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Google’s New Panda Is Downy-Soft, Google Analytics Segments Got A Facelift, Google Tests 16 PLAs In SERPs, & More

Softer, Cuddlier Panda Sightings

Many (not all) webmasters are reporting changes in rankings, traffic and the number of unique search terms driving traffic to their sites since July 12th. Google has confirmed that the shifts are related to a targeted, more gradual Panda update that’s been rolling out this month.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Google Analytics Advanced Segments Are Better-er

Google’s already awesome Advanced Segmentation feature just leveled up. Data can now be split out by user-based metrics for a more granular perspective, and the entire advanced segment interface received a well-deserved aesthetic boost.

Source: Google Analytics Blog

Google Tests 16-Deep PLAs In Search Results

Google’s latest SERP testing project involves expanding Product Listing Ads from four to 16 products. Obviously, it makes the search results look like Charlemagne’s empire after his conquests through Western Europe, and I’m sure we’ll be talking about these later if the test becomes permanent.

Source: Search Engine Land

A Wrench In The Works Of Google Authorship

There’s a reason why you’ve been seeing fewer friendly faces on Google’s search results pages lately. About six months ago a number of site owners noticed that their Google+ profile image dropped from SERP listings for their articles, despite proper implementation of the rel=author tag. Google has fessed up to a bug in their algorithm, though they haven’t given a timeline for a fix.

Source: Search Engine Land

Ripoff Report Announces New Program Allowing Companies To Prevent Negative Reviews, For A Fee

Ripoff Report announced the launch of Verified, a new program that allows businesses to resolve negative reviews before they go live on the site. Businesses that pay the $89 membership fee are allowed 14 days to address the complaint before the review goes live. In order to be a member, businesses must have no prior reviews in Ripoff Report.

Source: Search Engine Watch

Hacks Both Positive And Negative For Google Glass

Putting Google Glass in the hands of tech savvy tinkerers first has been a double-edged sword in some ways for Google. On one hand, many issues and possible security compromises have been exposed by these Glass frontliners, allowing Google to resolve the issues and allay some of the fears of privacy erosion surrounding the technology long before it becomes a widespread consumer product. On the other hand, it’s also given some developers a head start at creating operating systems that circumvent Google’s privacy “safeguards.” Some of the privacy issues raised by the product remain ethical considerations that no simple technical fix is likely to address.

Source: NPR

If It Smells And Looks Like A Cross Domain Linking Scheme, It’s A Cross Domain Linking Scheme

A webmaster risked outing himself as a spammer by submitting a question to Matt Cutts about cross-linking 20 domains safely. After joking about why that already looks spammy, Cutts said it’s a bad idea to link all the domains across the network’s legion of footers, regardless of site legitimacy.

Source: Search Engine Land

Court Rules Amazon Cannot Buy .Amazon

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers recently opposed Amazon’s efforts to purchase the .Amazon top-level domain. ICANN’s justification was that the domain is too ambiguous. Amazon is on a quest to buy tons of brand-related top-level domains, including .kindle, .wow, and .shop.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Bing’s Autosuggest Saves You A Wasted Search

Bing’s autosuggest feature now features a clarification box to the right that asks if you meant to search for a specific brand, movie, album, song, team, or any other noun after entering an ambiguous search query.

Source: Search Engine Land

Bidding On Amazon Ads Is Getting More Expensive

Amazon has notified its product advertisers that the minimum bid for 60 different categories will be raised by $0.05 for most and $0.10 for higher end products (such as laptops and household appliances).

Source: Marketing Land

New Google Maps For One And All!

Via Twitter, Google Maps has announced that its updated program is free for anyone, no invite required. NOTE: Read some of the @replies before you commence to update.

Source: Twitter

Infographic: What Are We Doing With Our Email Signatures?

Think of your email signature as a Ron Burgundy sign-off line, minus the mustache and leisure suit. Most would welcome free, memorable publicity guaranteed to meet eyeballs at least 25 times a day. Yet email signatures are often underutilized, at least according to this study from WriteThat.name.

Analysis By: Marketing Land

Voice Search Is The New Mobile

Google’s Chrome-based voice search feature is just the latest piece of technology to validate the upcoming vocal SEO sharknado. John Lincoln speculates how the industry must adapt, or risk Dog Pile-level irrelevance.

Analysis By: John Lincoln, Search Engine Journal

Analyzing Bad SEO Email Pitches We Love To Hate

Poorly written SEO email pitches are about as prevalent as people wearing tan socks and sandals at a Jimmy Buffet concert. Danny Sullivan critiques the best of the worst.

Analysis By: Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land

Testing The Correlation Between Weather And Online Behavior

Understandably, good weather means good profits for restaurants, parks, and other outdoor-centric products and services. But what does that mean for online traffic? Siddarth Shah investigates.

Analysis By: Siddarth Shah, Search Engine Land

An Introduction To MajesticSEO’s Trust And Citation Flows

PageRank is dead. That, according to Natalie Halimi, is the new reality of SEOs judging the strength/authority of websites. Rather than PageRank, Halimi contests that MajesticSEO’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow are much better barometers of site value.

Analysis By: Natalie Halimi, Search Engine Journal

Connecting The Social And Paid Search Marketing Dots

When it comes to social and search marketing mind melds (alliteration!), most people reflexively jump to organic search as the main conduit for share success. However, Josh Dreller explains how you can merge your paid search and paid social campaigns into a juggernaut of marketing brilliance.

Analysis By: Josh Dreller, Search Engine Land

Finding Link Prospects With Twitter Data

Richard Baxter explains how you can use Follower Wonk, Twitter search filters, Excel, and a Google spreadsheet template to mine the social network for potential outreach opportunities.

Analysis By: Richard Baxter, Moz

How To Make Wireframes And Influence People

When building a website, it’s easy to start with navigation menus, buttons, colors and fonts. But what you really need to do is take about 10 steps back and work on a proper wireframe that forces you to plan how you want users to process the information you’re going to present. Winnie Lim shares a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to building your next wireframe.

Analysis By: Winnie Lim, TutsPlus

The Most Commonly Overlooked SEO Building Blocks

Whether you’re a webmaster who wants to make sure you’re covering all the SEO bases for your site or you’re an SEO looking for the optimal areas to focus on with your next client site audit, Kristine Schachinger has some useful tips.

Analysis By: Kristine Schachinger, Search Engine Watch

10 Minutes Will Save You 15% Or More On PPC Insurance

The title says it all. Except you should still read this.

Analysis By: Sam Owen, PPCHero

The Knowledge Graph Image Carousel

Google’s Image Carousel is ever expanding its dominion. It used to be just for images, but now it’s combining with Knowledge Graph results to supply nearly encyclopedic information for an array of search types. Tom Schmitz at Search Engine Land explores the construction of the carousel-laden SERP, along with its implications for search query data. Beware: if you have an aversion to Depeche Mode, you won’t enjoy this post.

Analysis By: Tom Schmitz, Search Engine Land

Winning At Small Business PPC

Not every company can commit five to six figures to PPC ads every month. Larry Kim has a great article outlining 10 ways to succeed at paid search if your time and purse strings are tight.

Analysis By: Larry Kim, Small Business Trends