Tag Archives: Google
SEO Blog Posts Matthew Henry // 2 Feb, 2016
Field Guide to Spider Traps: An SEO’s Companion
If search engines can’t crawl your site, SEO efforts do not amount to much. One of the problems I see most often are ‘spider traps’. Traps kill crawls and hurt indexation. Here’s how you find and fix them: What is a spider trap? A spider trap is a structural issue that causes a web crawler… Read More
Analytics Blog Posts Timothy Gillman // 16 Apr, 2015
How to Solve 6 Brutal Problems in Google Analytics
Ever have one of those days where you’re digging through Google Analytics (GA) and you say to yourself “What the f*@$ is this s%$#!?!?” Yeah – me too. Don’t get me wrong – I love GA. It’s way easier to navigate than most of the other analytics platforms out there. But just like its users, GA… Read More
SEO Blog Posts Portent Team // 28 Aug, 2014
Guide to Personalized Search Results
If you grew up watching Sesame Street like me, you might have heard this song: One of these things is not like the others,One of these things just doesn’t belong,Can you tell which thing is not like the othersBy the time I finish my song? The search results that you see within your browser are… Read More
SEO Blog Posts Portent Team // 5 Aug, 2014
How to Go Incognito for International Search Queries – and Why
The first thing to do when you’re starting out your quest to be the master of international search is to go incognito. You can’t just search on Google.com for your product/service and expect to see the same thing that everyone else in the world will. Google personalizes search results according to your location, your search… Read More
SEO Blog Posts George Freitag // 26 Sep, 2013
Team Portent Weighs In On the Loss of Organic Keywords
Well it finally happened. In what they claim is a move to make search data more secure, Google has begun to encrypt all searches, effectively placing all organic traffic into the (not provided) category. This means business owners will never see the keywords people used to get to their site. We’ve already gone over what… Read More
SEO Blog Posts Portent Staff // 24 Sep, 2013
A Day in the Life or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (not provided)
I read the news today, oh boy… Danny Sullivan announced that Google is actively moving towards 100% encrypted search results. This should come as no surprise to anyone in the industry. When Google introduced secure search back in 2011, we saw the writing on the wall. As Google increased their number of users, the number… Read More
Portent Staff // 15 May, 2013
3 Google Algorithms We Know About & 200 We Don’t
When I meet with clients or present at conferences, I am always asked: “How do I rank high on Google for (insert keyword-phrase-du-jour)?” I give the standard answer: “Only the search engineers and Google can tell you and they aren’t talking.” Inevitably, the questioner looks dejected, mutters a slur on my credentials, and walks away. … Read More
SEO Blog Posts George Freitag // 1 May, 2013
5 SEO Strategies We Swear Aren’t Going Anywhere
It seems like every other day, some SEO technique that used to be accepted is now being devalued or, even worse, penalized. (Remember when meta keywords and nofollow tags were totally legit? Ah, the good old days…) And now Google is threatening to crack down on two staples of the SEO stable: anchor text and… Read More
Featured Blog Posts Ian Lurie // 17 Jan, 2013
Are my links poopy? Know a spammy link when you see one.
Short version of this article: If you’ve been penalized for unnatural links by Google, either manually or under Penguin, you need to cut deep or you won’t recover. Now, the long version, with examples: Here’s a joke I learned in hebrew school, an unmentionable number of decades ago: Three guys are walking down the sidewalk.… Read More
Featured Blog Posts Portent Staff // 16 Oct, 2012
The Dos and Don’ts for Google’s New Disavow Links Tool
For the first time in what might be ever, Google has followed Bing’s lead and announced a tool to disavow links. We asked (or demanded), and they listened! Cleverly named the Disavow Links tool, Google Webmaster Tools’ latest feature gives power back to webmasters and takes it away from spammers. Here are our tips for… Read More
SEO Blog Posts Ian Lurie // 5 Jul, 2012
How Google gave the spammers all the power
Google launched the Penguin update to filter out spammy links. Great! That’s fantastic! Lead us, oh tuxedoed little birdie, to the Golden Age of SEO! Content, marketing and all-around smarts will win the day! Penguin is not subtle. It targets link profiles that flunk fairly obvious, common-sense criteria: Don’t buy links; don’t get site-wide footer… Read More
PPC Blog Posts Portent Staff // 5 Jun, 2012
Blocking an IP Address in Google AdWords
If you found this article through Google Search, you may have already clicked on several other links making false promises to teach you how to block an IP address in Google Adwords. I did too; that’s why I wrote this. Those other articles are red herrings — part of an elaborate government ploy to distract… Read More
George Freitag // 30 May, 2012
Goodbye Google Places, Hello Google+ Local
Business owners got a treat this morning as Google rolled out yet another update to its local platform, this time, ditching Google Places and replacing it with Google+ Local. This move completely integrates Google’s local listings with the current Google+ social network. Coincidentally, and equally newsworthy, Portent just happens to be moving to our new… Read More
Social Media Blog Posts Portent Team // 18 Apr, 2012
Avinash Kaushik & His Awesome Google Plus Updates
When it comes to writing updates in Google+, some of the most influential people use the following formula to make their posts stand out: (Title in bold) + (3 to 4 short paragraphs) + #hashtag + URL + Picture = Awesome Update The inspiration of this post comes from Avinash Kaushik. I’m sure we’ve all… Read More
Portent Staff // 27 Feb, 2012
SNEAK PEEK: Ian Lurie to Present Data-Driven Content Strategies at Tomorrow’s SEOMoz PRO Webinar
Friends, SEOmans, eMad Men— LEND IAN YOUR EARS. Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. (PST), Ian Lurie, CEO and Webfather of Portent, Inc., will give an exclusive webinar at SEOmoz. His free-to-all-comers presentation “Data-Driven Content” will illuminate, educate, inform and otherwise rock your search marketing world. (We hope.) Topics Ian will cover include: Why great content is… Read More