Jul 9

HTTPS is taking over Google search results: Are law firms keeping up?

It’s been two years since Google announced that a secured (HTTPS) connection was a minor ranking signal. While most websites that conduct transactions or have user registrations and other features that involve processing data already utilize an HTTPS connection, law firms rarely do.

HTTP vs HTTPS Simplified

By default your website is accessible via an HTTP connection. With an SSL certificate, you can change your prefix from HTTP to HTTPS. An HTTPS connection adds an extra level of encryption between the…

In Search of the Missing Links: How 30,000 links were lost then found.

When a client with a robust link portfolio and growing rankings informed me that their links had disappeared, I almost dismissed it as another Google Search Console error.

The law firm’s link portfolio has more than 30,000 links from about 400 domain names. Google Search Console generally reports about 350 of those linking domains.

They can also expect about 1,000 clicks each month to be reported in Search Console. You can understand why they were concerned when they logged…

Panda is now a piece of Google’s core algorithm

Google has confirmed that Panda is now a part of its core ranking algorithm. Panda has not been updated; Google was careful to specify that any recent updates to its core algorithm were not Panda or Penguin related. Rather, Panda in its current form has been integrated as part of the algorithm’s core functionality.

Panda targets page quality. The initial Panda release in 2011 aimed to lower the rankings of pages that contained weak or “thin” content. On a domain…

What law firms can learn about mobile search from Google’s latest quality rating guidelines

In November, Google released the full version of its Search Quality Rating Guidelines for the first time. Last week, we discussed Google’s standards for quality content and website reputation, as detailed in the document. This week, we will delve into the newest section of the guidelines: mobile ratings.

The rating guidelines document is given to Google’s human quality raters to help them determine how to rate a series of test queries. The scores raters give pages do not directly…

What law firms can learn from Google’s latest search quality guidelines

For the first time, Google has released the full version of its Quality Raters Guidelines and Handbook. Google provides the 160 page .pdf to its human testers, who perform searches and rate the results based on these guidelines. Google then uses this rating information to enhance its algorithm in an attempt to continuously improve results for searchers.

Raters assign a Page Quality rating based on a sliding rating scale. The scale contains five primary rating options: Lowest, Low,…

Is Google’s ‘Search Bias’ Better for Consumers?

Google Local Researchers at Harvard Business School and Columbia Law School as part of a collaboration with the Yelp data science team recently concluded that Google was harming consumers by giving preference to their own services. Would consumers be better served by getting a list of directories to choose from?

The study particular targets the local results wherein Google displays listings from Google My Business (formerly Google+ Local) ahead of the organic website…

Google Shuts the Door on Doorway Pages

youtube one channel There has been speculation for a number of years that Google would have to include mobile factors when it ranks websites/pages. While not a surprise, the actual implementation of mobile factors is bound to have a large effect on many sites, including law firm websites. If you do not have a mobile-friendly website, this could cost you points in terms of how your law firm ranks on mobile Google…

A review of Google’s 2014 algorithm changes – Part 2

In our last post, we reviewed the algorithm changes Google released during the first half of 2014. Here, we will take a look at the changes in the second half of the year, as compiled by Moz:

August 6, 2014 – HTTPS/SSL Update
Google updated their algorithms to give a boost to secure sites. According to Google’s announcement, the initial boost in rankings started out small, but may be…

Authorship Dropped from Google Search Results

Webmaster trends analyst John Mueller announced in an August 28 Google+ post that Google search results will no longer display page authorship, also known as rel=author markup.

Mueller stated that Google tests found that taking authorship away did not reduce traffic to websites or increase clicks on ads.

Regarding the display of authorship information, Mueller wrote, “Unfortunately, we’ve also observed that this information isn’t as useful to our users as we’d hoped, and…

Google Pigeon to reshape local listings

On July 24, Google released a new algorithm, nicknamed Pigeon by Search Engine Land (SEL), which alters the way local search results are generated in Google Maps and Google Web. The Pigeon update is designed to make the local search results more accurate and relevant.

Google told SEL that the new algorithm relies more heavily on their hundreds of traditional web search ranking signals. It also draws on features like spelling…

Older posts

Newer posts

Jul 9

HTTPS is taking over Google search results: Are law firms keeping up?

HTTP vs HTTPS Simplified

Jun 22

In Search of the Missing Links: How 30,000 links were lost then found.

Jan 16

Panda is now a piece of Google’s core algorithm

Dec 24

What law firms can learn about mobile search from Google’s latest quality rating guidelines

Dec 12

What law firms can learn from Google’s latest search quality guidelines

Jul 8

Is Google’s ‘Search Bias’ Better for Consumers?

Apr 17

Google Shuts the Door on Doorway Pages

Dec 29

A review of Google’s 2014 algorithm changes – Part 2

Sep 16

Authorship Dropped from Google Search Results

Aug 26

Google Pigeon to reshape local listings