Month: January 2017

Advice Given to an Aspiring 14 Year-Old Entrepreneur Wanting to Learn SEO

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I received an email this afternoon from a young man who is interested in a career in SEO, and he asked me how to get started, and I thought it was such a good question that I would include my response here on the blog to any others who might want to learn SEO and work with site owners to help them succeed in business online.

There are some respected sources about SEO online that are worth reading as a starting point. Here are some:

Google’s Starters guide to SEO

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Google Search Query Refinements Patent Updated

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Query Refinements have changed since the earlier days of Google

In 2006, I wrote a post A Look at Google Midpage Query Refinements (Go ahead and read it; this post will make more sense if you visit the past and bring it in). The patent I wrote then was just granted again as a continuation patent, with new claims, reflecting a change in the process involving how it is being used by the Google. The new version of the patent is now at:

System and method for providing search query refinements
Inventors: Paul Haahr and Steven D. Baker
Assignee: Google Inc.
United States Patent 9,552,388
Granted: January 24, 2017
Filed: January 31, 2014

Abstract

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Google and Spoken Queries: Understanding Stressed Pronouns

Spoken Queries and Stressed Pronouns

The future of searches on the Web will likely involve searches by voice, as more and more people are connecting to the web with phones and Google has added voice search interfaces to its search on desktop computers.

I thought it was interesting when I ran across a patent that focused on a problem that might arise with spoken searches, and thought it was worth writing about because it’s something that we will need to become acquainted with as it becomes more commonplace.

When Amit Singhal showed off Google’s hummingbird update, he gave a presentation that showed Google handling searches involving pronouns. It’s worth watching for the information about Hummingbird, but also about how Google is becoming more conversational, and can handle things like stressed pronouns. The video is at:

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