ahrefs-seo-toolbar-chrome

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ahrefs-seo-toolbar/hgmoccdbjhknikckedaaebbpdeebhiei

This seems to be an excellent product.

I have used ahrefs product many times and it is outstanding, 5 stars.

good-tool-from-Google-pagespeed-insights

The following is a very useful tool from Google that will help you optimize your web pages for speed on all devices.  This is the best tool I have seen for this and Google offers many useful insights and ideas to help webmasters.  This is one of Google's best products.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

matthew-mcconaughey-motivational-video-sales-marketing

This is an interesting motivational video from Matthew McConaughey to a sports team.  Most motivational videos like this can be applied to business, marketing and sales. 
E.g. Why are you in this business?
What motivates you to be successful?
Why do you play the game?
What drives your desire to excel and be the best at what you do?

how-can-google-analytics-and-webmaster-tools-work-together

Perhaps many people that work at Google believe I could never write a positive article about how good Google is.

Well I can and it is true, Google is fantastic with many of the products and services related to search that they have created over the last ten years.

I suggest everyone read these two excellent articles by Google:

1. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1120006?hl=en&ref_topic=2370569

2. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1213138?hl=en&ref_topic=2370569

My Company is going to try what is discussed in these Google webmaster answers above.
We will report back to you with how well it works after we test it out on several sites.

I prefer to see all the data integrated together and I am sure most people prefer this so that is probably why Google did it.

online-password-manager-increases-SEO-productivity

Using a good simple online password manager will help your productivity and this also applies to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and marketing in general.

Everyone I talk with has 10, 20, 50+ different logins and passwords.  E.g. Websites, GoDaddy, Gmail, Banks, Google Adwords, PayPal, Bill Payments, Fidelity, SEO tools, etc.

Nowadays you should have a complex password that is different for each account you login to.

Password managers store all your passwords in an encrypted database that only you can access to prevent them from being stolen. For even greater identity protection, Online Password Manager stores your passwords in a secure password vault in the cloud. Even if your computer is hacked or you accidentally download malware, scammers will not be able to get to your passwords because they are not on your computer.

How does one manage this and check their logins and passwords from from any device from anywhere in the world?

The answer is:

www.OnlinePasswordManager.org 

We also own www.OnlinePasswordManager.com and it forwards to the .org

excellent-seo-article-from-jlh-marketing-microsoft-google

Below is a very good article that I suggest you read.

Now how many people on Influenster (moms and teens with fashion and makeup blogs, mostly) do you think have any idea WTF “nofollow” even is?  Hardly any of them.  Because they don’t know. Because it’s not an Internet thing, or a wordpress thing, or a blogger thing. It’s a Google thing. Google, with the same infinite wisdom (said with heavy sarcasm) that keeps messing up my Android apps, is dictating how we use the Internet, or trying to anyway.  Situations like the one today with SocialChorus show that they are losing this battle.

The CEO of Social Chorus, Gregory Shove, said in an interview with Marketing Land:
“The bottom line is that we were not really focused or aware of this stuff until now.”

So a legitimate company, focused on their business, not caring about how they’re perceived by Google (which incidentally is exactly what Google says they want), didn’t know anything about “this stuff.” Exactly.

According to Google Webmaster Guidelines, “Another useful test is to ask, does this help my users?"  Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?

Well no, Google, I wouldn’t use nofollow if you didn’t exist.
Because it’s Marketing 101.  Make cool stuff, get people to write about it and share it.

how-to-tell-if-google-penalized-your-website-taken-out-of-google-index

How does a webmaster know if Google has penalized their website?  Nowadays Google has many different types of penalties.

So I want to start out with the most serious penalty and explain how you can detect this level of penalty.  Then over time I will explain different types of penalties, and if it is really a penalty or not.   Sometimes it could be another site stealing your content and Google indexing (put into Google results) the stolen content and not properly indexing the original content owner.

So let's use some real world examples to explain how this works.

1. MyBlogGuest.com was penalized by Google several months ago.  They are still penalized, and how do I know this for certain?
Because if you do a Google search for myblogguest.com they do not show up in the Google search results at all.  Also if you check the Google cache you see this:

MyBlogGuest.com shows a PR4, however it is not as it is taken completely out of Google.
Google will also send a message about the penalty to this site Google Webmaster Tools.
So if the site is not in the Google cache and not in the Google index then it has no PageRank no matter what the little green bar shows, it used to have PageRank before Google penalized it.
The reason you want to perform both tests is that sometimes Google does not show the site in the Google cache, when it really is.  So if it is not showing in the Google cache and the site is showing in the Google search results when you do a search like xyz.com then the site is safe and okay.

moz-link-echoes-link-ghosts-NOT-correct

The Moz Blog whiteboard video about link echoes and link ghosts is 100% different and completely opposite to any test results I have ever seen. When I say "not correct" I mean different to any test results I have ever seen.
I like Rand and he is super intelligent however I think he is totally wrong about this.
I even asked Rand Fishkin to be a star in my video with one of the creators of the Internet, Dr. Kleinrock.  Please watch the video.

I have worked on about 30+ cases this year where a website was #1 and good backlinks were removed and I have done extensive testing on this topic.  In fact I have created a database of great backlinks that Google likes and I have made a site #1, then taken the links away and pointed them to a different site and the first site drops like a rock and the new site with the good backlinks went to #1.  This only took 6 weeks to happen.

Of course I only do this for testing purposes and we follow all Google guidelines.

100% of the time when great backlinks are removed within 2-8 weeks the rankings drop like a rock.

E.g. #1 goes to #35 because they lost the good backlinks.

All I can say is I have not seen one single case of Link ghosts ever, and I have done hundreds of tests on this topic. It is very odd to me because I am certain Rand Fishkin is one of the top 10 best SEO experts in the world.  So it seems really weird to me that my test results are completely opposite to Rand's test results. The only explanation I can think of (it is a long shot) is somehow Rand's tests leaked and Google found out about them.
It is a known fact and Google has confirmed they like to play ranking games and confuse SEO's if they can. The more a SEO expert criticizes Google the more unfair mystery penalizes you may receive.

Yelp is Useless and their Review Filters Stink

Update 9-10-14

Yelp still has the same serious problems and defects I mentioned below, the part that is really frustrating is how arrogant Yelp is.  Even if you send them proof that they can not tell a fake review from a real review they will still not fix any of their defects.  Yelp remains a useless website, and their review filters are worse today than they were a year ago. Please click on the following link to see another example of how terrible Yelp is.

Manpower Movers San Diego

Please look at some real HTP Company Reviews, that Yelp does not show at all.

http://nypost.com/2014/09/10/sparks-steakhouse-sues-yelp-to-identify-internet-troll/

http://valleywag.gawker.com/lawsuit-says-yelp-made-millions-forcing-businesses-to-p-1617941464

new-google-quality-rating-guidelines

Below is a link to a very interesting new set of guidelines for quality from Google.
It confirms what Google has been working on for the last year.

Google is now putting a high emphasis on sites that are considered to have a high level of expertise, authoritativeness or trustworthiness. This is something that Google has been working on in their algorithms for some time, and shouldn’t be much of a surprise for webmasters to see this.
Lacking in E-A-T
Google’s brand new emphasis in the new Quality Rater’s Handbook is the idea of E-A-T, which is a website’s “expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness”.
Too Many Ads = Low Quality to Google Raters.
In the past the raters only looked for spammy or deceptive advertising.
Today you want little or no advertising, especially on your home page.

bing-search-results-better-than-google-market-share

Update:  Eight months after I first wrote this article Bing search results are still better than Google search results.  Everything I state below is still correct.

Today in my opinion the quality of Bing's search results are better overall than Google search results.  In the past I never used Bing and now I am using it more often than Google.
The big change came in May of 2013 when Google started using its newest algorithms with very poor results.  Known top quality web sites were pushed down and lame, crappy and unreliable sites were put at the top of Google search results.  There are many cases where "landing pages" with the exact keyword match in the domain name and literally zero content are ranked #1 for some fairly important keyword phrases.  This is especially upsetting to webmasters as Google makes videos telling webmasters to focus on content and that website owners should not worry about search engine optimization.

Even after many people have complained Google has not fixed the quality of their search results yet.  Furthermore Google continues to treat webmasters poorly.
What do I mean?

1. Google continues to unfairly penalize good web sites; I have given proof and written several articles about this serious problem.  Google's staff can not even implement Google's own guidelines and rules properly.

2. Google continues to deny that any negative SEO even happens and that SEO sabotage is not possible, when I have personally seen many cases of this and there are many companies marketing these negative SEO services.
So no matter what bullshit claims and excuses Google comes up with, the bottom line is they have made several wrong strategic decisions and implemented a set of defective new algorithms, which have harmed their search results.

3.  Google has decided to squeeze all the money out of web Publishers that run Google Ads on their websites.  I talk with many hundreds of successful Internet publishers and I hear story after story of people that used to earn $11,000 per month from Google Adsense and now they earn $2,000 per month.  You ask how this is possible.
Well Google makes you sign an agreement that they will pay you by a secret formula, which Google will not reveal.  Yes as crazy as it sounds many people agree to this and whenever Google decides they can take as much money as they like and the Publisher is left with crumbs.

So why is Google not losing market share to Bing yet?

I think they will over time unless Google straightens out and starts treating Internet publishers better and quickly improves their current poor search results.

Currently Google still has 67% of search market share, and Bing has 29%, this includes Yahoo, since Bing provides all search results to Yahoo.
This is a good question to ask people to find out what level of knowledge they have about the search engine industry.
If a person does not know Bing provides all search results to Yahoo, then you know you are talking with someone that is ignorant of the search engine industry.

Frankly I wish better search engine companies would spring up and start giving Google even more competition.  I do not think Google is going to take any steps to fix the problems I mention above unless they start losing some market share.

In some ways it is sad to me, as I used to be very loyal to Google and now that Google treats me and all of its other clients/customers so poorly I am promoting and asking people to try Bing and other search engines.  I think the big problem for Google is many people are starting to see this in similar ways I am seeing it.
I think the part that bothers me the most is all the unfair penalties Google gives to web site owners.

* After I wrote this article I did a search on Google for "tom forrest htpcompany" and compared it to Bing's results.
Guess what Bing won, however how can Google screw up a basic targeted specific search like "tom forrest htpcompany"?
Google has had this example search correct for over eight years and now based on their new defect algorithms Google cannot even get this simple search right.  

Interesting Google Claims About Cheating Publishers Out of Money

This is an interesting article that hopefully will be investigated and reported on by major news networks.

Some people believe this article may have been written by a disgruntled Adsense Publisher.
I can tell you for certain that Google has dramatically cut the payments to Publishers over the last several years.  So in the best case Google has a problem with many unhappy Publishers and I would not recommend anyone waste their time with Google Adsense.  I would not put any more Google ads on my websites as I feel Google treats Publishers poorly and I hate the idea that Google makes you sign an agreement that they pay you by a secret formula that only Google can see ... seriously.
People that are not in the Internet industry are shocked when they learn of this crazy Google policy.

One long time Publisher friend of mine said:
"I think there is an eerie truth to these accusations".

I am a former Google employee and I am writing this to leak information to the public of what I witnessed and took part in while being an employee. My position was to deal with AdSense  accounts, more specifically the accounts of publishers (not advertisers). I was employed at Google for a period of several years in this capacity.

Having signed many documents such as NDA's and non-competes, there are many repercussions for me, especially in the form of legal retribution from Google. I have carefully planned this leak to coincide with certain factors in Google such as waiting for the appropriate employee turn around so that my identity could not be discovered.

Matt Cutts of Google says:

Matt Cutts ‏@mattcutts 

if they were really an employee, it's not hard to give some proof. And the whole "AQ3C" thing?
Complete BS.

Top-Internet-Advertising-Companies-2013-Inc-5000

This is an interesting list to study.

 

http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/industry/advertising-marketing

Funny link selling story - Matt Cutts tweeted Vince at WebDesign.org

This article on SearchEngineLand made me laugh.

http://searchengineland.com/selling-links-big-brand-heres-dont-tweet-187179

Now let's see what Google does about this clear violation of the Google Webmaster Guidelines and how long it takes Google to do something.

Currently this site WebDesign.org is ranked #2 for "web design" on Google (very impressive).

Also this site is a PR6 with many PR5 internal pages and no gray bar pages from what I can see.  I would say this is currently considered a super powerful and highly ranked website by Google.

In the SearchEngineLand article it really made me laugh when I saw what Matt Cutts tweeted to this guy Vince.

Negative SEO article on Forbes - SEO Sabotage

Today Forbes released a very interesting article regarding negative SEO and I am glad.
Hopefully this will help promote this issue and make people aware and put pressure on Google to change some of their lame policies that lead to innocent websites and people being penalized.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/03/18/negative-seo-have-mercenaries-been-hired-to-torpedo-your-search-rankings/

In this useful article Matt Cutts is quoted as saying:

"In my experience, there's a lot of people who talk about negative SEO, but very few people who actually try it, and fewer still who actually succeed." He goes on to say, "I know that there's been a lot of people stressed about this. Whenever we dig into what's actually going on, there's been a lot of discussion but very little in ways of actually people trying to do attacks."

Bullshit from Matt Cutts, Google cannot even find and detect obvious paid links correctly, how can they claim they can detect negative SEO?

I do not believe Google has any clue about how often this really happens.

No Google is NOT Doing Enough to stop this terrible problem of negative SEO.
Google needs to decide which backlinks to count and which ones to ignore, that is their job, not the job of business owners.  It is ridiculous for Google to create this problem, then tell website owners they must do a lot of work to protect themselves from the problem Google created in the first place.