The search engines’ support of a new canonical link element made news last month when it was announced at SMX West. The tag allows webmasters to indicate the preferred URL of a page that has multiple URLs, saving them from the duplicate content issues that occur with tracking IDs and parameters. Bruce cautions that the tag is merely an extra measure and not a full solution. 301 redirects and other multiple URL best practices must be adhered to.


Vanessa Fox joins Virginia to explain how the canonical tag helps search engines, webmasters and users. As a former Google employee, Vanessa provided insight into what happens when the search engines collaborate on an initiative. She also shares news of an upcoming conference, O’Reilly Found, she is organizing with Nathan Buggia that is geared to educating developers on the technical issues related to SEO.

Finally, Bradley talks about his concerns with the canonical tag. While it can be a great tool for sites that are unable to create redirects on large sites, the tag should only be relied upon when all other alternatives have been exhausted. Similar to Matt Cutts suggestion at SMX West, Bradley recommends that mom-and-pop shops and the less-technical webmasters not try to edit their code themselves in order to avoid causing greater problems on their site.

At PubCon last month, Bruce was interviewed by Mike McDonald of WebProNews. The topics Bruce talked about covered the importance of personalization, the devaluation of ranking as the prime metric for SEO, and the role of engagement objects on rankings going forward. There were a lot of people talking about Bruce’s comments, so Bruce, Susan and Virginia address the interview subjects on the show.

Then Virginia talks to Matt Inman, a Web designer and marketer who specializes in creating engaging Web content. Matt gives listeners a window into his work process for developing ideas, illustrations and quizzes. He says that quizzes are the most requested form of content that clients ask him for. He also explains how he gets his projects buzz on social media platforms like Twitter and Digg, as well as his strategy of giving designs away for free.

Susan, Michael, Maryann and Virginia then talk about engagement objects and how they play into people’s desire to see visual and interactive content. Images in search results have been found to draw more attention, and having images, videos and other non-text content on a site will improve the chances of showing up in blended search. Also, videos, games and widgets, which give users something to do on your site, may attract users to come back. Content is king, and content is more than just text.

Google has released its open-source browser, Chrome, to public beta. The quick and streamlined browser got a lot of attention and also raised concerns about privacy and search engine bias. Bruce and Susan take a look at how browsers’ default settings and history storing can impact searcher behavior and affect marketers’ SEO efforts.

Then Virginia talks to Vanessa Fox, best known for her role in developing Google Webmaster Central and expanding the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Vanessa is also author of the blog Vanessa Fox. Nude. and is part of the team behind Jane and Robot. At Jane and Robot, Vanessa writes about the intersection of Web developer issues and SEO. She talks to Virginia about what developers need to remember about Google’s new Flash crawling ability, as well as her thoughts about redirecting the black hat/white hat debate. She also explains what she’s doing to help coordinate developer sessions at SMX East.

Susan and Virginia then discuss the various search engines’ webmaster guidelines in more detail. Along with the search engines’ published guidelines, search engine official blogs, forums and conference coverage also provide excellent sources which clarify and provide further explanation of the intentions and recommendations. Another helpful resource is Feed the Bot, for its straightforward break-down of Google’s guidelines, complete with definitions and examples that shed light on any jargon.

The Robots Exclusion Protocol is a powerful tool in any SEO’s artillery, offering a number of methods to control how a bot crawls and indexes a site. Bruce, Robert and Susan look at Vanessa Fox’s article Managing Robot’s Access To Your Website for an in-depth understanding of the various commands available for robot management.

Virginia then speaks with Jonathan Dingman, author of Google Inside, for a look at recent developments of Google and, another of Jonathan’s topics of interest, WordPress. Jonathan is organizing WordCamp New York, to be held in October, for everyone interested in learning more about how to harness the power of WordPress.

Robert and Virginia finish up the show with a look at ways for marketers to differentiate their agency from others. In the competitive field of search marketing, concentrating on specific verticals, offering special technologies, focusing on a geographic region, or providing top-quality service can set you apart from your competition.

Our hosts start the show by talking about a few of the recent search headlines. Virginia, Robert and Bruce look to Matt Cutts’s post on Improved SEO Documentation Galore! to see what definitions and guidelines Google has updated, including robots.txt and nofollow documentation, along with further-clarified quality guidelines and the definition of a doorway page. They also talk about the recently passed Unfair Commercial Practices Directive in the UK and the fact that Google search results no longer offer the “watch video” feature.

Then Bruce interviews one of the newest members of Bruce Clay, Inc., Chris Hart, Director, Eastern Region Operations. Chris will be heading the newly opened East Coast office of Bruce Clay, Inc. in New York City and has 12 years of experience in the online publishing industry. The new office will help expand the offerings of high-quality SEO and SEM services by providing increased availability to clients across the country.

And finally, although a basic tenant of SEO 101, it’s not uncommon to see a site map missing from a Web site. The hosts discuss what a site map is, why it should be implemented, and tips for creating a site map. Along with improving users’ navigation of a site, site maps are also used by search engines to ensure more-complete crawling and indexing of a site. Including an XML Sitemap, intended only for search engines, is also recommended.