Our Blog

Can the Yahoo/Bing Tag-Team Beat Google?

The battle for search engine supremacy has taken a few interesting turns and twists over the last several months. First, Bing was launched with a heavy advertising campaign, trying to make a dent in Google's dominance. Then it was announced that Yahoo and Bing are going to collaborate with one another to share some of each other's services, strengths and abilities. So the question we're all asking is: can the Yahoo and Bing tag-team combine to beat Google?

VMG Cinematic Advice: Breaking into Online Video

[this is a guest post from VMG Cinematic]

Many discuss the efficiency of online video for success yet some business owners are still skeptical about its benefits and ROI, because they feel that social media is simply a fad.

If the successful tendencies of the past are not enough to convince your marketing team in the value of online video, here’s what the future holds for our industry...

Facebook Advertising has a Long Way to Go

One of the major new areas of marketing and advertising opportunities on the Internet is the realm of Facebook advertising. Facebook now has a massive program based around PPC, or pay-per-click advertising. The basic principles are the same as you would find in any other major PPC program.

Overview of the New Google Analytics Interface

Google has continued to add new features and functionality to their tracking system, Google Analytics. Whether you are a longtime user of the system looking to update your knowledge and use of Analytics, or you are researching the tool to see if it's right for you, it's important to understand the changes and upgrades that have been made. Here's an overview of a handful of the new features that Google Analytics offers.

Why Businesses Need to Consider Social Media in Their Online Marketing Strategy

If you're like most other business owners, you've heard all of the hype about social media and social networking but you haven't taken any action. For most of us, that's because we end up being overloaded with information, and we're unsure of what the right steps towards taking action should be. It can be difficult to sort through the mess of all of the many web 2.0 communities out there. However, it's imperative that you get your act together and begin capitalizing on these opportunities in order to produce big results both now and in the future for your company.

When digital theft is a good thing!

This is definitely a first for me in my entire online career - but I really hope it happens again! It involves the borrowing (read that: theft) of the design and layout of a site. Normally that would bother me - if you're going to borrow design ideas from another site, at least make it your own. But in this case they simply downloaded a page from the site, modified the content and logo, and uploaded it as their own site!

So why am I happy about it?

Well, it all starts with landing a new client. One of the first things we do with new SEO clients is to check their current link profile. So, after verifying the site in Google Webmaster Tools, I hit the external links section. I was surprised, for being a PR4, they had only a handful of links. So, there must be some good links!

As I clicked through them to verify their quality, my eye was caught by one in particular. It looked exactly the same as my client's site, just with a different logo! I looked around, and there was no affiliation whatsoever. So this was clearly a disparate organization whose web designer was a very lazy one. It was readily apparent that they had stolen everything, just changed the logo and the navigation bar to suit their website.

So, how were they linked to my client's site? Well, at first it wasn't obvious, but as I scrolled to the bottom, there it was: their lazy designer was too lazy to change the footer! Yes, all of the links in the footer navigation were the same as on my client's site, and in fact, they all still linked back to the site as well!

I will not be contacting this organization regarding the issue  :). I hope they are lazy enough to not change their site for a long time, leaving us that juicy stolen link for some time to come.

What is Google's new SearchWiki?

Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a more customised search experience! With the introduction of the SearchWiki, as it is officially known, Google has introduced a new search feature which would be accessible to Google account users. Over the last few months, this feature had been in testing and once it is rolled out for everyone, it will allow users to annotate, add, delete and shift around search results of their own choice. That's right, it's now in the power of the searchers themselves to decide which site they feel should be at the top of their search result!

What to do when you're dropped from Google's index

About one week after we were featured in the Financial Post, I received a phone call that made my heart drop into my stomach. Basically, here's the gist of what was said: "we searched for you yesterday and found your site ranked #1, but I'm searching now and I don't see it anywhere in Google".

OK, at first I didn't panic, I just assumed it was Google showing a different personalized result. But after I searched on all of our top keywords and even validated through 3rd party rank checkers, I was aghast to realize that we were no longer #1. In fact, we were no longer in the index at all!