Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

Google saga today, as the Financial Times reports that discussions have taken place between News Corp and Microsoft on an exclusive deal with Bing that would lead to News Corp blocking its news sites (such as The Wall Street Journal ) from Google. Google-less? – If You de-Index Will They Still Come?

News 101

News Google Press Release Hitwise 101

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 22, 2011

User reactions have been mixed so far (some find them overwhelming or borderline obnoxious) but Google is touting the user benefits and the expanded sitelinks appear to be here to stay. Do Google’s Expanded Domain Results Apply to News and Video Listings? Rich Snippets: Increase Google Visibility for Reviews through Microformats.

Google 215

Google URL Issues Sites 215

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google News Optimization Tips by Adam Sherk on September 3, 2009 This week Google put out a video to give publishers more information on how Google News works and how best to optimize for it. This is data driven and not an “arbitrary decision.”

News 158

News Google Tips Press Release 158

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 9, 2013

Which news sites get the most engagement on their Google+ pages? It’s been a year since I took an early look at engagement rates for news organizations on Google+ , so I thought I’d revisit the topic and do a fresh comparison. So I also compiled the total engagement counts for all of the Google+ pages. 4 TIME 109.73

News 245

News Sites Engagement Google 245

Adam Sherk

JULY 9, 2013

Mining keyword research, analytics and competitive data to identify new evergreen content opportunities does not always get the attention it deserves from busy editorial teams, despite this being an area with considerable upside for publishers. Keyword Research for Content Planning. Step 7: Finalize your targets.

Research 183

Research Hitwise Content Adwords 183

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 14, 2010

I saw Malcolm Coles’ post on Google’s reading level scores for UK newspapers and thought it would be fun to do the same thing for US news sites. Last week Google released a new search filter that allows users to refine search results by reading level. So what reading level does Google assign to major news sites in the US?

News 232

News Sites Google Yahoo 232

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Google’s recent algorithm change that favors the most recent content for certain types of queries offers good opportunities for news and content sites. Essentially Google has turned up the dial on its “query deserves freshness” algorithm. It is simply a recent event that illustrates the Google freshness update in action.

Reputation 155

Reputation Google Wikipedia Embedding 155

Adam Sherk

JULY 8, 2011

Earlier this week Search Engine Land reported that Christian Oestlien, the Ads Lead for Google+, had posted a message asking businesses to hold off on using personal accounts to create business pages and that non-user profiles would be shut down. Related posts: Google Social Search: Are You in Your Target Audiences’ Social Circles?

Google 111

Google News Engineering Report 111

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 1, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Does Google News Sitemaps New Format Help Publishers? by Adam Sherk on December 1, 2009 In November Google announced a new format for Google News Sitemaps with several changes including new tags that provide additional detail on each submitted article.

News 104

News Publishing Google Press Release 104

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

News publishers are all too familiar with the fact that Google News doesn’t always do such a great job of favoring original sources in its story clusters. Today I noticed an example that is worth pointing out because you’d think Google News would be able to handle it properly. Google News Optimization Tips.

News 121

News Google Syndication Aggregator 121

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 20, 2009

Google employee “Inbal” later provided a more specific time window, indicating “the rate at which we recrawl may vary, but we try to go back and check for changes in article content within the first 12 hours after we first find it.” I went looking for an updated story in Google News today and was able to find an example.

News 101

News Google Syndication Press Release 101

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 23, 2013

To get a better sense of the situation I pulled StumbleUpon referral figures from 2010-2012 for a group of 47 news and content sites that we work with at Define Media Group , primarily magazine brands. Is the dominance of Facebook and Twitter, coupled with increasing Google+ engagement , proving to be too much?

StumbleUpon 172

StumbleUpon Sites Content Survey 172

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 28, 2010

Monitoring search trends and hot topics for keyword targeting and content ideas is a common practice among publishers these days. The Hot Searches on Google Trends tend to be dominated by topics like sports, politics and entertainment with frequent breaking news and stories that attract a lot of attention. The Down Side.

Trends 114

Trends Embedding Content Patterns 114

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google Social Search: Are You in Your Target Audiences’ Social Circles? So if you link to your Twitter account on your Google profile the people you’re following on Twitter become part of your social circle. If not how do we get there?

Google 109

Google Google Reader Press Release Survey 109

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

Sharing and discussing content is a key component of Google Buzz, so it’s a natural fit for article promotion and audience development. To what degree that happens depends on how well Google does at improving the interface and functionality. Related posts: Google Social Search: Are You in Your Target Audiences’ Social Circles?

Sites 118

Sites News Google Facebook 118

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 24, 2010

by Adam Sherk on August 24, 2010 As first covered by Malcolm Coles and later confirmed by Google , for search queries that include a specific domain Google is now showing a larger number of results from that site on page one. So a handful of examples from one individual does not make for a comprehensive sampling.

News 113

News List Google Video 113

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 20, 2011

For the past couple years Google has been embedding a Hot Trends graph in the regular search results for the top 100 fastest rising terms. Did Google discontinue this feature? Search Trend Optimization for Evergreen Content. I did some checking but can’t find any official confirmation or references in other places.

Embedding 114

Embedding Trends Google Tools 114

Adam Sherk

MAY 13, 2009

Initially Google is supporting data on reviews and people. .&# Initially Google is supporting data on reviews and people. Reviews in particular offer a good opportunity for publishers as many content sites produce multiple types of reviews on a regular basis. But now is a good time to begin experimenting with it.

Review 100

Review Google Embedding Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 12, 2010

So “borrowing” content isn’t a Web-only phenomenon, it’s just a lot easier to spot now. Shifting from poaching content to paying for it, it really is no wonder that the AP seems so threatened by Google. A wire service’s whole business model is built around selling the same content to as many news outlets as possible.

Content 116

Content Aggregator Press Release Syndication 116

Adam Sherk

MAY 22, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google News Wants Title Tags to Match Headlines? So it appears this tip is intended to make it easier for Google News to understand the correct title for articles, as opposed to being a “must do&# to prevent an issue.

News 100

News Google Syndication Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

JUNE 5, 2009

While it’s good news that Google is continuing to improve its ability to deal with JavaScript, this change also impacts the way that many publishers display sponsored links on their sites. Is Google going to run out and start penalizing sites with sponsored links in JavaScript? Google News Wants Title Tags to Match Headlines?

Publishing 100

Publishing Google NoFollow Guidelines 100

Adam Sherk

APRIL 8, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk The Wrap, Newser and Content Aggregation: How Much Attribution is Enough? To me the real question is: when one site aggregates another’s content, how much attribution is enough? Make it simple and logical to get to actual Wrap content from that page.”

Aggregator 110

Aggregator Content Syndication Journal 110

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Related posts: The Wrap, Newser and Content Aggregation: How Much Attribution is Enough? The Most Popular News Sites on YouTube Google Living Stories – Just Snazzy Topic Pages or is Google onto Something? How “popularity” is determined is not specifically defined, but it is likely a simple metric like page views.

Content 112

Content Press Release Digg Survey 112

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk The Most Common Causes of Duplicate Content on News Media Sites by Adam Sherk on October 8, 2009 Although search engines keep improving on their ability to deal with duplicate content, this continues to be one of the main SEO issues facing news and content sites.

Sites 105

Sites News Syndication Content 105

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Editorial teams and content creators are always on the lookout for useful tools for keyword research and content planning. Google AdWords: Keyword Planner. Google’s Keyword Planner has become a hassle for new users to set up since it now requires having an AdWords account. Google Trends. Keyword Research.

Analysis 241

Analysis Research Trends Tools 241

Adam Sherk

APRIL 30, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Publishers: Solve Tracking Code, Duplicate Content Issues with the Canonical URL Tag by Adam Sherk on April 30, 2009 Really you shouldn’t need it. What you should be doing is avoiding duplicate content altogether.

Issues 100

Issues Publishing URL Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

APRIL 30, 2013

For publishers it typically involves identifying users that are sharing, discussing and linking to content from your brands and their competitors, and about specific topics. Then building relationships with those users over time and coming up with ideas for outreach, content development and promotion. Google+ Tools.

Blogger 196

Blogger BuzzStream Influencer Tools 196

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 14, 2015

Some are newer, others are longstanding, but I wanted to gather them together and focus on the benefits for news and content sites. As a user I like the new hosted and mobile-specific article formats, be that Facebook Instant Articles , Apple News Format or Google’s AMP project. Google News. Structured Data Markup.

SEO 100

SEO Syndication Marketing NoFollow 100

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 18, 2011

Use keyword research tools such as Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Google Insights for Search to evaluate and refine candidates and discover popular variations. Check what news stories and press releases currently come up for your top candidates in Google News and Yahoo News. Content Optimization. Title/headline.

Press Release 206

Press Release Tips Adwords Yahoo 206

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 17, 2013

So as I stumble across the finish line, here are my top posts of 2013 by pageviews: The Most Common Google News Errors and How to Avoid Them. SEO Guidelines for Sponsored Content and Partner Links. Google+ Engagement for News Sites: Top Performers and One-Year Growth Rates. The Google News Standout Tag: Does it Work?

SEO 129

SEO Publishing Social Media Sports 129

Adam Sherk

MAY 14, 2013

When it comes to link building publishers have a significant advantage because editorial content, be it hard news or evergreen content, lends itself naturally to linking and sharing. In addition producing quality content on a daily basis creates a steady stream of new opportunities. Partner links.

Publishing 209

Publishing Module Syndication Badge 209

Adam Sherk

APRIL 16, 2013

Social sites use infinite scrolling as a way to offer a never-ending stream of new content, and it has appeal for sites that want to offer a seamless browsing experience for large groups of items. It allows the content to be accessible within the main framework of the site and better integrated into the internal link graph.

SEO 245

SEO Tips Module Guidelines 245

Adam Sherk

MARCH 16, 2010

Google, Bing and Yahoo are all experimenting with various forms of real-time results now and making deals with Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. First, a quick look at how news content is currently being included in real-time search results. So how can news sites maximize their real-time search visibility?

Sites 143

Sites News Yahoo Engineering 143

Adam Sherk

MARCH 8, 2012

It comes down to effective selection, placement and formatting of social buttons on all key templates, and customizing those elements for different types of content. One interesting takeaway was the user base and types of content that do well in Social Reader can be quite different from the main site. How does social media impact SEO?

Publishing 215

Publishing Questions Social Media Activities 215

Adam Sherk

APRIL 17, 2014

What are the best tools for publishers looking to track social media activity at the content level? I thought I’d share some of my favorites that are well suited to editorial content sites. These real-time analytics platforms are among the most popular with news and content sites. Real-Time Analytics. Chartbeat Publishing.

Analytics 240

Analytics Publishing Social Media Tools 240

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Why the News Business Isn’t Profitable by Guest on September 10, 2010 This is a guest post from Aaron Goldman , author of Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned from Google. You just Google it, right? When they’re already consuming content, it’s too late.

News 121

News Press Release Survey SEO 121

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 14, 2012

I spend a lot of time auditing websites which means I am regularly in the Google Webmaster Tools profiles for a variety of sites. Lifestyle content is the big winner but there are good opportunities for publishers in nearly any topical area. Sports 22,905 5,087. But What About Nofollow?

Survey 166

Survey Sites Publishing NoFollow 166