The Moz Blog

Whoa... Can Query Volume Directly Influence Rankings?

I was lucky enough to recently speak at the MozCon conference in Seattle, and during my talk one of the points that I covered were some experiments that I’ve conducted with query volume in Google, and how this affects various parts of the algo.

A Theory About Google: Authenticity and Passion as Ranking Signals

I look at a lot of search results every week, trying to parse out why some are ranking higher than others, what Google + Bing are adding to the results and where we might better add value with software. I still feel a serious addiction to mysteries in the search results and can't help but play detective (even when I know I should be doing other work). Over the past 6-9 months, I've been getting...

Better Understanding Link-based Spam Analysis Techniques

Understanding the basics of link based spam detection can improve your understanding of link valuation and help you understand how search engines approach the problem of spam detection, which can lead to better link building practices.

Replicate Google's Panda Questionnaire

Want to avoid the next Panda Update and improve your websites quality? This week Will Critchlow from Distilled joins Rand to discuss an amazing idea of Will's to help those who are having problem with Panda and others who want to avoid future updates. Feel free to leave your thoughts on his idea and anything you might do to avoid Panda.

5 Tips for Meeting Online Friends IRL

Sometimes, social media can be anything but social. In honor of Mozcon, I offer 5 tips for turning online connections into IRL relationships.

Brand New Open Site Explorer is Here (and Linkscape's Updated, too)

This morning at Mozcon, I announced the launch of Open Site Explorer v3, a long-awaited upgrade to one of the most popular marketing tools on the web. I'm more than a little excited about all the progress, hard work and remarkable features that are included in this upgrade, so let's get right to them.The first thing you'll notice is the new d...

Leveraging your SEO for Search Retargeting

Here at Moz we work hard to break down those silly silo things (frankly they scare us). We believe that the different pieces of marketing should constantly be communicating with each other. Cyrus (our SEO lead) and I try to communicate on what we are seeing, where we might be overlapping, dropping the proverbial ball and so on and so forth. We know that leveraging each person's daily activities for maximum impact is the key to any company's success.

Getting Stuff Done by Video

Creating detailed and actionable client reports has become a vitally important skill for any agency SEO to hone. Often we’ll spend 20-30 hours composing a veritable treat of a read for our clients, a hand crafted sluice for a torrent of brilliant ideas, delegations, and requests that will certainly lead to a better performance in the SERPs once put into practice...

Google's Negative Ranking Factors

You've heard about SEOmoz's study of Google ranking factors, but what about negative ranking factors? Sure, positive factors such the correlations between social media shares and higher rankings earn a lot of attention - and they ...

How to Read and Review Resumes

And now for a little departure from your regularly scheduled SEO posts - for a foray into hiring and recruiting. We have been doing a lot of hiring recently at SEOmoz and lots of people have inquired what we look for in candidates. The truth is, we really try to give everyone a chance, but this blog covers some of the tips and tricks we use to make the process as efficient as possible. If you are hiring, this blog will give you some ideas to add to your screening process, and if you are looking for a job, then you will also find some dos and don'ts to help you secure you next big opportunity. To infinity and beyond!

How to Build Your Own Thumbdrive SEO Browser

Recently Firefox automatically updated to version 5, and with that update came a nightmarish scenario: virtually every Firefox SEO add-on suddenly ceased to function. By now many of these add-ons have been repaired, but at the time I was rescued by a side project of mine – a portable SEO Browser designed to run from a thumbdrive, complete...

Multiple XML Sitemaps: Increased Indexation and Traffic

Utilizing XML sitemaps and sitemap indices is an advanced tactic that we recommend to all of our clients at Distilled. In fact, Rob wrote an exceptional how to post on this topic earlier this year, looking more at diagnosing indexation issues. This tactic is not just for large sites thoug...