Piranha Internet Ltd

Future Google Updates?

Nat — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:54:01 +0000

There have been a fair few algorithm tweaks from the world’s favourite search engine of late, all in the name of providing more reliable results for its users.

What will they call the new updates? Let’s get the old crystal ball out.

I predict that the next few major Google algorithm changes will be named thus:

Google Skunk Update
Google Zebra Update
Google Badger Update
Google Friesian Cow Update

They could go for a two part dog themed update:

Google Border Collie Update
Google Dalmatian Update

Perhaps they’ll chuck an animal in completely from left field.

Google Quagga Update (Was that brown and white? Never mind – it’s a good word.)

I wondered if I was the only person who had noticed the black / white animal theme to the Panda and Penguin updates.
Turns out I wasn’t: Jessica Lee mentioned it, and then Dr Pete spotted it too.

Perhaps they won’t even go with animals at all…

Google Minstrel Update – that’s one for the *much* older generation I think.

Google… Michael Jackson Update? That’d be Black OR White of course.

Whatever they decide to go with next, I have to say that I am a big fan of both the Penguin and Panda updates. Not sure they’ve quite caught all of the dirty rascals with their all their link spam and duplicate content just yet, but I guess they’re on the case.

Meanwhile I’ll just sit tight and wait for the Google KILLER WHALE update!

Has your traffic been affected by the Penguin update? Stay tuned to the blog for tips on how to deal with it. Coming up next week sometime…

PS I’m Nat, new inbound marketing person at Piranha. Talk to me here:

SEO Jobs in Preston, well ‘job’ technically

Dan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:42:59 +0000

Well this is rather an unusual blog post for me to be writing. It’s lump in the throat time people, as after a year at Piranha, the time has come for me to move on to pastures new. Yes, 12 months and some 40+ blog posts later, I’ve decided to continue my online marketing career at festive-lights.com who sell solar lights amongst other things (see what I did there).

Of course I could go on about the past year and everything I’ve learnt and experienced, but I won’t. I will simply say thank you to Paul, Don and Pete at Piranha who gave me the opportunity to work here as an SEO Specialist, for which I remain grateful. Anyway, enough of the mush and on to the good stuff. My departure has opened up a vacancy for an enthusiastic SEO based in (or willing to relocate to) the North West of England.

SEO Executive Job in Preston

If you’re looking for an SEO job in Preston then you could do a lot worse than to apply for this position, where you’ll get to work with kick ass people like Martin, Nath, Tom and Steve on the web side, and creative designers like Katie and Sarah. Everyone is friendly and down to earth, and the management are laid back too, so the working atmosphere is nice and relaxed. Of course you would have to do a bit of work…

The Work of an SEO Specialist

If I typed everything that I did it’d be a pretty uninspiring, lengthy (err… honestly) blog post. Basically your job is to optimise websites for clients, as well as doing some optimisation work internally for Piranha, when time permits.

You will be responsible for designing and implementing SEO strategies: performing keyword research, creating SEO friendly content, link building, conducting site audits, reporting upon website performance, and liaising with clients. It is not an easy job by any means; there are plenty of clients to work with and in some fairly competitive industries. But you wouldn’t want it easy, would you?

You might also be required to do some social media work. Currently I’m managing the social media profiles for a number of our clients, so familiarity with social networking sites is a definite advantage. I’m not talking about how much you use Facebook on your lunch break either.

Qualifications

Ideally Piranha will be looking for someone to land on their feet. They will have a year’s experience in organic SEO, either agency or client side. PPC experience would be welcomed but is not essential.

How much does the job pay?

Well I’m not about to tell you how much money I earn, but I will tell you that I don’t drive a Ferrari, nor do I ride a penny farthing to work. The salary, I’m reliably informed, is competitive and will be based upon experience and expertise.

You can learn more about the position here. Just tell them Dan sent you.

Oh and this may or may not be my last blog post, my output in this regard tends to depend upon workload and priorities. If it is, you’ll probably see me somewhere on a guest blog very soon anyway. Adios amigos.

Thinking of Making Your Twitter Account Private?

Dan — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:59:09 +0000

First off I should apologise. It’s been a while since my last post. It is a challenge managing a client workload whilst still making regular blog contributions and even conducting SEO work on your own websites. But hey, I’m here now, and once again I’m talking about Twitter.

It seems that ever since I got a Twitter account it’s been one of my favourite topics to blog about as well as one of my preferred social media sites to visit. Recently though I’ve grown concerned that I Tweet a lot of personal opinions and things that there are certain people that I would not want to see. So I set my Tweets to private…

Most Tweets are Public

By default, all Twitter accounts are public. Meaning that essentially, anyone can see what you Tweet. Take a second to consider if this is something you are comfortable with. I was actually quite happy with this arrangement, as other than a few football (that’s soccer to you American folk) related tweets, I’d like to think that my Tweets were relatively inoffensive. Problems for me arose when people that I had blocked from viewing my Tweets (no I’m not going to tell you why, don’t be so nosy :p) were still doing so.

It is incredibly easy to set-up a Twitter account, so even if you block one account, it is not too difficult for someone to create another that will be able to access your Tweets if your account is public.

Setting Your Account to Private

An account set to private has protected Tweets – meaning that they can only be seen by manually approved followers. People have to send a request should they wish to follow someone whose account is set to private.

You can use the Account Settings page in order to change this setting. Before you do though, read on…

Private Accounts cannot be Retweeted

If you set your Tweets to private, nobody can retweet your Tweets. That witty comment you made about one of the trending topics can only be seen by those that follow you, and the only way that they can retweet it is using the manual “RT @…” format, which many people are actually too lazy to use.

@ Replies to Non-followers cannot be seen

This was what really disappointed me about my newly private account. If I replied to Tweets from people that didn’t follow me (e.g. celebrities), my tweets would not be visible to them. Surely by nominating someone with an @ mention, that should make it clear that I’m happy for said person to see that Tweet, should it not??

Needless to say…

I reset my Twitter account to public. Thankfully this is as simple as heading back to the settings page and un-ticking the option. As long as you don’t say anything too stupid or offensive, or don’t have a specific, important reason why you don’t want your Tweets shared with the masses then the default, public option is probably better.

But if you are concerned, you probably won’t want to read about these “hilarious Social Media sackings!”

Google Search Plus Your World, Minus Your Facebook

Dan — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:23:28 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great if when you searched for a hotel on Google, you could see what hotels your friends had recommended in that area? Remember they posted about it online that time? Well now Google is going to use information that your friends and associates have shared, to modify your search results – that hotel is now much more likely to appear in your search results – woop!

Oh wait, they did share the link on Google+ right? What do you mean “what’s Google+?” It’s a bit like Face… let me guess, they posted their link on Facebook? I can see a problem here. Allow me to investigate…

Put your hands up if you’re on Google+ – SEOs put your hands down, you don’t count –I don’t see many hands. Now put your hands up if you’re on Facebook – lots of hands. It’s like an actual hand factory.

Google has introduced this great new feature whereby they are “transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” The problem is that, currently, they’re only intent on using social data gathered from their own social network, Google+. Let’s take a closer look at what Google have told us they are going to be doing.

Search, plus Your World

On the Google Blog, they have introduced 3 new features that they are bringing to search. Firstly Personal Search– this will enable you to find Google+ posts from your friends, including links and photos that they (or you) have shared.

Google Profiles in Search, and Personal Search

Secondly, Profiles in Search – which helps when searching for a person. You’ll now get ‘personalised profile prediction(s)’. Start typing in the name of someone and if you have instant on, you won’t even need to finish typing before you’re greeted with a prediction based upon your Google+ connections, meaning that your friends are much more likely to show up, along with any websites that are related to them.

People and Pages

Interestingly this feature will also give more prominence to noteworthy authors belonging to Google’s authorship pilot program – so if you’ve not set up your author account yet, what are you waiting for?!

Last, but not least is People and Pages – meaning when you search for a topic, you might be shown a list of people relevant to that topic, or who discuss it on Google+ on a regular basis.

Search, minus Your Facebook

I could throw some of those generic statistics at you now – Facebook has over 800 million users, etc. but I won’t. I will simply tell you that I have over 300 ‘friends’ on Facebook (most of them don’t like me), whilst on Google+ I have exactly 0 people in my friends circle. None of my friends are on Google+ and I suspect a great deal of them don’t even know what it is.

How can Google claim to be “bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search” when their only tool to do so is something that has less of my world in it than next door’s greenhouse (I kicked a football through the glass there a few years back and I suspect it’s still there)?

If and it’s a massive IF, Google were to use Facebook and Twitter data to bring my world into search, then it could be huge. I’m still not convinced that everyone would like it, but the Personal Search feature I think would be hugely beneficial.

So why don’t they use Facebook data?

Marketing Land recently conducted an interview with Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt who stated that he would be happy to “have a conversation with them [Facebook and Twitter]” about their inclusion within personalised search results. Without saying too much, Schmidt intimated that Google might make use of both Facebook and Twitter data, were this content made readily available to them by the companies in question.

This came after Twitter had stated they thought Search, plus Your World was “bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.” Google later issued an official response in which they declared their surprise, claiming that Twitter had ended a prior arrangement between the two companies that saw tweets featured within the search results.

Clearly there is a certain amount of politics involved, but if all parties were able to agree something, I can only think that this would be to the benefit of all concerned, with one notable exception – Google+. One would think that if all of this personal content was treated algorithmically, the site with the smallest user base (G+) would have the smallest representation within the search results. So is it really in Google’s best interests to have Facebook and Twitter represented in this way? I guess this depends on whether you believe that Google’s ultimate aim is to provide the best search experience, or to progress their own business.

When will you see Search plus Your World?

Google are rolling the feature out to google.com (when used in English) over the next few days. There is no indication yet as to when it will hit the international sites. PLEASE NOTE: you can easily turn the feature off!

You can read about what many marketing experts think about Google Search plus Your World here. Why not also post a nice comment below to let us know what you think?