“This one is a little more comprehensive than Penguin 1.0 and we expect it to go a little bit deeper and have a little bit more of an impact than the original version of Penguin.”

For better or worse, Penguin happened. Some link spam networks were rendered inert overnight, and Google have evidently continued to improve their link spam detection, as more and more website have found themselves caught in the crossfire.

But it is still all too common to find examples of shambolic websites that rank highly for competitive keywords based purely on a backlink profile consisting largely of optimised anchor text links from questionable sources. These nefarious practices have allowed these websites to cheat death and gorge themselves on the benefits of taking the place of websites that have lost visibility due to link building often performed years ago by people they no longer have any relationship with.

Damnit Google, you’ve made zombie websites!

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM…

But it’s OK! Matt Cutts and his trusty crossbow/algorithm update have been taking this sort of website down for quite a while now. And they seem to be getting better at it.

Fearsome

Cutts clearly recognises that they have to kill the head zombie to defeat the horde (or is that vampires? Vampires are a type of zombie, right? Shut up), saying “We’re also looking at some ways to go upstream to deny the value to link spammers. We’ve got some nice ideas on trying to make sure that that becomes less effective and so we expect that that will roll out over the next few months as well.”

So when he says they’re planning on clamping down on link spammers “advertorials, native advertising and those sorts of things that violate our quality guidelines”, I wonder if he finally means it? The webspam team at Google have been tackling the issue for years and it still seems that every time they deal with one source, the epidemic moves elsewhere. But there’s no denying the effect that the first Penguin updates have stemmed the tide significantly, so it’s not so hard to believe that they are getting closer and closer to their goal of eliminating webspam as a viable long term strategy, if not entirely.

Better yet, Cutts tells us that “We hope in the next few months to roll out a next generation of hacked sites detection that is even more comprehensive and also try to communicate better to webmasters”. What’s more useful in a zombie epidemic than early detection and a robust communication system? Besides a pump action shotgun, obviously.

“Try to make sure you make a great site that users love, that they’ll want to tell their friends about, bookmark, come back to, visit over and over again” says Cutts. “As long as you’re working hard to show great content to your users, we’re working hard to try to show your high quality content to users as well”.

So the message, as ever, is simple – Google want to include lively, healthy websites in their results pages, not a useless, unintelligent mess that serves only to gobble up as much traffic as it can. If you can only succeed by spamming, then Cutts warns of an “eventful Summer” ahead.

The post The Ranking Dead: Could Google Penguin 2.0 End The Zombie Website Epidemic? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Top 5 April Fool Digital Jokes

1. Bing

This is what happened when you searched for ‘Google’ on Bing:

2. YouTube – ‘YouTube’s ready to select a winner’

YouTube released a video saying the service would be coming to an end and they will be picking the “best video”:

3. Google

Google were to introduce a search-by-smell feature called Google “nose”

4. Google Treasure Map

Google added a new feature onto the Google Maps page, allowing for the World to be viewed in a ‘Treasure Map’ format.

5. Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic launches a glass-bottomed plane

Mashable created a list of the 2013 pranks, which can be found here:

The Ultimate Roundup of 2013′s Biggest April Fools’ Day Pranks

Facebook updates

Facebook’s messenger app has added VOIP which has now become available in the UK, following on from the US and Canada.

The option appears on active Messenger users’ profile page as ‘Free call’. I have checked this and it has not arrived on my screen yet but I imagine it will be rolled out soon. The call will be placed via WiFi or 3G.

Although the idea is great in theory in practice it will take a while before it takes off, why would you use an app to call and text when there are plenty already out there?

Will you be using it?

Facebook Phone

Screenshots of a phone rumoured to be announced by Facebook has been leaked ahead of an event on Thursday.

 The hardware will be produced by Android and have dedicated ‘Facebook’ style graphics and homepage.

The post Digital RoundUP 02/04/2013 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

The post Twitter bios of #SAScon attendees at a Glance appeared first on PushON Ltd.

1. Old Spice – Normally adverts for body washes and shampoos are quite irritating and full of women swishing their hair all over the place (It must be a nightmare vacuuming the floor after they’ve been filming the adverts – hairs everywhere). I’m not sure if it’s because Isaiah Mustafa never stops talking for a moment and never breaks out of the slightly sinister grin, which makes it even funnier, but I just know that if I had a man, I would buy him Old Spice so he could smell like a man, man. Silver fish hand catch!
2. Tippexperience – I’m actually quite impressed with what they’ve done. The first video is ‘A hunter shoots a bear’, which leads onto a Youtube page where part of the video name has been ‘tippexed’ out, so you can change the name of the video, which changes the story. Though I have found that typing some words in comes up with odd results, or just links to some of the other story options, I have yet to find an idea they haven’t thought of.
3. Will it Blend? – An advert for Blendtec blenders, where various different things are put into their blender to see if it will blend. Not normal kitchen objects like peppers and herbs, but weird things like glowsticks. Just so you know – iPads DO blend, so don’t be tempted.
4. TMobile flashmob – It’s fun to watch, although I think it would be quite unnerving to be walking through a train station and suddenly be blocked by a crowd of dancing people. But it is quite good at showing you what’s possible when you connect with people – which, of course, T Mobile are only too happy to help with.
5. Wolves in Moscow – at first, people thought that the clips of wolves running wild in Moscow and attacking people were real. It turns out, after some incredibly sceptical people went through the video frame by frame, that it is in fact part of a campaign for Eristoff vodka. I’m not quite sure wolves have to do with vodka though.

The post Top Five Viral Videos appeared first on PushON Ltd.

This is my introductory blog post – my very first post for the PushON blog will include some facts about me and I hope that you enjoy learning about the trials and trivialities of my life so far.

In July 2011 (only last month!) I was employed by the PushON company as a Search Marketing Consultant. My fellow colleagues have made me feel welcome and eased me into what’s shaping up to be a busy role. They have taught me everything I know, apart from what I knew before.

I was born in a little known East Midlands town called Nottingham: famous for the Xylophone Man (may he rest in peace), Miss England 2010 and a statue of Brian Clough. My years of education, latterly spent at the Nottingham Trent University left me with a first in History and (what I would call) vast research and writing skills as well as an appreciation for the work of David Starkey.   Unfortunately I was run out of town in 2009 by a rival historian and can only return now by the cover of darkness or in a pretty effective disguise. I came to Manchester via Leeds and can honestly say the city of Manchester and its surrounding conurbations are almost as wonderful as my hometown. I do miss some of the Nottingham/East Midlands dialect though – which I was inclined to partake in myself. Here are the top five with translations:

5 .“Yo norrayin no tuffees!” – You can’t have any sweeties
4. “It’s black ovver Bill’s mother’s” – Judging by the blackness of that large cloud over there, it looks like rain
3. “Ayup miduck, yahreet?” – Hello my friend, are you alright?
2. “immazatoadyabaht” – Him that I told you about (before)
1. “Ehyehgorrahwihyeh, er ehyehbihyehsen?” – Have you got her with you or are you by yourself?

Not living in City of Nottingham has made me love it even more. My sense of nostalgia and feelings of affection for the place inspired me to create this photoshopped piece of ‘art’.

But I digress. In Leeds I chanced upon an SEO job at a digital marketing agency where I acquired a great many skills in SEO and in link building in particular. I decided to give up my dreams of becoming a TV historian and focus on the altogether more wholesome calling of online marketeer. My job at PushON is what you would call a lucky break and my salvation from the boredom of working at home. And now I can cycle to work again instead of link building in my pyjamas.

I do hope that I can make myself very useful here and I look forward to a PushON shaped future! Thank you for reading this extremely self-indulgent post.

The post Hello, my name is… appeared first on PushON Ltd.

SEO Agency fights Manchester City for Aguero

I believe “b’dum tish” is appropriate here

The post Manchester agency competes with Manchester City for Aguerro signature appeared first on PushON Ltd.

1. Long term effort

As with SEO, you have to play the long-term game at the gym, as you can’t just do one day’s work and expect to see results. You have to commit to it to reap the rewards.

2. Copying the competition isn’t always best

If your entire SEO strategy is based around what your competitors are doing then you may struggle to beat them – and similar to the gym: what works for somebody else may not necessarily work for you.

3. Distribute your time

To run a successful SEO campaign you can’t just focus on 1 area to improve, it has to be a relevant mix. Should you do link building for longevity (cardio at the gym)? Or should you work with what you have already got by tweaking on-page factors (weight lifting at the gym)?

4. Don’t be put off

There may be bigger and better competitors (or people) in your area, but that isn’t to say you can’t be successful. Measure success by your own metrics, not somebody else’s.

5. You can help by doing other activities

Just because you are doing SEO (or working out at the gym) doesn’t mean you can’t do other things to help your website (or fitness…). PPC and PR may help you get quicker results from an online marketing campaign, just as dieting may help you get fit quicker.

6. Avoid temptation of underhand tactics

A temptation can creep in when you are working on a long-term strategy, and that is to get quick-wins via underhand methods. ‘Black hat’ SEO may seem like a good idea, and work initially, but can cause issues further down the line – similar to taking steroids to aid your training at the gym.

7. Baseline your results

Running an SEO campaign for 6 months could be great, but you won’t be able to form a comparison unless you baseline the results before starting. Similar to the gym, you can work hard, but unless you know the areas you are improving then you won’t be able to gauge whether it has been a success.

So there you have it – 7 reasons why doing SEO is like going the gym (I was going to do 10 but couldn’t think of anymore, so feel free to add yours in the comments!)

The post 7 Reasons Why Doing SEO is Like Going to the Gym appeared first on PushON Ltd.