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Since the initial roll-out of rich snippets in 2009, webmasters have shown a great deal of interest in adding markup to their web pages to improve their listings in search results. When webmasters add markup using microdata, microformats, or RDFa, Google is able to understand the content on web pages and show search result snippets that better convey the information on the page. Thanks to steady adoption by webmasters, we now see more than twice as many searches with rich snippets in the results in the US, and a four-fold increase globally, compared to one year ago. Here are three recent product updates.

Testing tool improvements

Despite the healthy adoption rate by webmasters so far, implementing the rich snippets markup correctly can still be a major challenge. To help address this, we’ve added new error messages to the rich snippets testing tool to help you better identify and fix any problems with the markup.


If you’ve added markup in the past but haven’t seen rich snippets appear for your site, we encourage you to take a few minutes to try testing the markup again on the updated testing tool.

Rich snippets markup for breadcrumbs

Last year, Google announced a modification to search results to begin showing site hierarchies (typically referred to as "breadcrumbs") rather than standard URLs in cases where it helped users to better understand a website:


We are now adding support for a Breadcrumbs markup format that allows webmasters to explicitly identify the breadcrumb hierarchy on their pages.

If the breadcrumbs UI is already showing for your site, we'll continue to show it even if you don't do the markup, so don't worry about any existing UI disappearing. Note that this new format is experimental. Based on feedback and on other available standards, this format may be modified or replaced in the future. As with other rich snippet types, while markup helps us to better understand the content on your site, it does not guarantee that the breadcrumbs UI will be shown for your web pages in search results.

Events

In January, we added support for rich snippets for events. If a web page containing events listings showed up in search results, up to three links to specific events could be shown in the search result snippet.

This works well for general queries like [concerts in seattle], but we also wanted to improve the search experience when searching for a specific event. We will now show rich snippets when pages containing a single event show up in search results. Single event rich snippets now contain the date and location of the event:


For instructions on adding events markup, refer to the events page in the rich snippets documentation.

Posted by Kavi Goel and Pravir Gupta, Search Quality team

Google made two announcements this week that, while not being targeted toward small business owners (yet?), essentially serve as a dangling carrot for future local search visibility. One is about better visibility on Google Maps; the other is about expanding the availability of product inventory listings in Google’s search results. So, whether you’re a service-based or a product-based small business, these are future opportunities worth watching.

Business Logos on Google Maps

Google calls this “sponsored map icons.” Businesses can pay to have their logo show up on Google Maps, replacing Google’s generic gray graphics. There’s no doubt it stands out amongst the otherwise bland colors, but that may not be the case when a lot of businesses are putting their logos on the map.

For now, this is only available to a limited set of U.S. companies “with multiple locations and a well-known brand.” But it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to see this expanding into something that any local advertiser can do. AdWords users who target locally have already been able to show an icon when their ad appears on the map. Today, if you’re using Google Tags, the yellow icon shows next to your red map marker … so you have to assume Google can and will make Sponsored Map Icons more widely available. And that could be a good thing for local businesses with a recognizable identity/logo.

Product Inventory in Search Results

Google’s been doing this on a limited basis for a few months now, but just this week expanded it for wider adoption. In Google’s search results, the red map marker shows up with an “In stock nearby” message.

In order to take part in this, there are some technical/feed-related guidelines that have to be met. There’s help documentation you can read, and an interest form if you want to apply to get involved.

Two interesting announcements this week, signs of things to come, I believe.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Google Dangles Carrots in Front of Small Biz Owners

Related posts:

1. Google’s “Local Business Ads”
2. Google Maps Adds User-Generated Content
3. Google Maps has a new Onebox Display

Google made two announcements this week that, while not being targeted toward small business owners (yet?), essentially serve as a dangling carrot for future local search visibility. One is about better visibility on Google Maps; the other is about expanding the availability of product inventory listings in Google’s search results. So, whether you’re a service-based or a product-based small business, these are future opportunities worth watching.

Business Logos on Google Maps

Google calls this “sponsored map icons.” Businesses can pay to have their logo show up on Google Maps, replacing Google’s generic gray graphics. There’s no doubt it stands out amongst the otherwise bland colors, but that may not be the case when a lot of businesses are putting their logos on the map.

For now, this is only available to a limited set of U.S. companies “with multiple locations and a well-known brand.” But it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to see this expanding into something that any local advertiser can do. AdWords users who target locally have already been able to show an icon when their ad appears on the map. Today, if you’re using Google Tags, the yellow icon shows next to your red map marker … so you have to assume Google can and will make Sponsored Map Icons more widely available. And that could be a good thing for local businesses with a recognizable identity/logo.

Product Inventory in Search Results

Google’s been doing this on a limited basis for a few months now, but just this week expanded it for wider adoption. In Google’s search results, the red map marker shows up with an “In stock nearby” message.

In order to take part in this, there are some technical/feed-related guidelines that have to be met. There’s help documentation you can read, and an interest form if you want to apply to get involved.

Two interesting announcements this week, signs of things to come, I believe.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Google Dangles Carrots in Front of Small Biz Owners

Related posts:

1. Google’s “Local Business Ads”
2. Google Maps Adds User-Generated Content
3. Google Maps has a new Onebox Display

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web....

If you’re anything like most of the video creators and marketing consultants I’ve met, you probably have a tendency to hope for big things from your latest viral offering almost as soon as you’ve uploaded.  You might even refresh the page regularly throughout the first few days, hoping to see the view count skyrocketing—though I [...]

So far this week from the IFA show in Berlin we have heard from Sony who is offering Music Unlimited (I am certain video will follow), and 3D video and tablet computers have dominated the scene. We have also heard from Apple this week and we know that Amazon is shopping around for content partners [...]

So, you’re thinking about adding product videos to your ecommerce site. Once you’ve made your decision you’ll quickly realize there are a fair deal of things you need to consider in terms of the implementation of your video solution. In order to help you figure out what you should be looking for, I’ve compiled the [...]

I thought it might be fun to put together an SEO Quiz.

How many of the following can you get right?

I’ll post the answers later.

1. Stanford University’s PageRank is named after?

a. Ranking Web Pages b. Satchel Page c. Larry Page d. The Palo Alto Gradient Evaluation e. None of the [...]

Loic Le Meur has had a pretty successful career as an Internet entrepreneur.  He was part of Ublog, which was bought by Six Apart, and he became the Vice President of Six Apart shortly thereafter.  Most recently, he founded and continues to run Seesmic. So when he decides to talk about educating people on building [...]

Pubcon is coming soon – November 8 through 11 in Vegas. Always a good event, with great speakers and keynotes. You can get a 20% discount by using the following coupon code: rc-3479915. Just go and register at the Pubcon website. Hope to see you there!

The following post is part of a series on How to Silo Your Website. You should review, How to Silo Your Website the Masthead, How to Silo Your Website the Breadcrumb, How to Silo Your Website the Content. For this part, we’ll be taking a look at the sidebar.

IMHO the sidebar is the second most abused and misused part of a website (the footer is the most abused which we’ll talk about in a later article). The sidebar is so abused because people stick too much third party content, widgets, social blocks, and simply too many links. In the past year I have worked on 5 client sites with between 300-500 links in the sidebar. No, that’s not a typo. That’s over 300 links in just the sidebar.

My first bit of advice: do some click tracking to see what people are clicking on. I like to use crazyegg (full disclosure: they are an advertiser, but I used them before they became one) or similar service that actually tracks X/Y coordinates on a page. See what people are clicking on and remove the elements that people don’t use.

Next make sure links to your most popular pages/content/products are there. Resist the temptation to go overboard. 10 is a good number; 15 is as much as I would recommend. If you are in a shopping environment, links to the main departments or categories is also a good idea. If you use faceted navigation (ie product/category links that change based on where you are or your last click), be careful. If the links are straight with no URL parameters, you have nothing to worry about. If the links change and pass parameters you are better off using no-follow. This isn’t to conserve page rank: it’s to prevent creating an infinite site from a search engine perspective. Using the rel=canonical tag is a good back up, but bandaid solutions are no substitute for bad architecture. You never want to leave thinking or decision making to chance with an algo.

Remove links to your service pages (privacy, contact, tos, etc) unless you need them for visual aesthetic (to balance out the content section). In fact, you want to reduce and remove as many links as you possibly can. We aren’t trying to conserve link equity but to control where it goes. It’s a slight but subtle difference.

If you are selling advertising, have affiliate links, or other banner-type content, this is probably where it is. If it’s what pays the bills and keeps the site running, keep it; if doesn’t convert then remove it.

If you have the ability to add in featured content THAT CHANGES daily, weekly, or (at the bare minimum) monthly, then do it. Also if you can add in related content links that change on a per page basis, then do it. You want to keep the sidebar content dynamic, with static and non parametric url’s. Bonus points if you can change the order based on templates or randomization.

So what are the takeaways here:

• Reduce the number of links to a minimum.
• Remove non essential elements, especially third party content, based on user testing.
• Include links to related or featured content, especially if it changes.
• Looks for ways to change or randomize content.

Next in the series: How to Silo Your Website: The Footer
photo credit: Eyeshotpictures

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

How To Silo Your Website:The Sidebar

Related posts:

1. How To Silo Your Website: The Breadcrumb Trail In Part 1 we looked at How To Silo Your...
2. How To Silo Your Website: The Masthead One of the more powerful tools an SEO can use...
3. How to Silo Your Website: The Content The following is part of the series How To Silo...
4. Putting a Content Based Website Together We’ve covered long term content and short term content, information...
5. Website Informational Pages Now that I’ve covered long term content and short term...

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You’re probably noticing something different, even a little annoying, this morning as you search using Google. If you don’t see it today, you soon will. As you begin to type in an intended search phrase, you’ll notice Google finishes those phrases for you–or tries to predict what you’re searching for. The SERPs show immediate results for the “predicted” word or phrase. Results continue to change as you continue typing.

For example, take a look at the screenshot below. I typed in “F” which appears in a black font, then Google added “acebook” which appears in light gray. A SERP appeared with results based on a “Facebook” search. As I continued typing, Google continued making suggestions and the SERP updated immediately based on the new “predictions.” In addition to all that, the ever-familiar drop down menu of suggested search phrases appears too.

A lot of distractions to say the least.

Example of Google’s Predictive Search

Call it Live Updating, Streaming Search, Immediate Search, or Predictive Search, but the fact is some major changes are being made at Google that SEOs needs to be aware of.

How to Turn off Live Streaming?

Annoying? Distracting? How do you turn this thing off? To the right of the Search button is a link to “turn off streaming.”

We’ll write more about this, but for now, be aware of the changes. You may notice that your impressions go up, while clicks do not. This may be the result of appearing in the SERPs briefly due to this process.

It’s time for an update on my 30 day challenges. Here’s what I’ve done the last few months:

June: I didn’t respond to email after 10 p.m. and I read the New Testament of the Bible. Both were interesting in different ways. It turns out that 10 p.m. is a pretty good time for me to turn off email (I’ve tried 9 p.m. in the past and that didn’t work–Google can be a very email-heavy place at times). I’d like to get back to this habit, because it made me distinctly more mellow at night. I noticed that I slipped pretty quickly back into the “email anytime I’m awake” habit.

Reading the Bible was more work. I’ve mentioned before that I grew up the son of an evangelical Christian and a physics professor, which was helpful to learn how to respect other people’s opinions. I hadn’t read the Bible in recent years, so it was enlightening to read it as an adult. If I had to sum up the New Testament in a sentence, it would be “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (the golden rule). However, for all the talk about mercy and compassion in the New Testament compared to the Old Testament, there was still quite a bit of fire/brimstone/judging. I enjoyed reading some books (e.g. Acts and Romans) that I didn’t remember much from growing up. Other parts I enjoyed less. But I got a lot out of reading the New Testament, including some appreciation of the text as literature and as history.

I grew up on the King James version of the Bible. But newer translations are a lot more readable in my opinion. I enjoyed the New Living Translation. By the way, I really enjoyed an Android app called CrossConnect Bible (here’s more info on the app on AppBrain). CrossConnect Bible has really solid spoken-word audio of the Bible. It’s perfect for listening on commutes.

One meta-lesson I learned is that for some people, any discussion of a religious book in any context (even as literature or its role in history) is considered as rude as farting. That was something that I didn’t expect in oh-so-open-minded California. Heck, a few people may complain that I discussed the Bible (without endorsing or condemning it) even this much on my personal blog. Sorry if I’ve offended.

July: I tried to use only cloud-based software. For the most part, this was pretty easy, but in a few instances I wasn’t completely in the cloud. I needed to open a terminal window from time to time to type various UNIX commands, and I had to take and crop a few screenshots. Side-note: for taking Chrome screenshots, I now recommend Screen Capture by Google because it can save in .png format really well, with a close second-place of Awesome Screenshot.

After about a year of conscious effort, I pretty much live in the cloud at this point, and I love it. My data is usually in the cloud, so I can get to it from any computer. I’ve switched all my daily software and operating systems to open-source projects such as Linux/UNIX, Chrome, and GIMP. I try to live by the principle “don’t put data where you can’t get it out,” which means that I don’t give my data to some companies and I try to avoid proprietary file formats or things locked down with DRM. I don’t use any pirated software. The latest version of Ubuntu (Lucid Lynx) is fantastic, by the way. This was mostly an easy, fun month. I think lots more people will live more in the cloud in a few years.

August: I took a picture a day. I knew that I’d be climbing Kilimanjaro in August and wouldn’t be near a computer, so I decided to take a picture a day. On the plus side, I started to be more aware of unusual sights around me. On the negative side, I missed a few days and I haven’t posted the pictures anywhere yet. I think reviewing each day’s photos (and posting them for public comments) would be a much better way to improve my sense of composition and photography skills. I still hope to post my favorite daily pictures though.

September: This month, I plan to meditate or quietly reflect for 15 minutes a day. I started today, and quickly learned that quieting my thoughts is pretty hard. I lasted about 2.5 minutes before so many to-do items were bouncing around in my brain that I had to take a break and write a bunch down before restarting. But I did enjoy my first session. I also managed to get my pulse rate pretty low. Now I have to avoid the trap of seeing how low I can get my pulse to go and just enjoy the quiet.

Feel free to join me in my challenge this month–at only 15 minutes a day, it’s a pretty good way to try out a 30 day challenge!

This is very very early and I don't have evidence of this myself, since I don't monitor rankings, but a single post at WebmasterWorld suggested there is a Bing update taking place. textex, someone I trust at the forum, who...

Yesterday I reported Google is testing "sponsored map icons" in the US. They are basically enhanced point of interest icons using the company's logo, instead of the basic POI (point of interest) icon Google uses on the map views. Here...