Show archive of July 2014
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Welcome Back to SEM Synergy
July 16, 2014
Following a three-year hiatus, the SEM Synergy podcast is back with new episodes on WebmasterRadio.fm and iTunes. The show picked back up for its 148th episode. Those familiar with the show, which originally aired from 2008 to 2011, were greeted by familiar co-hosts Bruce Clay and Virginia Nussey and new co-host and Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEO manager, Mindy Weinstein.
In covering the Internet marketing industry’s latest news, conversation turned to Google’s Matt Cutts announcing a leave of absence. In his blog post announcing his break from his role as head of Google’s web spam team and main communication point for the SEO community, Matt recommended checking out Office Hours Hangouts, Google Webmasters on Google+, webmaster forums and Google’s various blogs.
Other critical news for search marketers to know is the removal of authors’ photos in Google SERPs. Google has changed how authorship markup is implemented within search results since the introduction of author rich snippets in 2012. This latest change removes both the author headshot from alongside the result and the author’s Google+ circle count, two high-powered trust signals. Bruce, Virginia and Mindy opine on Google’s reasons for the changes.
And the topic of Panda 4.0, a recent update to Google’s Panda algorithm targeting low-quality content, gets mention as it caused a significant shake up to rankings this spring.
Listen to the show on WebmasterRadio.fm here: http://www2.webmasterradio.fm/sem-synergy/2014/impact-of-google-panda-4-0-release-google-quality-rating-guide-leaked