Facebook’s status update: broadband bets, chattier bots stricter security

 LISBON— Rural broadband, Messenger bots and security improvements were the order of the day as several Facebook’s executives took the stage at the annual Web Summit technology conference here this week. The representatives talked about to everything from satellite-based web access for poorer countries to why you shouldn’t use the same password for all of your apps. And naturally, it was all streamed on Facebook Live for the world to see.

Bringing broadband to the world

Facebook’s chief technical officer Mike Schroepfer opened Web Summit Tuesday morning with a keynote explaining the company’s agenda for the next 10 years. Expanding Internet access to the 4.1 billion people worldwide without it is a huge part of that mission, and Facebook has projects afoot for rural, suburban and urban areas.

In the farthest reaches, Facebook is betting on satellite access — an effort set back bySeptember’s launchpad explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the AMOS-6 satellite that was set to provide Facebook Internet access across Africa. Schroepfer played a video of that explosion, saying “You don’t make big bets unless you have huge failures.”

Things are going better with Facebook’s solar-powered Aquila drone, a major subject ofSchroepfer’s talk at last year’s Web Summit in Dublin. The propeller-driven aircraft, with the wingspan of a Boeing (BA) 737, flew for the first time in July. “A constellation of these will eventually provide the Internet backbone we need over suburban areas,” Schroepfer predicted.

In cities, Facebook is testing two systems, Terragraph and ARIES, that will provide Internet access over unlicensed wireless spectrum. That has the promise to inject some competition in a market currently dominated by cable Internet.

Schroepfer also touted Facebook’s efforts in teaching computers to recognize photos and making virtual reality a tool to connect with far-flung friends. He called social VR “the technology that’s going to enable these deep social connections over long distances.”

Banter about bots

Facebook executive VP of messaging products David Marcus also spoke at the event on Tuesday. He’s the guy behind Facebook’s launch of Messenger bots, the software-driven chat partners that even he admitted has gotten a little oversold.

“You’re right that there was a lot of hype,” Marcus said. “It’s never as good as it’s portrayed and it’s never as bad as it’s portrayed.”

He said the key to what he called “a much more complex and refined experience” than the traditional chat-bot environment of typing plain text and getting scripted replies: leveraging the same artificial intelligence that goes into the machine-vision efforts Schroepfer talked about.

Marcus made a case for bots as a new way for companies to connect with mobile users — they provide more features than many mobile sites allow, but don’t require installing a company’s app, the usual way to get around the mobile web’s limits.

The latest version of the Messenger platform, which launched on Tuesday, brings one new feature for bots: A News Feed ad can link you directly to the advertiser’s bot. But you have to click or tap that link, so Messenger spam will continue to be reserved for humans.  

Security for distracted people

On Wednesday Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos spoke about security issues in an always-connected world. Before joining Facebook last year, Stamos was the chief information security officer for Yahoo Finance’s parent firm (YHOO).

“If we’re going to connect the world, it’s also our responsibility to connect the world safely,” Stamos led off. He used the word “safely,” not “securely,” because the concept of “security” assumes the user will follow instructions all the time; “safety” also requires minimizing the damage when they don’t.

Like, for example, when they reuse passwords, what Stamos called “the number-one source of harm on the Internet.”

He endorsed using Login Approvals, where you confirm unusual logins with a code sent to your phone, and Trusted Contacts, in which designated close friends can also send you one-time codes that get you back into your account if somebody takes it over.

But what about the users who don’t bother? “We cannot say, oh, you didn’t use Login Approvals, you didn’t use Trusted Contacts, what you did is not our problem,” Stamos said. Instead, it subjects each login to the kind of scrutiny a credit-card issuer uses to detect fraud.

“We take about 80 data points from your browsing session and we feed it into a machine learning algorithm,” he said. In a moment, that math yields an answer: Is this login the real person or an attacker?

Facebook also can’t count on smartphone vendors to do the right thing. Stamos showed a picture of a popular Android phone that sells for about $65 in Nigeria and runs an obsolete version of Android, saying  “that phone will probably never be patched.”

To counter that, Facebook’s app ships with its own open-source cryptography code instead of relying on the software built into Android. “We try to build self-defending apps, Stamos said.”

(Disclosure: I moderated four panels at the conference, in return for which the organizers are covering most of my travel costs.)

Pogue's Basics: How to measure distance in Google Maps

The other day, I was testing a fitness band. I wanted to see if the band’s reporting of my distance matched the actual distance. But how could I find out the actual distance?

I wished there were some way to draw on Google Maps in a Web browser and have it tally up the distance. As it turns out, there is.

Right-click the starting point (on the Mac, control-click, or two-finger click on the Trackpad).

From the shortcut menu, choose Measure Distance.

Now, every time you click the mouse on the map, you create another line segment — and Google tallies up the distance for you automatically. Handy!

To start over or finish measuring, right-click again. This time, choose Clear Distance.

Facebook rolls out new tool to simplify account security

Facebook announced the overall availability of its Security Checkup feature, which it has been testing on a limited userbase for a few months. This new feature has started rolling out today, and in the coming weeks it is expected to show up at the top of news feeds for all of its desktop-based users. The tool will be displayed as a notification that says "Stay Secure on Facebook" and users can either dismiss it or activate it to take advantage of a quick security inspection. The Security Checkup tool doesn't include any new, ground-breaking features, but simply repackages the settings and options from the classic Settings -> Security page into a more user appealing popup. Here three main sections prompt the user to log out any unused apps or computers, turn on login alerts for unauthorized devices or browsers, and also quickly change the account's password. The whole process has been designed to be very friendly to non-technical users, includes lots of images and clear controls, and will introduce newer users to the security controls from the settings panel, a place where very few members venture on a regular basis. If you'd like to trigger a Security Checkup right away and you're not seeing the warning popup, this can be done from a special page in the Facebook Help section. Mobile users don't worry, Facebook hasn't forgotten you, especially after yesterday's 2015 Q2 results, and will be launching Security Checkup with its mobile apps pretty soon as well.  CHECK OUT THE GALLERY (5 Images)

How to speed up windows 10 upgrade

Windows 10 is offered free of charge to those running Windows 7 or 8.1 if they perform a direct upgrade to the new operating system, but in some cases, this upgrade process takes more than expect and appears to hang. According to Microsoft, it could take longer to download and install Windows 10 on some computers, depending on their configuration, and the company says that sometimes, about 24 hours could be needed to successfully deploy the operating system. While that's certainly a lot to complete an OS upgrade process, Microsoft says that you should keep an eye on your hard drive, and if it still flashes, “there's a good chance it is still making process.” And yet, there are some moments when you might be tempted to believe that the upgrade process has stopped: · At the black screen with a blue circle at the 30-39% range, while Windows is downloading all dynamic updates for Windows 10 · Again at 96%, when Windows is busy backing up your data · And at the message “It's taking a bit longer than usual to set up your device, but it should be ready soon” Quick tips First and foremost, you should make sure that your computer is fully compatible with Windows 10. Microsoft explains that on old hardware, it takes more to download and install Windows 10, while on new computers, about 20 minutes should be enough. If the upgrade takes more than expected on compatible hardware, disconnect any USB devices that you don't need (this doesn't include mice and keyboards because you'll need them, but you could try disconnecting them too until an input method is required). Also, try disconnecting extended display cables, as Microsoft explains that “this has been seen to speed up the download process significantly.” If the upgrade takes more than 24 hours, you are strongly recommended to contact Microsoft support and tell them the CPU make and model, your country, install percentage and other details. Setup logs might be needed, especially if you're no longer able to get to the desktop.

A Good Man Is Hard To find

A Good Man Is Hard To Find The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. “Now look here, Bailey,” she said, “see here, read this,” and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. “Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn’t answer to my conscience if I did.” Bailey didn’t look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children’s mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit’s ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. “The children have been to Florida before,” the old lady said. “You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee.” The children’s mother didn’t seem to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, “If you don’t want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?” He and the little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor. “She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day,” June Star said without raising her yellow head. “Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?” the grandmother asked. “I’d smack his face,” John Wesley said. “She wouldn’t stay at home for a million bucks,” June Star said. “Afraid she’d miss something. She has to go everywhere we go.” “All right, Miss,” the grandmother said. “Just re- member that the next time you want me to curl your hair.” June Star said her hair was naturally curly. The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the head of a hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn’t intend for the cat to be left alone in the house for three days because he would miss her too much and she was afraid he might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son, Bailey, didn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat. She sat in the middle of the back seat with John Wesley and June Star on either side of her. Bailey and the children’s mother and the baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with the mileage on the car at 55890. The grandmother wrote this down because she thought it would be interesting to say how many miles they had been when they got back. It took them twenty minutes to reach the outskirts of the city. The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window. The children’s mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady. She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite that in some places came up to both sides of the highway; the brilliant red clay banks slightly streaked with purple; and the various crops that made rows of green lace-work on the ground. The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled. The children were reading comic magazines and their mother and gone back to sleep. “Let’s go through Georgia fast so we won’t have to look at it much,” John Wesley said. “If I were a little boy,” said the grandmother, “I wouldn’t talk about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains and Georgia has the hills.” “Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground,” John Wesley said, “and Georgia is a lousy state too.” “You said it,” June Star said. “In my time,” said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!” she said and pointed to a Negro child standing in the door of a shack. “Wouldn’t that make a picture, now?” she asked and they all turned and looked at the little Negro out of the back window. He waved “He didn’t have any britches on,” June Star said. “He probably didn’t have any,” the grandmother explained. “Little riggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I could paint, I’d paint that picture,” she said. The children exchanged comic books. The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the children’s mother passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her knee and bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leathery thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or fix graves fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. “Look at the graveyard!” the grandmother said, pointing it out. “That was the old family burying ground. That belonged to the plantation.” “Where’s the plantation?” John Wesley asked. “Gone With the Wind” said the grandmother. “Ha. Ha.” When the children finished all the comic books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley took one the shape of a cow and June Star guessed a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn’t play fair, and they began to slap each other over the grandmother. The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would keep quiet. When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic. She said once when she was a maiden lady she had been courted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Saturday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there was nobody at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, because a nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T. ! This story tickled John Wesley’s funny bone and he giggled and giggled but June Star didn’t think it was any good. She said she wouldn’t marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandmother said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because he was a gentle man and had bought Coca- Cola stock when it first came out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man. They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sand- wiches. The Tower was a part stucco and part wood filling station and dance hall set in a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building and for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMMY’S FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY’S! RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY LAUGH. A VETERAN! RED SAMMY’S YOUR MAN! Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high, chained to a small chinaberry tree, chattered nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon as he saw the children jump out of the car and run toward him. Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one end and tables at the other and dancing space in the middle. They all sat down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sam’s wife, a tall burnt-brown woman with hair and eyes lighter than her skin, came and took their order. The children’s mother put a dime in the machine and played “The Tennessee Waltz,” and the grandmother said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didn’t have a naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother’s brown eyes were very bright. She swayed her head from side to side and pretended she was dancing in her chair. June Star said play something she could tap to so the children’s mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine. “Ain’t she cute?” Red Sam’s wife said, leaning over the counter. “Would you like to come be my little girl?” “No I certainly wouldn’t,” June Star said. “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!” and she ran back to the table. “Ain’t she cute?” the woman repeated, stretching her mouth politely. “Arn’t you ashamed?” hissed the grandmother. Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people’s order. His khaki trousers reached just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at a table nearby and let out a combination sigh and yodel. “You can’t win,” he said. “You can’t win,” and he wiped his sweating red face off with a gray handkerchief. “These days you don’t know who to trust,” he said. “Ain’t that the truth?” “People are certainly not nice like they used to be,” said the grandmother. “Two fellers come in here last week,” Red Sammy said, “driving a Chrysler. It was a old beat-up car but it was a good one and these boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and you know I let them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why did I do that?” “Because you’re a good man!” the grandmother said at once. “Yes’m, I suppose so,” Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer. His wife brought the orders, carrying the five plates all at once without a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm. “It isn’t a soul in this green world of God’s that you can trust,” she said. “And I don’t count nobody out of that, not nobody,” she repeated, looking at Red Sammy. “Did you read about that criminal, The Misfit, that’s escaped?” asked the grandmother. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he didn’t attack this place right here,” said the woman. “If he hears about it being here, I wouldn’t be none surprised to see him. If he hears it’s two cent in the cash register, I wouldn’t be a tall surprised if he . . .” “That’ll do,” Red Sam said. “Go bring these people their Co’-Colas,” and the woman went off to get the rest of the order. “A good man is hard to find,” Red Sammy said. “Everything is getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave your screen door unlatched. Not no more.” He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way things were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it, she was exactly right. The children ran outside into the white sunlight and looked at the monkey in the lacy chinaberry tree. He was busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one carefully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy. They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring. Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front and that there was an avenue of oaks leading up to it and two little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sat down with your suitor after a stroll in the garden. She recalled exactly which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but the more she talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and find out if the little twin arbors were still standing. “There was a secret:-panel in this house,” she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, “and the story went that all the family silver was hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found . . .” “Hey!” John Wesley said. “Let’s go see it! We’ll find it! We’ll poke all the woodwork and find it! Who lives there? Where do you turn off at? Hey Pop, can’t we turn off there?” “We never have seen a house with a secret panel!” June Star shrieked. “Let’s go to the house with the secret panel! Hey Pop, can’t we go see the house with the secret panel!” “It’s not far from here, I know,” the grandmother said. “It wouldn’t take over twenty minutes.” Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw was as rigid as a horseshoe. “No,” he said. The children began to yell and scream that they wanted to see the house with the secret panel. John Wesley kicked the back of the front seat and June Star hung over her mother’s shoulder and whined desperately into her ear that they never had any fun even on their vacation, that they could never do what THEY wanted to do. The baby began to scream and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat so hard that his father could feel the blows in his kidney. “All right!” he shouted and drew the car to a stop at the side of the road. “Will you all shut up? Will you all just shut up for one second? If you don’t shut up, we won’t go anywhere.” “It would be very educational for them,” the grandmother murmured. “All right,” Bailey said, “but get this: this is the only time we’re going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and only time.” “The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile back,” the grandmother directed. “I marked it when we passed.” “A dirt road,” Bailey groaned. After they had turned around and were headed toward the dirt road, full story @ ultraw3b.wordpress.com

Google Rewrites Quality Rating Guide – What SEOs Need to Know

Google has completely rewritten the Quality Ratings Guideline, the resource that their team of quality raters uses to rate websites for Google. This one is a brand new version, rewritten from the ground up, so it isn’t just a refresh of the old one (and most doesn’t even resemble any of the old Guidelines that SEOs scrutinized in detail whenever one got leaked). It has some great new insights into how Google is approaching the search results and what it takes to be a top ranked website. The new version 5 is just three months old, and shows how Google is placing much more emphasis on their knowledge graph style results that seem to be taking over the Google search results, as well as reputation, authority, and of course, the case of advertisements on a page. Google is now putting a high emphasis on sites that are considered to have a high level of expertise, authoritativeness or trustworthiness. This is something that Google has been working on in their algorithms for some time, and shouldn’t be much of a surprise for webmasters to see this. Lacking in E-A-T Google’s brand new emphasis in the new Quality Rater’s Handbook is the idea of E-A-T, which is a website’s “expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness”. Likewise, Google is stressing that sites that lack expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness should be awarded the Low rating when a page or site is being assigned a rating by one of their quality raters. And more importantly, Google says that lacking a certain amount of E-A-T is enough of a reason for a rater to give any page a low quality rating. This means that webmasters will need to do what they can to ensure their sites pass the newly minted E-A-T test. Google also warns the quality raters about sites with user contributed content, such as forums or other sites that allow users to submit articles or information. They urge caution because pages on the sites may not be trustworthy and many lack appropriate amount of E-A-T. That said, there are some types of user generated content that have an extremely high level of expertise, such as forums that are frequented by experts on specific topics, and Google asks the raters to try engage the experience and expertise of those authors to try and determine if a page should be considered trustworthy or not. What makes an expert? As part of their new E-A-T, Google does stress to raters that there are many kinds of experts, all dependent on the topic area. Not every subject area has a way to qualify expertise. It is easier to determine a medical expert than an expert for a hobby site. Raters are also supposed to consider everyday expertise, even in “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) areas – something that the last publicly available version of the guidelines stressed. Specifically, support forums are an excellent resource for specific diseases, since they have input from those who are suffering from the disease. Those contributors might not be physicians, but their life and everyday experiences with the disease make them an expert on sharing those personal experiences. That said, for specific medical advice, it should still come from doctors or health professionals. For SEOs, this is going to be crucial that you establish your writers as authorities or experts in your field. You want people to trust your site – not to mention Google is clearly emphasizing the role of authority and expertise in websites already, so going the next step further definitely isn’t surprising in the least. Knowledge Graphs A significantly higher portion of the guidelines covers Knowledge Graphs, and shows that they are having their raters spend quite a bit of time rating just the knowledge graphs alone, showing Google plans to continue their march on the search results real estate percent. Previous versions talked about Title Link Result Blocks (TLRB) and No Title Link Result Blocks (NTRB) as the way Google differentiates between two distinct styles of knowledge graphs the company uses. The first, TLRB, displays a clickable headline at the top of the area, while NTRB blocks do not. Vital versus non-Vital Knowledge Graphs Google also asks raters to specify a Vital rating for TLRB which give all the needed information for the query on the TLRB’s landing page. This hints even more that Google is putting a lot of resources into knowledge graphing up the web and it’s here to stay (much to the delight of searchers but not so much webmasters). Many Ads = Low Quality While the page layout algo has be attempting to reduce the prominence in the search results of pages that are heavy on advertising, the previous versions of the quality raters guide didn’t place much emphasis on advertising on a website unless it was deceptive or spammy. Now, the new guidelines definitely want raters to look at advertising on the page to determine if there is an overabundance of it. Google specifically mentions layouts that are all advertising at the top, and requires scrolling to see the content – to the point where people could initially believe that there is no content on the page at all. The same for advertising designed to look like navigation links or secondary content. However, this also is completely opposite from what AdSense likes their publishers to do – not perhaps to the extreme where you need to scroll to see content, but they are constantly reminding publishers that they can add additional ad units or replace smaller ad units with larger ones. They also state that pages should get the Lowest rating if the rater feels the design tries to manipulate the user to click the ads, inline ads or download links. Supplementary Content While previously the quality rater’s guide focused on the main content of the page, with only a brief mention of supplementary content, now there is a new emphasis on not only supplementary content, but types of supplementary content as well. Gone are the days where you can have a high quality page with just navigation for the supplementary content. ( Added: Read more in our Supplementary Content Analysis: All About Supplementary Content in the Google Quality Rater’s Guidelines) While most people consider secondary content to be strictly navigation and perhaps the footer, Google now wants raters to look at other types of secondary content, with a particular emphasis on content that suggests related content on a site. The quality of that content is of higher importance now. Previously, Google only specifically mentioned supplementary content in two ways – additional suggested videos on a page about a Saturday Night Live episode, as well as what many would consider important features of a recipe site – printable features, reviews and nutritional information. Now, Google wants to see a wide variety of supplementary content on a page, and are putting a greater emphasis on it as being an important and integral part of a page that is worthy of a High or Very High rating. Now, Google considers valuable supplementary content to include not only those things but also showing similar makes or models of an item on a shopping website, ability to multiply or divide a recipe, Google also wants supplementary content to have a higher emphasis for those pages that could be considered High or Highest quality. Google’s rule of thumb for quality raters on determining what is secondary content: anything on a page that isn’t the main content or advertisements. They consider it important to the overall user experience. Google does caveat that some times of webpages lack secondary content but aren’t necessarily low quality – such as community or local sites. Likewise with PDFs or images, secondary content isn’t needed in those cases either. Bottom line, if you don’t have useful secondary content on your website currently, you should begin working on that as soon as possible, because this is clearly where Google wants to head. Bad Supplementary Content Google has been stressing the use of deceptive ad placements and pages that are very ad heavy as being subject to the page layout algo. Now Google considers any site or page with bad supplementary content as being worthy of a Low rating. Primarily, they are warning about deceptive ad placement where users can accidentally click on an ad or are lured to click an ad, believing it to be content on the site and not an advertisement. They also specifically mention advertisements placed under headers such as “Top Posts”, which has been against the Google AdSense terms for quite some time, but which we still see used with AdSense and other ad networks. Essentially, if the secondary content is unhelpful or distracting, that’s a Low quality rating. Poor Page Design Google mentions the many typical things that advertisers trying to squeeze every last penny out of a webpage do, such as popups, large quantity of ads with only minor content and text ads in navigation. Google is also calling out a specific advertising tactic that many, many websites use – and that is inserting advertisements a few times in the middle of the main content, breaking it up with main content – ad – main content – ad – main content. This is used on many newspaper and magazine sites – and if this gets factored into the algorithm, you can be sure newspapers will complain about it (or paywall instead). If you are using ads within content – it is probably a good idea to consider restricting it to one, as Google sees it as jarring when a user has to go back and forth between content and ads too many times. And those fancy links in navigation that are really ads? Webmasters should probably start rethinking those too. Shopping Google had some pretty specific list of features that rater’s should use to determine if a site is a true merchant site or not – something that had some companies concerned if they did not offer it. For example, many merchants that are legitimate might not offer a wish list feature, a gift registry or a user forum, but some SEOs were pressuring that it was “needed” simply because the quality rater’s guide included it on a list of features for true merchant websites. In the new handbook, this has been removed. Instead, Google asks raters to look for pages such as contact information, return and exchange policies. This does bring it more inline with what many smaller merchants offer, who either don’t have the budget, technical know-how, or even the need for some of the features Google listed previously. Rating forums and Q&A Google wants raters to determine not only the expertise of the site itself, but also who are participating in the particular thread that is being rated. Also considered are whether new threads being added, if many people participating and whether the conversations are in-depth? While many of us think of Q&A sites as low quality with crappy content, there are some gems out there, so Google does warn not to assume all Q&A sites are low quality. Q&A Without the Answer We have all ended up on a Q&A page only to discover there is no answer posted yet, even for questions asked years ago, or the answer is hidden behind a paywall. Google considers pages of this type without the answer given are Low quality. They did mention this previously in the older version of the guidelines, but they removed the part stating that unhelpful answers should be given a Low quality rating – hopefully they removed it because it is common sense that an unhelpful answer is bad. Inline Advertising Are you one of the few people who are still using inline advertising? Well, its days could be numbered, as Google considers this distracting and can make the main content on the page difficult to read, which equals a poor user experience. Inline advertising, those double underlined links that pop up an ad when you mouseover the link, has definitely lost popularity over the years, and it isn’t that common to see it anymore, except on spammy pages. Affiliates Curiously, reference to “thin” affiliate sites has been removed from the new guide. Previously Google warned about thin affiliate sites not being a high quality site, and how raters could determine if a site was an affiliate site or not. Is Google confident in how they are currently ranking affiliate sites and not letting “thin” affiliate sites rank well? That doesn’t seem to be the case, particularly in some competitive spaces. Panda did make a considerable dent in the affiliate rankings, at least for those run by less savvy SEOs. But the fact they removed the warning altogether raises the question that Google feels spam affiliate sites are a thing of the past and don’t rank today anyways, that poor quality sites would get a low rating regardless, or that they are happy for affiliate sites to rank, as long as they have some of the other criteria needed for an above average rated website. Reputation Research Website reputation has been given a boost in the new version of the guide, and it is clear that Google is putting a greater emphasis on reputation than they did before. Of course, webmasters have to consider that reputation is going to be given a boost in the search algorithm too, since Google is clearly wanting their rater’s to take this into a fairly significant account for rating any website. Although Google has previously said that rater’s themselves do not affect search results, we often see changed within the guide that has a greater impact. Google does include a caveat that small, local businesses or community organizations might not have any online reputation because their web presence is relatively small compared to word of mouth. But Google now expects to find reputation information for any large business or organization. Most importantly, Google stresses that a webpage cannot be given a High rating if the site has a negative reputation. They are also asking raters to give the lowest rating to any page where there is sufficient evidence of fraudulent or malicious behavior on behalf of the website. With a greater emphasis on reputation for quality ratings, it could be a sign that reputation from credible sources could be someone added to the algorithm, or we might see a new penalty specifically targeting sites with negative reputations (Hello Puffin update?) Where’s the Spam? Another curious omission is the fact all reference to spam has been removed from the new guide. Previously there were sections describing spam and how to check for it, but in the new guide, the only reference to spam is in regards to sites with a large amount of spam comments or forums that have been spammed. Where’s the Cloaking? There was previously an entire detailed section explaining what cloaking is and how raters can identify whether a site is cloaking or not. But this has also been removed from the new guide. Distracting Content Yet another item removed from the examples of low quality content is the reference to “other distracting content”. The only reason for this removal is that Google considers other types of distracting content to more clearly be considered secondary content, which is pretty specific about pages needing to be rated lower when the rater is presented with distracting content – particularly when dealing with advertising as secondary content. Low Quality Pages Now Never Acceptable Previously, the guide stated “Low quality pages may only be acceptable to users if there are no other higher quality pages.” This has now been removed. Does Google believe there is always a higher quality page for every low quality page out there? Possibly, with the rate the web is still growing. But clearly, they don’t want higher ratings being given, which could confuse engineers basing algorithms on raters and pages, simply because there isn’t a better quality alternative out there. Lack of Purpose Google now refers to all gibberish and auto generated pages as pages that have lack of purpose and should always be rated Lowest. Hidden text Google previously asked raters to investigate any white spaces at the right or bottom of the webpage if it seemed to be there for no reason as well as using Ctrl-A, turning off CSS and turning off javascript to identify hidden text. But they are no longer asking raters to check for this anymore… again possibly because Google feels they can usually catch this algorithmically now. About Us and Contact info Previously, Google stressed that pages in YMYL areas need to have a page about the site (“About Us”), contact or customer service information, and who is responsible for the upkeep and content of the website. Now, Google wants raters to look for at least some of this information on all websites. If you have a website that is strictly information and didn’t really have a need for these types of pages, now would be a good time to go back and add those pages. They do say that some non-YMYL pages can still garner a High or Highest rating with a simple email address, it is a good sign that Google is looking to put a greater emphasis on this as a sign of a high quality website in the algo. Hat tip to SEOs A new mention in the latest guide is a mention that webmasters read these guidelines and include information specifically to influence quality raters. It was mentioned specifically in the section regarding a website’s reputation. More followup http://www.ultraw3b.wordpress.com

5 ways to create content that google wants to rank.

You might not want to hear this… …but the fact is that your content may not deserve to rank #1 in search engines. Only one piece of content can rank first for each search query—that’s a fact. Google (and other search engines) work hard to make sure that the first result is truly the best content for that keyword. According to recent Google patents, we know that Google is constantly refining and improving its algorithm that automatically “ranks,” or scores, pages based on content quality. In addition, they have a large manual search team that grade pages based on Google’s latest quality guidelines. Not surprisingly, the best content fulfills all those guidelines. A few years ago, you could create “good, unique content” that wasn’t really good, but it was good enough to fool search engine algorithms. Assuming you had the right off-page optimization, you could still rank for terms. But Google in particular has made incredible strides in the last few years. Recently, there was a huge Phantom update that caused huge shifts in rankings. This update was the result of Google changing its core algorithm once again. It’s only going to keep improving from here. I know that some of you are frustrated and angry because of those changes. It sucks if your traffic declines because your pages now rank lower. I understand that, but in all honesty, does your content deserve to be #1? It probably doesn’t. Maybe it did before, and maybe it got surpassed. Regardless of why, the good news is that you can get your rankings back. How? Create the best damn content out there. There are no secrets at this point. Considering organic search still makes up about 64% of referral traffic, it’s worth it. But how do you create the best content for your targeted keywords? I’m going to show you five different ways you can take your content to the next level. If you do just this, you will get a lot more search traffic. If you combine it with solid promotional tactics, you will grow your website rapidly. 1. Bigger is often better When you’re looking to learn about SEO, email marketing, or any other topic, which would you prefer: a list of three tips or a list of 20 tips? There’s no question that the list of 20 tips will be more useful to more people than the shorter list. Making something bigger (longer) is typically the easiest way to make it better. According to an in-depth study by SerpIQ, the highest ranking pages are typically longer. While there are some exceptions (such as an extremely narrow topic), packing in more information is usually better for the user, which is what search engines want. My personal experience shows that such posts are more shareable as well, which is an indicator of their usefulness. In the past, I’ve shared that my own analysis of Quick Sprout posts found that posts longer than 1,500 words get an extra 68% more tweets and 22% more Facebook likes than shorter ones. You’ll notice that posts on both Quick Sprout and the NeilPatel.com blog are usually very long (4,000-6,000 words), and they do okay for search engine traffic. There are actually two ways that you can make a post longer to improve it. Option #1 – Add more items: The obvious option is to just add more content to a post. The most common situation in which this is the best option is with a list post. Instead of “8 ways to do X,” write “20 ways to do X.” If you’ve done your keyword research already, you can easily pick out terms in areas where people are looking for more. Typically, the best candidates are phrases that include the words: tips strategies tactics ideas ways If you’d like to find more of these, use the Google Keyword Planner. Type in your main niche (e.g., health, marketing, decorating, etc.), along with any of the above words. For example, if I wanted to create a monster list post for the case study site, I could search for “health tips” in the tool: Without even scrolling down much, you could see that there are quite a few keywords that could be great targets. The fact that they don’t have a huge search volume (but still decent) means that there’s a better chance that no one else has created amazing content around the keyword (would you rather compete against QuickSprout.com or supercoolhealthtips.com?). Copy down those keywords, and then search them one-by-one. Look at the top few results: Searching for “weight loss tips” brought up almost exclusively list posts, and that’s what we want to see. In addition, they are all relatively short, which means that you can easily create a longer list. Option #2 – Add more detail: Many lists simply lack the depth needed to be useful. If your tip is to “weigh out your food carefully,” that assumes that readers know why they should do that and how to do it. If you were looking for health tips, would you rather have a simple list or a detailed actionable list? For example, the #1 weight loss tips result from the above search looks like this: That is extremely plain and not very useful. If I were writing a post like that, I would include a much longer description underneath the tip. I could include: a list of the best foods (maybe pictures as well) a sample meal plan or snacking schedule an actionable shopping plan some examples of how to combine foods most people don’t know In addition, I could make it more actionable by showing step-by-step personal examples of how I “add” food. Imagine you’re the reader in this situation and you’re looking for health tips, which one would you rather read? The more detailed and actionable one, of course. Here’s where the real power comes in: What if you not only made your tips more detailed but also made your list longer. Instead of just “10 Easy Weight Loss Tips,” you could create “30 Easy Weight Loss Tips” AND go into more detail for every single tip. That’s how you create a resource that deserves to be #1. 2. Help readers navigate the waters I know it might’ve been a while, but can you remember what it was like when you were first trying to learn about Internet marketing? You knew absolutely nothing and had no clue where to start (although if you found Quick Sprout, I think you’re doing something right). Additionally, the first few guides and e-books you found likely left you with more questions and confusion than you had when you started. The good news is that when you’re introducing a new topic to a reader (big or small), you have the opportunity to make it easy for them. If your article can successfully educate a reader about a new topic more completely than any other alternative can, you deserve to rank #1. In general, there are three ways to make it easier for readers to understand your writing. Option #1- Make it clearer: Start by breaking down things as much as possible. Use words that almost all readers are familiar with, and don’t try to tackle a huge topic all at once. For example, I’m not going to try to teach you how to succeed as a marketer in a single post. What I do instead is pick a much smaller part of marketing, and go into it with more detail. That allows me to really break things down for you. Additionally, use metaphors, similes, and analogies wherever possible to describe complicated (abstract) concepts. If you don’t remember those terms from your English classes, they basically describe ways of comparing two different things (in slightly different ways). “Metaphors allow you to make the complex simple and the controversial palatable. Conversely, metaphors allow you to create extraordinary meaning out of the seemingly mundane.” – Brian Clark The biggest advantage of comparisons is that they let you present your teachings in multiple ways. Hopefully, at least one will be clear to your readers. Some are really obvious and can span an entire post like Do Business Like a Prostitute. Other comparisons can be used sporadically when a complicated subject comes up. For example, in my guide to growth hacking, I compared the growth hacker funnel (which most people have never heard of) to a car oil funnel. This specific example helped readers understand that traffic is like oil, and it needs to run down a funnel if it’s going to reach the destination, i.e., the engine (or growth for your website). Besides comparisons, you can also use examples to help clear things up. Often, when you hear a new concept, it makes sense, but it’s not immediately obvious how you can actually apply it. That’s why I try to include as many examples as possible when I advise you to do something. For example, when I wrote about writing emails to your subscribers to let them know about your new posts, I included an example of an actual email I sent: Finally, you can also use personal data or results from experimentation. For example, in this post, I shared with you the results of my personal Quick Sprout analysis of word count impact on share count. I regularly publish the results of my experiments to help you learn. Option #2 – Fill in any holes: Sometimes, you’ll come across a #1 ranking that is actually good. However, even good content often has holes. It might address the primary topic thoroughly but miss something, or it might not address secondary questions well. There’s a really easy way to spot most holes. Since the article has probably been ranking for a certain keyword or phrase for a while, it’s had quite a bit of traffic. Typically, that means it will also have quite a few comments. Many comments will note anything that was missing from the article. It’s not always valid criticism, but often it is. Even in my posts, I can’t cover everything 100% (I try!). For example, I wrote the post “22 Gmail Plugins That All Content Marketers Need to Know About .” It was a relatively popular article, and I think it was well-received. That being said, if you look through the comments, you’ll find some like this: I check out the recommended plugin and saw it looks pretty cool—it would have made a great addition to the list. There were others as well that I missed. So even a piece of content that I think is pretty good (although I might be a little biased) can be improved in a number of ways. Option #3 – Correct any mistakes: Have you ever heard that you can’t trust everything you read on the Internet? Most likely. Although the web has a ton of amazing resources that you can access instantly, it also houses a ton of misinformation. In addition, since pages never go away unless they are deleted or the website goes defunct, a lot of information is out of date. For example, SEO guidelines saw many changes in the past decade. What used to be good advice is now terrible advice. If you search for “Google ranking factors”, you’ll still see results from the past few years. Although they were good posts at the time, they now contain mistakes. Compare that to the #1 result, which is a post on Backlinko. Instead of focusing on the year, Brian Dean keeps it continually updated, which means that it will continue to be the best result for searchers without losing its relevance. 3. iPod or Zune- which would you choose? Almost 10 years ago now, the race for the portable mp3/mp4 player market began. Apple launched the iPod classic, soon followed by the iPod touch, while Microsoft launched the Zune. The Zune was a pretty colossal failure, while the iPod went on to help Apple become even more of a leader in technology. The funny thing is that many argued that the functionality of the Zune was actually better than that of the competing products. The problem was that it was bulky and ugly and not exactly the cool product to be seen with. In short: looks matter. And just like a case and logo affect the user experience with an mp3 player, the design of your website affects the user experience of any of your readers. Even with the exact same content, two different designs can yield drastically different results. Users may love one while not even to bother reading through to the other. If you want to create a better piece of content for a search, start (or finish) by improving the appearance. Formatting technique #1 – Include images (bonus for custom): We all have instincts. If someone throws something at you, you automatically flinch. For most online readers, if they see a page of nothing but text, they automatically run. A wall of text looks exactly like a textbook. If you make reading your content seem like work, very few readers will put in the effort to read it. The primary way I break up text (besides keeping paragraphs short) is with images. We process images up to 60,000 times faster than text. It’s much easier to look at a picture than it is to read a paragraph. The research on great content says that you should have at least one picture for every 350 words. Any image is better than none, but some images are better than others. In my experience, here are the best types of images to use in blog posts: graphs charts stock images custom images cartoons/comics Graphs and charts are especially useful as they can help support your points and communicate important information. They’re also cheap, since you can typically just link to a source or create them yourself. Custom images are fantastic but are more resource intensive. They will get you more social shares and backlinks, but take more time to make. You can either pay a designer to create them, or create your own. Formatting technique #2 – Create a custom layout: If you really want to take a piece of content to the next level, create a custom layout for it. This is not easy or cheap (in time or money), so you can’t always do it. However, for really important content, like my definitive guides, I find it’s worth it. So what do I mean by a custom layout? With a typical blog post, formatting is always the same. This isn’t a bad thing, but it limits you. With my definitive guides, though, I was able to create custom tables of contents… …and different background/fonts… …and tons of custom images in the background to help readability. It’s up to you how much time and money you want to invest in a particular guide. But the more you do, the more readable and useful it typically becomes, which will help you rank #1. Formatting technique #3 – Use lists whenever possible: People love to skim on the web. They typically read no more than 28% of content. There are many reasons to use lists: they are more readable (easier to skim); they break up content; and they are much less awkward than long-winded sentences. Formatting technique #4 – Structure for maximum readability: People like to read fast; that’s partly why they skim. But they also do it because they have limited time and there is so much content vying for their attention. You need to make your content as reader-friendly as possible. The easier it is to read, the more likely someone will read enough of it to be drawn in to pay closer attention to it. The main key is to have a clear structural hierarchy. By that, I mean that your content needs to be logically organized within an article. That’s where subheadings come in. I format my main subheadings just like most others, wrapped in an H2 tag. This way they stand out. Readers can skim through an article and easily identify the subheadings. If one catches their interest, they’ll dig into it. Here’s where my formatting on Quick Sprout and my other blogs is different. Most blog posts are written with H3s, H4s, and even H5s sometimes. Each of these sub-subheadings are on their own lines and stand out from the rest of the text. The problem with this, from my perspective, is that it is really difficult to tell them apart when skimming. Each type of heading tag is typically of a similar color and size. So how is a reader supposed to differentiate them from each other? They can’t—not easily at least. Instead of skimming the article and paying attention to a select few important headings, readers just keep scrolling through. That’s because nothing is likely to catch their attention when there are too many subheadings. But, of course, sometimes you need to break up a section further. The solution is to strategically use bold and italics to signify these breaks. Since the bold doesn’t span the entire line, and it’s not any bigger than the rest of the text, it won’t interfere with skimming. However, if someone is actually reading the section, it will be clear that the bold description is the beginning of a sub-section. That’s a small tweak that can produce significant results in terms of user experience. 4. Give them something they can believe in Blogs originally were created as sorts of online personal diaries. Since then, they’ve evolved to be much more informative and entertaining. Because of that, anyone can create a blog overnight and post as an “expert,” even if they aren’t. That leads to a lot of wrong advice even if it’s not written like that on purpose. So when someone makes a claim or statement in a blog post, most readers are left with a thought: “ Is that really true?” While this is one of the toughest parts of the puzzle for Google to put together, having credible content is important. The #1 result needs to be content that users can trust. My best guess is that Google uses user interaction metrics to determine the credibility of the content. If you use either of the two methods I’m about to show you, readers will trust your content more and stop searching for alternatives, which should help your rankings. Option #1 – Interview or cite experts: If I’m writing a blog post, I have to convince you that I’m an expert that should be trusted. This is where I ran into problems with the nutrition blog. Since I’m not a licensed nutritionist, it’s hard for me to offer any opinions and expect them to be taken seriously. However, interviewing nutritionists and including quotes throughout the article would add a huge amount of credibility to my points. Think about what podcasts typically are. For example, Entrepreneur on Fire is one of the most popular marketing podcasts. At first, John Lee Dumas was a “nobody,” so no one would listen to a show that was just about his entrepreneurial experience. So what did he do? He invited a guest to join the podcast every episode. They were automatically credible because they had already achieved success and established themselves as experts. People wanted to hear their opinions, and that’s why the show got so popular. Now, after years of hard work, John is also considered an entrepreneurial expert, and people would tune into his shows even if it’s just him talking. But until you become an expert, use the credibility that other experts have already developed. Option #2 – Support every claim with data: Expert opinions are one way to support a point. Another way, that is equally as good in most situations (better or worse in some), is to cite credible data. Many people have told me that I include a ridiculous amount of links in my posts, and they’re right. I try to back up every single claim if possible. The more data and references you can include, the more trusted your content will (and should) be. There’re many ways to find statistics, but the simplest way to start is to just search for “[your niche] + statistics.” If you’re in a niche like marketing, there are a ton of great resources that have up to hundreds of useful statistics. Often, you can also get even more specific. For example, I could look for “content marketing statistics” if I was writing an article on that specific subject. 5. Give readers control in complex situations Your audience is composed of many different types of people even if they all have a common interest in what you’re writing about. They have different time available to learn, different amounts of experience, different preferences for learning, and so on. On top of creating great content, you can also give readers control over how they consume the content, which will lead to better user satisfaction—the key criteria for rankings. Tactic #1 – Offer content in multiple formats: Some people are visual learners, while others like to learn by reading or by listening. I’m a big fan of giving people what they want. That’s why I produce both long text-based articles and high-quality infographics on a regular basis. I post them separately, but you can also combine an infographic with an article to give readers more options: Continue from www.ultraw3b.wordpress.com (full post)