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The homepages of multinational and multilingual websites are sometimes configured to point visitors to localized pages, either via redirects or by changing the content to reflect the user’s language. Today we’ll introduce a new rel-alternate-hreflang annotation that the webmaster can use to specify such homepages that is supported by both Google and Yandex.

To see this in action, let’s look at an example. The website example.com has content that targets users around th...

Webmasters have several ways to keep their sites' content out of Google's search results. Today, as promised, we're providing a way for websites to opt out of having their content that Google has crawled appear on Google Shopping, Advisor, Flights, Hotels, and Google+ Local search.

Webmasters can now choose this option through our Webmaster Tools, and crawled content currently being displayed on Shopping, Advisor, Flights, Hotels, or Google+ Local search pages will be removed within 30 days.

P...

Webmaster level: All

To help webmasters manage the verified owners for their websites in Webmaster Tools, we’ve recently introduced three new features:

• Verification details view: You can now see the methods used to verify an owner for your site. In the Manage owners page for your site, you can now find the new Verification details link. This screenshot shows the verification details of a user who is verified using both an HTML file uploaded to the site and a meta tag:

  Where appropriate, the Veri...

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...

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

W3C announced today a RDF Validation Workshop - Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data, 10-11 September 2013, in Cambridge, USA. The Semantic Web has demonstrated considerable value for collaborative contributions to data. Adoption in many mission-critical environments requires data to conform to specified patterns. Validation in a banking context shares many requirements with quality assurance of linked clinical data. Systems like Linked Open Data, which don't have formal interface specif...

The XML Query Working Group and the XSLT Working Group have published a new version of the Candidate Recommendation of XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.0. The new version reflects changes and clarifications that have been made during the CR period, primarily as a result of feedback from implementors outside the two Working Groups. The document describes various functions and operators that work on XML Schema-compatible data types for use in XPath, XSLT, XQuery, XQueryX, SPARQL and o...

The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Version 2.0. The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 enhances the foundation to integrate automated processing of human language into core Web technologies. ITS 2.0 provides metadata to foster the adoption of the multilingual Web. The draft reflects all changes since the first last call publication. Comments are welcome through 11 June. Learn more about the Internationalizatio...

W3C announced today a Workshop on Social Standards: The Future of Business, 7-8 August 2013, in San Francisco, USA. The event is hosted by AppFusions, sponsored by IBM, and jointly organized with the OpenSocial Foundation. The goal of this workshop is to bring together social business experts and social technology experts to discuss the use-cases that existing specifications and standards don't adequately address, and understand where new standards are needed. This Workshop is open in particu...

A report summarizing the MultilingualWeb workshop in Rome is now available from the MultilingualWeb site. It contains a summary of each session with links to presentation slides and minutes taken during the workshop in Rome. The workshop was a huge success, with approximately 150 participants, focus sessions on topics like Internationalized Domain Names, Best Practices for Multilingual Linked Open Data (BP-MLOD) and an implementation showcase of the upcoming ITS 2.0 specification. The Worksho...

The RDF Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of JSON-LD 1.0 Processing Algorithms and API. This specification defines an Application Programming Interface (API) and a set of algorithms for programmatic transformations of JSON-LD documents. Restructuring data according the defined transformations often dramatically simplifies its usage. Comments are welcome through 06 June. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity.

The Web Applications Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Indexed Database API. This document defines APIs for a database of records holding simple values and hierarchical objects. Each record consists of a key and some value. Moreover, the database maintains indexes over records it stores. An application developer directly uses an API to locate records either by their key or by using an index. A query language can be layered on this API. An indexed database can be impleme...

The System Applications Working Group has published two Working Drafts today:

• The app: URI scheme. This specification defines the app: URI scheme and rules for dereferencing an app: URI, which can be used to address resources inside a package (e.g., a packaged application). The dereferencing model relies on HTTP semantics to return resources in a manner akin to a HTTP GET request. Doing so allows this URI scheme to be used with other technologies that rely on HTTP responses to function as in...

The Web Real-Time Communication Working Group and the Device APIs Working Group have published a Working Draft of Media Capture and Streams. This document defines a set of JavaScript APIs that allow local media, including audio and video, to be requested from a platform. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

The Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) will hold an online symposium to explore user modeling for accessibility, an approach for generating and adapting user interfaces to address particular user needs and preferences. The Call for Papers is open until 6 June 2013. Learn more about the User Modeling for Accessibility Symposium to be held on 15 July 2013, and the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Posted by timresnik

Last week, I held a Mozinar outlining a method to extract SERP vertical -- called Universal Search by Google --- from Google referral strings. Since the Mozinar concluded, the number of people who have reached out with their own theories and ideas has been impressive. I want to post everything that I know here and then leave it up to you folks in the SEOmoz community to start hacking and sharing your insight.

For those of you who did not see the Mozinar, you can access ...

Posted by Aleyda Solis

We live in a multi-device world, and if you're still focused on improving your visibility, traffic, and conversions solely for desktop users, you're losing a great opportunity. This gap, coupled with the fact that you're probably staying behind your competitors and unconnected with your audience, is not great for business. Not convinced? Let's see some data... 

Posted by Dr. Pete

Data is everywhere, and companies are virtually climbing over each other to give it away. If you’re a data-driven content marketer, data is opportunity, but accessing that data can take some technical know-how. This is a guide to APIs, one of the key methods for accessing 3rd-party data, and also a mini-directory of some of the most useful APIs currently a...

Posted by randfish

Many owners of established, older pages are facing a similar issue: they've been ranking decently for a keyword for some time, but they want to move into the coveted number one spot. However, older pages don't drive a ton of new press, new social signals, or awareness. If you want to boost your rankings for the same keyword you've been targeting for awhile, how can you move up to move the needle on your business?

Adjusting your existing, quality content can be used to he...

Posted by Zach Corleissen

Greetings, Mozfolk! My name is Zach, and I'm a technical writer here at SEOmoz.

We've consistently heard from you that Mozscape needs better documentation. I'm pleased to tell you: your requests have been granted! The Mozscape wiki just underwent a thorough update and review by developers, help teamsters, and testers. We incorporated your feedback from help tickets and forums to make Mozscape easier for new users to learn, and more functional for experienced users...

Posted by JonQ

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

You could be the best SEO in the world, with the best recommendations your clients ever seen; but if this information isn’t presented and communicated in the right way, the sad fact is that your hard work probably won’t change a thing. A couple of weeks ba...

Posted by bradfriedman

We've got new, delicious data for you! The second Mozscape index of the month is now live. Consume all the data with your favorite apps, including Open Site Explorer, the Mozbar, your PRO campaigns, and the Mozscape API.

Below is the histogram with the crawl dates.

Here are the metrics for this index:

• 90,641,413,665 (91 billion) URLs
• 7,388,144,649 (7.4 billion) Subdomains
• 158,669,066 (159 million) Root Domains
• 926,144,106,342 (926 billion) Links...

Posted by wilreynolds

Image Credit: Vermin

When Disavow first launched, many people felt like they were doing "Google's job." At first, I completely disagreed with that sentiment. I loved it. I needed disavow, and yes, Bing did get to it first! However, since Matt Cutts' announcement of Disavow at Pubcon to present day, I have started to change my tune a bit based on experiencing what I can only call disavow hell. I truly do understand Google's position on the tool, but I am thinking a ...

Posted by Cyrus Shepard

If you’re like most SEOs, you spend a lot of time reading. Over the past several years, I’ve spent 100s of hours studying blogs, guides, and Google patents. Not long ago, I realized that 90% of what I read each doesn’t change what I actually do - that is, the basic work of ranking a web page higher on Google.

For newer SEOs, the process can be overwhelming.

To simplify this process, I created this SEO blueprint. It’s meant as a framework for newer SEOs to build th...

From page one to penalised in a blink of an eye! It’s every SEO professional’s worst fear as they realise that their months of hard work have been flagged by Matt Cutts & Co as not conforming to Google’s Search Quality Guidelines. The result?  A dreaded notification in Webmaster Tools and in most cases damaged [...]Author informationOliver CardingOliver Carding is a UK based SEO consultant, he works with a number of clients and agencies including Project Simply where he heads up the outreach ...

The unveiling of Facebook ‘Home’ felt like one of those key moments that really polarize opinion. It’s the current Marmite of the tech world; some people rushed to cover their screens in juicy Facebook goodness, others saw it as evidence that the Mayans were a year out. I guess I fall somewhere in between, which makes me the exception that proves [...]Author informationAaron CharlieAaron Charlie works for Silicon Beach Training who run SEO and Social Media Courses in Brighton, UK. He contribu...

Recent tweets and videos from Matt Cutts seem to have set the rumour mills racing in SEO over the last few days, and there have been some really interesting debates going on over exactly what we should expect from the upcoming release. So what might the upcoming release have in store for SEOs? Who might [...]Author informationMatt BurnsMatt Burns is a man obsessed with digital marketing - in all its forms! You’ll often find him lurking in the dark experimental corners of the SEO world. He has...

We love innovative strategies for earning links and attention in the online sphere. While very few marketers can win without mastering the basics, it takes a bit of ingenuity to pull ahead of your competitors. As part of this two series post, here are 5 more strategies and tactics you can leverage to get that [...]Author informationPratik DholakiyaPratik Dholakiya is Director of SEO & VP of Marketing at E2M Solutions, a company that specializes in advanced link building and content marketing ...

Dear SEJ Contributors & Readers, Thank you for everything you have contributed to SEJ and your participation in our community, comments & social media. We’ve noticed a major trend in our writer bios. About 90% of our bios include exact match links, extra links and other links to multiple companies. In an effort to clean [...]Author informationLoren BakerLoren Baker is the Founder of SEJ, an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and also spends time w/ CopyBlogger.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedIn

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  Google AdWords can be an incredibly powerful advertising platform. However, trying to manage your account whether big or small can be like going down the rabbit hole. Before long you don’t remember where you came from, you want to optimize for this keyword, but it’s in the wrong campaign, or is it? To help [...]Author informationChris KentChris Kent (@KentKineticSEO) is a consultant specializing in medium sized E-commerce Audits and Adwords Optimization. You can catch him blogging about sea...

It just takes one post or tweet to tarnish your business reputation.  One mistake by an otherwise savvy employee and a company can be labeled a social media fail, a dishonor so damaging that it’s not only fodder for the front page and late-night talk shows, but a brand buster, too.  Learn from these recent [...]Author informationBernadette ColemanBernadette Coleman is CEO & Executive Director of Advice Interactive Group, an award winning digital agency focused on improving visibility for clie...

PENGUIN – AN INTRODUCTION Most of you must be familiar of Google Penguin – believed to be the search engine giant’s latest weapon to counter websites that deliberately violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Since the latest Google update Penguin 2.0 is on its way to hit soon; it is important for you to understand the basics [...]Author informationEllis McGrathEllis McGrath works for the professional Web Development Company; VITEB. He has expertise in all aspects of internet marketing, search...

Social media is has become an integral part of Internet marketing. However, most businesses are not using social media to its full potential. Apart from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which other social media sites are you concentrating on? You should be in every social media site where your target audience is hanging out on. And [...]Author informationRoye OkupeRoye Okupe is a Marketing & Branding expert focused on helping entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses grow.  He is the found...

Great content sells. It converts. It helps with SEO. And sometimes, it works like magic: it goes viral, creates traffic inflow, and helps you achieve your goals. But what exactly is great content? How do you produce something so great it’ll go viral and help you achieve your goals? The Internet is inundated with a [...]Author informationJayson DeMersJayson DeMers is the founder & CEO of AudienceBloom, a Seattle-based SEO agency, as well as Crackerize.com, a lyrics-humor website. You can conta...

Everyone wants to know how to put on a Twitter chat these days. Not that I am surprised; tweet chats are a great way to engage users, have a discussion and enjoy a conversation with others of similar interests. When you have a large follower base on Twitter, it only makes sense to begin utilizing [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedIn

The post How to T...

Over the various updates Facebook has moved from a simple communication tool to something much larger, allowing users to have more control over their accounts. This includes their friends feed, which only shows a certain number of posts from friends that you can specify. All of this is worked out using EdgeRank, a site-specific algorithm [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.Twitt...

I make a lot of jokes about Bing, I have to admit it. The gist is that it is a wannabe search engine that will never make it as the number one choice. Unfair? Probably, but I would argue that 1) I don’t care, and 2) It is still the truth. Besides, it is not [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedIn

The post Best Google Jokes appeared first on SEO Chat.

Social media sites have taken over our lives. It’s hard to even imagine that 10 years ago there was no Facebook or Twitter! 15 years ago people were actually waiting to hear from each other because even email wasn’t that common. How did social media actually influenced our life and the society in general? In [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedIn

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The two terms sound incredibly similar, which gives the mistaken impression that they must be the same. I see many people getting confused when you are talking about name anchors… “Is this what we need to build links for?”… Ugh, no. The two are used for different functions entirely, and they have different tags used [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+Linke...

Oh, Google…it has grown up so fast. It seems like only yesterday it was a tiny project launched by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It went from a single search engine to the largest internet conglomerate in the world, dominating the web entirely. They have their hand in social media and networking, shopping, travel, academia…really, [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFaceboo...

Google Search is one of the most used tools on the internet. If you expand it to all of Google’s services, it is definitely the primary powerhouse of the web, They seem to have their hand in almost everything, and what they don’t yet control they are probably trying to find a way to. It [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedIn

The post What NOT to Use Go...

Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media sites ever made. It is unique in its design and was the first true hit for the social photo format. Imitators have come and gone, and many others exist with less success. Even the demographic is shifting from being almost entirely women to including [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+Linked...

For years Google was trying to break into the social media scene. They spent time, energy and funds into launching their own versions, which always managed to crash and burn almost as soon as they were released. Most of us have witnessed these failures first hand, and if you want a refresher course just check [...]Author informationAnn SmartyCommunity Manager at Internet Marketing NinjasAnn Smarty is the pro blogger and guest blogger, social media enthusiast.TwitterFacebookGoogle+LinkedIn

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Many people wouldn’t think there is a link between SEO and videos on your website. In fact, the two are very much related. Especially with the popularity of YouTube, video is more important than ever in getting your message across. Search engine crawlers see multimedia elements on a webpage as more diverse, as opposed to [...]Author informationLeslieDuncanLeslie Duncan is Orlando SEO Content Developer

The post Does Your Website Have Video? If Not, You Could Be Missing Out appeared first on SEO...