Nice… To many in the SEO industry, Google is the end-all and be-all for everything related to optimizing websites. Getting on the first page results for your particular keywords on a Google search is the holy grail that all SEO’s seek on a routine basis. For their own websites, and especially those of their clients.

Interesting, Google has done an exhaustive SEO audit of over 100 Google sites, and better yet, has made the report public so that SEO professionals, as well as regular website owners and webmasters, can learn from what they found and improve their own optimization.

Google admits its SEO could use a little work | Web Crawler – CNET News.

Great article here from Kim Krause Berg, founder of the Cre8asiteForums, and Usability Consultant for UsabilityEffect.com. It echoes my thoughts and explains the “unintentional” SEO I’ve done for my website design clients since 1998.

Good SEO, with users visiting a site, staying a while, recommending it to their friends and associates, and maybe even making contact or a purchase, is greatly dependent on the information architecture of a website. Is it usable? Does it make sense?

Yes? Then you’re on the road to good SEO and a successful website. Read on… This article will become part of my arsenal for arguing for on-page SEO, design and usability improvements for my SEO clients.

Information Architecture: The Backbone Of SEO & Usability

If a business in my home town decides to give away 50 samples of a product, to advertise an upcoming trade show, or perhaps a celebration of so many years in business, and as a result of this giveaway they receive numerous social media mentions, via Twitter, Facebook, etc. – they will likely obtain a number of backlinks to their website.

Does Google view this as a “bad thing” for the site?

It all depends, apparently, on whether the business in question is just a normal run of the mill entity, or is an SEO professional or agency.

Because it clearly seems that if an SEO does this, it’s clearly viewed by Google as a “bad thing.”

Google Openly Profiles SEOs As Criminals

Excellent article here on using your website’s Sidewiki – a tool provided to users of the Google Toolbar to allow them to jot notes down for websites they visit, appears as a sidebar in the user’s browser.

You can claim your own website’s Sidewiki, there are very good detailed instructions for doing that here, and place a nice welcome message for users in this area.

How to Claim Your Website’s Google Sidewiki – Vizion Interactive, Inc..

pExcellent article here on using your website’s Sidewiki – a tool provided to users of the Google Toolbar to allow them to jot notes down for websites they visit, appears as a sidebar in the user’s browser. /p pYou can claim your own website’s Sidewiki, there are very good detailed instructions for doing that here, and place a nice welcome message for users in this area. /p pa href=”http://www.vizioninteractive.com/how-to-claim-your-websites-google-sidewiki/”How to Claim Your Website’s Google Sidewiki – Vizion Interactive, Inc./a/p

“We don’t use the keywords meta tag in our search rank.” Boom! There you have it.

Very good articles and links all about Search Engine Optimization, part of a larger resource provided by the government, with areas for managing content, usability, design and how to improve your website.

Optimization – WebContent.gov: Better websites. Better government.

It doesn’t sounds like there is much of a “Plan B” in Yahoo’s playbook. This will throw the SEO world for a loop. Everyone is trying to formulate a strategy for the Microsoft-Yahoo search “merger” – and now the possibility that it may not happen at all.

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan outlines here how Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has downplayed search in the last few months.

What’s Yahoo’s “Plan B” For Search?

Good overview of Google Caffeine, basically the next generation Google – or at least the first step in an iterative process toward it.

Caffeine will impact Google in terms of its index size, indexing speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness.

You can access Google Caffeine for testing here: http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

Bruceclay.com.au – Google Caffeine – SEO Blog

At least there is an opt-out option.

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source