PALM BEACH, FL – About a year and half ago in April of 2018, I wrote about an out-of-the-ordinary domain name sale when the new gTLD domain “Vacation.Rentals” changed hands for a little over ‘half a million’ in cash, supposedly. I still sort of question the sale as either authentic and insane - or completely bogus, intentionally and strategically planned to not only create industry buzz, but boost sales for nGTLDs. Either way, and it probably doesn't really mater … [Read more...]
How Google Grows Advertising Rev 20% a Year, While Global Economy Grows at 4%
PALM BEACH, FL - If you are in the Internet business, you're going to want to stop and read this one. It will educate you. It might explain a couple of things you have thought about when it comes to Google. It might even make you a little mad. But it is always best to know what is happening in your industry. Or you could stay in your little bubble where they say, ignorance is bliss. Google has the ability to provide the illusion of diversity while using sort of eye … [Read more...]
Will Sale of Dead News Site “Examiner.com” Attract Authentic Bidders at GoDaddy?
PALM BEACH, FL – A domain name, that by itself, could potentially fool even one of the most complex computer algorithms such as Google's rankings technology, into trusting that a site is a “big brand”. There is probably not a lot of them out there that could easily be scooped up, however, that’s pretty much what’s for sale at GoDaddy auctions this week, with the bidding for the domain name previously used by the defunct news site “Examiner.com” reaching $69,666.00 - so … [Read more...]
Redirecting Domains with Backlinks Helps SEO; Google Doesn’t Want You to Know
NEW YORK – Morgan Linton’s blog caught my eye this morning as it discusses the redirecting of domain names for SEO, an often hotly debated topic. I find this topic especially interesting as it appears to me that Google often dances around the truth with explanations of what works and what doesn’t. Google’s new webmaster PR guy is John Mueller who basically replaced Matt Cutts in a publication relations capacity with webmasters around 2015 when Cutts was on leave. I’ve always … [Read more...]
Google Say’s Don’t Buy Domains for Past Rankings; Knows When They Change Hands
NEW YORK, NY – In an article that came out in Search Engine Roundtable the other day, long-time search marketing expert Barry Schwartz points out that a Google employee named Aaseesh, tasked with monitoring Google’s Webmaster Central Help Forum, posted a comment which suggests that Google zaps a domains ranking juice, not only when the domain expires (which most have already suspected), but also when the domain merely changes hands or is sold. This adds a new layer of … [Read more...]
Human Quality Ratings and Guidelines Continue to Become Center of Debate
NEW YORK, NY – It’s nothing short of amazing to see all of the time, money, resources and effort search giant Google engineers are putting towards accessing the trustworthiness of specific web-pages these days. I remember when the entire Google algorithm was simply based on the HTML code which made up a website. However, these days Google uses not only artificial intelligence to rank sites, but they also use 'real people' to give websites something called “QR” ratings … [Read more...]
Overstock.com Marketing Expenses Sour $40M After Google Algorithm Changes
NEW YORK – It sort of makes you cringe just hearing the title. According to BuzzFeed.com, the retailing giant Overstock told investors during an earnings call that the company has experienced serious difficulties with a Google Algorithm update it was hit with last year, calling it "very disruptive" to its business; the SEO Community called it "Fred". Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne said that sales and marketing expenses grew 105% to $77.2 million this quarter from $37.6 … [Read more...]