Google has revealed how it treats URL shorteners in terms of SEO in a new video released this week.

In the latest video in his YouTube series, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team, took time to answer the following question, which was sent in by one of the many web professionals confused about Google’s new algorithm and how it impacts on URL shorteners: “Since Google is now using Twitter and Facebook links as ranking symbols, will custom URL shorteners be looked at as providing anchor texts for links?”

Cutts explained that custom URLs work in same way that most redirects do. This means that using custom URL shorteners or keyword-rich custom URL shorteners shouldn’t have a negative effect on SEO.

He said: “Custom URL shorteners are essentially just like any other redirects. ”If we try to crawl a page, and we see a 301 or permanent redirect, which pretty much all well-behaved URL shorteners (like bit.ly or goo.gl) will do, if we see that 301, then that will pass PageRank to the final destination.

“So, in general, there really shouldn’t be any harm to using custom URL shorteners in your SEO. The PageRank will flow through. The anchor text will flow through, and so I wouldn’t necessarily worry about that at all.”

The explanation will be of use to anyone who uses the likes of bit.ly and tiny url to direct surfers to their website on bookmarking and social networking sites.

As if Google hadn’t done enough recently to revamp the way SEO works with its search engines, it seems that more changes are on the way.

Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team, has released a YouTube video in which he suggests that the search engine giant may now turn its focus towards keywords in domain names.

The video, entitled ‘How important is it to have keywords in a domain name?’ sees Cutts explore the practice of using keywords in domain names and how a new algorithm might stamp it out for good.

Cutts says in the video: “We have looked at the rankings and the weights that we give to keyword domains, and some people have complained that we’re giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains.”

“We have been thinking about adjusting that mix a little bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm, so that given two different domains it wouldn’t necessarily help you as much to have a domain with a bunch of keywords in it.”

So if your SEO strategy relies too heavily on keywords on your domain names, you need to start thinking of your plan B – and fast …

Watch the video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI&feature=player_embedded

If you’re considering an investment in good quality web design, there’s one factor you can’t afford to overlook: search engine optimisation (SEO)!

SEO is often an after-thought to web design, and many business owners tend to think in terms of building the site first, and then thinking about how to optimise it. This is not a successful strategy and could lead to you being ranked lower down the all-important Google search rankings than you otherwise could be.

SEO and web design should go hand in hand. Effective SEO can drive traffic to your site. What’s the point of having a smashing website with no visitors to experience it?

With your joint SEO and web design hats on, you can consider a range of structural and usability issues that can make all the difference between a successful website and a flop – both from an end user and an employee/organisational point of view.

One of these issues is a really basic one: which content management system (CMS) to use. Your choice of CMS is paramount and can make the difference between smooth processes and happy employees and customers – or not! We’ve seen a range of CMS’s in use during our time and the ones that factor in SEO are usually the best. Get advice from an SEO specialist before you choose your CMS.

SEO can also help you to arrange how to link pages together in the best way, making navigation work effectively for both Google and your end users. Site structure is one of the most important things to get right and one of the most difficult things to change once it as been put in place, so it’s fundamental to get this right from the start.

Google has cracked down on major online retailer Overstock.com after perceived underhand search engine optimisation (SEO) tactics, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While Google’s policy dictates that it does not comment on individual cases, the problem is rumoured to lie with Overstock offering a discount to students and educational institutions in exchange for embedding keyword links on their sites. According to experts, the .edu domain names of these academic institutions websites have enjoy greater prominence in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), since they are deemed more likely to display ‘authoritative’ content.

In addition, sites fare well in Google’s rankings if a significant number of other sites contain links to them – a manifestation of the crucial principle behind PageRank, Google’s original ‘scoring system’ for websites.

After recent criticism about the falling standard of Google’s search and its slow response in dealing with content farms, is this move as much a statement of intent as a decision to penalise a company that contravened Google’s guidelines?

Also, given the extensive publicity of the case, is the consequent media attention numbing the effects of Google’s penalties? Overstock has been relegated in Google’s SERPs, but the media attention may be driving more traffic than their search results ever did. Then again, it’s probably not the kind of publicity most companies want …

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns should be incorporated into an efficient whole to maximise a company’s online profile. According to the Online Marketing Summit held last week in San Diego, there has been a shift in balance between paid and unpaid listings in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)and this has changed the playing field.

Given the now greater prominence of PPC adverts on SERPs, paid search ads are competing with organic listings more than ever and may deflect attention from natural results and relegate them further down the page.

This recent development in how PPC ads are displayed more or less amounts to a new set of market rivals, and businesses – especially those that compete in dense keyword fields – should bear this in mind when looking at their SEO analysis.

Businesses with smaller budgets may concentrate on one or the other through necessity, and both marketing forms have advantages in their own right – PPC is a great option for boosting a company’s online profile in a competitive keyword field, for example. But having a paid ad on a SERP increases the conversion-rate from the traffic brought about by an SEO listing – the perfect way in which SEO and PPC work together.

The two methods are also closely linked by choosing accurately targeted keywords – this approach fundamentally underpins both SEO and PPC – and, given the new-found prominence of PPC adverts, the significance in being among the top of the organic listings has intensified.

The rise of the smartphone has brought mobile web design into the spotlight. A couple of years ago, just about everybody checked out websites on a full-sized PC, but more and more people these days browse the web on their phones. That means your business needs a website that is fully optimised for mobile search and browsing.

Ask your web designer to test your existing website on all the popular mobile browsers. You need consider how to optimise it both for search and usability, just as you would for a traditional website.

Submit your site

Both Google and Yahoo! have created mobile versions of their site map applications. Submitting your mobile website means the mobile versions of the search engines are aware of its existence and you are more likely to appear in users’ mobile search results.

Watch those URLs

If you’re transferring content from your regular website make sure that all of the relevant URLs are adapted for the mobile market if you wish to be included in mobile search. Most search engines will only index relevant URLs, i.e. those that are configured for mobile browsing.

Configuration is key

When the mobile web bots start crawling your site, they will penalise any site that is configured incorrectly.  Some mobile websites can be difficult to index, therefore most major search engines have separate mobile crawlers. To optimise your mobile website for search make sure that all user-agents, including mobile ones, are allowed to access your site.

The general principles of SEO apply to mobile websites just as to traditional websites: design them in a way that is SEO-friendly, and adhere to the established best practices of the major search engines.

From March 2011 the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the self-regulatory body responsible for advertising standards in the UK, will extend its remit to SEO marketing campaigns.

The ASA will not have any say over organic search results or user-generated content, but will be able to monitor anything else that comes within the brief of an SEO-marketing campaign, such as paid-for links and undisclosed links within blog articles.

The Office of Fair Trading is already monitoring the use of paid for links, which must make it clear that they have been paid for, rather than achieve pole position organically and the ASA has confirmed that their main focus will be on analysing paid-for links to ensure there is total disclosure regarding the relationship between the advertiser and blogger.

There doesn’t appear to be a clear differentiation between what will come under the OFT remit and what the ASA will handle, which suggests that at this stage there is a large overlap between the two, although this may resolve itself before the ASA becomes involved in March.

It’s going to make things more difficult for those wishing to run successful SEO campaigns though, as they will have to contend with three entirely separate sets of rules – OFT, ASA and Google – governing their advertising, and what is fine under one set may well be in breach of another.

Industry watchers believe that ASA will mainly focus on big businesses who flout the rules of SEO advertising, but as an SME, it is worth being aware of the changes and checking out the ASA’s remit to ensure that your SEO campaigns remain relevant, and legal.

Following complaints from internet companies including price comparison site Foundem and search engine ejustice.fr, the European Commission competition watchdog launched an antitrust probe into Google last week.

The main charge levelled against the internet giant is that they have intentionally fixed their all-important algorithm to lower competitors’ search rankings and raise their own. That said, both the EC and Google are quick to point out that the start of a probe is not meant to imply wrongdoing by the market dominating search engine.

Google have been quick to respond and say they will be ‘working with the Commission to address any concerns.’ The statement goes onto respond to the charges in more detail, and provides an interesting insight into how Google decides upon site ranking. They have focused in particular on price comparison site Foundem’s claim that Google ‘removes legitimate sites from natural search results, irrespective of relevance’.

Google has replied to point out that there are ’compelling reasons’ why Foundem and similar sites are ranked poorly in organic search. Chief among these reasons is the large amount of duplicate content they contain, as the site largely pulls information from other providers rather than creating its own. In their statement, Google placed the percentage of duplicate content on Foundem at about 79% and emphasised that firms had been repeatedly made aware that duplicate content would be penalised.

The case follows hot on the heels of a similar one launched in Texas earlier this year, also off the back of a Foundem complaint. Neither case has a resolution yet, and the following months will certainly be interesting for Google.

Last Friday, I attended a New Media Breakfast in Glasgow talking about LinkedIn. Like most people, I’ve been on the business networking site for years, but also like the vast majority, I probably don’t make as good of use as I should.

Social Media expert and Drum contributor, Colin Gilchrist was giving the talk and recommended a variety of “best practices” for using LinkedIn. Some of his tips I had been doing already, but I can admit, I was not aware of others. A few are listed below (using my own headings for the most part):

1 ) Have a professional photo

When it comes to your photo, Colin recommends that you don’t use your company logo or one of yourself on the ski slopes,…unless you’re a ski instructor, of course.

Save the causal shots for Facebook and keep your photo relevant. On my own LinkedIn page I am sat with a laptop and microphone which I believe is pretty representative of the different hats I wear. So that one I got right. Yay!

2 ) Fill in your website details

By default, LinkedIn has “My Website” or “My Blog” – but you can customise that. You’d be amazed at how many people leave it as the default (including me until Friday!)

For SEO purposes though, it’s advantageous to change these to your actual site name. To do that – click on “edit profile” scroll down to the “Website” options, choose “Other” for each one and write in your site’s name, your blog name etc.

3 ) Priortize your expertise

Just like on your CV you have the option of moving your most important information to the top of your profile. Next to each heading “Summary”, “Experience”, “Education” et al – all have four arrows next to them and it’s simply a case of dragging and dropping (who knew?)

If your biggest accomplishment to date is your degree, then you might want your experience at the top. But if you have ten years’ experience as broadcaster or graphic designer or whatever, then that should go near the top. It’s common sense really. Always accentuate the positive!

4 ) Join groups to connect with people!

I’d add “selectively” solely because if you are in a lot of groups (you can join up to fifty) you’ll spend all your days reading correspondence – even if you get the daily or weekly archive! But groups are a great way to connect with people. One thing to bear in mind though, is if you do post, you need to keep in mind that your message is (potentially) going to hundred if not thousands of people. Watch what you write.

5 ) Don’t be rude!

If you add someone, you should :

1) avoid using the “friend” option unless you’re actually friends (ed note: oops!) 2) instead make use of the “other” option and find their email address on the web somewhere (not sure I fully agree with this one but fair enough!) and 3) always customize the message – don’t just use the generic “I’d like to add you to my network” copy. This third one is particularly close to my heart. A lot of people add me each week on Facebook and LinkedIn, and frankly I’ll often ignore the invite if they don’t write something to me – with some sort of relevance.

So thankfully that one I was already following!

And on that note, Colin cited a statistic along the lines of: 25% of people will just say “yes” automatically to connecting, 25% will say “no chance” and the remaining 50% could go either way.

6 ) Don’t Worry, Get Appy

Make use of the variety of Apps that are available on LinkedIn and add them to your profile. These might be RSS feeds, blogs, powerpoint presentations. You can even add your company brochure as a slideshare.

7 ) Avoid Channel Spam

This is another one that rather gets my goat. A lot of people I am connected to – are connected on LinkedIn, Twitter (if they’re on there), Facebook, Foursquare etc. It can all be a bit much if I am being honest. So when I realised that there were some of my Tweets I’d not want shared on LinkedIn – I de-linked Twitter altogether…

Thankfully we were shown a way of sharing only those you want broadcast by using the #in hashtag. Awesome!

So, that’s me, I am connected again – just need to remember to use that #in tag to update my LinkedIn tweets now!

ED NOTE: This above info is aimed at people not using  a multiple broadcast application such as HootSuite or Tweetdeck. Those applications already allow you to pick and choose where your updates are getting posted.

8 ) LinkedIn is the New Rolodex

Colin says he uses LinkedIn to manage all his contacts which, to be honest, is something I’ve never really done.

Apparently you can export them in a number of ways so that you have your very own database of your contacts.

I had no idea I could do this, but I am trying it right now!

….Hey it worked!

A word of caution though…Watch out if you have two friends  with the same name, like my two friends called John Gallagher – it confuses them.

Anyway it was worth dragging myself out of bed for an 8am start on a Friday morning to learn those tips. So, are you making the most out of your LinkedIn profile?

If you’re on there, we’re happy to connect:

Thea on LinkedIn
Gary on LinkedIn
NSDesign Ltd on LinkedIn

Google has recently added a visual preview of web sites to their search results that could very well call for real change in the way we view SEO. Now, when you type any query into Google, you’ll see a little magnifying glass next to the page’s title. Hover over this icon and you’ll see a preview of the homepage for the selected site.

For once, Google are not leading the trend here; however their implementation of the preview feature is more integrated and easier to use than previously seen versions and also affects the majority of UK search results, where Google is by far and away the market leader.

This means web design just shot up the priority list. Gone are the days when you could attract visitors to your site with relevant content, placing emphasis on the written word rather than design. Google preview means that potential customers will be judging the site before they even click on it, and to ensure they do click through, sleek design is going to become increasingly important.

It’s too early in the process to say if there are hard and fast rules designers need to apply for the new system, but it is likely that sites which have striking and uncluttered home pages will be popular; while those which suffer from information overload on the front page are likely to suffer as the previews won’t do them justice, possibly making them look confused and irrelevant.

The good news is that Google’s testing of the system found that people are 5% more likely to appreciate the site they click on having used preview, than a site that they blindly selected. So hits which do come through are more likely to convert into business.