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The Panda Is At It Again At Google!
The panda is back to work on improving Google. Another Panda update has been confirmed by Google the other day on their blog.
What does these 40* updates all mean for you? I’ll pick the most important ones for you to know.
- Links – Link evaluations that were used for years are no longer going to be used. They do not give away too much info on this one but it makes me believe the old link exchanges used in SEO may no longer be as necessary.
- Local Search Rankings – Google is using a new system to find better results from a user in a more reliable way. If you are a local business take advantage of this and be sure your Google’s Places Pages is claimed.
- More Coverage for Searches - A new data source is being used to refine what you are searching for and giving you more results and choices. This good lead to more traffic for your site if your keywords are on target.
- More Accurate Detection of Official Pages – Pages that were misleading will no longer be seen in search (that’s a great thing!)
- Fresher Images – Google adjusted their signals for fresher images – so your newer images will show in search. Another great reason to use images besides pinning.
- Freshness Update – Google has added new signals to to update fresh content in the searches more quickly than before. Now more than ever it’s important to update your sites and blogs with quality freshness.
- Safe Search Update – Irrelevant adult content is less likely to show up for many searches. Good to know! Remember the days when white house turned up those porn sites? Those days are gone by the Panda wayside.
*You may read more here on the 40 changes.
Are You Curating Your Content?
Curating Content are the buzz words these days. You may be curating your content and not even realize it. Just what does curating your content mean?
It is the sorting of content throughout the web and putting it into a organized and purposeful way for others to learn. It almost sound like what a lot of bloggers already do. Gather info, organize it and share it. It also helps you to stay ahead of the curve on topics as you learn something each time you go to curate a topic. It is what keeps your readers coming back as they want to stay on top of a particular topic too. There are various ways to share this info via blogs, pod-casts, video, images and info-graphs.
How do you gather this information for curating your content? Here are just some of the ways you can gather information and news on the web for curating content:
- Google Alerts
- Google+
- Scoopit
- Yahoo News
- Breaking News
- Other News Websites
There is even software now you can buy to help you to curate your content called Curation Soft. It helps you discover, review and curate content from Google Blog Search, You Tube, Twitter, Google News, Flicker and any RSS feed you want! There is a free addition (comes with ads) or a pro edition for $59/yr. It is an application that you must download on your computer. You know where I’m headed now!
Next comes organizing the content. You can achieve this in many ways. You can add images, videos and graphs to your blog or website. You can organize by numbering items or by bullet points. It’s all up to you on how you organize the content.
And then once you put the information together for your readers how do you share it?
There are just so many ways to share it today! The graphic above only highlights a few of the most popular ways in which you can share curated content. There are new social networks coming aboard daily for you to share this information with. In addition to the ones above you have Pinterest, NewsMeBack, Foursquare, Scoopit and many more! They are sometimes called Social Bookmarking Sites. Places you leave you bookmark for others to find and read.
Are you already curating your content on the web?
Would You Know If A Twitter Friend Was In Danger?
Twitter Friend in Danger
I had met Stacie on Google+ where she shared her blog and asked for advice one day and I gave her some. We then became friends over on Twitter.
We tweeted daily on little things and promoted each others blogs and made comments on them. She told me about her dear friend who died from breast cancer as I had posted something about breast cancer one day and explained to her about a friend of mine that had just been through breast cancer. She warned me it may come back as it did with her dear friend. There was a sadness about her and when I questioned her on her blog about it she did not answer it directly, this is what she told me:
“Hi Lisa,Thank You for taking the time to read my first entry..As you can see it is still in the works so bear with me..
I wish I could explain it to you in a reply,that is why I started this blog to journal my journey while writing my first book..
Life is unpredictable,we are so busy that it is hard to stop and enjoy..Hopefully you will come back and read my blog and help me put the pieces together..
Take some time and enjoy life lisa..Take it from me..
Again thank you..”
There will never be another post to be read to put the pieces together. I received a Facebook message from another local Twitter friend asking me to call her. I did, she asked if I knew Stacie personally because she thought she was the woman murdered gruesomely over the weekend. (I had not read the story – the headline told me enough and I cannot stomach reading about such things especially when kids are involved.) I explained I never met her in person and that we met over on Google+ and tweeted daily.
We pieced it together the following morning as our local newspaper reported her name and quoted from her blog.
I felt so terrible. Could I have helped? I had not seen the signs except to think she may had been abused as a child as she tweeted about child abuse. I did not realize her and her kids were victims. She had written about kids being abused often. Days after her murder her tweets were still being tweeted from JustCoz and they look like this:
One little tweet to help children recover from trauma – Thanks for your support! http://JustCoz.org/operationSAFE #DT@operationSAFE
We all can get to know one another over on Twitter (unless you are a spammer or promoting a business with no relationships) and we found it so sad to lose one of our tweeps. We want to help. We saw an effort to collect clothing for the children – we called the number but there were so many calls yesterday that the inbox was full. We understand now the local fire department will be taking up the collection as the neighbor could not handle the volume of people trying to help the children left behind.
What Can We Do?
How would anyone know the signs of abuse via the internet? She never spoke directly about her situation. According to the hotline.org more than 3 women are murdered daily by their husbands and/or partner. More than 3 women per day! They offer more information on their website including ways to get help.
The hotline number is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
If you know of ways we can help one other online to protect each other I’d love to know (Maybe reading through the lines?) as I don’t want to lose another Twitter friend this horrific way. If there are more ways to help I will update them here.
Maybe there are ways we can honor her via her blog. It was her outlet and pride and joy besides her children. May she rest in peace.
Update: Clothes may be donated to: Johnston Fire Dept. 1520 Atwood Avenue, Johnston, RI 02919. Boys (Jake) size 6 and girls (Lily) size 4. (When I brought the clothes this evening they said they could use gift cards to Walmart, Target, etc for food.)
Here is the Johnston Fire Dept. Website : http://www.local1950.com/index.cfm?section=1
There will also be a benefit at a local restaurant on March 3, 2012 at the Harbourside Lobstermania at 6 pm, Click here for more details.
Has The Panda Affected Your Blog?
Have you heard of the Panda updates by Google? Panda updates are algorithm changes to search and search results that can affect your website or blog’s ranking in searches on Google. There is an engineer who works on the updates at Google named Panda and that’s where the name apparently came from.
When we first started our websites and I was reading daily on search engine optimization I wondered “what the heck is a panda update?” and “what is all this talk about a panda?” Google has been updating their algorithm changes more frequently to provide higher quality sites in search than ever before and it’s important to stay updated on these changes that affect our websites and blogs. You can stay abreast of these right on Google’s blog itself. And then if you need more interpretation you can find plenty of it online. I just Google it.
- Duplicate Content – A big no-no! Do not have any duplicate content on your website or blog that is on any other website or blog
- Does the content have spelling errors or factual errors? Double check your spelling.
- Does your page provide value over other pages in the search rankings? Do you know what your readers want to see and does it serve a purpose?
- Excessive amount of ads – Another no-no!
- Make your pages and posts for readers – not for search engines.
- Do not have hidden text or links – (I don’t know how so I guess I’m good!)
- If you use affiliate programs make sure you offer some original content too
- Avoid excessive link exchanges – only use relevant ones!
- And here is a link to the latest 21 more subtle updates at Web Pro News
Have you been keeping an eye out on the Panda? The Importance of Social Media
Today’s guest blogger is Brenda Pace of the Four Legged Mom who I’ve gotten to know through blogger and Twitter. We usually chat each day over on Twitter. She mentioned going on a social meet up and I asked her to blog on it as I recently posted about being friends through a computer. Thanks to Brenda for today’s awesome post!
In the small State of Delaware, we are trying to promote the importance of social media. Me? Well, I love social networking and have jumped on the bandwagon! Not so much Facebook or Google+, even those networking tools do work, but the importance of Twitter.
Twitter is a remarkable tool! You can network with people all over the world or just in your own state, city, neighborhood! Yes, Twitter is THAT cool!
Back to my state, I’ve seen these Twitter events being retweeted called “Tweetups” or “Peditweetup” and was curious. So I started inquiring about them. Coolness! These are meets and/or outings where you actually get to meet and interact “face-to-face” with the people (also referred to as “tweeps”) that you tweet! Woohoo!
I had been unable to make a couple “peditweetup” (pedicure + tweetup meets) because they have been during the workweek and a little distance away. Having a pit bull at home that needs to stay on a strict schedule deters me from doing some things. Anyway, I had been tweeting someone who lived very close to me and mentioned something about a tweetup. She jumped on the idea! Cool! I through a date out there and she reserved the restaurant! Awesome!
Next thing to do was promoting it and get RSVP’s! So we posted on Facebook and Twitter. The Twitter or Tweets were retweeted (meaning reposted or shared) everyday until the event. We had about a dozen people show up. I thought was good because the area I live in is “socially illiterate”, if I may say so!
We got to know one another, talked about our lives, and then talked about social media and promoting it. Overall, it was a great time and I anxiously look forward to doing it again soon!
So what good came out of the “tweetup”? Meeting new folks, learning new things, and a sense of Community, which is lacking in a lot of areas.
If you get the chance to attend one, I highly suggest it! If it’s not happening in your area, why not organize one yourself! It’s very simple! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! You can tweet me @bwelchp or @fourlegged_mom (my blog twitter).
