Hype

Dublin Web Summit / Short-Term Thinking / Transition Rank

by Barry November 28, 2012

State of Search was given a press pass to the Dublin Web Summit – Europe’s largest technology conference – and as the Irish resident on the blogging team I got to attend. Here’s my write-up of the first day: State of Search: Dublin Web Summit The 2012 edition of the Dublin Web Summit is a [...]

Read the full article →

The ‘learn to code’ fallacy

by Barry September 18, 2012

A persistent theme that recurs every now and then in the online tech world is that ‘everyone should learn to code’. There are a slew of blog posts claiming that to be a great SEO you need to know how to code, and a recent Venturebeat article once again proclaimed programming the most vital skill [...]

Read the full article →

Reclaiming (not provided) / Author Rank Hype

by Barry April 24, 2012

For State of Search I explored a way to reclaim some of the keyword data that was lost when Google implemented SSL search. With some clever Google Analytics filters and custom reports it’s fairly easy to correlate (not provided) keywords with known keywords, and thus reclaim some of your lost metrics: State of Search: Yet [...]

Read the full article →

SEO and Social Media / Panda and Article Marketing

by Barry March 16, 2011

I wrote an article for the March 2011 issue of Business Eye magazine, that we’ve republished on the Pierce Communications website. Aimed at a layperson audience, the article is an attempt to pierce the hype surrounding social media and the proclamations of SEO’s irrelevance: Pierce Communications: SEO and Social Media – Piercing the Hype Websites [...]

Read the full article →

The Search Neutrality Debate

by Barry January 25, 2011

With the volume of content I’m generating that can be interpreted as attacks on Google, it may appear I’m on an anti-Google crusade. But I hope you’ll believe me when I say that’s really not the case. I’m just concerned about the future of the internet and the power large corporations such as Google, Microsoft [...]

Read the full article →

Guest Appearances on State of Search Radio

by Barry January 20, 2011

I was invited to join presenters Bas van den Beld and Roy Huiskes on their regular State of Search radioshow on WebmasterRadio.fm, and apparently they liked me as I was invited straight back for their next episode! In my first guest appearance we chatted about SEO in 2010 and 2011, the Goldman Sachs investment in [...]

Read the full article →

Tired of Google / Ecommerce SEO Tips

by Barry January 13, 2011

I started off my SEO blogging in 2011 with two posts published on the same day. For State of Search I wrote an opinion piece about the decline of Google’s search quality, and looked at the similarities between what’s happening now and what happened a decade ago when Google was just an upstart search engine: [...]

Read the full article →

Dangerous Blogging / Universal SERPs

by Barry November 4, 2010

Prompted by yet another hopeless ‘SEO is dead’ article I wrote a lengthy rant for Search News Central in which I try to explain that writing such blatant falsehoods is not only detrimental to your own credibility – you’re also damaging countless businesses. Search News Central: The Dangers in Proclaiming the Demise of SEO It [...]

Read the full article →

SEO is not dead

by Barry September 14, 2010

We didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes of Google’s announcement of their latest feature, Google Instant, the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that this would really mean the death of SEO. Naturally this was a total fabrication. People who understand search engines, SEO, and user behaviour, actually realised that this made SEO all [...]

Read the full article →

The Death of SEO / Image Search Optimisation

by Barry August 30, 2010

On the Fire Horse Trail I wrote an article about the impact of the continued ‘appification’ of the Internet on the SEO industry. Will there be SEO when there’s no more World Wide Web? The Fire Horse Trail: The Death of SEO The content contained within apps is invisible for search engines, and app builders [...]

Read the full article →

Is Google’s biggest threat Russian?

by Barry May 21, 2010

(This article was originally published in the Belfast Telegraph on 21 May 2010. It’s been modified slightly for this blog.) Google seems to have a global stranglehold on the internet search market. With market shares ranging from 60% to 95%, depending on what country you’re in, Google is the preferred search engine for users from [...]

Read the full article →

W3C compliance – is it a requirement?

by Barry March 11, 2010

A term often busied by web developers and also SEO agencies is W3C compliance. I’ve written about the benefits of W3C compliant code before, but my perspective has changed a bit over time and I feel it’s important to point out that full W3C compliance is not a definitive requirement for an effective website. W3C [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries