If you build links like an actual human being then you’re building links like a badass. You’re making friends and your links are bulletproof. It’s hard work.

Is Facebook – and to a lesser extent Foursquare – becoming more Yelp-like, and thus a threat? Some might believe the answer is an obvious yes, but it’s worth looking at some of the moats Yelp has built in local search that won’t make it so easy

New Google+ Layout: Hangouts, Photos and Stream Reminiscent of Pinterest Google announced a major update to their social network this week that changes the way Hangouts, photos and the Google+ stream are viewed by users. The decidedly Pinterest-esque layout was just one of many announcements this week out of Google I/O, the totality of which Jeremiah Owyang and Chris Silva dubbed a “wreck.” “The end result, we hope, is an app that looks and feels great across a family of devices,” Senior VP Vic Gundotra wrote of the Google+ changes. This is in line with Google’s mantra of late: Technology works best when it gets out of the way, and lets people do what makes them happiest: living, learning and loving.

There is a saying that Tim Mayer, formerly from Yahoo, brought to the SEO conferences that has been used for probably ten years now. He said, “don’t bring a sword to a gun fight,” when someone was talking about how some search results for very shady business areas were spamming but he was doing white hat SEO techniques and was getting no where…

A couple of weeks ago I polled you guys on the question of if you proactively disavow links or not. The question came up in that many are fearing the Penguin updates as well as manual link penalties and…

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…

Posted by randfish Many owners of established, older pages are facing a similar issue: they've been ranking decently for a keyword for some time, but they want to move into the coveted number one spot. However, older pages don't drive a ton of new press, new social signals, or awareness.

Google has announced a revamping of Google Maps and it is much more than a few changes.

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Ads Gets New Filter Options, Search Query Reports, Appealable Ad Visiblity & Keyword Competition Values Bing Ads announced a number of updates last… Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Let’s face it: authorship may have been bulldozing around for quite a while, but links are the most important ranking factor for search engines, still. SEOs are still buying links for their clients. High-authority sites are still selling do-follow sponsored links – Forbes was recently penalized for that (note, it’s been penalized in the past Author information Result First Ruchi Pardal is Director of ResultFirst , a firm that works on pay-for-performance model, helping businesses get found across search engines and give an optimal experience to their audience