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

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. Klout and Kred. Pinterest Tools.

Blogger 196

Blogger BuzzStream Influencer Tools 196

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

AUGUST 22, 2011

MLB and the Chicago Bulls offer examples of what can get pulled in from pages with no META description tag and not much text content: — Related posts: Publishers: Solve Tracking Code, Duplicate Content Issues with the Canonical URL Tag. Do Google’s Expanded Domain Results Apply to News and Video Listings?

Google 215

Google URL Sites Issues 215

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

JULY 9, 2009

In looking at syndicated content on Yahoo News, most of the syndicated articles do not include attribution links (each news source likely has to request or provide them), but among those that do exist there is a problem. The Yahoo attribution links do not point directly to the original article URLs.

Syndication 100

Syndication Yahoo SEO News 100

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

It looks great when there are a lot of retweets; when there aren’t many it can weaken user perceptions of the content. Finally, don’t forget to include the URL, as Newsweek did on this page: That one is probably a technical glitch, but it’s a big one. Related posts: Google News Wants Title Tags to Match Headlines?

Syndication 117

Syndication URL Press Release SEO 117

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Editorial teams and content creators are always on the lookout for useful tools for keyword research and content planning. You can use Keyword Planner to compare terms, get new content ideas, explore topical categories, monitor seasonality and compare desktop vs. mobile, among other tasks. Google Trends. Wordstream.

Analysis 241

Analysis Research Trends Tools 241

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 20, 2009

URL, so I tried using bit.ly search to get click data on each of those shortened URLs. URLs in Muck Rack releases. reports from its search page are not very complete or accurate (you get better data on URLs you’ve personally shortened in your history when signed into bit.ly). Of those 51 releases, 28 included a bit.ly

Press Release 145

Press Release Twitter URL RSS 145

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 18, 2011

Content Optimization. As possible, include the keyword phrase in executive quotes as that content may be highlighted by some services or used in resulting media coverage. Optimize/tag images and multimedia content with target keywords. Optimize the page’s title tag, URL and META description tag based on SEO best practices.

Press Release 206

Press Release Tips Adwords Yahoo 206

Adam Sherk

APRIL 24, 2012

Note that for The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Financial Times the PageSpeed tool was redirected to the URL for the US version of their home page. So the US URLs were used in the comparison. One-Year Gains and Losses.

Sites 187

Sites News Yahoo Comparison 187

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

There are enough additional sources to offer a wide range of content choices which makes it more engaging. The Washington Post is actively recruiting more content partners. Related posts: More Content Shared on Facebook but Twitter Click-through Rate Much Higher. I was curious to check out what some real friends had read.

Facebook 111

Facebook Journal URL News 111

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 6, 2010

The layout is clean and simple, the content is interesting and Newsweek is mixing in plenty of items from other sources. I didn’t find any shared newsweek.tumblr.com URLs through Bit.ly I didn’t find any shared newsweek.tumblr.com URLs through Bit.ly To investigate further I did a quick check for Twitter activity.

Tumblr 131

Tumblr Engagement Press Release Syndication 131

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. Tweet text formatting has improved since I wrote Make the Most of Your Retweet Buttons but I still regularly come across issues with: Missing URLs.

Publishing 215

Publishing Questions Social Media Activities 215

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Articles need to be “objective news” to lead a story cluster (op-ed, satire, press releases and subscription content are not eligible to lead clusters). Duplication and Novelty Detection – More credit is given to original sources of content. Three digit URLs are not required if you submit an XML news sitemap.

News 158

News Google Tips Press Release 158

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. The open source nature of AMP is a plus but I’m not a fan of having to create separate URLs. Syndication and Sponsored Content. App Indexing and App Store Optimization.

SEO 100

SEO Syndication Marketing NoFollow 100

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

To access Blekko’s SEO data for a domain or a specific URL click the “seo” link within Blekko’s search results: Or simply type the domain or URL into the search box followed by “/seo”: You can also access the SEO data through the Blekko toolbar. The Most Common Causes of Duplicate Content on News Media Sites.

Sites 112

Sites News Postrank SEO 112

Adam Sherk

MARCH 16, 2010

First, a quick look at how news content is currently being included in real-time search results. In its “Latest results” Google blends results from Google News and Google Blog Search with updates from Twitter and Facebook Pages, offering multiple paths in for news and content sites. Tracking data from URL shorteners like Bit.ly

Sites 143

Sites News Yahoo Engineering 143

Adam Sherk

JUNE 30, 2009

However from an SEO perspective there is a downside, as syndication creates duplicate content issues. Search engines don’t want to show users multiple versions of the same content, so when an article has been syndicated it’s likely that one version will be given prominence – and that may or may not be the original.

Syndication 111

Syndication Press Release SEO Publishing 111

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Metro will provide Foursquare with location-specific editorial content such as reviews, tips and articles on points of interest. While the most natural opportunities for publishers will be tied to current news and information, there are also some compelling things that could be done with historical content.

Foursquare 111

Foursquare Badge Press Release Syndication 111

Adam Sherk

APRIL 26, 2010

News and content sites are a natural fit for participation and Facebook is encouraging news site adoption by showcasing sites that are already experimenting with it. So I thought I’d take a look at some early examples of Facebook Open Graph integration on news sites.

News 149

News Module Widget Facebook 149

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 7, 2010

Adam is part of the Define Search Strategies consulting team, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

Press Release 101

Press Release Syndication Blogroll iPad 101

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 1, 2009

While designed to help Google News better interpret and categorize the content in the sitemaps, the tags also provide publishers with additional chances for exposure. It also has the potential to do the opposite; users may disregard non-editorial content such as press releases in greater volume now that it is easier to identify.

News 104

News Publishing Google Press Release 104

Adam Sherk

JUNE 12, 2009

Adam is part of the Define Search Strategies consulting team, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

Press Release 100

Press Release Syndication Blogroll Foursquare 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 26, 2009

Whether it is individual releases or your entire newsroom, hosting on PitchEngine means that the content is not on your site, so your domain loses the SEO benefit of the links pointing to that content. However there is also a downside. Essentially you are helping to build up PitchEngine.com’s link equity as opposed to your own.

Press Release 102

Press Release Social Media Syndication Hosting 102

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 20, 2010

Coming up with a viable metered model that still allows a wide audience to discover and interact with the content – in the ways that they prefer – is just one step on a challenging road ahead. The reality is that the industry is being radically re-invented by new technology, and there are no easy answers out there.

Press Release 126

Press Release Digg News SEO 126

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 5, 2013

A year ago a publisher that we work with decided to discontinue a large domain and migrate only a small portion of its content to a new subdomain on a different, existing domain. The day of the migration Google had 14,100,000 URLs from the discontinued domain in its index, according to a [site:domain.com] search. 4-May-12 2,600,000 63.

URL 149

URL Syndication Yahoo Report 149

Adam Sherk

MAY 17, 2010

News sites utilize Facebook Pages to increase brand visibility, promote content, interact with users and drive traffic back to their main sites. CBS News and Reuters are the only two news organizations in the group that have not created a short, customized URL for their page (e.g.

Sites 167

Sites News CPM Facebook 167

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 16, 2009

by Adam Sherk on December 16, 2009 Yesterday Google announced that it is now supporting the rel=&# canonical&# link element (sometimes referred to as the canonical URL tag) across different domains. If you’re not familiar with rel=&# canonical&# see Publishers: Solve Tracking Code, Duplicate Content Issues with the Canonical URL Tag ). (If

Syndication 103

Syndication Publishing URL Yahoo 103

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

By now Twitter is an important part of most publishers’ audience development and content promotion efforts. But in reviewing the Twitter presence of newspapers, magazines and other content sites on a regular basis I’m often surprised by the mistakes and missed opportunities that still occur.

Industry 200

Industry Social Media URL Module 200

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 16, 2013

Anyone on staff at a news or content site can attest to the importance of Google News and news search optimization. And I’d venture to say just as many people have experienced a range of technical and content issues that have impeded the indexation and performance of their news content. Article Format / Content Errors.

News 261

News Google Embedding How To 261

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 12, 2011

First content is created then the key page elements (title tag, headline, URL, image attributes, etc.) There are a variety of free search and social trend tools available and the data is useful both for keyword targeting and for discovering content opportunities. are optimized to improve keyword focus.

SEO 198

SEO Hitwise comScore Adwords 198

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

eHow and Demand Media’s reputation for creating large volumes of low quality content are well known so no need to go into that here. But a more practical topic for content publishers is when it comes to keyword targeting, how many variations is too many? It is particularly helpful for sites with a lot of evergreen content.

SEO 163

SEO Compete URL Engineering 163

Adam Sherk

MAY 1, 2012

YoY natural search referrals – this simple and straightforward metric is the #1 measuring stick for news and content sites. Branded vs. non-branded – publishers with well-established brands tend to pull in a lot of branded searches, so separating non-branded referrals is a better way to judge your overall content optimization efforts.

Metrics 164

Metrics SEO Publishing Analytics 164

Adam Sherk

APRIL 4, 2011

On news and content sites sudden, significant changes in page load time are often related to advertisements or third-party implementations. The 92 rating is actually for [link] which is the URL that the Google tool was redirected to). So which sites are now the best performers? April 2010 Change. 1 dailymail.co.uk 92 80 15.0%.

Sites 128

Sites News Google Yahoo 128

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 8, 2009

Essentially the idea is that for ongoing stories news organizations would maintain a single, consistent “living” URL that is continually updated with the latest developments. by Adam Sherk on December 8, 2009 Today Google unveiled its Living Stories prototype , showcasing its vision of a new format for presenting news stories online.

Google 112

Google Health Care Press Release News 112