12 months is a long time away from SEO. I’ve been out of the UK for a year backpacking around the world with no phone, no laptop and no SEO. It’s something that I would recommend to anybody, I pretty much at the time of my life (blogs are being posted a year on via www.achinesenomad.co.uk and all the pictures are in sets on flickr).
I’ve spent the last few weeks catching up on everything SEO related thats happened in the last 12 months. A lot has changed, new tools, new google features, updates to the algorithm etc, however some things remain the same. I’ve read about 1,200 blogs that have aggregated in my Google Reader account, below are the pick of the bunch, if you think there are any missing leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list if its worthy.
But for now in a summary of points of whats changed in the past year.
- If your buying lots of non-brand anchor text links your going to get caught.
- Content Marketing is the “in” way to build links now.
- Google Webmasters team is getting closer to SEO’s/Webmaster via the updates on the Inside search blog, Webmasters tools and hangouts on Google+
- Google+ was launched, doesn’t seem that popular so Google are integrating existing products into it, Google Places and Authorship markup validation.
- Social linking is important to Google but they don’t have access to some data, so they created Authorship markup to get their hands on such data.
- Google still has poor results in some sections, the Venice update is serving some really poor results for local when it gets your location wrong (e.g. users not signed in) and exact match domains can still outrank authoritative sites.
- Many people creating new SEO tools thanks to APIs leading to more ways to analyse data.
He’s the list of the blogs, videos etc.This is about 10% of all I’ve read.
2011
June
Authorship markup and web search - Google Webmaster Central
Supporting relcanonical http headers - Google Webmaster Central
The importXML Guide for Google Docs – Distilled
New Google Analytics: Improvements in Mobile Reporting – Google Analytics Blog
July
The responsibilities of SEO have been upgraded – SEOMoz
August
Introducing new and improved sitelinks – Google Webmaster Central
Authorship Markup – Google Webmasters Help YouTube
Introducing Multi Channel Funnels - Google Analytics Blog
Another look under the hood of search – Inside Search
September
Pagination with rel=”next” and rel”prev” - Google Webmaster Central
Favourite Keyword Research Tools from MozCon – SEO Gadget
What’s Happening on your site right now? – Google Analytics Blog
October
Making search more secure: Accessing search query data in Google Analytics – Google Analytics Blog
Improving the look of authorship in your search results - Google Analytics Blog
Introducing Flow Visualisation : Visualising visitor flow – Google Analytics Blog
November
The integration of social media into search results and rankings internet summit 2011 - SEO by the Sea
Search quality highlights: new monthly series on algorithm changes - Inside Search
Some thoughts on personalization – Inside Search
Ten Recent algorithm changes - Inside Search
Giving you fresher more recent search - Inside Search
Introducing SERP Turkey: A Free Tool to Split-Test and Gather CTR Analytics of SERP Entries - SEOMoz
Duplicate content in a post Panda world – SEOMoz
December
How Intention May influence Search Result CTR – SEOGadget
New markup for multilingual content - Google Webmaster Central
30 search quality highlights with - Inside Search
2012
January
Search, plus Your World – Inside Search
17 search quality highlights January - Inside Search
Page layout algorithm Improvement – Google Webmaster Central
February
How Google Evaluates Links – Dave N
Types wordpress plugin - Yoast
Search quality highlights 40 changes - Inside Search
Combine AWR and Screaming Frog to Spot quick Wins – SEO Gadget
Be careful using adwords for key phrase research – SEOMoz
March
The Biggest Change In SEO To Date? – Dave N
Search quality highlights 50 changes – Inside Search
Content Strategy Generator Tool – V2 Update – SEO Gadget
Creating an Editorial Calendar for content marketing – Distilled
Awesome Examples of How to Use SeoTools for Excel - Distilled
An open letter to new SEO’s – SEOMoz
Link Building Tools we use at Distilled – Distilled
April
Another step to reward high-quality Sites – Google Webmaster Central
Update to rich snippets – Google Webmaster Central
Search quality highlights 53 changes – Inside Search
Venice – More than just local extensions - Holistic Search
A Dramatic Surprise on a quiet square – You Tube
Link Building: Anchor Text Optimisation Best Practices in 2012 - SEO Gadget
Nichola Stott – Mobile Serendipity: How Google Plans to Send Search Results to Users, Before You’ve Even Thought to Look - Brighton SEO
Lexi Mills – How you can get BIG links from BIG media sites - Brighton SEO
May
Multilingual and Multinational site annotations in Sitemaps – Google Wembaster Central
Introducing the Knowledge Graph: things, not strings – Inside Search
Review Snippet Over-saturation in Google Search Results – SEO Gadget
Penguin, Panda & Links – The SEO Winners and Losers for 2012 – Branded 3
Building a better shopping experience – Google Commerce Blog
The penguin update – whiteboard friday - SEOMoz
June
Search quality highlights 39 changes - Inside Search
Link building means earning hard links not easy links - Search Engine Land
Smarter Facebook pages for social success – Distilled
A look at the changes from Google Places to Google+ Local – SEO Gadget
Conduct Browser-size analysis within Google Analytics – Google Analytics Blog