Jeremy Post: Search Marketing Geek

Matt Cutts Says “Meh” to Toolbar PageRank Updates

According to a recent Webmaster Help video from Matt Cutts, Google doesn’t really care that much about updating the publicly-facing PageRank data which populates the Google Toolbar (as well as countless SEO tools). The video resonates even more after last week’s well-publicized update of Toolbar PageRank.

According to Cutts: “Roughly 3 or 4 times a year we will export new PageRanks to the Google Toolbar,” limiting these updates to avoid webmasters and SEOs from becoming “obsessed” with these numbers. Too late on that front, but hey — at least old-school SEOs will only obsess every 3 to 6 months.

While PageRank still plays a role in Google’s SERP ranking algorithm, many claim its value is over-hyped, and its exact relationship to the recent Panda update remains unclear. Whatever the case, the PageRank debate will rage on.

Matt Cutts Is So Cold!

Looks like it’s pretty chilly on the multi-colored set of Google’s Webmaster Help video series. Can someone please get Matt Cutts a blanket?

How To Disable Google Place Search

Update: Nov 9th, 2010

The hack described below no longer works. I’ll continue to look for another way to disable Place Search, and view the old version of Google’s SERPs.

About Google Place Search

Google announced the launch of Place Search yesterday, featuring Google Places listings much more prominently in SERPs when Google interprets your search as local. While SMB owners may reap some traffic benefits, the collective groan from SEOs for vertical directory sites could probably be heard around the world. According to the official Google Blog, the Place Search feature was slated as a rolling release over the course of several days.

As an SEO at a niche directory site (Caring.com), I started using the test URL provided by Google to document before and after screenshots for various local keywords:

http://www.google.com/search?q=tampa+assisted+living+facilities&esrch=LocalMergeImpl::Experiment

Unfortunately, the new feature rolled out to my local datacenter and/or IP today, and I thought the old version of the SERPs were gone and lost forever.

Simple Hack: Disable Google Place Search

Not so. A simple modification to the original test URL still delivers the old-school SERPs. Just add &esrch=LocalMergelmpl to any Google search URL:

http://www.google.com/search?q=tampa+assisted+living+facilities&esrch=LocalMergeImpl

Google Launches Multi-Account Sign-In

Users with multiple Google Accounts rejoice! You can finally multitask across accounts in the same browser.

Lifehacker reports that Google launched a feature enabling multiple account sign-ins today. According to official Google documentation, not all account holders have access to the multi-account sign-in feature yet, but they are “working hard to enable this feature for everyone and… appreciate your patience in the meantime.”

The multiple sign-in feature does have some notable limitations:

• Users can only sign-in to a maximum of three accounts simultaneously
• When setting up multiple sign-in, the first account logged into will become the default account
• Offline Gmail and Google Calendar features are not compatible with multiple sign-in
• Multiple sign-ins will only work with: Google App Engine, Code, Calendar, Gmail, Reader, Sites, and Voice - Google Docs is not supported, but is marked as “coming soon”

Despite initial issues and limitations, I can’t wait to set this up. No more sign-out/sign-in drills or browser switching. Sweet!

Hello Word… I Love Technology

My 33rd birthday was 2 days ago, and it got me thinking about blogs and how unfulfilled my life is because I don’t have one. Tumblr, you complete me.

But seriously, I’ve been meaning to start a professional blog since I was promoted from lowly “Web Designer” to “Search Marketing Specialist” back in my agency days. That was in 2002. Needless to say, I’ve procrastinated a bit.

So here it is, after 7 years of incubation: Welcome to the Search Marketing Geek blog at JeremyPost.com. I’m Jeremy Post. (If I wasn’t, this would be a creepy site.)

Hopefully I’ll be able to share a few things about marketing, the interwebs, and technology that other folks might find interesting, hopefully entertaining, and maybe even mildly useful. Time will tell.