Industry News

Last night, Google pushed out a new and major local search ranking algorithm change. Where Google provided details for me on this update. This is not really a spam change but more of a fundamental change to the local search ranking algorithm.

Back in the days before Google, online usability folks were all about making user friendly hyperlinks that communicated to the user what the link was about and what to expect when they clicked it. That means...

I don’t know if I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I do know that I’ve been writing the one I’m announcing today in my head for many, many years. It’s called Making It Right: Product Management For A Startup World, and it’s my attempt at putting together a practical framework for building great products:



The book came about because I saw a lot of people in organizations perform some of the activities that make up the role of product management. The problem is that very few people...

Joel Spolsky:

Even though Fog Creek, Trello, and Stack Exchange are now three separate companies, they are all running basically the same operating system, based on the original microprocessor architecture known as “making a company where the best developers want to work,” or, in simpler terms, treating people well.

What a great post about a great product and a great outlook on corporate culture. I wish Joel would start blogging regularly again…

The co-founder of Moz, Rand Fishkin, posted on Twitter and also on the Moz blog that one of the YouMoz, the user generated content portion of Moz, contributors received a Google Manual action for a link violation and it cited an article posted on YouMoz.

With Google's Matt Cutts taking an extended vacation, I wanted to know, who at Google will take the blame for new algorithms being released.

Typically when big updates are announced...

For years I've used a combination of StumbleUpon and Google Remarketing to cheaply and efficiently open the top of the funnel for start-ups.

I don't hear much about this tactic (though perhaps I'm not looking in the right places) so here's a little explanation on this handy growth hack. StumbleUpon



You remember StumbleUpon right? A darling of the Web 1.0 world, it was purchased by eBay in 2007 where it was largely ignored until it was bought back in 2009. It doesn't get a lot of press...

Microsoft’s new predictive search agent Cortana is finally becoming available to the general public. How does it compare to longstanding champion Google Now? After months of using them both, it’s no contest. Google Now easily wins, in my daily life. But Cortana does gives Microsoft an important foundation in the predictive search space and puts it well ahead of Apple’s own Siri. Welcome, Cortana

Microsoft announced that Cortana would be part of Windows Phone 8.1 earlier this year....

In a Google Webmaster Hangout from a week ago on Google+, John Mueller of Google was presented with a question on why some brands rank so well within the Knowledge Graph on Google.
Here are two examples...