A long debate is on whether website's bounce rate is a ranking signal for SEO. The fact is, Google does have the ability to track any page's bounce rate using Google Analytics, Google Toolbar, and free Google Wifi. Using this as a universal ranking signal would be too much spying. Google also has no right to spy on internal user data of all the world's sites, even if everyone allows them. While talking about bounce rate and SEO,

I just wanted to share some of the Internet's most incredibly marketing software that can help you instantly improve your rankings, conversion rates, and revenues in a relatively short amount of time. And oh yeah, you can try each for free! 1( Ontolo - Ontolo is an extremely powerful )semi( automated link prospecting and building tool that can help your business dramatically improve its link profile in a relatively short amount of time.

Yesterday afternoon, the Official Google Blog announced two new features that will increase the transparency of search advertising as well as provide Google's users options concerning what ads display. The two new features, the "Why these ads" link and the "Ads Preferences Manager," will provide users with insight to why Google feels an ad is relevant to them and also allow users to prevent certain advertisers from targeting them in Gmail and search results.

I just finished conducting interviews for an in-house marketing position. Some of the people I interviewed had extensive backgrounds as copywriters and were looking to make career changes. I love copywriters and their penchant for huge doses of instant creativity. Unfortunately, the job security of the average copywriter can be shaky because copywriters do not have a monopoly on writing skills within a company. Good writers are found throughout an organization,

First answer, why are you attending an SEO conference? I was asked by Monica Wright, "Why do you, as a pest control guy, come to SEO conferences?" It caught me off guard for a second. How do I sum that up? What do I get out of a SEO conference? Why attend SEO conferences? Understanding why you are there will help you determine what to do at a SEO conference. For me, I attend conferences because I am a pest control guy and I don't know everything about SEO.

We have a couple of announcements to make here in the conferences department at SEJ that will make for some exciting times this fall and for next spring. First off, today BlueGlass announced that there will be a follow up to the BlueGlass TPA Conference this Spring in Los Angeles, CA " BlueGlass LA 2012 . That's right! BlueGlass is coming BACK to LA :( BlueGlass LA 2012 will be held on April 23rd & 24th,

The data in this infographic is really something we all should be concerned about. We can now talk to anyone anytime, but we need to be careful to not put our families and homes at risk. CreditSesame.com created the infographic below.

Google recently launched a new program that will allow popular businesses to add interior imagery to their Google Place page. The Business Photos program, which will provide Google users with 360 degree views of business interiors, will allow potential customers to "virtually visit" the interior of participating businesses. A Google spokesperson told BBC the following of the new program: "Building on the Google Art Project,

If you are looking for ways to monitor and measure your website performance, you're probably confused on where you should start, right ? With all of the different products out there, which ones should you use and which ones should you ignore? Over the last 6 years or so of working in the field of web analytics, and I've found the following tools to be very helpful. They run from free to very pricey, simple to complex,

It's often the case that what works for PPC works for SEO, and vice versa - at least to a degree. You'll certainly have to tweak your techniques when moving between organic and paid search efforts, but there's no reason that gains and losses in one area can't inform your decisions in the other - this goes for keyword research, landing page optimization, and, I'd argue, copywriting.

New Relic, a company that measures and manages the performance of Web applications, recently released the results of a study that examined the performance differences between mobile Safari on iOS 4 and iOS 5 on same model iPhones. The study concluded that the Safari browser loads pages three times faster on iPhones with iOS 5 than the Safari browser on iPhones with iOS 4. New Relic came to their conclusions using two testing methods.

Well, we had another great week finding links on Twitter. I also added a new category this week VS. They are two opposite opinions and I would love to know which one you agree with. Also, if you see two articles with opposing opinions let me know via Twitter and I will give you credit in the recap. VS - Should You Care How High Your Klout Score Is?

Facebook changes can be a bit confusing and their new security features could be darn confusing for some. Facebook security released this very informative infographic to break it all down for us. If you prefer to read about the features visit the Facebook Security article .

Lulea, Sweden! The town is located about 62 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It will house Facebook's first data center outside of the U.S and the purpose of this center is to improve performance for European users. Reports say Facebook chose this site because the chilly climate will help keep the servers cool even in the Summer. Huffington Post reports that Facebook will also have access to renewable energy from nearby hydropower facilities.

Sandvine announced the release of their 10th Global Internet Phenomena Report: Fall 2011 which includes new Internet trends and extensive analysis of the implications for communications service providers. I found this report very interesting because I know in my family entertainment has changed massively from watching regular TV to watching Netflix and Hulu. It appears we are not the only one. So if this trend continues, and I assume it will,

A recent SEC report revealed that Google has already acquired more companies this year than in any previous year. Although Google purchased 48 companies in 2010, the search giant has already acquired 57 companies so far this year. The report indicated that Google has spent a total of $1.4 billion in acquisitions made during the first nine months of the year.

Competition for domain names and search engine dominance in the English language web is stiff - for SEOs, climbing the search rankings with a new website can be like trying to get a job in an economy where there are 100 equally qualified applicants going for every position )which I'm sure many of you can relate to!(. The good news is, competition isn't so tough in the foreign language internet )and if you're asking right now ' what is the foreign language internet?

For anyone new to SEO who will be working on link building and content marketing projects, one of the trickiest and most important things to learn as you get started is how to evaluate a link prospect. Understanding the value of a link is a foundational element of not only link building, but also content strategy - many times when you're creating a piece of content designed to target certain types of linkers,

On Tuesday afternoon, Amazon reported third quarter earnings of only $63 million, which is considerably less than the $231 million earned in the same quarter last year. The net earnings of $63 million, which equals 14 cents per share, fell short of analysts' predictions of 24 cents per share. In addition, even though third quarter revenues grew by 44% to $10.88 billion, the company was expected to post total revenues of $10.95 billion. In the following statement,

Every month I like to go over all the changes in the PPC world . Here are all the changes thus far in the month of October. We have had a busy month with Google announcing several products and making a few changes that could impact the search engine advertising world. From adding the +1 button in all Display Network Ads, to a new system that will help advertisers get more verified calls to their website. I'll walk you through and give you the basics on everything!