“A Google spokesperson has said: “We are not working on any program that enables a site to pay to increase ranking in organic search results.”

We will be watching this since Bruce Clay is suppose to speak about it in March and this can be huge for local small business owners to generate more leads and sales.

It looks like Bruce and his team will be sharing an update on their blog shortly.

This should be interesting to see how many people in the mainstream join all the geeks that are on already.

Plus me up - gplus.to/tjloftus

Ever have a gut feeling something is really valuable and then your gut feeling is confirmed. Well when PostRank tweeted they just were purchased by Google that’s how we felt.

Congrats to Google and the PostRank team. PostRank has a blog post about the Google acquisition here.

Overall Yahoo and AOL are shrinking which makes sense since Google and Facebook have the most users and are where you get the best value for your online advertising dollar.

Here is the chart

I think the biggest take away from this isn’t the two things he highlights as changes from the past but rather the fact that Google, SEO, and internet marketing in general are dynamic, always changing, and nothing is ever guaranteed. The key is to stay tuned in to what is happening, the best practices, and how you can use that to help your website or your clients.

Everyone is now talking about this being payment for a Facebook IPO. Mark Zuckerberg has never indicated he wanted to go public but it’s new year so anything is possible.

If you are thinking about Facebook Advertising for your business and don’t have the time or know we would love to help. The current Cost per click rates and Cost per Impression on Facebook is ridiculously low because it is a more of a passive internet branding strategy vs. getting leads from Google. However, you never know when this can change especially since Facebook just passed Google for the most visited website.

Even though they haven’t used it before they are now giving it some value. Based on the way he answers this question my feeling is it’s not a significant ranking factor as of yet but depending on how this new social media trend over the last few years pans out it could become more significant.

Just like any other advice Matt Cutts says not to go and try to game the system now with getting more followers as just like link building it’s not always about the quantity rather the quality of the website or in this case follower. Reputation comes into play here.

Here is the video about Google using Data from Social Networking websites.

There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you’re protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products. Since our initial release, we’ve continued to invest in the core quality of the service:

• Stability: We’ve had near 100% uptime since our initial launch, and we’ve worked behind the scenes to make goo.gl even stabler and more robust.
• Security: We’ve added automatic spam detection based on the same type of filtering technology we use in Gmail.
• Speed: We’ve more than doubled our speed in just over nine months.

Check out the new Google URL Shortener at this shortened link goo.gl/8Uao using the Google URL Shortner.

I can see Google’s new SEO Starter Guide being a valueable tool for SEOs, Do it yourselfers, and Small Businesses a like.

Here are some of the comments from Google’s Webmaster Blog made about their new SEO Starter Guide and the updates they made.

Here’s what’s new:

• Glossary to define terms throughout the guide
• More example images to help you understand the content
• Ways to optimize your site for mobile devices
• Clearer wording for better readability

It is still clear if you are a small business this is a great guide to understand SEO a little better but should still have a Local SEO company help you strategically build links and execute on an SEO strategy. SEO is similar to other marketing in the sense it’s best to have the professionals do it for you on a consistent basis and isn’t a quick one time fix to get leads and new customers online. Its a long term investment that helps you become more visible with the search engines, gain credibility, and naturally be found by your current and potential customers.