Social Media Makes Up Nearly A Third Of All Referral Traffic, + More Stats

Social software company Shareaholic argues that the shift from search to social is here with the release of a new set of data that reveals social media referral traffic is up 22.71% from this time last year.

In total, in December 2014 top 8 social networks drove 31.24% of overall traffic to web sites. These networks include Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Shareaholic’s Q4 Social Media Traffic Report, released today, includes a year-over-year as well as a 3-year trend analysis. The report is full of of stats that illustrate social media’s role as a traffic driver over the past several years.
Here are some more highlights from the report, the following stats are comparing data from 2011 to data from 2014.

Facebook’s share of traffic grew 277.26% (from 6.53% to 24.63%). Americans are also spending considerably more time on Facebook, from 15.5 minutes per day in 2011 to 42.1 minutes per day in 2014.

Pinterest’s share grew 684.86% (from 0.65% to 5.06%). However, Pinterest’s growth has hit a plateau — to continue growing its user base the report suggests the social network needs to “shed its isolating for-women-only image” and develop more mass-market appeal.

All six remaining social networks (Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, G+, LinkedIn, YouTube) saw their shares decline, making up less than 2% of web traffic. YouTube was decimated, losing 94.76% of its share (from 0.24% down to 0.01%). The report suggests that Facebook’s auto-play videos have led to YouTube’s sharp decline of referral traffic.

As for traffic from the other social networks, that’s on the decline as well. Since 2011, Google+ and LinkedIn have both lost one third of their share of referral traffic, Reddit’s share is down by half, and Twitter’s share has roughly stayed the same.
Here’s a chart of each network’s share of referral traffic over the past three years — you can see Facebook killing it, Pinterest rising and then flattening out, and all other networks hovering around the same place.

 

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Tips to Use Whats App in PC

Whatsapp is very popular application but it is strange that it cannot be used on PCs and most of tablets. There are many methods to use whatsapp on PC, one of them is to use with “BlueStacks” emulator. Many people did not like this method. Millions of Computer users were requested alternative for this. As a response of this whatsapp team released a web application to use whatsapp in PC without any software. For this chrome browser is enough.

Here the tips to help you more,

1. This facility only applicable for Android, Windows, Blackberry mobiles not for iphone’s said by WhatsApp Team.
2. First, you need to download the latest whatsapp application from application store or you can update the application.
3. Then in PC open the Chrome Browser and go with https://web.whatsapp.com/ there you find with QR code
4. In your Mobile, Open the WhatsApp Application -> select the WhatsAppWeb option, then QR scanner line opens.
5. Then Scan the QR code which shown in browser and that’s it.
6. The Next few seconds your chrome browser reflects WhatsApp as in your phone. All the options are on the phone, the facilities are in the web application.
7. To access whatsapp in pc smoothly, your mobile should connect with the internet.
8. Desktop notification facility also available.
9. With this you only have options to share images and web camera access not for to share contacts, audio, locations.
10. The biggest plus of this web application is that everything on the Internet is much easier to see and share in the WhatsApp.

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Revamped Search Engine @ LinkedIn

New Search Engine:

LinkedIn were revamped its search engine to help users better. This Search engine has revamped in accordance to get faster search results and to get relevant results. LinkedIn new search engine available now, it can save its members more than a year of collective time spent searching.
Here the list to highlight changes,

• Results Based On Connections

LinkedIn will now populate its search results based on what it believes is most relevant to you based on your connections, groups, and companies.

• Search Beyond Your Connections

For the first time, LinkedIn is giving its free members the ability to search outside of their group of connections. This used to be a premium feature.

• Personalized search results

LinkedIn will personalize search results based on the information you have provided in your profile.

• Surfacing Users’ Content

Now when you perform a search, LinkedIn may surface content other users have uploaded to the network, such as blog posts and SlideShare decks, if its relevant to the search.
These changes are “just the start”, the company says, and we can expect more developments coming from LinkedIn throughout the year.

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3 Messages Your Rankings Are Sending

Tracking keyword rankings in Google can be one of the most fun and frustrating parts of SEO. When we see movement for those phrases that are the "Big money, big money, no whammies, no whammies, stop" keywords, it’s a good day. But when day after day those words still linger off the first page, it can make you want to chuck it all and go back to an analog world.

But sometimes, we spend so much time looking at ranking reports for what we want to see that we miss the forest for the trees. If we only listen for what we want to hear, we may not pick up on what is actually being said.

Sometimes keyword reports, especially the extended ones from tools like SEM Rush or SpyFu, that give you more than just the phrases you’re looking for have a bigger story to tell. At least they do if you know how to read between the keywords.

Dominant Theme of Relevance

Looking at the kinds of phrases you rank for can be a huge message about how a search engine interprets your most relevant concepts. If there is a large ratio of your ranking phrases that are based around one prominent theme, that is a strong indicator of the topics on which your site is most trusted. If there is a common subject among dozens of keywords, that can represent opportunities and areas of weakness.

On the opportunity side, if a theme is strong, and it’s an important theme for the site, you can work on focusing other signals around that. By creating additional content, links, and digital assets to enforce that perception of authority on a topic, a site can strengthen its position.

As a top-ranking site in a niche, there is also the value of perception. Having strong Google rankings surrounding a theme can help influence others regarding your authority. This can extend to media outreach including press releases, social media interactions, and even print materials. Promotions that encourage potential visitors to "Google a prominent keyword" for which you rank well can also capitalize on that prominence.

The scope of your ranking phrases can also indicate a weakness in relevance. If you are not ranking well for a major theme of your business, then it may be time to consider creating more signals surrounding that subject.

Where You Need New Content

One of the biggest clues you can read from a keyword report is where you should focus efforts around content creation. Content creation can support existing relevance or enhance authority where relevance is lacking. It can also help indicate where a user experience might be incomplete.

When Google ranks a site for any given keyword, it is a result of multiple on- and off-page factors being weighed to determine which pages should be served to users as a result of a search. Google is not wholly infallible in this endeavor. Sometimes a page that ranks for a keyword is not necessarily the best or most appropriate. In other circumstances, a page may rank for a phrase but not fully serve the user intent. By examining your keyword rankings for these situations you have the opportunity to better present information on the pages that rank or expand your content to provide a better, more comprehensive page that should rank.

Competition and Co-Citation

Studying your keyword rankings can also help you determine new competitors, and new strategies for SEO. Most businesses have isolated a core of key competitors who may bid on the same phrases or may appear together in the SERPS for several different searches. Outside of that, an expanded analysis of keyword rankings can reveal additional businesses that may be on the rise, or may be utilizing tactics that can be learned from.

A newer site that has become competitive in the long-tail may have structural, content, or optimization tactics that can be implemented on your site. They may also represent successful off-site marketing campaigns from link-building, marketing, or networking. While we may focus on who ranks alongside us for the head terms, evaluating the broader field on longer phrases or queries which tend to get less attention may reveal new information that is useful.

Also, evaluating the scope of rankings can reveal websites that aren’t competitive that may be ripe for partnerships or co-citation. Another site that ranks below you but does not target your customers could be a good site to work with on an initiative or just to link to. Linking to similarly relevant, but not competitive, websites enhances the comprehensiveness of content, but may also send additional signals of relevance to search engines.

Filtering keyword reports to a small section of phrases can be useful when it helps quiet the noise a bit. But it can also keep us from hearing things we need to know. It is absolutely worth examining and considering the implications of the entire volume of ranking phrases, at least on occasion. There are messages within that report that can be applied to strategic development and competitive analysis. There is subtext in a ranking report that deserves to be understood because it may be those quiet suggestions that help bring forth some of the best new ideas.

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Google Doesn’t Know When Super Bowl 2015 Starts (Yet!)

Why hasn't Google provided the correct answer for the Super Bowl start time when year-after-year, it has been an issue for them?

 

Go ahead, ask Google [when does the super bowl start] or [what time does the super bowl start] and Google will give you the date and time for last year’s Super Bowl. Last year’s Super Bowl was on Sunday, February 2nd at 6:30 p.m. ET. This year, it is on Sunday, February 1st.
This query has been the target of publications for years, in order to rank well for it so they can gain clicks, impressions and ultimately ad revenue. It has been notorious for SEO efforts by publications and Google knows it, but year-after-year, the issue persists.
Danny Sullivan documented how publications are targeting the Super Bowl start time for ranking purposes for years.
It is interesting that the correct Google Answer is not provided in these queries but rather only a knowledge graph pulled Google Answer that shows content from a publisher with the wrong information.
When you search [when is the super bowl], Google is able to give the correct answer:

But not when you search for [when does the super bowl start] or [what time does the super bowl start] as illustrated above and here

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SEO Trends for 2015 – Infographic

The world get modernized as well as digitalized because of internet growth. Nowadays, traditional marketing is being replaced with modern marketing which uses the SEO technology as backbone to build leads to their firm.
Here the list of SEO trends for 2015 and a screenshot to explain the do & don’ts factors in Modern Marketing technology. So that you can sustain your branding, SERP and can increase your leads for this year too.

• Content is King, so it continues to Rule them All
• Social media Signals will Become Even More Important for SEO (controversial)
• The Rise of Security as a Ranking Signal
• Do Mobile Friendly SEO
• Increased Focus on Conversational Keyword Phrases
• Link Building is more important as well
• Increase your online presence in the form Images, videos, infographics. eVisual Based SEO

Bye Keyword Rankings…. Hello ROI… Finally, SEO in 2015 will switch its primary focus from mere keyword rankings and focus on more important elements that would impact your ROI greatly.

 

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Google Link Removal Requests Climb To 345 Million In 2014

Torrent Freak study reveals the number of Google's takedown notices were up 75% from 2013.

After analyzing Google’s weekly link removal reports for 2014, Torrent Freak says the search engine received more than 345 million requests last year – a 75 percent increase compared to the number of link removal requests in 2013.

With more than five-million targeted URLS each, Torrent Freak said that the majority of takedown requests were connected to three specific domains: 4shared.com, rapidgator.net and uploaded.net.

At TF we processed all the weekly reports and found that the number of URLs submitted by copyright holders last year surpassed the 345 million mark – 345,169,134 to be exact.

“The majority of these requests are honored with the associated links being removed from Google’s search results,” said Torrent Freak. Some requests receive a “no action” status if Google determines there is no copyright infringement, or the link has already been removed.

 

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Google Authorship May Be Dead, But Author Rank Is Not

Google Authorship and Author Rank aren't the same thing. Here's why Google Authorship can die yet Author Rank lives on.

Google ended its three-year experiment with Google Authorship yesterday, but the use of Author Rank to improve search results will continue. Wait — you can have Author Rank without Google Authorship? And just what is Google Authorship versus Author Rank? Come along, because they are different things — and Author Rank lives on.

What Google Authorship Was

Google Authorship was primarily Google’s way to allow the authors of content to identify themselves for display purposes. You asserted it by making use of “markup,” code hidden from human view but within web pages. Google extended from this original idea to link it tightly with Google+, as a step to create a Google-controlled system of identifying authors and managing identities.
Those making use of Google Authorship were largely rewarded by having author names and images appear next to stories. That was the big draw, especially when Google suggested that stories with authorship display might draw more clicks. Here’s an example of how it looked:

Above, you can see how the listing has both an image of the author plus a byline with the name.
Google ended Google Authorship yesterday. The image support was dropped in June; now the bylines and everything else related to the program are gone. It’s dead.
The markup people have included in their pages won’t hurt anything, Google tells us. It just will be ignored, not used for anything. But before you run to remove it all, keep in mind that such markup might be used by other companies and services. Things like rel=author and rel=me are microformats that may be used by other services (note: originally I wrote these were part of Schema.org, but they’re not — thanks to Aaron Bradley in the comments below)
We’re planning to explore that issue more in a future article, about whether people who invested time now largely wasted adding authorship support should invest more time removing it. Stay tuned.

What Author Rank Is

Separately from Google Authorship is the idea of Author Rank, where if Google knows who authored a story, it might somehow alter the rankings of that story, perhaps give it a boost if authored by someone deemed trustworthy.
Author Rank isn’t actually Google’s term. It’s a term that the SEO community has assigned to the concept in general. It especially got renewed attention after Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt talked about the idea of ranking verified authors higher in search results, in his 2013 book, The New Digital Age:

Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.

For further background on Author Rank, as well as the context of Schmidt’s quote, see my article from last year: Author Rank, Authorship, Search Rankings & That Eric Schmidt Book Quote.

Author Rank Is Real — And Continues!

Schmidt was just speculating in his book, not describing anything that was actually happening at Google. From Google itself, there was talk several times last year of making use of Author Rank as a way to identify subject experts and somehow boost them in the search results:

• Google Authority Boost: Google’s Algorithm To Determine Which Site Is A Subject Authority, May 2013
• Google’s Matt Cutts: Someday, Perhaps Ranking Benefits From Using Rel=”Author”, June 2013
• Google Still Working On Promoting Subject-Specific Authorities In Search Results, December 2013

That was still all talk. The first real action came in March of this year. After Amit Singhal, the head of Google Search, said that Author Rank still wasn’t being used, the head of Google’s web spam team gave a caveat of where Author Rank was used: for the “In-depth articles” section, when it sometimes appears, of Google’s search results.

Author Rank Without Authorship

Now that Google Authorship is dead, how can Google keep using Author Rank in the limited form it has confirmed? Or is that now dead, too? And does this mean other ways Author Rank might get used are also dead?
Google told us that dropping Google Authorship shouldn’t have an impact on how the In-depth articles section works. Google also said that the dropping of Google Authorship won’t impact its other efforts to explore how authors might get rewarded.
How can all this be, when Google has also said that it’s ignoring authorship markup?
The answer is that Google has other ways to determine who it believes to be the author of a story, if it wants. In particular, Google is likely to look for visible bylines that often appear on news stories. These existed before Google Authorship, and they aren’t going away.
This also means that if you’re really concerned that more Author Rank use is likely to come, think bylines. That’s looking to be the chief alternative way to signal who is the author of a story, now that Google has abandoned its formal system.

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