#Google hit with antitrust complaint in #India, report says #Xavier_Woods

Google hit with antitrust complaint in India, report says Indian antitrust officials have accused Google Inc. of stifling competitors and favoring companies that advertise with it, opening up the latest front in a worldwide battle over whether the California tech company is abusing its power as a top search engine. read moreIndia's Antitrust Commission Accuses Google Of Rigging Its Search Results Other companies had voiced no complaint ... reviewing this report from the CCI's ongoing investigation. We continue to work closely with the CCI and remain confident that we comply fully with India's competition laws," a Google spokesperson told ... read more

CCI charges Google with rigging search results; Flipkart, Facebook corroborate complaints First, Google's proprietary content supersedes relevance of the search by an individual. This means, for example, even though Moneycontrol.com may have a higher hit rate for a stock market search in India ... score itself says the report is calculated ... read moreIs Google rigging search results? CCI thinks so even though Moneycontrol.com may have a higher hit rate for a stock market search in India, Google Finance links are given priority. Similarly, Google Hotels gets preference over other travel portals who command higher traffic, the newspaper report pointed ... read moreMicrosoft Corporation Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against InterDigital, Inc. is guilty of violating the US antitrust law. According to a Reuters report, InterDigital allegedly failed to remain fair to license technology, which may be vital for mobile phone communications. The complaint was filed in a federal court in Wilmington ... read moreGoogle hit with EC antitrust complaint after booting privacy app from Play store "The Commission has received the complaint and will assess it," a spokesman for the EC's competition office said in a statement to ZDNet. The complaint says that ... The report said Disconnect has asked the regulator to make Google give its app equal ... read moreCCI Says Final Decision in Google Antitrust Case to Take More Time CCI, which first received a complaint against Google back ... In its annual report for the year ended December 2014, Google had mentioned about antitrust investigations in India and some other jurisdictions. "The Comision Nacional de Defensa de la ... read moreGoogle faces up to $5-billion fine in India; says cooperating in probe Google, which is facing antitrust investigation in India ... anti-trust cases in the US and European Union, Indian competition regime does not have provisions for settlement process. Besides a complaint filed with CCI cannot be withdrawn. read moreGoogle facing $5 BEEELLION antitrust fine in India The antitrust ... Google has come under the scrutiny of the Indian authorities. In November 2012 it was accused of misleading the government, violating accounting rules and hit with a Rs.76 crore (£8.7m) fine. The Director General is expected to report ... read moreGoogle faces up to $5-billion CCI fine; says cooperating in probe NEW DELHI: Google, which is facing antitrust investigation in India ... anti-trust cases in the US and European Union, Indian competition regime does not have provisions for settlement process. Besides a complaint filed with CCI cannot be withdrawn. read more

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Source: #Google hit with antitrust complaint in #India, report says #Xavier_Woods

SearchCap: #AdWords Snippet Extensions, #Google Antitrust & #Google Featured Snippets #CONGRATS5SOS

SearchCap: AdWords Snippet Extensions, Google Antitrust & Google Featured Snippets | AutoTraffic

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Source: SearchCap: #AdWords Snippet Extensions, #Google Antitrust & #Google Featured Snippets #CONGRATS5SOS

Report: #Google Affects How Voters View Candidates #

Report: Google Affects How Voters View Candidates Google could influence who voters pick to be America's next president, according to research psychologist Robert Epstein. Writing for Politico Magazine, Epstein, the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, contends the search engine behemoth has ... read moreVoters who don't regularly vote in primaries raising Trump's poll numbers An analysis of the data revealed that he fares best among voters who don't regularly participate in primary elections. Nevertheless, he still leads the other Republican candidates ... People tend to self-report that they're voters, even when they ... read more

Christian Democrats of America Say Republican Dominance of Christianity Ending The report further highlights part of the challenge for Republicans, citing that "everyone knows the GOP faces a demographic time bomb, since its voters are older ... views on abortion affect their choice in a presidential candidate." read moreHow Google Could Rig The 2016 Election Our new research leaves little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. In laboratory and online experiments conducted in the United States, we were able to boost the proportion of people who favored any candidate by between 37 and 63 ... read moreWith the Rise of $uperPacs and Voter ID, Can '16 Be More About Democracy? Democracy I: Money Shouts Usually issues affecting wallets and families affect elections ... that a GAO report didn't find much suppression in the 2012 election "when black turnout exceeded white turnout." Would he agree with automatic voter enrollment ... read moreCarly's momentum keeps growing No candidate in the Republican field has had a better two weeks ... Jeb cites Rubio, Cruz in birthright citizenship - National Review: "Bush reminded voters that some popular Republicans have benefited from birthright citizenship. read moreWelcome to TrumpLand: A Local Example of Bigotry USA! USA! Style It's my view ... all GOP candidates for President have joined Trump to lay out harsh immigration stances and followed his lead in using slurs to refer to the immigrant community. The Union-Tribune has a front page story today concerning a report by ... read moreTrump releases his first detailed policy Those actions would affect millions of people ... They point to polls showing that many voters dislike him, and suggest that means his growth will stall before that of less-polarizing candidates. But he's No. 1 for now. A Fox News poll released Sunday ... read moreBNR - 'Sanders Knows Its All About The Base' & 'Bernies Big Crowds Hard For MSM To Ignore' Google trends also shows a sharp ... of all the 2016 candidates, is regularly pulling — all but guarantees positive media reports. In addition, big crowds, beyond arousing voters' interest, can convince a skeptical press corps or political world ... read moreDismantling Ted Cruz's Global Warming Statement The senator's view ... candidates do agree with him.) Earnestly, people expect more from a Harvard graduate and U.S. Senator, more intensive, careful and accurate understanding of the facts behind the issues, especially one that affects the entire ... read more

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Source: Report: #Google Affects How Voters View Candidates #

#Student Created “Better” Search Engine Than #Google #Jonny_Gomes

Student Created "Better" Search Engine Than Google How high is Google's "moat" guarding its fortress holding on to their top position in search? A 16-year old Indian boy apparently has bested Google at its own game – search – and is submitting his personalized search engine, said to be 21 percent ... read more16-year-old Indian-origin student Anmol Tukrel creates a personalized search engine more accurate than Google 16-year-old Anmol Tukrel created this personalized search engine to take part in the Google Science Fair, an online competition for students around the globe. Tukrel claims that his search engine is about 21 percent more accurate than Google on an average ... read more

Indian-Canadian boy develops search engine A 16-year-old Indian-Canadian boy has developed a personalised search engine that he claims is 47 per cent more accurate than Google. Anmol Tukrel made the search engine for Google Science Fair, a global competition that is open for students aged between ... read moreIndo-Canadian teenager Anmol Tukrel claims his search engine is better than Google According to him, the personalized search engine is 47% more accurate than Google and 21% more accurate on an average. Tukrel, a 10 th grade student, has been working ... The teenager has created a personalized search profile for several dummy users ... read moreMeet Anmol Tukrel, a 16-year-old who claims to be 47% more accurate than Search Engine Google with his school project The 10th grade student ... Google CEO: 7 things to know about Indian-born in restructured Alphabet. The sixteen-year-old wonder boy created ripples when he claimed that he has designed a personalized search engine which not only is 47% more accurate than ... read more16-year-old techie claims his search engine is 47 per cent more accurate than Google He also claims that apart from it being 47 per cent more accurate than Google's search engine, it is also 21 per cent more accurate on an overall average. Tukrel is just a standard 10 student and ... He then created numerous fictitious users, each ... read moreAnmol Tukrel: Meet the 10th grader who claims high school project is 47% more accurate than Google There's a high school project that tops Google's main cash cow, the search engine. Sixteen-year-old Anmol Tukrel, an Indian-origin Canadian citizen has designed a personalised search engine that claims to be as high as 47% more accurate than Google ... read moreVisakhapatnam students showcase quizzing talent VISAKHAPATNAM: "Popularly called the China Google, which search engine started by Robin Li and Eric Wu in ... at the quiz held in the city that witnessed participation by more than 640 students. The winners will be participating in the national finals ... read moreCreating wonders at the age of 16! Meet Anmol Tukrel whose school project is 47% more accurate than Google Do you know who is competing with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella? He is a class 10 student and at the age of 16, he designed a personalised search engine that claims to be as high as 47% more accurate than Google. The search ... read moreFive Critical Skills to Empower Students in the Digital Age Know How to Get Answers Search engine results are determined by several ... on Twitter because that's a different kind of question than Google." 3. Learn About Work Created by Other Students Digital tools allow students to have access to all kinds ... read more

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How to Use SEO as a Performance Marketing Model

The page you requested does not exist. For your convenience, a search was performed using the query blog posts 2015 08 28 how use seo performance marketing model.

Why B2B Marketers Can't Afford to Ignore Google's Latest Updates

rankings. With these two updates, Google killed two major black hat SEO tricks that had been used ... years, their effects are still being felt in the world of SEO and online marketing. Plus, Google ... online marketing and SEO. However, because nearly everyone does online research before making ...

Blog entry - Anonymous - 24 Jul 2015 - 7:11pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

B2B Marketing Summit 2015

Top 10 Take Outs from the B2B Marketing Summit 2015 This sell-out B2B ... it seems like B2B Marketing has applied some of the current thinking on how to engage by offering choice ... 57% of the purchase process is complete! So PR, social media, SEO, automated marketing, thought ...

Blog entry - Susan Bolam - 6 Jul 2015 - 3:33pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

7 big B2B content marketing predictions in 2015

into data Measuring content effectiveness will be a top priority for B2B marketers in 2015. Only 28% say they are successful at tracking ROI at the moment. Marketers will want to know how to use data from websites ... believe we'll see develop in 2015. 1. B2B content strategy comes to the fore More B2B marketers ...

Blog entry - Somaya Bahoussain - 4 Jun 2015 - 11:13am - 1 comment - 0 likes

B2B content marketing – The 7 foundations

will present a helicopter view. A useful model, commonly used in practice, to summarise content marketing ... the various aspects of content marketing gives structure to the subject. We use this model in our everyday ... been blogged, said and written about content marketing and, by now, everyone has formed their own ...

Blog entry - Anonymous - 8 Apr 2015 - 4:09pm - 1 comment - 0 likes

New EU Data Protection proposals three years on: playing catch up with a changing world

be collected and how it is used. BMW recently reported that it is under growing pressure to release the data ... 2012, new EU rules designed to create a secure and unified landscape for the collection, use ... was undertaken. Moreover, new tools and technologies have transformed the way data can and is being used ...

Blog entry - Sue Trombley - 5 Mar 2015 - 4:48pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Marketing instinct + data = gold dust in 2015

and using data effectively, and the modern marketing arsenal is complete. If 2014 was the year of big data, 2015 should be the year digital marketers understand it and automate engagement based on science. To best scale consumer shaped data mountains, marketers should use smart metrics to aid decision making. ...

Blog entry - Tomás Puig - 3 Mar 2015 - 4:12pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Your chance to shape the B2B Barometer

of their budget is allocated to different marketing channels, e.g. PR, telemarketing, SEO? How do ... At a micro-level it gives you a sense of how your approach to marketing compares to that of your peers.  To do so the B2B Barometer uses an online survey once a year to ask client-side B2B marketers eight ...

Blog entry - Andrew Dalglish - 25 Feb 2015 - 2:34pm - 3 comments - 0 likes

The Very Best Search Analysis Tools

your digital marketing efforts impact on your traffic performance; they also give you the scope ... in the market. SimilarWeb provides evidence of this by recording that January 2015 saw Alexa receiving ... are performing well in their niche with around 3.95million desktop visits in January 2015. SimilarWeb ...

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A Fool-Proof Formula For Becoming The Best B2B Marketer

and links to more details. TFM&A 2015 BrightonSEO Marketing Week Live Interop ... Make Use of Time-Saving Tools What tools will help you become a better marketer and make your ... every walk of life. Top Blogs to Bookmark in 2015  – Keep on top of the learning curve ...

Blog entry - Kate Boyce - 28 Jan 2015 - 4:56pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

6 Marketing Events Your Team Can't Miss In 2015

2015 report – 'Managing Digital Marketing' and exploring successful approaches to planning and managing ... with search marketing. For everything you need to know about SEO,  don't miss Jon Earnshaw of Pi ... and Creative Review, Marketing Week Live is the top event for marketers everywhere in 2015. Featuring big ...

Blog entry - Kate Boyce - 22 Jan 2015 - 12:57pm - 0 comments - 0 likes

Source: How to Use SEO as a Performance Marketing Model

#Google Street View Car Destroyed In ‘La Tomatina’ Festival In #Spain #

The Rock Hit Someone's Car And Now They're Buddies If only we could all be The Rock when we get into car wrecks. Dwyane "The Rock ... Look in my rear view and see I sideswiped another pick up that was parked in the street and destroyed the side mirror. First thing I thought was, "Aw shit.. read moreGoogle spends $120 million on 12 acres of land next to historic hangar where Howard Hughes built the 'Spruce Goose' airplane The Mountain View-based ... years ago, Google opened a campus in Venice, where it leased 100,000 square feet in three buildings for about 600 employees. One of those buildings is the famous Binoculars Building, a three-story office on Main Street designed ... read more

The Seductively Sleepy Islands of Bocas del Toro, Panama In the front yard of a house across the street from the airport exit was the charred fuselage of a small plane very much like the one I had just taken from Panama City ... was best reached by water, and soon a La Loma employee named Kelly and I were ... read moreIs Japan really racist? It got me thinking about the different forms racism takes and how they work in society. Many Japanese make three assumptions about me before even speaking to me. One, I am an American (true). Two, I am an English teacher (nope). And three, I don't speak ... read moreWhy Religious Liberty Arguments Aren't Working While I have great respect for those who promote this view, I must respectfully disagree with ... because it goes against our beliefs. Reason #3 why religious liberty arguments aren't working: we sound like we are whining about ourselves. read moreLife sentence for London hammer attacker The British man who was found guilty of attempted murder during a hammer attack on three Emirati sisters at a London hotel in April this year has been sentenced to three life sentences, and will serve at least 18 years in jail. Philip Spence (33), of ... read moreShelter Island takes lead in collaboration Three East End school superintendents, who launched a forum at Stony Brook University Thursday night on improving education, are coming to Shelter Island for a public meeting tonight. The plan is to hear more about "team teaching" and enhancing the ... read moreA pizza speakeasy, Ralph Lauren's dining atelier and 45 hot new eateries for 2015 In a portion of the space that once housed Forcella on the Bowery, Neapolitan pizza master Giulio Adriani is opening SRO (334 Bowery), a pizza "speakeasy ... dining from an a la carte perspective" is all Zalaznick will say. Ralph Lauren's new ... read moreTop Shows, March 20-26 Details: 10 p.m. Friday, 133 N. Front St., downtown Wilmington. Missouri native Tyler Farr has worked both sides of the stage, moving from bouncer to singer/guitarist in Nashville. Writing songs for other singers first, including "Hey Ya'll" for Colt ... read moreStop freaking out about ISIS Sculptures of (left to right) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. (Lakota Sioux name for the mountain: Six Grandfathers) "... read more

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Source: #Google Street View Car Destroyed In 'La Tomatina' Festival In #Spain #

Swapped Out: Losing A Google Featured Snippet [Case Study]

In my last column, I explained how to use SEMrush to find featured snippets that Google is surfacing for your domain. Since they are typically highlighted at the top of the search results, featured snippets can drive a lot of targeted traffic to your site, while also building credibility.

Featured snippets take up a large amount of real estate; they can provide a series of bullets with information and also contain a link to find out more from the destination website. Needless to say, this can attract a lot of eyeballs and clicks.

Here's a good example as we approach fall (and football season):

Now, imagine you have a featured snippet, and a lot of traffic is being sent to your site on a regular basis (and your site is advertising-driven). Imagine that Google is providing that featured snippet for an extremely competitive keyword — one with hundreds of thousands of searches per month. Traffic is strong, ads keep rolling and life is good.

But one day you notice less traffic to the site, and specifically to the landing page being surfaced by Google via that featured snippet. Upon digging in, you realize the unthinkable has happened: another site has taken your snippet.

My post today provides a case study about a client of mine that had a featured snippet for a high-volume keyword and ended up losing that snippet to a website that came out of left field. The competitor hadn't been ranking well at all for months leading up to the featured snippet change, and then boom — it was given a featured snippet for an ultra-competitive keyword.

Since we are seeing more and more featured snippets in Google, I wanted to dig into the situation to analyze the loss of a featured snippet. So I compared a number of factors associated with each page and domain to see what I could find. That included analyzing content quality, page structure, inbound links, social metrics and more. The story and my findings are below.

Quick History Of My Client's Featured Snippet

I explained earlier that the query is a competitive one. Analyzing a two-week period after losing the snippet revealed a drop of 39,254 clicks to my client's site. So yes, featured snippets can drive a lot of traffic, and this was an important snippet for my client.

My client received the featured snippet in January of 2015 and held on to that spot for most of the time between January and mid-May. That is, until they got blindsided by a newcomer.

A relatively unknown website jumped into the top ten for that keyword, basically out of the blue — and then it wasn't long after jumping into the top ten that they received the featured snippet and pushed my client's URL out of the spotlight.

It would be like Peyton Manning battling Andrew Luck for the starting quarterback position, and then high school quarterback Jimmy Harris arriving before the first game and taking the starting spot. Nobody saw this coming.

Snippet, Meet Phantom — Phantom, Eat Snippet

The featured snippet swap occurred right after "Phantom 2" rolled out in early May 2015. I don't know if that had any impact on the snippet, but it's entirely possible. Phantom 2, also called "The Quality Update" was a change to Google's core ranking algorithm in how it assessed quality.

Checking the traffic history of the competitor's domain shows a jump starting in May and increasing in June — so it does seem that Phantom 2 could have had something to do with the change. Needless to say, I was eager to dig further into the situation.

A Competitor Out Of Left Field

So how far out of left field did this competitor come? Very far. According to SEMrush, the competitor wasn't even in the top 20 for the query in January, February, March or April of 2015. After that, you can see the first signs of the page rising in the ranks. In early May, it broke the top 20 and ranked #14, only to jump into the top 10 and nail the featured snippet and a #2 ranking soon after.

It's important to note that my client still ranks #1 organically for the query but doesn't have the featured snippet. The competitor that now has the featured snippet ranks #2 organically, below my client's URL (but has the featured snippet at the top of the page). Yes, that can happen.

So my client's URL still ranks extremely well, but the featured snippet was swapped out algorithmically. My goal was to figure out why that happened. Was it Phantom or some other factor that led to the switch? Let's dig in.

Tale Of The Tape: Comparing Pages

Now that a newcomer quickly jumped in the rankings and won a featured snippet, I thought it would be a good idea to compare my client's page to the new page. I wanted to see how each URL matched up when reviewing a number of factors.

So I looked at content quality, inbound links, page structure, technical SEO, social data and more. I have provided my findings below, followed by some recommendations based on my analysis.

Page Structure: A Clear Difference

After my client lost their featured snippet, I wondered if page structure had anything to do with it. I'm not necessarily referring to structured data, but rather how the page's HTML and content were structured. Neither page uses structured data at all, so I knew that had nothing to do with this featured snippet getting swapped out.

I took a closer look at how the content was structured on the page. Each URL has content that provides a number of recommendations, and there was a clear difference in the way the content was structured on my client's page versus the newcomer's page.

My client's page was basically paragraph-driven (in HTML). Even though the page provides a list of recommendations, an ordered or unordered list was not used. So you can think of this approach as a blog post that simply includes a list of recommendations.

But the newcomer took a different approach. The page provides named anchors at the top of the page which jump users down to each recommendation when clicked. First, that's good for users, as it's a more organized approach that's easier to traverse. Second, it enables Google to jump to answers directly from a specific tip (via links at the top of the page).

Next, the recommendations are provided as part of an ordered list in HTML. Again, this is a more organized approach for providing a list of recommendations. Also, the heading structure was strong. For example, the h1 was the title (which matches the query most people enter when the featured snippet is triggered). Then, each recommendation was enclosed in an <h2> tag.

Now, I don't know how much weight the page structure has when determining which URL to surface in a featured snippet, but the difference in this example was clear. One page was organized well, while the other was less structured.

Side Note: Structured Data & Featured Snippets

As I explained earlier, neither URL uses structured data, so that had no impact on the loss of the featured snippet for this case. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't use structured data. I contacted Aaron Bradley, who focuses heavily on semantic search technology, to better understand which schema types and properties might apply to questions and answers.

Aaron explained that although he hasn't set this up or tested it yet, the Question and Answer schemas make a lot of sense (although it seems that both types were intended for an upvoting system like what's used on Quora or Stack Overflow). Aaron also explained that for multi-step answers, you could skip using Question and Answer and use ItemList instead. A simple example is provided below.

Next Up, Content Quality

This should be what it's all about, right? How good is the content, and how helpful is it for users? Sure, other factors could play a part in receiving a featured snippet, but Google should be looking to surface the best answer possible. Let's see how the URLs compared.

Both pages contain a solid set of recommendations based on the topic at hand. Both contain a number of tips and recommendations that address the core question being searched for. Sure, there are some questionable recommendations (based on different approaches in this niche), but overall, the content quality is high for both URLs.

Digging deeper revealed that the newcomer had some advantages worth pointing out. First, an industry expert was the author and was clearly listed at the top of the article as the sole author. That's an important note on several levels. My client doesn't provide author information. (This is because it wasn't written by just one person — it was written by a team.)

Also, the authority of an author (as a potential ranking metric) has been hotly debated, especially since authorship snippets were removed from the SERPs last year. We know that the loss of SERP snippets doesn't necessarily mean that Google stopped paying attention to some form of Author Rank, but how much does that affect rankings?

I don't know the answer to this question, of course — but for this example, I suspect that the author being highlighted in the post is helping. That's just my gut feeling.

Content Quality Continued: Is Fresh Best?

The new URL that now has a featured snippet provides a "last updated" tag at the top of the page with the most recent date the article was updated. With Google wanting to provide the latest information for this topic, highlighting the date that the post was last updated is a good idea.

I can't say how much this is affecting receiving a featured snippet, but it sure can help users (and Google) understand that the content is fresh.

Does Aggressive Advertising Have An Impact?

My client's site is advertising-driven, while the competitor's website is not. My client is wedging ads in between parts of the article (woven in between the content), while the newcomer doesn't have a single ad on the page.

It's an interesting observation, since we know that interrupting the user experience with ads woven into content can frustrate readers and can even deceive them (if they end up clicking ads they thought were part of the article).

We also know that Google has made moves to discourage sites from putting too many ad placements above the fold.

I can't say for sure if ad issues had an impact for this specific featured snippet, but they very well could have.

User-Generated Content: Comments

When reviewing both pages, it was also easy to see the difference in user-generated content. The newcomer has more than 600 comments on the page, while my client's page doesn't provide commenting at all.

Could Google be looking at the overwhelming difference here and surfacing the newcomer partly based on the amount of user engagement (via commenting)? Hard to say, but again, there was a stark difference between the two pages.

Link Profile: URL & Domain

After checking page structure and content quality, I compared both the URL and the domain to see how much weight inbound links had with regard to featured snippets. In a nutshell, the two URLs were historically similar (across most metrics). But my client's URL had a higher Trust Flow (TF) according to Majestic, meaning that it has gained inbound links from more trusted sites than the newcomer.

The competitor's URL has 4,037 links from 408 domains with a Trust Flow of 14 and a Citation Flow of 36. My client's article has 3,973 links from 467 domains with a Trust Flow of 45 and a Citation Flow of 39. Velocity-wise, it looks like both URLs had built links steadily over time. There were no spikes in each backlink history.

Based on what I found across link analysis tools, both URLs had similar metrics, but my client's URL had more trusted links. So, from a links standpoint, there was no apparent reason that the newcomer's URL should have received the featured snippet and pushed my client's URL out. My client actually had the advantage due to having more trusted links.

And from a domain standpoint, my client has 8M inbound links with a Trust Flow of 67 and a Citation Flow of 43, compared to 940K links with a much lower Trust Flow of 19 and a Citation Flow of 35 for the newcomer. So again, it's hard to say links had anything to do with the featured snippet change.

Mobile-Friendly

Both URLs are mobile-friendly, according to Google's mobile-friendly test tool. That said, the winner has some rendering issues and is blocking certain files from being fetched. The screenshot doesn't exactly look so hot via the mobile-friendly tool, but again, the page passes the binary test. It also renders fine during my tests using several mobile devices.

So it seems both URLs pass the mobile-friendly test, and both render fine via mobile devices. I'll call this a draw.

Social Metrics — Does Sharing Correlate Strongly With A Featured Snippet?

Let's talk social for a minute. Sure, social is not a ranking factor, but it can indirectly influence SEO. The more times a post gets shared, the more eyeballs it gets in front of. More eyeballs can translate to more engagement, including some people searching for that post via Google. And the more people find a post, the more opportunity the page has for building links.

Once again, the original URL (from my client) clearly beat the new URL. See for yourself:

New URL with featured snippet (competitor):

Facebook Likes: 1,197

Facebook Shares: 1,364

Facebook Comments: 517

Tweets: 92

Google +1s: 21

Pinterest Pins: 299

LinkedIn Shares: 0

The original URL (my client):

Facebook Likes: 11,485

Facebook Shares: 4,133

Facebook Comments: 1,344

Tweets: 231

Google +1s: 332

Pinterest Pins: 281

LinkedIn Shares: 25

So although many more people have shared my client's post, social activity did not correlate highly with retaining a featured snippet.

Domain Trust: Additional Featured Snippets

While analyzing the situation, I started to wonder how much domain authority played into the display of additional featured snippets. For example, if Google trusted a domain enough to display several (or many) featured snippets, would it be easier for that domain to gain (and then retain) more?

I dug into each website via SEMrush using the technique I provided in my last column to see how many featured snippets were being surfaced for each domain.

It turns out that my client's website crushes the other website when it comes to "how-to" queries and featured snippets. It wasn't even close. I'm seeing 7,800+ how-to queries leading to my client's site, while the competitor has just 483 — and when digging into those queries, I found my client's site receiving a number of featured snippets. I didn't check all of the keywords, but I saw enough featured snippets during my research to know the domain is trusted.

Other than the one featured snippet I'm referring to in this article, I couldn't find a single additional featured snippet for the newcomer. It seems clear that a domain having many other featured snippets doesn't necessarily correlate to gaining or retaining more featured snippets. The newcomer came out of left field without any other featured snippets and won the battle.

Technical Problems: A Tie-Breaker?

My client's site has run into some technical issues over the past few years, and they have been struggling to fix those problems. That includes performance problems, rendering issues and mobile problems. The issues are tough to track down, since they occur inconsistently. And when they do pop up, they cause big problems from a user experience standpoint. It's one of the reasons my client is migrating to a new technical infrastructure soon.

Now, it's impossible to say if the technical issues caused Google to remove their featured snippet for this query, but it's entirely possible. If Google sees that a page won't load properly (or at all in certain situations), then the featured snippet for that site could be removed algorithmically. It would be horrible for users to see a featured snippet in the SERPs and click through, only to run into serious problems reading the rest of the article.

Again, this is just speculation, and I might reach out to Google to see if they could shed some light on the situation. I'll update this post if I learn more.

Summary: Keeping Your Featured Snippet(s)

Based on my analysis of the situation, I have provided a list of recommendations below for gaining and/or retaining a featured snippet. Although only Google knows how this works algorithmically, the following bullets could possibly help you retain your featured snippet(s).

Focus on the question and answer in a format that Google can easily understand. For example, determine how people are searching for help and make sure you address that question clearly in your content. And use best practices for optimizing the page at hand (title, headings, etc.)

Highlight the author. And that's especially the case if it's a subject matter expert. Authorship has been removed from the search results, but Google probably still focuses on some aspect of Author Rank.

If you are providing a list of recommendations (or steps), use an ordered list in HTML. And you can use named anchors at the top of your article jumping users to each specific list item.

If users will be looking for the latest information about a subject (fresh content), then provide a "last updated" tag on the page. If it's content that benefits from current information, doing this can help Google (and users) understand when the post was last updated.

If the author can keep contributing to the post, then open up comments. The post that took over my client's page for the featured snippet had 600+ comments. Remember, according to John Mueller, comments can help make up the content of your page, so moderate heavily. Only allow comments that provide value, and try to bubble them up to the first page.

Use structured data to mark up your page holding the question and answer. I covered this earlier in the post, but using Question, Answer or ItemList could work, based on the specific content you provide. I recommend reviewing schema.org to learn more about each type and their associated properties.

Moving forward, my client plans to implement changes to the page that lost the featured snippet based on my analysis. I don't know if those changes can bring back the featured snippet, but we are going to try.

And for those of you with featured snippets now, it's important to understand that they can go away. And the site that steals the spotlight might appear from out of nowhere. That's exactly what happened to my client. I recommend focusing on your featured snippets now to preempt the loss of that snippet by a competitor. A lot of traffic might be on the line. Don't lose it.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author Glenn Gabe, president of G-Squared Interactive, is a digital marketing veteran with over 18 years of experience. Glenn currently helps clients maximize their online marketing efforts via Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Advertising, Social Media Marketing, and Web Analytics. During the past 18 years, Glenn has assisted clients across a wide range of industries including consumer packaged goods (CPG), e-commerce retailers, startups, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, military, education, non-profits, online auctions, real estate, and publishing. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)
Source: Swapped Out: Losing A Google Featured Snippet [Case Study]

Are #Google search engine algorithms influencing voters on 2016 election? #

Are Google search engine algorithms influencing voters on 2016 election? What's to prevent Google from rigging the 2016 election? It's entirely possible, if Google is not influencing voters already, according to Robert Epstein studies reported in Politico. Epstein's experiments show that online search results delivered by ... read moreGoogle Search Could Influence Election Results, According to Researchers Google search has the power to rig the 2016 election ... something called the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME) has the ability to shift the opinions of undecided voters by 20% or more. If Google's search algorithm started to surface more positive ... read more

How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election Research I have been directing in recent years suggests that Google, Inc., has amassed far more power to control elections ... search giant's algorithms are manipulating people every minute of every day. The adjustments they make increasingly influence ... read moreGoogle will have a massive influence on the 2016 presidential race Google's search algorithm ... influence election results he points out the company could in a way the government is not setup to protect against. Our new research leaves little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. read moreIs Google rigging our elections? According to Epstein, Google's search algorithm "has been determining the outcomes of close elections ... influence that technology giants have – but, in reality, this makes sense. The more people that search of Barack Obama, the better his search engine ... read moreHow Google could decide the 2016 presidential election You probably think big-time political donors George Soros and the Koch brothers are the kingmakers of the 2016 election. If so, you just might be wrong. Google ... search engine company has the power to influence the results of a substantial number of ... read moreCould Google Inc. Really Decide The 2016 Presidential Race? Google's search algorithm ... influence election results he points out the company could in a way the government is not setup to protect against. Our new research leaves little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. read moreReport: Google Affects How Voters View Candidates Google could influence who voters pick to be ... the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, contends the search engine behemoth has "amassed far more power to control elections … to control a wide variety of opinions and beliefs … than any company ... read moreResearchers claim that Google could 'rig the 2016 election' Robertson recently conducted an experiment in which they conclude that Google GOOG has the power to rig the 2016 presidential election. They call it the Search Engine Manipulation ... shift the opinions of undecided voters by 20% or more, sometimes even ... read moreCould Google rig the 2016 election? It's over a year away, but the 2016 presidential ... by someone at Google. According to new research, Google's search algorithm could influence undecided voters by up to 80%! Will Google wield that power fairly, or will it rig the election? read more

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Source: Are #Google search engine algorithms influencing voters on 2016 election? #

#SEO: Using Metadata to Drive #Traffic #

SEO: Using Metadata to Drive Traffic Editor's Note: Meet Jill Kocher at Ignite 2015, our conference on Sept. 16 and 17 in Dallas, where she'll present two sessions: "The Essential SEO Checklist for Ecommerce Companies, for 2015" and "Keyword Research for SEO Success: How Do ... read moreFacebook Beats Google In Driving Traffic To Your Website The article is called Facebook Beats Google In Driving Traffic ... has been able to take referral traffic market share from Google sites including of Google News and Google.com web search. With the growing use of social media, SEO experts have been ... read more

The Rise of Video: 8 Tips to Boost Your Site's SEO With Video Here are some tips about how to use video to improve SEO and get your website and your video found ... This will increase the likelihood of your video being found and driving traffic to your site. Video will only continue to grow in popularity and ... read more3 Simple Tips to Boost Your SEO on YouTube That's despite the fact that 72 percent of millenials -- the demographic with the highest buying power in the country -- frequently use YouTube. And while it's critical that business owners focus on traditional SEO to drive traffic to their homepages ... read moreQuantum Solutions Consulting Launches Do-It-Yourself SEO Program Denver, CO, August 24, 2015 –(PR.com)– Quantum Solutions Consulting today announced the launch of its new Do It Yourself SEO product ... products are easy to use and can be implemented rather quickly and help drive online traffic to your website ... read moreHow Important is Local SEO to Your Business? The importance of local Search Engine Optimization cannot be overemphasized, as many businesses and marketers are already taking advantage of its benefits. The main reason for using local SEO ... needed online exposure. Traffic for your website can ... read moreGenerate And Close Sales Leads That Pay Off Regularly "Most small businesses are likely generating traffic ... drive engagement and ultimately develop positive experiences with your customers." Alvis, too, says engage your prospects through the power of social media, email, pay per click, SEO and content ... read moreHow to Start Over and Win: Choosing Entrepreneurship Instead of Retirement The amount of space available to communicate with people is shrinking as mobile device use continues to rise ... social media and SEO strategies to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales. She is passionate about inspiring ... read moreJump-Start Your Content Marketing With These 4 Strategies In particular, Moz's Rand Fishkin and BuzzMaven Labs' Scott Clark both talk about this idea in terms of SEO and its "lengthy period of ... type of content model for a few reasons: Hubs drive traffic. Hubs drive leads. Hubs are great pieces of ... read moreDevOps Is Changing from Solving Problems to Driving Business | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps If a search engine spider encounters an error and does not load a page, the webmaster does not know because traditional traffic analytics tools such as ... refer incoming links appropriately. What Is SEO? Contrary to what too many charlatans still proclaim ... read more

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Source: #SEO: Using Metadata to Drive #Traffic #

Using the Internet to Attract Medical Tourists

CostaRicaMedicalGuide.com

For many people in the United States and Canada, the decision of traveling to medical tourism destinations such as Costa Rica is usually made after doing online research. Some patients are able to get word-of-mouth information from friends, relatives or associates who have experienced Costa Rica and are knowledgeable about the medical tourism industry, but this is hardly the norm; most medical tourists get their information by entering queries on major search engines such as Google and Bing.

The medical tourism industry is fueled by elective procedures such as cosmetic surgery, followed by major dental procedures and treatments that are not covered by medical insurance plans. Another subset of patients become medical tourists because they choose to undergo low-risk treatments such as ambulatory surgery while spending time on vacation.

Since most potential medical tourists begin their online research on Google and Bing, it stands to reason that they will very likely click on the topmost listings on the search engine results page (SERP). Those listings get top SERP placement through the process of search engine optimization (SEO). For example, a prospective medical tourist considering bariatric weight loss surgery in Costa Rica may enter a search queries such as "doctor reviews Costa Rica· or "how to find a surgeon in Costa Rica;" these two queries will return CostaRicaMedicalGuide.com as a top listing on the SERP.

CostaRicaMedicalGuide.com is an Internet property managed by The Goodness Company. Attracting medical tourism patients from the United States and Canada is the focus of CostaRicaMedicalGuide.com, which has been carefully designed with an excellent SEO strategy to ensure that it always appears at the top of the SERP for terms related to medical tourism in Costa Rica. This online property is part of a network of World Medical Guides maintained by The Goodness Company; these guides feature easy-to-use interfaces where the best healthcare providers in a specific country, region, or city can be easily found and contacted by local patients or medical tourists who are seeking their services.

In essence, CostaRicaMedicalGuide.com provides listings of respected, trustworthy healthcare providers along with patient reviews, mapping features and a free quote form that allows patients to receive emails with treatment quotes directly from qualified providers. Everything that a medical provider in Costa Rica needs to leverage Internet queries for the purpose of attracting medical tourists can be accomplished with a listing on CostaRicaMedicalGuide.com.

The Goodness Company is an international marketing, advertising and public relations firm with years of experience in the healthcare industry. The company's client base extends across 45 countries in five continents. Today, The Goodness Company represents healthcare clients across the globe and is expanding to create a truly global network of more than 200 medical and dental websites.

Using the Internet to Attract Medical Tourists
Source: Using the Internet to Attract Medical Tourists

#Google Search Results On Desktop Will Now Feature Tweets #WildestDreamsMusicVideo

Google Search Results On Desktop Will Now Feature Tweets Earlier this year in May Google and Twitter inked a partnership which brought tweets from the microblogging network to Google Search results on mobile. Tweets were visible in search results displayed in the official Android and iOS apps as well as on ... read moreGoogle is now including tweets in desktop search results A few months ago, Google started including recent and relevant tweets alongside search results on your mobile phone. Today, the company announced that those same results are being included on desktop search ... have seen this feature rolling out already ... read more

Google will now show Tweets in search results on desktop too With the new desktop integration, it is now possible to search for Twitter accounts, tweets, trending topics and hashtags with a regular Google ... results on desktop is only enabled for English language. Twitter does have its own search feature, but ... read moreGoogle Search Results starts featuring Tweets on desktops Google has now added tweets to the search results on the desktop. Google results will now feature tweets in the real-time search results on the desktop. Google Twitter account tweeted to twitter itself and jokingly invited Twitter to a search party in ... read moreTweets Will Now Be Included in Google Desktop Search Results With mobile being such a powerhouse in search it's a curious move by Google to bring this feature to desktop ... is now live. When you search for notable public figure or brands you get a stream of their latest tweets embedded in the search results ... read moreGoogle now displaying tweets in desktop search A partnership between Google and Twitter that has placed tweets in Google search results on mobile devices since earlier this year has now been expanded to the desktop ... The company has said it will make the feature available in other languages besides ... read moreTweets in Google search results comes to desktop as well Back then, this integration was limited to Google search app on Android and iOS devices. Now, their partnership, placing tweets in online search results has been extended to desktop. The confirmation came via a Twitter conversation between both companies. read moreYour tweets now show up in Google desktop search results, too Google quietly updated search via desktop on Friday to include relevant tweets in search results about whatever you're searching. Searching for Taylor Swift, for example, now summons a virtual carousel of tweets from the pop star, tucked underneath news ... read moreGoogle desktop search now shows Tweets and Twitter accounts ... was implemented in the mobile Google Search console earlier this year, and is rolling out to desktop interfaces throughout the day. Google's results will now - or will soon, for you - show Twitter's Tweets along with standard search results on your ... read moreLoosing Twitter joins Google to show tweets in Google search results The desktop search on Google will now give different results in the form of live tweets depending on what is entered ... it has already rolled out this feature on its iOS and Android apps along with mobile browsers. When an individual's name is searched ... read more

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Source: #Google Search Results On Desktop Will Now Feature Tweets #WildestDreamsMusicVideo

How to Change the Search Engine in #Windows 10 to #Google #

How to Change the Search Engine in Windows 10 to Google Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade is considered by most to be the best operating system Microsoft has ever made. Whether or not that's true is up for debate. Certainly, some aren't a fan of Microsoft making it difficult to change the search engine ... read moreChange Microsoft Edge Default Search Engine in Windows 10 Windows ... a few different search engines to select from. If you need to change your default search engine from Bing to something else, just do it once and you're done. In the example shown below I changed the default search to Google to give you ... read more

How to force Cortana to use Google instead of Bing in Windows 10 Microsoft is pushing Bing heavily in its new operating system. Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft Edge, and while you can change this to Google (or any other choice), the process of doing so is far from intuitive -- you can't simply pick ... read moreFirefox 40 Helps Use Google as Default Search Engine in Windows 10 ... search feature available in Windows 10 uses Bing by default, and there's no option to change that right now. But if you install Firefox 40, use it as the default browser and you set up Google as the preferred search engine, Windows 10 automatically ... read moreFirefox sticks it to Microsoft, redirects Cortana searches in Windows 10 (It wouldn't be surprising, however, if Google follows suit.) Search engine drama aside, Mozilla is embracing some aspects of Windows 10. The new browser includes ... The other big change is creating a controversy of its own: With Firefox 40, Mozilla ... read moreThe Dark Side of Windows 10: Set a Theme & Change Colors Windows 10 is now officially here ... For added effect, make your default search engine Blackle. It performs a Google search just like normal, but it uses a black background instead of white. If you're more concerned with having a black theme than ... read moreHow to change the default Microsoft Edge search engine in Windows 10 Its familiar 'E' icon should be right there on your taskbar. Step 2: Navigate to the search engine you want to set as your default*. E.g. Type 'Google.com' in the URL bar and wait for the page to fully load. Step 3: Click/tap the ellipses on the ... read more10 tips for Windows 10 The new Edge browser in Windows 10 may still not be good enough to supplant Chrome and Firefox, but it is clean and fast. However, its default search engine is Bing. To change to a more ... For instance, to add Google, go to Google's homepage. read moreFirefox tries to edge out Microsoft in Windows 10 browser battle In July, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was top dog with a browser traffic share of 53 percent, followed by Google Chome ... to show you your search results using the search engine of your choice. The first time you try this, Windows 10 will ask if you ... read more10 reasons you shouldn't upgrade to Windows 10 Of course, if you've been using Google ... the search engine is tortuous. Moving tabs onto the desktop and back again doesn't work, and you can't pin tabs. I talked about the sorry state of the Microsoft-supplied Universal apps in my Windows 10 ... read more

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Source: How to Change the Search Engine in #Windows 10 to #Google #

Tweets Officially Show In #Google Desktop Searches #1989TourLA

Google Officially Expands Twitter Into Desktop Search Results Google has officially announced on Twitter, as well in as an updated post on ... in mobile search results — but now they also will begin to show to all English language searches on desktop. Google told us it is now rolling out to all users in English ... read moreGoogle is now including tweets in desktop search results As on mobile, the integration of Twitter with Google's desktop search engine will give you different ... the "NASA Twitter" example Google uses in its blog) will show both tweets from the official NASA account as well as tweets from others users talking ... read more

Tweets Officially Show In Google Desktop Searches It looks like Google gives a f**k about Twitter after all, at least a little. The industry continues to speculate on whether or not the search powerhouse may acquire the microblogging platform, but in the mean time, Tweets have started showing up in search ... read moreYour tweets now show up in Google desktop search results, too Next time you perform a Google search on your desktop, keep a look out for something new: tweets. Google quietly updated search via desktop on Friday to include relevant tweets in search results about whatever you're searching. Searching for Taylor Swift ... read moreGoogle desktop search now shows Tweets and Twitter accounts Earlier today Google Search added Tweets from Twitter to their real-time search results on the desktop. This addition was implemented ... Searching for "NASA Twitter" will not only show you a link to NASA's official Twitter page, it'll show you NASA's ... read moreTweets Officially Hit Google Desktop Search Results, Giving Brands Another Way In If this sounds familiar it's because Google ... desktop for all English language searchers globally. The company had already extended mobile access to English users worldwide. What it means is that tweets will show up in a carousel in the main column of ... read moreGoogle now shows tweets in desktop search results A few months back Google ... desktop search results as well. If you type in a person and the word Twitter, you might see their recent tweets. But if you type in something more general like NASA Twitter, for example, you'll get both tweets from NASA's ... read moreGoogle Brings Tweets From Twitter Straight To Desktop Search Results Google has today announced that it will be integrating tweets from Twitter right into its search results on the desktop ... it will show you a neat card up top, showing you tweets from the official @NASA Twitter account. Same goes for hashtags as well ... read moreYour tweets now show up in Google desktop search results, too. Las Vegas Blog Twitter on Wednesday officially dropped the 140-character ... 23:01:51 UTC Next time you perform a Google search on your desktop, keep a look out for something new: tweets. Google quietly updated search via desktop on Friday to contain relevant tweets ... read moreTwitter and Google's Search Partnership Has Expanded to Desktop Twitter and Google teamed up a few months ago to show tweets in Google searches on mobile. Now that partnership has expanded to include desktop searches, too, so anyone searching on Google in English will now see tweets appear in the results. The move ... read more

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Source: Tweets Officially Show In #Google Desktop Searches #1989TourLA

How to Leverage Social Media for SEO: Link Building

I recently asked a room of experienced marketers how they thought social media marketing could assist their SEO efforts. The answers were more or less what I had expected to hear:

Social media helps foster relationships, which in turn helps build links and improves rankings.

Social media aids in public relations, as a distribution channel and a means of generating easy online buzz.

Social sharing provides a form of social proof, giving greater credibility and trustworthiness to your content.

Brands can rank for their social networking profiles and receive greater visibility within the SERP.

While these are all true, let's focus on how link building on social platforms can help unite a brand's social media marketing and SEO efforts.

At the most basic level, social networking sites provide an easy way to share and distribute your message. If the content is seen by the right people, it can lead to new backlinks.

In fact, there are measurable correlations between social shares and backlinks that demonstrate that social media can help with backlink acquisition. Let's explore this integration across social platforms.

Link Building with Google+

Google+ has an excellent infrastructure for finding link opportunities and organizing those linking prospects for outreach; it even includes an integrated messaging system for actually getting in touch with these people.

Prospecting

There are lots of ways to find linking opportunities on Google+. For example, using Google search, you can find a journalist by publication with an advanced search operator such as site:plus.google.com inurl:about "contributor to" mashable.com

Alternatively, you can use the "find people" section on Google+ and search with the "find coworkers" function. In the "company name" field, insert the name of a publication.

Organizing Link Building

You can use Google+ Circles to organize and segment outreach lists.

I typically have a Circle for journalists by publication, a Circle for prospects who wrote about similar subject matter, and a Circle for bloggers with whom I have had past successes building links.

After you have gotten a link from someone, you can move these individuals into a "Success" Circle.

Reaching Out Within Google+

One of the great advantages of doing link building with Google+ is its versatile built-in outreach engine.

Once you have an outreach Circle, you can choose to share an update specifically with the individuals contained in that Circle.

If people in the Circle have circled you back, then you can also opt to send them an email notification with that update. Check the "Also send email from you to [Circle Name]" box, and they will receive the update in their inbox.

You can also send a message to individuals or even initiate a Hangout with them (message or video). This is a great substitute for emailing.

Link Building with Twitter

Twitter is my social network of choice, and it also is a powerful channel for your link-building efforts.

Tools like klear (formally Twtrland) or Followerwonk can be leveraged to easily find subject matter influencers and their associated websites.

Once you know your prospects, you can organize them using Twitter Lists. You can easily import them using a tool like Electoral. Segment your lists and interact with the people periodically, building relationships with them over time.

If you are looking for a Twitter user's email address, you can use a tool like All My Tweets to load everything they've ever tweeted on one page — then use Control +F in your browser to look for patterns that resemble email addresses like "at domain dot com."

If you cannot find someone's email address, Twitter Direct Messages are a decent substitute and can provide a more private option, as compared to just mentioning people with linking inquiries. Of course, they have to be following you before you're able to send them a direct message.

You should also be doing some basic social listening on Twitter (and other social networks) using a tool like Social Searcher.

Keep a lookout for people who mention topics related to your website's niche that you might be able to ask for a link. The old "I see you mentioned [topic], so you might like [link]" works quite well.

Link Building with YouTube

People love to link to video content, but, unfortunately, most companies depend on YouTube for their entire online video strategy.

The result of this mindset is that YouTube.com earns all the backlinks for your video content rather than your company's website. Your company can mitigate this by self-hosting videos or using a service like Wistia, which allows you to control embedding so that people link to your website instead of to YouTube.

If self-hosting videos is not an option, and your company insists on an all-YouTube-or-nothing approach, you can still use that video content to build links through a standard link reclamation process:

Take a video that has been successful on YouTube, put the YouTube.com URL into a backlink checker like Majestic, Ahrefs, or Moz's Open Site Explorer and get a list of websites linking to it.

You can reach out to these websites and ask them to link to your company website instead of the YouTube.com link.

Another approach is to access your company's YouTube Analytics. "Traffic Sources" will show you any websites that embedded the video (but not necessarily linked to it). You can reach out to those websites and request a link to your company website.

Link Building with Social Paid Search

Half the battle of link building is getting in front of the right eyes, and paid social ads can help!

For example, you can use Facebook ads and target people by their workplace. For our purposes, we'd target journalists (who may link to us), and the workplaces would be a list of publications like Wired, The New York Times, and Mashable.

You can use LinkedIn advertising to accomplish this, but those ads tend to be a little more expensive.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many ways to perform link building using social media. It is one of the many ways to break down marketing silos and integrate your social media marketing and SEO.

Social networking has become one of the primary ways we communicate today, so those platforms become a logical medium for conducting link outreach. In addition, there are tools baked into social network sites to aid link prospecting, easy ways to get in front of influential journalists who may have otherwise ignored you, and even systems to help organize your outreach.

Social media and SEO are two peas in a pod, and building links is a great way to make use of their synergy today.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author Paul Shapiro is an Organic Search Director for Catalyst in Boston. Paul loves to get down and dirty with innovative SEO strategies. He also enjoys watching old horror movies, programming, collecting ancient artifacts, and writing about SEO on his blog, Search Wilderness. (Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)
Source: How to Leverage Social Media for SEO: Link Building