Industry News

Google has quietly updated their Webmaster Guidelines, the little or no original content section. They added a example reference there for "low-quality guest blog posts." I would not be surprised to see manual actions for guest blogging, not link specific, but content specific penalties.

Everyone is posting about this today but I don’t care because it is really that good and it wins all the points on the Internet today. Paul Ford in How to Be Polite:

People silently struggle from all kinds of terrible things. They suffer from depression, ambition, substance abuse, and pretension. They suffer from family tragedy, Ivy-League educations, and self-loathing. They suffer from failing marriages, physical pain, and publishing. The good thing about politeness is that you can...

It seems like Google Penguin has been on some sort of vacation, since it has now been over 10 months since the last refresh.

The sad part is, those who have spent the past 10 months trying to "fix" their sites, are in a penalty box just waiting...

I nodded along vigorously to Cap Watkins’s The Fight:

What I’ve come to realize in the past two years is how important it is to find a company and a product worth fighting for. To find a team that is dedicated to delivering the best product they can, despite the bumps, the frustrations, the exhausting moments along the way. Hurdles and failure are totally unavoidable. Having a resilient team around you working on a product you all believe in will make those hurdles easier to clear....

As we learn more about the Google HTTPS algorithm I want to keep you posted.

Three new tidbits came out on the topic through yesterday's Google webmaster hangout with Google's John Mueller on Google+...

Dhruv Khullar described The Trouble With Medicine’s Metaphors:

The words we choose to describe illness are powerful. They carry weight and valence, creating the milieu in which goals of care are discussed and treatment plans designed. In medicine, the use of metaphor is pervasive. Antibiotics clog up bacterial machinery by disrupting the supply chain. Diabetes coats red blood cells with sugar until they’re little glazed donuts. Life with chronic disease is a marathon, not a sprint, with...

Allan White describes Our Product Design Process:

Our design process at HealthSparq is — just like everyone else’s — itself a work in process. We have ongoing debates about the tools and techniques we use to execute on each phase. Parts of our process (for example, a new pattern library that integrates directly with our apps) are being rebuilt and aren’t fully useful yet. It was very constructive to have this discussion, and to have a framework to build upon moving forward.

I’m...

What if Twitter launched the most awesome analytics dashboard and no one really noticed? Well, that's pretty much what happened nearly a month ago. I've been waiting for the posts that detail how much you can get from the tool and the different types of analysis you can perform.

But ... I'm tired of waiting. Twitter Analytics Dashboard

The dashboard provides a decent overview of activity over the last 28 days.



The major statistics it provides are Impressions, Engagements and...

I am seeing significant signs of a real Google update both in terms of summer/weekend forum chatter at WebmasterWorld...

The month of July was absolutely insane in terms of Google webmaster topics, just a lot covered, while the specific announcements, although some big...