Weekly SEO news: 12 February 2013
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

We have greatly improved the keyword suggestion tool in IBP. The keyword database in IBP now has 160 million keywords. That's much more than you get from competing services.

In the news: there are several changes in Google's Webmaster Tools, the PageRank display is going to go away, and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. The new keyword suggestion tool

We have greatly improved the keyword suggestion tool in IBP. The keyword database in IBP now has 160 million keywords. That's much more than you get from competing services:

  • IBP's keyword database: 160 million keywords
  • KeywordSpy: 127 million keywords
  • SEMrush: 95 million keywords

IBP now offers at least 26% more keywords than other services. The keyword suggestion tool in IBP is available for 25 different countries and regions. We've invested $18,000 in new servers to offer you this comprehensive new keyword database.

New keyword tool

How to find the best keywords for your website

There are several things that you can do to make sure that you get the best keywords for your website:

1. High volume keywords usually aren't the best keywords

If a keyword is so competitive that your website won't get on the first result page then this keyword won't work for you. If you cannot make it on page one then it doesn't make sense to use that keyword.

In addition, keywords with a high search volume are often very general keywords that do not drive targeted visitors to your site.

A targeted keyword with a low search volume will deliver more sales to your website. If you want great results, don't waste your time on high volume keywords that will deliver worthless traffic to your site. Focus on long-tail keywords that are much more likely to convert. The new keyword database in IBP will help you to find these keywords.

2. Understand what the search numbers mean

Of course, the search volume is still important to find the most popular words. It's important to know, however, that all keyword tools do not show the actual number of monthly searches. This also applies to Google's own keyword tool.

Google's keyword tool shows estimates of ad impressions, other keyword tools show the number of searches based on the sample that they can access.

Monthly search numbers can be used to judge the relative popularity of a keyword. Use them with a grain of salt. If a keyword is related to your business, you should use it on one of your web pages. A highly relevant keyword with few searches often has a higher conversion rate than a general keyword with many searches.

3. Use different keywords throughout your website

Some people put their keywords on every single page of their websites. That's not a good strategy. If all of your pages are somewhat relevant to all of your keywords, your pages won't get high rankings.

It's much better if one page is highly relevant to one keyword. Optimize different pages of your website for different keywords. Of course, the keywords should be related to your business.

For example, optimize page one for the keyword "real estate agent", page two for "real estate broker kansas", etc. The more pages of your website you optimize, the better. If your website has many pages that have been optimized for keywords about a particular topic, your whole website will become relevant to this topic and it will be easier to get high rankings for the individual keywords.

The Top 10 Optimizer in IBP will help you to optimize your web pages for your keywords.

Download IBP and test the new keyword suggestion tool now:

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2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Google Webmaster tools does not show all links to your site

"Some Webmaster Tools users have reported missing data in the 'Links to your site' section. We are aware of this issue and are looking into it; you do not need to take any action. We hope to have the normal data shown again in the near future. The data shown there is informational and does not affect your site's crawling, indexing or ranking."

Editor's note: if you want to check the backlinks of your own website and other sites, use this backlink analysis tool.



Matt CuttsVideo: Why doesn't Google turn off the PageRank feature in the Google Toolbar?

Google's Matt Cutts answers this question in a video. Although the displayed PageRank has very little value (Google even removed the public PageRank display from Google Webmaster tools four years ago), the PageRank number is still displayed Google's toolbar in MS Internet Explorer  because some searchers still use it to determine the quality of a website.

Google's own web browser Chrome does not have a PageRank display and Matt Cutts says that 'the writing is on the wall' for the PageRank numbers in toolbars.



Local search: Yelp defeats legal challenge to its user review filter

"Yelp uses an automated review filter to suppress some user reviews of businesses.  The review filter’s criteria aren’t publicly disclosed, and some businesses feel that legitimate positive reviews from happy customers are unfairly hidden."



GoogleGoogle threatens to remove listing while pitching AdWords Express

"It is very possible that this is not a template email, but rather one that was created by that particular sales rep. However, the questions this case raises are valid: Is the quality of training at Google really that bad? Is Google really having such major financial problems financial problems that they are hiring inexperienced and potentially cheaper labor force?

Is Google really having such major difficulties selling their paid products and hitting their targets that their sales representatives start using threats to pitch?"

Google Webmaster Tools removes another option

"The 'not selected' option in the index status report of Google’s Webmaster Tool is no longer available. According to Google’s John Mueller, the number of ‘not selected’ URLs was based on URLs that are either substantially similar or redirecting. Google quietly removed that feature last week."


Search engine newslets
  • ICG company Channel Intelligence to be acquired by Google.
  • According to StatCounter, Google has become the most popular search engine in South Korea.
  • Google ads in Australia weren’t misleading, court says.
  • Yahoo inks Google advertising deal.
  • Google said in talks to invest $50 million in Vevo site.
  • Google’s Schmidt to sell $2.5 billion worth of stock.
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3. Recommended resources

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