Been getting a bit of anxious email over the past 24 hours about Google crawl rates going way down. I am seeing this pattern on a lot of sites I follow so my best guess at the moment is this is either a Google Webmaster Tools reporting issue or a Googlebot issue more than a problem with your site.

There’s a great discussion on Quora in response to “What is the single best piece of SEO advice?”.  I think Matt McGee nails it:

Read Quote of Matt McGee’s answer to What is the single best piece of SEO advice? on Quora

Happy Labor Day!

Lobster Searches Google For Pizza. Gets Confused.

Storified by Andrew Shotland · Tue, Aug 28 2012 13:19:38

@rakeshlobster I am the sole US Citizen that cares about the distinction. But I thought you might find it elucidating. Mike Blumenthal

Google Plus links have been showing up here and there in Google Knowledge Graph results, but I think the big G just pushed into overdrive. This morning I noticed Google Plus profiles showing up where Google Knowledge graph data has been displayed on SERPs that target brand queries, along with some new formats. Some of these have been around for a while, but I can’t remember which ones are old and which are new so I am listing everything I am seeing now. For example:

TechCrunch:

Here’s a closer look:

Of course SEOMoz rates one:

And Angies List (but not angieslist or angieslist.com):

A few observations:

1. It appears that the brand has to have a verified Google Plus account to trigger this, but not all verified brands have one yet
2. As far as I can tell it’s only showing up for “active” Google Plus accounts, providing a huge incentive for brands to get active on G+
3. For brands with exact match domains/brands, this provides a big incentive to get busy on G+ as they can push the top ads down
4. I haven’t seen any local businesses trigger this yet, but it’s only a matter of time and when it happens, this could be a big pull for more SMBs to get busy on G+

Stay tuned!

John Gruber is one of my favorite writers. His blog, Daring Fireball, just turned 10. That deserves a link with some juicy anchor text.

If you are looking for magic 8 ball answers, Gruber indeed has balls and knows his way around a dingus.  Give it a read.

From The Wall Street Journal back in June:

Google Inc. has repeatedly tried, and largely failed, to crack the market for local business advertising. As early as next month, the Internet company will try anew, as it trains its largest-ever assault on the roughly $20 billion market.

Google plans to have its newest small-business service—which at one point it was calling Business Builder—up and running as early as July, said a person familiar with the matter.

Well, that Olympics coverage has been distracting…

See Google Business Builder Approaches the SMB Wall for more outdated coverage.

Jade Wang of Google just announced that your old Google+ Business Page can now be merged with your new Google+ Local page which used to be your Google Places Page. As usual Mike Blumenthal has got the goods to help you make sense of the whole thing. Here’s Jade’s post: 

For those of you that have created local Google+ pages (with social features) — good news! Today, you can become the verified business owner for that local Google+ page.

In essence, this will combine the page you created in Google+ with the page in Google+ Local (formerly Places listing). Your business’ presence across Google Search, Google Maps, and Google+ will be unified. You’ll be able to manage this page from Google+ Pages admin. Check out the Meatball Shop for an example of a combined page, with both social features and reviews.

If you’re ready, just click on Verify now on the right side of the page. You’ll need to verify that you’re representing your business by having a postcard sent, even if you’re a verified business owner on Google Places for Business. Also note that verification will only work for pages created in the “Local Business or Place” category in Google+.

The new upgraded pages aren’t yet available for those that just have local Google+ pages with reviews. We’re working on getting the upgraded experience to all business owners. If you’re curious, go ahead and create a Google+ page in the local category.

You can ask Jade questions here.

And get Mike’s handy step by step guide here.

Our image files are all screwed up. Please stand by…

UPDATE: Fixed. Kind of.

Hard to believe it’s been over five years since I started this gig.

While on occasion I have tried to share interesting stuff on the blog, this weekend, while depositing the above check, it occurred to me that I had never used this public space to share my appreciation for the people who have made the crazy ride over the past few years possible – my clients.

I picked up my first client – LATimes.com – in fall of 2006. I was having drinks with Jason Oberfest, then LATimes.com’s head of Product. I mentioned I was working on building a technology to automate the analysis of tech SEO issues for big websites. He pulled out some pdfs of a site redesign he was in the midst of and asked if could take a look. The rest is search marketing history. So huge thanks to Jason and his team for being SEO Patient Zero (and check out Jason’s new health app start-up – Mango Health).

Over the years I have had clients of all shapes and sizes. They have been a fantastic group of collaborators and it’s a privilege to have been allowed inside so many different companies. For the most part, I think we’ve done some great work together.

People often ask – if I am such a SEO-know-it-all, why don’t I chuck the clients, do my own thing, make a ton of money spamming Google and go off and live on an island somewhere? To which, my answer invariably is something like:

1. I am doing my own thing

2. No need to spam Google to make a decent living. WWJHD?

3. Islands are nice, but the wifi usually is lousy and I can do without the mosquitoes and humidity

4. I like my clients. A lot. I like that they’re trying to make something out of nothing. I like that they are willing to put their trust in me to help them achieve their goals. I like that I can help them create and sometimes even save jobs (cue The Star Spangled Banner). Most of all, I just like working on interesting things with interesting people.

For all of the other SEOs who read this blog, I hope you agree that we are quite lucky to be in a pretty fantastic industry.

Sometimes I feel like a golf-pro at a party full of amateur golfers. I’ve never met anybody who didn’t appreciate a tip to improve their swing.

And here’s another tip. Check out Dirty Projectors’ Swing Lo Magellan.

Albums like this make me want to start a fan club…

Matt Cutts’ most recent G+ post:

and his latest Tweet:

Thing is, the whole “Hobbit-Meets-Google-Maps” thing would probably have a better chance of exposing new users to Google Plus v. the links thing.