The Top 4 Ways to Use Social Media
to Earn Links - Whiteboard Friday'


Posted by randfish

Web marketers are increasingly turning to social media as a great source of
high-quality links. Deciding to utilize social is a good first step, but earning
the attention of others is easier said than done.


In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers four of his favorite tactics for
squeezing the most link juice out of social media.







Top 4 Ways to Use Social Media to Earn Links - Whiteboard Friday







For reference, here's a still image of this week's whiteboard.



Video Transcription

"Howdy Moz fans and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today
we're going to talk a little bit about social media and using social to earn
links. Now link building is still an important process, an important part of
SEO, and it also drives traffic. Because links are so critical and yet link
building classic link building stuff, like directories or comment spam or buying
links, a lot of those old-school link methodologies and black hat link
methodologies are out of there, social is actually one of the big focus areas
for link builders. But it's a tough thing to do, and so I want to try and walk
you through some tactics to get started with this.
These are four of my favorites, and I use them all the time. This is in fact
one of the primary methodologies that I use and that Moz uses to earn a great
majority of the links that we've earned over the last five years. First off,
number one, interactions that are in links. This is kind of the classic, "I'm
going to engage with a community, with a person, with a brand, and I'm going to
hope that through those interactions I can earn links back." If you do this
right, you almost always can.
First off, I highly recommend interacting early and often. Early because a lot
of times, especially if you're trying to get links from a popular site or a
popular brand that's got a strong social presence, being in the first five or
ten comments, interactions, engagements when they post to their Facebook page,
when they make a Google+ post, when they launch a new blog post, when they put
up a new video, really helps you to be seen by the editors who are almost always
watching. Whoever is producing the content is keeping a careful eye on those.
Although I know I don't always respond directly to Whiteboard Friday comments,
for example, I'm almost always reading or someone else here at Moz is, and you
can almost always see us in the comments engaging and interacting.
When you do that interaction, make sure you're adding value. Please. What I
mean by this is you might think it's great to say, "Hey. If I say, 'That was a
really great post. I learned a lot. Thank you so much for publishing it. You're
an inspiration to me." You haven't added any value. It's not that I don't love
seeing comments like that, trust me. It makes me feel great. Makes me feel like
a million bucks, but it doesn't add value. It's not memorable. It doesn't strike
a person as, "Oh wait. Who is that? I need to learn more about them. I want to
figure out their point of view," all those kinds of things.
By adding value to the conversation, you make yourself stand out in the
comments. This person, if they add value by doing a little bit of detailed
research, by referencing some other content, by making the conversation more
interesting, when you see a post that has great comments, you look at who made
those great comments. You often click to that person's profile. Those will
latently earn you some links. I'll talk about those in a sec, but it's also a
great way to get on the radar of those editors.
Once you're on people's radar, that's when you should offer to help. Offer to
help out. Oftentimes, the people that I've seen have the most success with this
tactic are those who help without being asked to do anything. For example, I
write a blog post with some statistics labeling some stuff, and someone else
goes and does additional research and produces a new graphic based on it and
says, "Hey, Rand, would you like to use this in your post too? I think this is a
great visual representation of the data you collected here."
Oh my god. Not only am I going to put that in my post, I'm going to want to
high five that person, and I'm definitely going to want to give them link credit
back to their site. Those offers to help without being asked are a great way to
use the interactions in a community to drive links back to your own site, and
you can do this, not just on blog posts, but on Facebook pages, on Google+
posts, on YouTube comments, all that kind of stuff.
Number two, searching for link likely outreach targets. Chances are that if
you're doing any kind of link building campaign specifically, you're looking for
the right kinds of people who will be likely to link to you if you ask them or
if you engage with them, if you offer them something, if you guest post for
them, if you do some work for them, whatever it is.
Using some tools, find people on Plus, Followerwonk, Google site colon
searches, particularly helpful for sites like Pinterest or YouTube or Tumblr,
those kinds of things where you can do a site colon query and you can add lots
of parameters in there. For example, I only want bio pages. So I'm going to do a
site colon, LinkedIn/in to find people who have this particular characteristic.
Actually LinkedIn's own site search and people search works pretty darn well.
I'd add them in here, LinkedIn as well.
Fresh Web Explorer, by they way, also very handy for this, particularly for
the blogosphere and finding blogs. Google blog search is pretty good, but it's a
little random at times. I'm not quite sure I get the relevancy. Fresh Web
Explorer is nice because you can order by feed authority, which generally
correlates very well to the number of readers that a particular feed has. So
that's great for finding popular blogs.
Using a service like Followerwonk or any of these, you can also do more
advanced things. With Wonk in particular, I can find the intersection of, for
example, people who follow me and also follow Moz. Then I can say, "Boy, these
people in here who follow both of us on Twitter, oh my god, they're fantastic
link targets." Now I can take that list, I can export it directly, and I can
start going through and saying, "Hey, now give me the domain authority of these
sites and let me order this." Wil Reynolds from SEER Interactive uses this
tactic and blogged about it. I think he was one of the first to do that. This
type of stuff is excellent for that identification process. Who is going to be a
link likely target?
Number three, post content that will capture a target's attention and then
ping them or cc them. For example, let's say I have a travel blog or a travel
website and I tweet something. I analyze @Hipmunk and @Kayak in my latest blog
post, here's the URL. You know what's going to happen as soon as I do this,
right? The people who are monitoring, who are doing the social monitoring for
Hipmunk and Kayak, they are going to go to this URL. They're going to check it
out, and they're going to want to see who does better in the rankings.
If one of them wins and one of them is clearly better for certain kinds of
things, they're likely to put that on their press page. They're likely to tweet
that. They're likely to endorse it. They might even reach out and ask, "Hey,
here's some methodology stuff. Did you consider doing it this way or that way,"
blah, blah, blah. It's starting that conversation, getting the engagement and
potentially getting that endorsement to give you a link right back to your site,
which is fantastic. That's exactly what you're looking for.
Don't pander. Do not just go outright and say, "Oh, I'm going to go gush about
this brand." It's very transparent, and it doesn't work well. It's inauthentic.
It's easy to spot that.
Do make content that the target won't just want to retweet or repost through
social, but might actually want to reference and link to. This is why
endorsements and recommendations work very well, particularly if you have a
brand or if you happen to be someone that they want an endorsement from. Do any
type of research, data, studies, graphics, videos, content that they would want
to post on their site, that they would want to reference when they create
content. That type of stuff can be invaluable.
Number four, finally, when you're doing social engagements and you have built
up a big community, a big following, you're posting lots of stuff that's getting
lots of interactions, retweets, plus ones, shares, likes, etc., what happens is
that you actually earn latent links, and many people in the SEO field believe
that this is actually what's causing Google to have such a high correlation
between things that rank well and social metrics. This is what happens.
I post a graphic to Pinterest. It takes off. Lots of people repin it. People
on Tumblr pick it up and reblog it. It gets a lot of automated republishing.
There are services like Topsy that pick up popular content from all over the
social web, Pinterest included, and then republish that, and that is often what
you'll see if you go to Open Site Explorer and look at Just Discovered Links.
You'll see all these kind of republishers who are linking to social stuff,
anything that's been posted socially. You get included in people's blog posts
editorially, and that leads to links. No surprise.
So this process, just doing this social stuff gets you these latent links, and
that's one of the reasons that social is such a powerful channel, because it can
be used in all of these direct ways. But even indirectly it's earning you links
through the content and the interactions that you're posting.
This week you might notice I'm using this fancy new Moz pen which apparently
has my signature on it. Please no one forge me handing over my mortgage. I don't
actually have a mortgage, and I hope that they'll be making these available for
some folks because they're super cool. I just found them in the Whiteboard room.

With that, everyone, I look forward to your comments. We'll see you next week
for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care."


Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'App Store SEO: The Inbound
Marketer's Guide to Mobile'

Posted by iseff
The app ecosystem is growing quicker than almost any other ecosystem has
before, and the shift from desktop web to mobile app is happening faster than
even the most optimistic predictions thought. Traditionally, the Moz...

You may view the latest post at
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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'The Not-so-Short Shortlist of
Moz's Top Seattle Restaurants, Bars, and Activities for MozCon 2013'


Posted by Elizabeth_Crouch


The benefits of attendingMozCon 2013 are invaluable: You'll go home with
insightful tips from top marketers, actionable advice from data experts,
connections to awesome people in your industry, new friends from the Moz
Community, freshly honed inbound marketing skillsâand your very own Roger
toy. One of the biggest bonuses? It's a fantastic excuse to visit Seattle during
the most beautiful time of year.



I polled the whole MozPlex to curate a list of our favorite places to dine,
swill coffee, imbibe boozy beverages, play games, bust a move, hit the water,
and take in the view. There are over 130 Mozzers now, so the list is long. From
locally grown, organic eats and family fun on Lake Union to bocce ball and craft
beer, Seattle's got a little something for everyone.





The Hipster â The Sophisticated Palate â The Sandwich Lover â
The Coffee Fiend


The Beer Snob â The Cocktail Connoisseur â The Adventurer






The Hipster
Community Coordinator Megan drinks out of an ironic cup.


Recognizable by their tight jeans and plaid coloring, these gentle creatures can
generally be found grazing the hill east of downtown. They might be slow to
accept you into the herd, but once you're in, they'll share their abundant
resources with you.

People's Choice: The Mozzers' top spot (and terminus to many a Wednesday beer
night) is the Unicorn and its basement bar, the Narwhal (1118 East Pike Street).
A kaleidoscope of circus d©cor, deep fried eats, and loud music, these bars
are where Capitol Hill layabouts and techies alike unite in pursuit of good
times and reasonably priced beverages.
The Seattle Institution: Grab a cold beer, tuck into a plate of nachos, and soak
up some sun on the back patio atLinda's Tavern (707 East Pine Street). The
original Seattle hipster bar, this place is best approached with a pack of pals
to keep you company and help you drink beer or mimosas by the pitcher.
Break out the Chopsticks: Sleek, modern, and serene, Momiji (1522 12th Avenue)
is where most Mozzers prefer to sup on sushi. You can't beat happy hour in the
front barâcheap Sapporo, sake, and decadently crunchy deep-fried Seattle
rollsâbut the back dining room is truly beautiful. If fish doesn't strike
your fancy, roll down the hill a little bit to In The Bowl (1554 East Olive Way)
for the tastiest vegetarian Thai on the Hill. The dining room: small. The menu:
epic. The bathroom: magical (just trust me here). Their four-star spiciness
level will scald even the most fireproof of tongues, and their noodles will
transport you to a different plane of happiness.
Al Fresco: With hipster cred and a patio to rival Linda's, Captain Black's (129
Belmont Avenue East) is another crowd favorite here at Moz. After you're done
stuffing yourself with fried Beecher's cheese curds, hush puppies, and tater
tots, you can drink a little whiskey, then roll back down Capitol Hill to your
hotel.
Sate the Sweet Tooth: While die-hard Seattle hipsters may head to a lesser-known
creamery on Capitol Hill (that also happens to be the best dessert spot for beer
lovers, so read on), Moz recommends you join the line atMolly Moon's(917 East
Pine Street)for scoops of Fair Trade chocolate, salted caramel, or balsamic
strawberry ice cream. Snag a waffle cone and chill on the astroturf atVolunteer
Park(1247 15th Avenue East), the coolest place to be on a hot, sunny day.
Take in the View:Sure, you could wait in line at the Space Needle or climb to
the top of Mount Rainier. But theSmith Tower(506 2nd Avenue)in Pioneer Square
has been providing Seattleites with breathtaking views since before skyscrapers
were even cool.
Fun and Games:Roll a few blocks north of Moz on Second Avenue to hit three of
our favorite post-work stops:Rabbit Hole(2222 2nd Avenue)for skee-ball, highbrow
cocktails, and outrageously good pub grub;Shorty's(2222 2nd Avenue)for cheap
PBR, video games, and pinball; andLava Lounge(2226 2nd Avenue)for whiskey,
booths big enough for a whole crew, and many rounds of shuffleboard.
Bust a Move:If you're heading in on Sunday, hit up theRe-Bar(1114 Howell Street)
for their FLAMMABLE! dance night. "A gay bar, only for everybody," the Re-Bar
mixes the hippest of the hip and the funnest of the fun in a LGBTQ-friendly
atmosphere with stiff drinks and a packed dance floor. Heads up: cash only!
Weekend Adventure:If you're staying the prior weekend and have a car handy, hit
upGeorgetown, a South Seattle neighborhood with plenty of art galleries, dive
bars, tasty restaurants, and a cooltrailer park flea market(5805 Airport Way)on
the weekends.



The Sophisticated Palate
Engineers Martin and Doug give a toast to good taste.








Do you love the finer things in life? We do, too. We want our food stuffed with
other, more obscure food and glazed in priceless ingredients. We want chefs who
minored in alchemy at culinary school. We want nothing less than sheer artistry.
These are some of Moz's top picks for exquisite eats paired with beautifully
crafted cocktails and Washington's best wines. So comb your hair, put on your
fanciest pair of sneakers, and hit the spots on this list.
People's Choice:Restaurant Zoe(1318 East Union) is part of the bustling
restaurant scene around 12th and Union. Staffed by a kitchen full of vets from
Canlis, Crush, and other Seattle standards, Zoe boasts an effortlessly cool
atmosphere, and an approachable menu of artistic Pacific Northwest fare. Two
blocks away,Cascina Spinasse(1535 14th Avenue)dishes up the most decadently
delicious Northern Italian eats you can find outside of Piemonteâleg of
rabbit, tajarin pasta glued together with butter and sage, precious lettuces
dressed with Barolo vinegar and Ligurian olive oil. If you're in the mood for
slightly lighter fare, hit their side bar,Artusi(1531 14th Avenue), for ingenius
cocktails (including a slushy machine full of rotating frozen craft cocktails
that will most certainly change your life) and a compact menu of mind-blowingly
good food.
The Seattle Institution:An overwhelming number of Mozzers cited one of prolific
restaurateurEthan Stowell'srestaurants as their personal favorites, so I'm going
to just lump them all together. If you're sticking downtown, go for vino, fluffy
gnocchi alla romagna, and perfectlyal dentepasta atTavolata(2323 2nd Avenue). If
we've already convinced you that Capitol Hill is the place to be, head toRione
XIII(401 15th Avenue East) for Roman-style pizza and pasta,Anchovies &
Olives(1550 15th Avenue)for ice-cold oysters and beautifully prepared seafood,
orBar Cotto(1546 15th Avenue) for mouth-watering charcuterie, veggies, and thin,
crispy pizzas. Feeling adventurous? The tasting menu atStaple & Fancy(4739
Ballard Avenue Northwest) in Ballard is also worth the extra trip.
Pro tip:Arrive in luxurious style with our friends fromUberâit's either
less expensive than or about the same price as taking a cab, depending on what
kind of ride you fancy. MozCon attendees will also get hooked up with a little
friends-of-friends discount!
Break out the Chopsticks:Round up at least two or three people to hitMonsoon(615
19th Avenue East) with you, because you will probably want to order every single
thing on this exquisite Vietnamese-influenced menu. Especially the drunken
chicken.
Al Fresco:What happens when two classically trained chefs fall in love, get
married, and wed Korean cuisine with French technique and Northwest ingredients?
Pure magic. One of the best meals of your life. Dumplings that will restore your
faith in humanity. Hitch a ride to Fremont and try to snag a seat on the back
deck atRevel(403 N 36th Street).
Sate the Sweet Tooth:What's that overpowering cocoa-brownie smell wafting toward
you on the deck at Revel? It's Seattle's premier chocolate factory, organic and
Fair TradeTheo(3400 Phinney Avenue North). Take a tour, and bring home
chocolatey souvenirs for your loved onesâor yourself. We won't tell. If
you take our other recommendations and end up on Capitol Hill for dinner,
headtoD'Ambrosio Gelato(1544 12th Avenue)for creamy, authentic Italian goodness
from a certified Master Gelatiere.
Worth the Trip:Another Ballard stand-out,The Walrus and the Carpenter(4743
Ballard Avenue Northwest)shares a dining room window with the aforementioned
Staple & Fancy. Go here for the freshest oysters, the most delectable menu, the
most gorgeous kitchen, and the mustache-iest waitstaff north of the Shipping
Canal.
Weekend Adventure:We highly recommend that you pay a visit to Woodinville for
wine tasting. Much closer than the sun-drenched growing regions in Central
Washington, Woodinville's tasting rooms bring some of the best wines within
quick driving distance of the big city. A few of Moz's favorites:Mark Ryan(14475
Woodinville-Redmond Road,Woodinville, WA 98072),DeLille(14421
Woodinville-Redmond Road Northeast,Woodinville, WA 98072),Obelisco(19495 144th
Avenue Northeast Woodinville, WA 98072), andLong Shadows(14450
Woodinville-Redmond Road, #105,Woodinville, WA 98072).




The Sandwich Lover
Customer Acquisition Manager Justin enjoysa Paseo sandwich and the gorgeous
viewfromGasworks Park.

If the Earl of Sandwich is your most cherished historical figure; if you
daydream about what other letters you could add to your BLT; if you literally
think there hasn't been a better thing since sliced breadâthis list is for
you, my friend.
People's Choice:The people have spoken, and they have chosenPaseo(4225 Fremont
Avenue Northand 6226 Seaview Avenue Northwest). These are, empirically, the best
sandwiches in Seattle. They might be the best sandwiches anywhere, ever. Crispy
baguette. Savory aioli. Tangy jalapeos. Grilled onions simmered in the same
addictive sauce they use to marinate their meats. Crisp romaine lettuce.
Cuban-style pork, chicken, tofu, or seafood. You might just decide to dump out
your suitcase and refill it with Paseo sandwiches to take home. That might be a
bad decision. Might.
Nice Buns:Lil Woody's(1211 Pine Street) is just a few blocks up the hill from
the Convention Center. Their burgers come piled with exotic ingredients and
paired with hand-cut fries and milkshakes made from Molly Moon's ice cream.
The Seattle Institution:Don't let the divey d©cor and weird name fool
youâThe Honey Hole(703 East Pike Street)on Capitol Hill makes some
seriously delicious sandwiches, served up with zero pretention and a side of the
crispiest fries you will ever eat.
Sate the Sweet Tooth:In addition to their eponymous treats and sweet
scoops,Cupcake Royalealso boasts a freezer full of ice cream sammies in flavors
like red velvet cake and burnt caramel with sea salt. There are a few locations,
but we're partial to the one across the street from Moz (108 Pine Street). You
can admire our Post-it window murals from street level or pop in to say hi!
Fun and Games:Like a little nosh with your board or card games?Cafe Mox(5105
Leary Avenue Northwest)in Ballard is a sweet spot to grab a beer, eat a
sandwich, and play some Settlers of Catan. Bonus: family-friendly!



The Coffee Fiend
Director of Community Jen savors a steamy latte.


It's no myth: Seattleites subsist on a steady diet of vitamin D pills, inky
espresso, and velvety lattes. Here are some our favorite places to fuel up.
Downtown:Home to many a Moz 1:1 meeting,Font© Caf© and Wine Bar(1321
1st Avenue) is a lovely place to grab perfectly brewed coffee and tame your
inbox first thing in the morning. Is WFCS a thing where you live? We hope that
it is.
Capitol Hill:Espresso Vivaceis arguably the best coffee in Seattle. But we don't
like arguments, so you should probably roll up the hill to Vivace's open-air
sidewalk bar (321 Broadway Avenue East)or brick-and-mortar caf© (532
Broadway Avenue East) tofind out for yourself.
Pioneer Square:If you find yourself in Seattle's oldest neighborhood, head to
art-filledZeitgeist Coffee(171 South Jackson Street) before you embark on
theSeattle Underground Tour(608 1st Avenue). Not your typical tour, this fun
crawl through the buried former ground-level of Old Seattle is a Moz favorite.
You'll learn all about lusty prospectors and the women that fleeced them,
Seattle's original wooden plumbing pipes, and how old-timey architects beat the
mud by building streets ten feet in the air.
Beyond:Lighthouse Roasters(400 North 43rd Street) in Fremont is off the beaten
path, but roasts such perfect coffee, you won't mind the hike through this
residential neighborhoodâa great stop on your way toWoodland Park Zoo(601
North 59th Street).




The Beer Snob
Ruby Programmer Ben appreciates the subtle hoppy notes of an IPA.

Here in Seattle, one does not simply crack open a cold one and call it a night.
One sips from the cornucopia of locally brewed IPAs, pilsners, saisons, and
stouts. One tours breweries to compare and contrast their offerings. In some
cases, one even brings the kids.
Gotta Taste Them All:If you only make one dedicated beer stop, let it be
atBrouwer's Cafe(400 North 35th Street)in Fremont. With 64 beers on tap, over
300 bottles, and 60 scotches, even the most jaded, world-weary connoisseur will
find something new to sip on.
Fun for the Whole Family:Think beer and babies don't mix? Kid-friendlyFremont
Brewing Company(3409 Woodland Park Ave North)will prove you wrong. Parents can
kick back and have adult conversations while the little ones dig into
never-ending bowls of pretzels and play with their contemporaries.
Sate the Sweet Tooth:The truly indie creamery on Capitol Hill,Bluebird(1205 East
Pike Street)also brews some mighty fine beer. Home to the best vegan "ice cream"
everâa deceptively creamy horchata flavorâthey also make beer floats
with their stout. Frosty stout plus peanut butter ice cream equals mind, blown.
Fun and Games:Von Trapp's(912 12th Avenue) cavernousbiergartenon Capitol Hill is
basically a playground for grown-ups. Go for the epic German and Belgian beer
list, indulge in some tasty pretzels and brats, and stay for many rounds of
bocce ball.
The Tastiest Kind of Tourism:Ballard is home to some of our favorite breweries,
all located within walking distance of the neighborhood's lively shopping and
dining corridor. We recommend checking outHilliard's Beer(1550 Northwest 49th
Street)andPeddler Brewing Company(1514 Northwest Leary Way). If you don't mind
mixing drinks with actual peddling, you can also hop aboard theCycle
Saloon(206-678-7211), a people-powered tour of Ballard's breweries.



The Cocktail Connoisseur
Help Desk Administrator Dave and CustomerSuccessStrategist Renea sip martinis at
The Zig Zag.









Can you blind-smell the difference between Scrappy's and Regan's orange bitters?
Does seeing a bottle of Pappy van Winkle on a shelf make you absurdly happy? Do
you get sad when people say they don't like gin? Cheers! These bars are for you.
The Seattle Institution:TheZig Zag Caf©(1501 Western Avenue #202) was one
of the pioneering bars in the American craft cocktail movement. Nestled
alongside the Pike Street Hill Climb between Pike Place Market and the
waterfront, this dimly lit cocktail joint is the go-to spot for
boozeaficionadosin Seattle. Their house cocktail list is inventive and
extensive, their selection is carefully curated, and the 'tenders are some of
the best in the biz.
The New Darling:Looking to try something rare and extraordinary? The Captain's
List of spirits atCanon(928 12th Avenue) is so extensive that you need to scan a
QR code to download it to your phone (which makes our nerd-hearts fill with
glee). Beyond the floor-to-ceiling walls of precious booze, Canon wins us over
with the little touches: stainless steel straws, slate coasters,
cucumber-infused water, and copper mint julep cups.
The Hidden Gem:Tucked away in an alley between First and Second Avenues,Bathtub
Gin & Co.(between Bell & Blanchard in "Gin Alley") staffs bartenders who are
gifted with a sixth sense: Tell them what kind of spirit you like and what kind
of mood you're in, and they'll make you something mind-blowing. If you can snag
a seat at the upstairs bar, do it. If not, settle in on a leather couch in the
library room downstairs.
The Grand Tour:Touring the city's distilleries is a fun way to sip local spirits
and see Seattle while you're at it. If you don't have time for a full tour, head
up toSun Liquor Distillery(514 East Pike Street) andOola Distillery(1314 East
Union Street) on Capitol Hill. If you've got a bit more time, we recommend
takingLocal Craft Tours'(206-455-3740) chauffeured trip around town. You'll
leave from downtown, then hit three or four distilleries (including some of our
very favorites,Sound SpiritsandLetterpress Distilling) to sample the wares.




The Adventurer
Social Community Manager Erica hits the high seas.

Are you coming to see the sights, absorb some art, and explore the area? After
you're finished eating and drinking like a local, here are the the museums,
vistas, and activities we love to share with out-of-town guests.

Hit the Water:Looking for the best views of downtown? Get on a boat. Taking
theWest Seattle Water Taxi(Pier 50, 801 Alaskan Way)or theBainbridge Island
Ferry(Pier 52, 801 Alaskan Way)will give you glittering city views, and you can
explore the walking paths, restaurants, and more on the opposite shores. If
you've got a little more free time, Moz recommends renting kayaks fromMoss
Bay(1001 Fairview Avenue North, #1900)or canoes from theUniversity of Washington
Waterfront Activities Center(3701 Montlake Boulevard Northeast). Don't forget to
pack your flippy-floppies.

Drop the Mic:Seattle's karaoke scene runs the gamut from modern and glitzy to
gloriously divey. Our top picks areRock Box(1603 Nagle Place)for their communal
main room and swanky private rooms andBush Garden(614 Maynard Avenue South) for
their cheap drinks, campy backdrop videos, and awesome emcees.
Do the Tourist Thing:There's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide,
electrified, six-car monorail. TheSeattle Monorail(in Westlake Center at 5th
Avenue and Pine Street)is just a quick walk from the Convention Center. A relic
of bygone times, this old beauty will deposit you directly at theSeattle
Center(305 Harrison Street), where you can play around at thePacific Science
Center(200 2nd Avenue North)and check out some celebrated Northwest art glass
atChihuly Garden and Glass(305 Harrison Street). You can also go up in the Space
Needle, if you reeeeeeally want to.
Get Your Culture Fix:Modern art and gorgeous views go hand in hand at theSAM
Olympic Sculpture Park(2901 Western Avenue).Stroll the length of the waterfront
to visit this picturesque outdoor museum, grab a bench, watch the sun sink
behind the Olympic Mountains and the Puget Sound, and reflect upon what an
awesome time you had at MozCon.

I hope this exhaustive list has gotten you pumped for MozCon! (With this many
recommendations to try, you can even start planning your MozCon 2014 and 2015
agendas.) Haven't secured your ticket yet? Get on it!








Hope to see you in Seattle in July. Feel free to reach out in the comments with
any questions, or if you'd like any custom recommendations!

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
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[Build Great Backlinks] TITLE

Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'How to Completely Ruin (or Save)
Your Website with Redirects'


Posted by Cyrus Shepard
Have you ever redirected a page hoping to see a boost in rankings, but nothing
happened? Or worse, traffic actually went down?
When done right, 301 redirects have awesome power to
clean up messy architecture, solve outdated content problems and improve
user experience â all while preserving link equity and your ranking
power.
When done wrong, the results can be disastrous.
In the past year, because Google cracked down hard on low quality links, the
potential damage from 301 mistakes increased dramatically. There's also evidence
that Google has slightly changed how they handle non-relevant redirects, which
makes proper implementation more important than ever.



From Dr. Pete's post -An SEO's Guide to HTTP Status Codes



Semantic relevance 101: anatomy of a "perfect" redirect
A
perfect 301 redirect works as a simple âchange of addressâ for your

content. Ideally, this means everything about the page except the URL
stays the same including content, title tag, images, and layout.
When
done properly, we know from testing and statements from Google that a
301 redirect passes somewhere around 85% of its original link equity.
The
new page doesnât have to be a perfect match for the 301 to pass equity,
but problems arise when webmasters use the 301 to redirect visitors to
non-relevant pages. The further away you get from semantically relevant
content, the less likely your redirect will pass maximum link equity.
For
example, if you have a page about âlabrador,â then redirecting to a
page
about âdogsâ makes sense, but redirecting to a page about
âtacosâ does not.






A clue to this devaluation comes from the manner in which search engines deal
with content that changes significantly over a period of time.
The famous Google patent, Information retrieval based on historical data,
explains how older links might be ignored if the text of a page changes
significantly or the anchor text pointing to a URL changes in a big way (I added
the bold):
...the domain may show up in search results for queries that are no longer on
topic. This is an undesirable result.

One way to address this problem is to estimate the date that a domain changed
its focus. This may be done by determining a date when the text of a document
changes significantly or when the text of the anchor text changes significantly.
All links and/or anchor text prior to that date may then be ignored or
discounted.
If these same properties apply to 301 redirects, it goes a long way in
explaining why non-relevant pages don't get a boost from redirecting off-topic
pages.
301 redirecting everything to the home page
Savvy
SEOs have known for a long time that redirecting a huge number of pages
to a home page isnât the best policy, even when using a 301. Recent
statements by Google representatives suggest that Google may go a step
further and treat bulk redirects to the home page of a website as 404s,
or soft 404s at best.
This
means that instead of passing link equity through the 301, Google may
simply drop the old URLs from its index without passing any link equity
at all.
While
itâs difficult to prove exactly how search engines handle mass home page
redirects, itâs fair to say that any time you 301 a large number of
pages to a single questionably relevant URL, you shouldnât expect those
redirects to significantly boost your SEO efforts.





Better alternative: When necessary, redirect relevant pages to closely related
URLs. Category pages are better than a general homepage.
If
the page is no longer relevant, receives little traffic, and a better
page does not exist, itâs often perfectly okay to serve a 404 or 410
status code.
Danger: 301 redirects and bad backlinks
Before
Penguin, SEOs widely believed that bad links couldnât hurt you, and
redirecting entire domains with bad links wasnât likely to have much of
an effect.
Then Google dropped the hammer on low-quality links.
If the Penguin update and developments of the past year have taught us anything,
itâs this:
When you redirect a domain, its bad backlinks go with it.





Webmasters
often roll up several older domains into a single website, not
realizing that bad backlinks may harbor poison that sickens the entire
effort. If youâve been penalized or suffered from low-quality backlinks,
itâs often easier and more effective to simply stop the redirect than to
try and clean up individual links.
Individual URLs with bad links
The
same concept works at the individual URL level. If you redirect
a single URL with bad backlinks attached to it, those bad links will then point
to your new URL.
In this case, itâs often better to simply drop the page with a 404 or 410,
and let those links drop from the index.
Infinite loops and long chains
If
you perform an SEO audit on a site, youâll hopefully discover any
potentially harmful redirect loops or crawling errors caused by
overly-complex redirect patterns.
While
itâs generally believed that Google will follow many, many redirects,
each step has the potential to diminish link equity, dilute anchor text
relevance, and lead to crawling and indexing errors.







One or two steps is generally the most you want out of any redirect chain.
New changes for 302s
SEOs typically hate 302s, but recent evidence suggests search engines may now be
changing how they handle them âat least a little.
Google knows that webmasters make mistakes, and recent
tests by Geoff Kenyon showed that 302 redirects have potential to pass link
equity. The theory is that 302s (meant to be temporary) are so
often implemented incorrectly, that Google treats them as âsoftâ
301s.So, not only do search engines limit us when we try to get too clever, but
they also help to keep us from shooting ourselves in the foot.
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
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/AQyJZWBikgg/save-your-website-with-redirects

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