Omar Kattan » SEO Research

Eye Tracking Study: Users Ignore Real Time Results

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:51:30 +0000

A new eye tracking study shows that Google users are ignoring real time search results including tweets found in the search pages. There are no firm rules on when or where real time results appear in Google but the followi... Read more..

Google’s “MayDay” Update

Omar Kattan (online) — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:08:18 +0000

In May Google updated it's algorithm in major way. The change happened around the 1st of May and therefore has been dubbed the May Day algo change by members of WebmasterWorld. In the video below Matt Cutts expl... Read more..

Google’s July 09 Algo Change – Big Daddy 2?

Omar Kattan (online) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:42:06 +0000

On July 1st 2009 Google's new algorithm kicked in much to the confusion of webmasters around the world. Some even compared it to the now infamous Big Daddy Algo change back in 2006. In this post I'll summarise the different factors that could have changed and analyse their impact on rankings. 1) Internal Links and the "Nofollow" attribute. Internal links are any links found within a website such as navi... Read more..

Google Announces Longer Description Snippets

Omar Kattan (online) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:01:35 +0000

In a move hardly surprising to SEOs Google has officially announced two new "improvements" in its search results; "longer search result descriptions" (snippets) and "an expanded list of useful related searches".

Longer Description Snippet

If you conduct a search for wolverine movie review you'll notice that the description snippet... Read more..

QDF: Query Desreves Freshness

Omar Kattan (online) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:34:02 +0000

QDF is a term used to describe the thought process behind Google's results for certain search queries' "deserving" of fresh and regularly updated content. QDF is Google's way of ensuring that its users get the most up to date results for certain search queries such as a breaking news event, a major new product launch a topic that always seems to be in the news or a famous celebrity who's recently been in the... Read more..

Is Google Favouring Brands in SERPS?

Omar Kattan (online) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:04:29 +0000

This debate was first kicked off by Aaron Wall and has been floating around in webamaster forums for a while now. The debate still lingers on with no absolute answer.

In response to this question, Matt Cutts, Google spokesman says... "Inside of Google, we don't really think about brands, we think about words such as trust, authority, reputation, pagerank, high quality." "If somebody comes to google and types X we wan... Read more..

Google Insights for Search

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:51:47 +0000

Google announced the release of Google insights for Search which provides more insight into search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest. Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. The tool also allows for comparison... Read more..

The “Search Intent” Influence on Search Results

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:26:31 +0000

Search engines factor "search intent" into their algorithms in an effort to feed back the best possible results to their users' search queries.

It's absolutely crucial to understand this concept when deciding which keywords to target for which sites, especially if you're trying to manage the expectations of a client who's hired you to optimise their site for generic keywords in the natural search results.

Let me explain what I mean by "search intent", in a nutshell, its what search engine users intended to find when they typed in... Read more..

Click Through Rate in SERP Positions

Omar Kattan (online) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:39:37 +0000

Everybody knows that getting on the number one position in any of the search engines, and especially the big G, has its rewards in the form of lots and lots of (if you've done your keyword research correctly) very valuable and free targeted traffic.

Whats frustrating to most though is how much traffic? Keyword estimation tools such as Keyword Discovery, and Wordtrackergive you a rough g... Read more..

Researching Your Competitor’s SEO Strategy

Omar Kattan (online) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:57:37 +0000

Do you research your competitor's seo strategy and activities? If you don't then you should, this is the only way to beat them at their own SEO game.

Firstly lets define a competitor. Comptetitors are not necessarily your traditional bricks and mortar competitors. Your online competitors are the websites with the number one to five positions in the search engine results pages (SERPS) for the keywords you're targeting.

Now that you've discovered your true competitors, its time to start researching their seo strategy in ord... Read more..

Keyword Research Resources

Omar Kattan (online) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:58:41 +0000

Keyword Research is at the heart of proper SEO and PPC optimisation. Without the right keywords, how will you know which... Read more..