FirstFound have constantly and consistently advised our customers against link buying because Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are incredibly clear on the issue. Don’t do it:

However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

Google’s own advice on Paid Links

So when it came to light yesterday that Google had decided that it was all a case of “do what we say, not what we do”, the online SEO community decided they weren’t happy about the situation.

The issue concerns a marketing campaign for Google’s fast-growing Chrome browser, and the URL www.google.com/chrome. Despite Google’s own rules on buying links, a marketing company employed to promote the web browser decided that they’d like to pay bloggers to write posts on how brilliant Google Chrome is. In essence, paying people to link back to the Chrome website. Which just isn’t cricket.

This underhand tactic was brought to the world’s attention by Search Engine Land, who thought that swapping Amazon gift cards for back links constituted a significant breach of Google’s quality guidelines, and a backlash ensued. Google then tried to avoid taking action by claiming they’d just asked for a few video ads and that they had nothing to do with the marketing tactics they were paying for.

Funnily enough, this didn’t wash, and the company has been forced to demote Google Chrome in the listings for no less than 60 days. Meaning that the site no longer appears for Google searches for the term “browser” (it does still appear on page one of Bing, so obviously Microsoft aren’t copying that particular result…) or “chrome”. Somewhat irritatingly for people who want to download Google Chrome, the site isn’t even listed for “Google chrome”.

“We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days. We strive to enforce Google’s webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users. While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site.”

Google Statement

If you’re considering buying links, we’d like to strongly suggest that your reconsider. After all, if Google can’t get away with breaking their own rules, what chance do you have?

If you’re interested in ethical optimisation that meets Google’s guidelines and won’t get you de-listed, call FirstFound now on 0161 909 3400, or visit the FirstFound website.

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We know you’re an avid fan of the FirstFound Blog, but have you taken the time to read our regular online magazine? It’s November, which means that the all new issue of Optimise is on the virtual shelves, packed full of free articles on everything from marketing successes to not-so-fantasy football.

So make sure you take the time to read Optimise Magazine Issue 10 – especially if you’re a FirstFound client looking for an amazing special offer!

Optimise Issue 10

SEO Made Simple – The FAQ Edition: Our technical team answer the burning questions on our clients’ lips. Such as “Just how long does it take to get to the top of Google?”,  “Can blogging help my SEO?” and the ever-popular “Just what is that on Greg Doyle’s face?”. Ok, that last one’s a lie, but Greg is taking part in Movember this year…

Five Great Ways to Attract Online Attention: If your website can’t grow a fetching handlestache, just how can you stand out from the crowd? Optimise shows you how, with examples of how to use Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to promote your business.

Beyond SEO: We make a big song and dance about being the UK’s leading search engine consultants, but did you know that FirstFound can also build and host websites, write copy and articles (and blog posts and online magazines, for little-to-no recognition, thanks very much) and run your PPC campaigns? Well, if you didn’t you will after reading this.

Can Your Contacts Help With Your SEO: When you need some Help, it’s always easier to Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends. Luckily, there aren’t any tortured Beatles references in the article itself, just good, helpful advice. So if you’re reading, sorry Ringo.

Staffers in the Spotlight – FirstFound FC: We apologise in advance for the satanic eyes on display in the photo for this article. If it helps you calm down, just scroll up and take another look at Greg’s calming moustache (and donate for Movember). Anyway, we’ve got a footy team. And their captain is the new Liam Gallagher!

Help a Friend, Save £100: Are you a FirstFound client? Do you have a friend? Would you like to save up to £100? If you’re shouting “yes, yes, yes!” at the monitor, click here and take advantage of this great promotion.

FirstFound Success Stories: Some great FirstFound reviews from very happy clients. Isn’t that nice? Yes. Yes it is.

News and Stuff: Google+ launches! Retweeting and Sexting in the OED! Typos are teh scoruge of the intrenet! Steve Jobs passes away. If you’ve missed any of the big stories of the past few months (which you wouldn’t have if you subscribed to the RSS feed here at the FirstFound Blog, you’ll find them recapped in Optimise’s handy News and Stuff section. Isn’t that convenient?

So, what are you waiting for? Get over to www.optimise-firstfound.co.uk now and read the latest issue!

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But it’s not just the Facebook and Twitter generation who are rushing to get online while they’re on the go, as the total number of people using mobiles, tablets and laptops to surf the web has increased.

Here’s the important statistics:

• 45% of Brits access the internet from a mobile phone (up from 31% in 2010)
• Most likely to use mobile internet: 16 – 24 year olds, 71% (up from 44%)
• Least likely to use mobile internet: Over 65s, 8%
• 38% of adults use a tablet or laptop to surf on the move
• Over 8.73 million UK adults have never been online (of which over 76.3% are over 75)
• 13% of web users use WiFi hotspots (double the 2010 figue)
• 77% of UK homes have internet access

The statistics are clear to see. The vast majority of the UK population has access to the internet, either at home, on the go, or both. And more and more people are logging on each and every year.

So it’s important that you’re getting found online. Which is where we come in.

To take your site to the top of the search engines and access that 77% of the UK population with an internet connection, call FirstFound today on 0161 909 3400.

If you search for a brand name on Google today, you’ll see a significant change to the way Google lays out its results page.

Rather than the tiny, unintrusive sitelinks we’ve all come to know and love, Google are confronting us with huge sitelinks that dominate the page.

From now on, if Google thinks you’re searching for a specific company or brand, it’ll pack the results page with links to various parts of the relevant official site.

In terms of page layout, this means that all non-official results will be booted below the fold. As you can see above, The FirstFound Blog only just sneaks onto the top half of the page when you search for FirstFound.

Why have Google done this then?

It’s widely believed that Google have done this to make their brand and company results more relevant. The reasoning is that if you’re searching for FirstFound, you’ll want a selection of options from the official FirstFound website – instead of a selection of related sites including Facebook and Twitter accounts.

However, a few cynics have spotted that thanks to the new sitelinks, it’s harder for third party resellers to get onto the top half of page one. Unless of course they want to pay Google for a sponsored link.

Whichever theory you believe, it’s not a given that mega sitelinks are here to stay, as Google have been known to remove new features if they’re off-putting or distracting.

What does this mean for SEO?

Unless you’re targeting specific brand names (‘FirstFound’ instead of ‘Search Engine Consultants’), this shouldn’t have too much of an effect on your SEO.

If you are targeting brand names, you might want to think about extending your targeted phrase. ‘DeWalt’ brings up the new sitelinks, but ‘DeWalt Tools’ doesn’t, allowing you to claim a listing higher up the page. Taking advantage of the recent trend towards local searches will also help, so you may want to consider adding a location to your targeted phrases too.

But the important thing is to think carefully about what you want your site to rank for. If you’re in need of expert advice on that particular subject, call FirstFound now on 0161 909 3400 and ask for your free ranking report.

As of August 3rd 2011, Yahoo will stop providing search results all over Europe, instead showing organic results provided by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The only data Yahoo will provide are paid adverts, but we wouldn’t be surprised if these were combined with Microsoft’s pay per click programme too.

A year ago, Yahoo stopped providing results in the USA, and now they’re giving up the chase in the UK, Italy, France, Germany and Spain too. So if you’re one of Yahoo’s die-hard users, you might want to learn to love Bing instead.

FirstFound’s search reports will still continue to show Yahoo listings as we check to see whether different localisation data or filters are applied to the Bing results if a search takes place on a Yahoo site.

We’ll let all our clients know if and when we drop Yahoo from our reports entirely.

Domains have hit the news a few times this year; with customisable suffixes being announced while whole groups of sites were being unceremoniously dumped from Google’s index. But the biggest domain story of last year was the launch of .xxx domains. And now it looks like even reputable brands want in on the triple X rated action.

ICM registry, who are selling the .xxx suffix, have announced a “sunrise” period to allow brands to purchase addresses containing their trademarks. Why? It’s all in the name of brand management.

When it comes to brand searches, the search engines tend to list websites that have the brand name in the URL. That’s why huge brands like Apple tend to dominate the results pages with a list of .com, .co.uk, .org and .info addresses. But the issue is that there’ll be nothing stopping a .xxx domain sneaking on to that results page. And nothing screams “not-so-wholesome brand” like a page full of X-rated images appearing under a company’s name.

ICM have declared that if companies don’t want the embarrasment of being linked with the internet’s ‘red light area’, they should start to buy up addresses. And pay $200-300 dollars in an attempt to avoid cybersquatters into the bargain.

Given Google‘s commitment to “Safe Search”, it’d surprise us if safeguards weren’t put in to place to avoid “Virgin.xxx” showing potential broadband customers a little more than they bargained for. That said, if you’re worried about the potential reputation issues, you have until September 7th to register your brand’s .xxx domain.

What you do with it once it’s registered is entirely up to you.

It’s that time again! Issue Nine of FirstFound’s quarterly newsletter is here – chock full of interesting features, helpful hints and the latest online marketing and SEO news.

This month sees a Facebook theme (we’re not out of touch – Google+ wasn’t launched until Optimise was in the final stages of post production) as we explain why your website needs to be on the world’s most popular social network, and we take a closer look at local listings:

SEO Made Simple – Google Local: Local search is becoming an ever more important search vertical. Optimise explains the basics of Google’s ‘Places’ local search function, and you can download our free PDF factsheet, helping you submit your business.

How To Lose Leads and Alienate People: Are you making one of these five fatal marketing mistakes? If you are, then you might as well dig a hole, throw your advertising budget into it and set the whole thing on fire. Because you’re doing your business more harm than good.

Why Should You be on Facebook?: We’re on Facebook. Are you? If you’re not, we’re hoping that this informative article changes your mind and opens your business up to whole new markets.

Go Green, Get Business?: We take our environmental commitments seriously here at FirstFound, and we’re hoping that you do too. So we’ve put together five quick and easy tips for you to reduce your carbon emissions and make the world a brighter place – your customers will appreciate it!

Staffer in the Spotlight – David Green: From Green Tips to Mr. Green. We catch up with FirstFound’s charity runners and riders. Beware! This article may contain photos of sweaty men…

Promotion – Facebook Fan Pages: A professionally designed Facebook Fan Page for just £250. Need we say more?

Summer Success Stories: While you’re off on your summer holidays, we’ve been catching up with our customers working for the Ilfracombe and District tourist board – so read all about the sun, sea, sand and the three-letter ‘s’ word on everyone’s lips. Yeah, SEO. What else could we mean?

Optimise News: All the news you need to get through the summer.

If you’ve got any feedback on this issue of Optimise, or you’ve got something you’d like to see in Issue 10, let us know in the comments section below.

It’s been over a day since the long awaited Google ‘Panda’ Update was unleashed upon the English-speaking world. That means the first lot of testing is in, and SEOs accross the country are starting to share their findings on sites like Twitter.

FirstFound’s Views

So far, we’re not seeing any major issues on client’s sites due to the Panda update. Because the algorithm change is designed to weed out spam, scraped and stolen content, and results with no value to the end user, our white hat techniques haven’t been affected.

What we hope to see in the future is the removal of any poor quality sites that have been outranking our clients on competitive terms, but this is dependent on the success of the update, as well as our continued efforts on behalf of our customers.

The View From The Industry

From what we’ve seen, results from across the industry back up what we’re saying. Good quality sites aren’t unduly suffering, although there have been a few hiccups on a handful of sites. This should reward great sites in the future, providing a boost for businesses who put the effort into marketing their business online.

If you’re concerned about the effect Panda has had on your website (and you really shouldn’t be), have a word with your FirstFound search engine consultant.

If you don’t yet have a FirstFound consultant, call us now on 0161 909 3400.

Online advertising spend has increased by over 12% since last year, with British companies spending over four billion pounds per year on reaching new clients through the internet. That means that online marketing is now growing quicker than more traditional forms of print and TV marketing.

And with the vast majority of British people now having regular access to the internet through computers, smartphones and tablets like the iPad, this news could hardly be less surprising.

Search advertising takes the lion’s share of online advertising spend, as despite the growth of social networking sites, people still prefer to use search engines to inform their purchasing decisions.

In a discussion with the BBC, Ian Barber of the Advertising Association said there’s one obvious reason that people are continuing to invest in online advertising; it’s the easiest way to target your products at specific audiences. And that means higher returns on your investments.

If you haven’t yet invested in online advertising for your business, contact FirstFound now on 0161 909 3400.

So to help you get started, the FirstFound Blog will provide a step by step guide to linking your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools accounts.

Step One:

Log in to your Google Account, then visit the Verification homepage.

Step Two:

You’ll now be presented with a list of your domains (that are verified with Webmaster Tools). Choose the domain you’d like to link, and click “Link to Google Analytics”.

Step Three:

Select the analytics profile you wish to link, using the tick box provided. Then press save.

Step Four:

Head back to Webmaster Tools.

You’ll now be presented with even more in-depth information, that will be of use to your SEO campaign!