Hello and welcom back to ‘7 Days of Search and Social‘. Obviously the (big?) news last week was Google’s supposed ‘thin content’ algorithm changes. But fear not, we won’t hang on that too long because there was a ton of great stuff across the board. It’s some heavy lifting this week folks, so start warming up.

And away…..

Lead Story

Google acts on content attribution

On Friday it seems that Google made an announcement about some algorithm changes they recently made (beginning of last week apparently). Is that news? Well, it shouldn’t be since they make for 3-400 per year, but it is.

As the story goes, it seems what they’re doing is tightening up how they deal with attribution and duplicate content on the web (specifically aimed at scrapers?). This is something I was actually writing about last summer with; How Content Syndication Can Backfire

The post on Matt’s blog;Google Algorithm Change
Latest Google Algorithm change (my own take on it)

Now, there are those that seem to think this was aimed at thin content sites such as Mahalo and Demand Media properties. I for one am not convinced this will completely solve that problem. Time will tell.

On the flip side, there are some that were affected by this negatively and positively as is usually the case with these things. How might a legitimate site be negatively affected by nuking scrapers? Not really sure unless they’ve also dampened the links being passed form scrapers. I do know some folks that have benefited, so strong SEO should keep you safe (if you are having problems, please get in touch I may be able to help)

And on with the news!

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Going Vertical – Videos – Tools – Patents –

Talk of the Town

Link Building 2011; what works and what doesn’t – this uber-awesome post had some of the brightest minds in link building talking about 4 tactics and what does and doesn’t work in 2011. Great stuff and a deffo must read for all.

Google’s Thoughts On Link Building Through Comment Spamming – Barry highlights an interesting thread on comment links (via Google) which includes, “Links that use the rel=nofollow microformat do not pass PageRank and are not used in our ranking algorithms.” – nuff said.

Is This Proof Directory Submission Still Works? – I am not entirely sure this PROVEs it, but it was still some interesting data from Shaun. Personally, strong domains, be they directories or other, still should be some value to them.

Paid Links V Content Programs
– and while we’re on the ‘links’ theme, I posted over on SEJ about some considerations when talking about the paid variety. A discussion that wasn’t really being had around the debate.

Google May Let You Blacklist Domains To Fight Spam – was another interesting footnote from Google which seems to imply that they may be looking at explicit feedback signals again (where users participate in the results). Will anything come of it? Hard to say, but given the interest in better results lately, entirely possible.

Finding potential link partners – Jennifer was over on SEW talking about link prospecting, she’s on a roll with links this week it seems. Are you down with the OPL?

Submitting To Article Aggregators Now Wasted Link Building? – also on SEW was a post that looked at the value behind article marketing these days. Personally, as far as I know, they are still working to some degree, will Google’s new move change that? We shall see.

Starting A New SEO Business In 2011? – not sure if you’ll want to laugh or cry, I was laughing my ass off personally. Great stuff Peter and thanks for the memories. For the record? I am the ass kicking consultant type that posts on forums.. (my own hehe).

Google’s Own Content Farm: Google Translate Spam – hee hee… Given the recent emphasis from Google on thin content, this whoops moment was kinda funny. And no, I don’t really think it counts, but Google sniping is a popular activity of late.

How To Build Agile SEO Tools Using Google Spreadsheets – what can one sasy about this? FREAKIN AMAZING. That’s what. I promoted this one from the ‘tools’ section as it was just WAY to awesome to be left down there. Go… Read… NOW.

10 Metrics to Check When Your Traffic Crashes – speaking of winners and losers from the recent algo changes, if you at any time ever experience some traffic crashes, this post has some good advice for areas to look at. These guys are on a roll lately. Keep up the good work.

Search Geeks Speak; Local SEO Panel – last week on the podcast we had a GREAT panel discussion on local SEO featuring Mike Blumenthal, Andrew Shotland and Darren Shaw. Some REALLY great stuff in there – give it a listen while you work!