Hey Google! Sunset Your Unnatural Oral Action or I’ll Nofollow You

Hey Google! Sunset Your Unnatural Oral Action or I’ll Nofollow You

* Do you remember the days when “manual action” was something desirable and NSFW? Listening to Google spokespeople turns more bizarre with the years. They have come up with their own language to hide the sour facts of penalties faulty…

Questions to Ask Before Each Project Starts

Questions to Ask Before Each Project Starts

* So you are starting a new blog? Do you just consider buying a new domain? There are a lot of down to earth questions to ask! When? You have to ask the hard questions before you launch a website…

Free Traffic vs Gatekeeper Traffic

Free Traffic vs Gatekeeper Traffic

* Usually I prefer to speak about visitors not traffic as in people visiting your site. Why? The term “traffic” is too fuzzy. It fails to really explain what is going on on the Web. It’s a misleading metaphor when…

10 Things the Unnatural Links Penalty Taught me [Google SEO]

10 Things the Unnatural Links Penalty Taught me [Google SEO]

I didn’t expect to get penalized for unnatural links at all! That’s why I noticed it very late. It also sucked! Why? The whole process of dealing with the unnatural links penalty has been “problematic” itself to say the least….

Quality Sites Are the New Links and Santa Exists

Quality Sites Are the New Links and Santa Exists

According to Google and Search Engine Land the decades old practice of link building has been replaced by “building quality sites” back in 2013. Is SEO dead then, again? No, that’s not a joke. This is official. The webmaster guidelines…

Where Did All The Search Traffic Go?

Where Did All The Search Traffic Go?

* BuzzFeed reports that “Traffic from Google to digital publishers dropped 30% over the past eight months.” based on traffic statistics from over 200 major media properties, among them BuzzFeed Time Huffington Post Rolling Stone Sports Illustrated Overall social media…

Dangerous Links: Why & How Google Wants to Abolish Hypertext

Dangerous Links: Why & How Google Wants to Abolish Hypertext

* Are links unnatural or even dangerous? The Web is built upon so called hypertext. Why is hypertext called hyper in the first place? Isn’t it just text published on the Internet? The hyper-aspect stems from hyperlinks. It’s not because…

How to Kill Pandas and Penguins but NOT People

How to Kill Pandas and Penguins but NOT People

* This post is not about killing cute animals. I’m not just an ethical SEO, I’m also vegan. It’s about SEO for the people. When it comes to search a Panda and a Penguin are different types of Google updates…

When Will Google Sunset Search?

When Will Google Sunset Search?

* One day the most important topic on the Internet was the unexpected demise of Google Reader. It was a popular tool to read and share content from blogs by subscribing to their so called feeds. Why did it matter?…

Billions of Sites Subject to Manual Penalty by Google

Billions of Sites Subject to Manual Penalty by Google

Google recently released an “interactive infographic” titled “how search works”. I ignored it until Barry Schwartz convinced me to take a second look. The infographic starts with the number of “30 trillion individual pages” Google has in its index. Later…

Training in Winter

Training in Winter

* I have started training parkour some time ago. It made me not only 200% healthier over the recent years – I feel 10 years younger by now. Parkour also inspired me in other areas of life. I’ve already coined…

How I Recovered from Google’s Panda Update – You Won’t Believe it!

How I Recovered from Google’s Panda Update – You Won’t Believe it!

A panda might by a a cute animal but for most people who have a website and get traffic from search or rather mostly from Google it’s worse than a zombie. Websites hit by one of the numerous so called…

Content is Tyrant: Is it Publish or Perish for Everybody Now?

Content is Tyrant: Is it Publish or Perish for Everybody Now?

* Summary: In the era of “content marketing” it’s not just scientists and SEO specialists who have to create content to survive. Every business seemingly has to as Google etc. needs content to monetize. Do you have to submit to…

How to Use the Google Disavow Tool for NOT Against Negative SEO

How to Use the Google Disavow Tool for NOT Against Negative SEO

* Google created the problem of so called “negative SEO“. How? By taking “manual action” on inbound links webmasters have no control over. Instead of just discounting “unnatural links” pointing to your site Google will make you responsible for them!…

Advantages of Google-Free Blogging

Advantages of Google-Free Blogging

* OK, I really got fed up and one day I banned Google on this blog. You will believe what happened next! In sheer numbers I got far less “traffic” of course. Often traffic from Google is not desirable though….

This is Why Google Search is Bad and What Engine to Use Instead

This is Why Google Search is Bad and What Engine to Use Instead

Do you think Google sucks? I’m not a big friend of Google search either. In this post I reflect on how bad the Google search experience is nowadays. To solve the problem I will suggest a better alternative or rather…

Steal This Blog! SEO2.blog Uses Creative Commons License

Steal This Blog! SEO2.blog Uses Creative Commons License

* For many years I admired the Creative Commons movement. Yet I have not only been a big fan of community and sharing. I also used a lot of Creative Commons licensed images here on the SEO2.blog! Usually I uploaded…

Giving All Your Great Content to Google for Free? Suicidal?

Giving All Your Great Content to Google for Free? Suicidal?

* One day I chose to block Google search on this blog. Some people considered me nuts. After all it sounds like blog suicide! Why would someone decide to block Google traffic? It’s especially an unexpected move for a site…

How Do You Attract Visitors Instead of Traffic to Your Site?

How Do You Attract Visitors Instead of Traffic to Your Site?

* A few years ago I noted that there is a difference between traffic and visitors in an article dealing with a broader topic. Then in early January of 2011 I have described it in more depth. This time I’d…

Google Alternatives: Search, Mail, Analytics, Docs…

Google Alternatives: Search, Mail, Analytics, Docs…

* One day I banned Google search bots on my blog. After that I felt more confident about becoming independent from Google. You don’t have to be a minimalist self improvement guru who wants to live a perfect life to…