TAMPA, FLORIDA – We are happy to announce that we hired Katie Manry at the beginning of this year as our new editor-in-chief at Sinai Marketing.

“It was a daunting task finding someone with the skill and experience to step in and take over but, I’m happy to announce that we have found a perfect fit in Katie.” says our CEO Ali Husayni.

Notably gifted at a young age, Katie brings talent and more than 15 years of writing experience as well as a background in editing and managing writers to our team. Katie has held positions as a technical proposal manager where she ensured her writing team’s work met the standards of professionalism expected from executive-level clients. On a regular basis she would read blogs of some of the best SEO companies like Sinai Marketing to further her SEO knowledge so she could help her clients rank higher in Google. In her most recent position as a writer and SEO consultant for a retail company, Katie was able to hone her writing skills with product descriptions, blog articles and other copy-writing projects.

“I know I have an unusual skill set so I was excited to see Sinai’s job listing and not only how I fit their description but how the position was exactly what I was looking for in a career,” says Katie.

Katie’s numerous accomplishments began at a young age and include acceptance into prestigious college-level writing programs at Pinellas County Center for the Arts and California Institute for the Arts. Also in 2002, Katie rose to the National Novel Writing Month‘s challenge to write a novel in 30 days. After one month of working days and writing nights, Katie has a 50,000-word novel to show for it!

And while it may seem that she spends all of her waking hours conquering the world, Katie also has a passion for all things creative. She loves to cook, draw and for the past seven years has been an avid nature photographer. While she claims that she is an amateur, we feel that could be argued judging by the professionalism of her photography.

“You can tell that Katie loves working with the writers,” says Husayni. “She is a leader that not only sets out to meet goals, but exceed them. We are all excited about her future here at Sinai, that’s for sure.”

TAMPA, FLORIDA – Change is good, and we made some changes here at Sinai Marketing recently.

After several years serving as editor-in-chief of the writing team here at this SEO company, I determined late last year that it was time to step down and focus more attention on Lorrie Walker Communications, Inc., the public relations firm I have run since May 2007.

I can tell you it was a difficult decision to make. I have been a part of Sinai Marketing’s team since June 2007. Back then, I was the company’s sole writer and we were considerably smaller than we are today. As the company grew, Ali Husayni, our CEO, quickly realized he needed someone to oversee the writing department. Content generation is an integral element of achieving top of Google status for our clients, and well-written content projects a professional image. My journalism background and love for all things grammar- and writing-related, combined with the SEO writing experience I had gained from being here, made me a good fit for the job.

This has been a position I have loved dearly. Ali has taught me more about SEO and link building strategies than I ever dreamed I could know, and he’s given me the latitude to develop this team of 13 writers in the way that I felt best meets our clients’ needs.

Last year as I evaluated my professional goals, I thought about where I wanted my own company to be, and I realized those goals meant a greater time commitment from me. It’s tough to give up something you enjoy so much, but Ali and I knew it was time.

I am happy to say that I’m not leaving Sinai altogether. Search engine optimization plays such a significant role in public relations that it’s necessary to keep myself in a position where I remain connected to some of the best SEO experts in the world. For that reason, I will continue to serve as a contributing writer to the Sinai Marketing blog. That will make it easy for me to follow what’s going on in the SEO world and write about how it affects what Sinai does for its clients, as well as what I do in terms of SEO for my own public relations clients.

Also, I will remain on staff as a writer for a couple of Sinai’s clients. The truth is that I’ve become incredibly attached to clients I’ve written for since 2007. It would be difficult to give them up, so for now, I’m not.

The writing team has been left in excellent, capable hands with the hiring of our new editor-in-chief, Katie Manry. You’ll learn more about her in an upcoming blog post from Barbara Cagle.

I hope your 2013 is filled with healthy changes, big dreams and lofty goals. I know mine is.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO-Several days ago, I came across another example of evil in the media regarding the big Federal Trade Commission investigation that recently concluded. This time the piece was a pro-Google op-ed written by Thomas B. Leary, who is associated with Google. (Know more.)

USA Today published the post on Jan. 12 and notes at the bottom of the piece that Leary served as a commissioner at the FTC from 1999 to 2005 and is of counsel to the law firm of Hogan Lovells, which does work for Google.

Does that seem like a conflict of interest to anyone else? This is just one more example of sponsored side-taking articles from the media.

In December, a Microsoft lawyer wrote an op-ed in the New York Times that lauded Microsoft and attacked Google, and Google appears to have resorted to tit for tat behavior with this new article from Leary, who does the exact opposite.

Leary’s opening paragraph summarizes the FTC’s 19-month investigation into potential violations of antitrust laws first, then launches into his true agenda. He writes, “Those laws should not be construed to handicap companies that have become conspicuously successful by offering products or services that appeal to customers, simply to make life easier for their less successful rivals.”

The article takes on a condescending tone toward Google’s competitors, intimating that their “vociferous complaints” about Google’s success in the marketplace are less about antitrust violations and more about their inability to find a way to compete.

Google’s competitors accused them of using its Internet search dominance to unfairly favor its own services over rivals in search results like passing off Yelp consumer reviews as their own and pulling data from Wikipedia for their Knowledge Graph.

Search engines have the right to collect the data it wants from the consumers if they opt-in into giving it the data. Most marketing companies or advertising agencies thrive on consumer data, so there shouldn’t be a double-standard when it comes to Google or Microsoft. They are simply practicing the same techniques on a larger scale.

The agency’s findings were that Google’s practices were similar to online search competitors and that they were attempting to improve search results rather than demote competitors in search ranks. On Jan. 3, the same day the results of FTC investigation was published  , Google announced two voluntary product changes:

• “More choice for websites: Websites can already opt out of Google Search, and they can now remove content (for example, reviews) from specialized search results pages, such as local, travel and shopping;

• More ad campaign control: Advertisers can already export their ad campaigns from Google AdWords. They will now be able to mix and copy ad campaign data within third-party services that use our AdWords API.“

Google and Microsoft are engaging in unethical-albeit not illegal-behavior. We’ve discussed that before, but what’s worse is that they cover it up by paying the media and attacking each other. The fact that these massive companies are more or less sponsoring major media outlets to defend them and attack their competitors is appalling. Frankly, I’m getting sick of our media’s blatant bias and lack of journalistic integrity.

All the media does by taking sides in this issue is distract people from the real problem and prevent a meaningful dialogue about solutions.

TAMPA, FLORIDA- A change has come for 2013 here at our Internet marketing and search engine optimization firm.

Beginning Jan. 1, we reverted to using our company’s original name- Sinai Marketing, Inc. As you are aware, we’ve been doing business as Master Google for a while.

“Recently, Google asked us to use our own name instead,” says Sinai Marketing CEO and founder Ali Husayni. “We agreed.”

Husayni founded Sinai Marketing in 2004 and since then, it has grown into a well-known Internet marketing firm that has helped hundreds of businesses compete at a higher level on the Internet. Through his leadership, many of our clients turn into long-term partners as we work together to help make their businesses more successful.

Change is good. Internet marketing and search engine optimization are fields in an almost constant state of change. That’s part of what makes this line of work so challenging and exciting. It’s also the reason why more businesses turn to an SEO professional to help them accomplish the sometimes-daunting task of ranking well in organic search results.

“If you’re going to do it right, SEO is a full-time job that requires full-time effort,” Husayni says. “It’s impossible for most business owners to handle their day-to-day operations and stay attuned to what Google just changed regarding SEO.”

Because of that, businesses seek professionals to handle this important work. Mastering Google’s ranking methods takes research and dedication. With our reverted name, we remain dedicated to keeping up with the most effective SEO tactics, and that’s why the “Master Google” phrase will remain in our tagline, which is being developed. Mastering Google’s approach to search and providing users with the most accurate information remains an integral element of what we do. Literally, we help our clients master Google by implementing strategies that push their websites to the top of organic search results for their main keywords. Google relies on companies such as ours to do this.

“Every successful business that uses Google has to use an SEO company or have their own in-house SEO, or they’re not going to be on the first page of search results,” Husayni says.

Google always has offered SEO companies information on how to provide helpful SEO to clients. It also has consistently promoted white hat SEO. Optimization services provided by us are based on research we’ve gathered by taking part in Google conferences and webinars designed to teach SEO companies how Google wants us to address search engine optimization.

SEO will be every bit as relevant in 2013 as it has in the past. Sinai Marketing will continue to contribute to the SEO conversation with Google. Input from Sinai Marketing and other SEO professionals throughout the world has helped Google create a more searchable Internet.

“We remain enthusiastic about being part of the conversation,” Husayni says.

How about you- is your business part of the conversation online? Do your potential clients find your site easily when searching for keywords related to your line of work? Contact us today if you’re interested in having us conduct an SEO check of your website.

We just saw some serious movements on our clients’ rankings on Google. We expect Google just rolled out a new algorithm update. I checked Matt Cutt’s blog as well as Rand Fishkin, Danny Sulivan and a few other SEO experts and didn’t see anyone talking about a new update.

Today, our clients had a significant improvement in their rankings and since improvements naturally happen over time and not simultaneously for many clients, I can only attribute this to a new Google algorithm update.

Do you see any change in your sites’ ranking results? Share your findings.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO – The Panda algorithm (named after Navneet Panda of Google) is an extremely significant part of Google’s overall ranking algorithm. The main goal of Google Panda updates is to provide users with a superior quality search experience and remove poor-quality content from the SERPs. Every year, Google updates its ranking algorithm 500-600 times. Panda updates are also among those. The first Panda algorithmic update was rolled out in February. Until now, Google has updated its Panda 19 times.

Here’s an overview of all the Panda algorithmic updates that Google has released so far.

#1. Panda 1.0 [February 24, 2011]
The purpose of this algorithmic update was to deal with (read penalize) sites that had shallow content. The update hit “content farms” (which included some of the most popular article submission sites) really badly, resulting in a huge loss of keyword rankings. About 12 percent of sites were affected.

#2. Panda 2.0 [April 11, 2011]
This Google update was specific to all English language search results. Later, it was released on a global level. The update impacted around 2 percent of all keyword searches in the United States.

#3. Panda 2.1 [May 10, 2011]
Being a minor one actually, this search update impacted far fewer sites, as compared to the previous updates. Google didn’t reveal the impact data on this algorithmic update.

#4. Panda 2.2 [June 16, 2011]
According to Google, this update aimed at penalizing scraper or duplicate content sites. After this update was launched, many webmasters witnessed an improvement in their keyword rankings while others faced sudden drops.

#5. Panda 2.3 [July 23, 2011]
This update was rolled out by Google to distinguish between high quality and poor quality sites. As a result of this update, many sites gained in terms of search rankings on Google.

#6. Panda 2.4 [August 12, 2011]
This update was actually an international one. It was at this time that Google Panda update was released for all international languages with exceptions including Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The update impacted around 6-9 percent of queries for non-English indices.

#7. Panda 2.5 [September 18, 2011]
This was a mysterious one, as Google didn’t reveal as to what this specific Panda update was aimed at. All Google said is that the update was one of the 500 changes that Google rolls out each year. The algorithmic update resulted in huge loss of rankings for many sites.

#8. Panda 2.5.1 [October 9, 2011]
According to Matt Cutts, this update was only Panda-related flux. Therefore, it was a minor update that impacted less than 2 percent of all queries.

#9. Panda 2.5.2 [October 13, 2011]
It was again a minor update to the Panda 2.5 update of September 18, 2011. There were reports of losses and recoveries after Google rolled out this algorithmic update.

#10. Panda 3.0 [October 19, 2011]
Popularly referred to as the “Unnoticed Update,” it was actually a rectification update. Sites that were mistakenly or wrongly hit by the previous Panda algorithmic updates were given back their rankings.

#11. Panda 3.1 [November 18, 2011]
According to Google, it was a minor update. Google officials tweeted that it was only a minor data refresh and impacted less than 1 percent of queries.

#12. Panda 3.2 [January 18, 2012]
A data refresh again! Google officials explained that this was also a minor update similar to the last one, i.e. Panda 3.1. The update was actually meant to address the discrepancies (cross-language refinements, related search relevance, image search improvement) with the last updates.

#13. Panda 3.3 [February 27, 2012]
The confirmation of this Google Panda update came along with the announcement of 40 search updates that happened in February. The goal of this update was to bring more accuracy and sensitivity to the Panda algorithm. With this update, the age-old link analysis method was turned off by Google. In addition, local search results were improved.

#14. Panda 3.4 [March 23, 2012]
With this update, low-quality websites were once again massively targeted by Google. According to Google’s official tweet, this algorithmic update impacted around 1.6 percent of queries. Though it was basically a minor update, it was around this time that blog networks (like SEO Link Vine and Build My Rank) were hit. Webmasters who were using such blog networks to accumulate backlinks were faced with sudden drop in their site’s search rankings.

#15. Panda 3.5 [April 19, 2012]
Low quality content was on Google’s radar once again. Due to this algorithmic update, a lot of sites lost as well as many gained in terms of search rankings on Google. Examples of sites that increased their search visibility include spotify.com, observer.com, menshealth.com, slideshare.net, technspot.com and usnews.com. Losers included cubestat.com, similarsites.com, merchantcircle.com, newsalloy.com, aboutus.org, appbrain.com and ticketscity.com among others. [Find the complete list here.]

#16. Panda 3.6 [April 27, 2012]
It was launched just eight days after the last update, so it was unexpected. Google said this was a minor data refresh and didn’t impact queries (or sites) on a large scale. Reports about loss in rankings were noted.

#17. Panda 3.7 [June 8, 2012]
Basically a data refresh, this algorithmic update impacted less than 1 percent of queries in the United States and 1 percent globally.

#18. Panda 3.8 [June 25, 2012]
Google tweeted that it was also a basic refresh update, which means they only re-ran the Panda algorithm again. The refresh resulted in an impact of only 1 percent of queries worldwide.

#19. Panda 3.9 [July 24, 2012]
It was a new data refresh. So, there were no massive changes in algorithmic signals. Google revealed in a Twitter post that this algorithmic update would affect only 1 percent of all searches globally.

Have you heard any rumors about the next Google Panda update? Please let us know in the comment section below.

With much anticipation and with lots of work, we have finally launched our new site. Please check it out, specially the new SEO Case Studies section and give us your feedback.

In the past two days, we show a better user experience on the new site with bounce rates dropping by 5% and average time spent on pages increased by close to 1 min.

TAMPA, FLORIDA — It was this statement from Matt Cutts that instantly made me perk up and take note: “Normally we don’t…pre-announce changes, but there is something that we’ve been working on…to try to level the playing ground a little bit.”

I heard this during a podcast from SXSW in March, and Cutts, the head of Google’s Web spam team, was talking about SEO techniques that Google views as “over-optimization.” You can listen to the podcast at Search Engine Roundtable.

Earlier in the session, it was explained that all SEO experts weren’t bad; that a good SEO expert was like a coach who helps you figure out how to present yourself better via your website. That’s when Cutts, whose job is to hunt cheaters, showed his hand.

In the coming weeks, Google plans to start identifying sites that are overdoing it when it comes to SEO, compared to the people who are just creating great content and trying to make a fantastic site. This is a particular area to which Cutts’ team continues to pay attention.

“It’s an active area where we’ve got several engineers on my team working right now,” he said. “We want to sort of make that playing field a little bit more level. And so that’s the sort of thing where we try to make the Googlebot smarter, we try to make our relevance more adaptive.”

That way, people who don’t use SEO techniques won’t suffer from having their sites buried in search results by people who abuse SEO- whether they throw too many keywords on the page, they exchange too many links, or whatever else they may do to “go beyond what a normal person would expect,” Cutts said.

There are lots of people who seem to think that Google hates SEO, but that’s not the case, he said. It can be helpful by making a site more easily crawled, which increases the site’s user-friendliness.

Still, there are people who take it too far; black hat SEO techniques that do too well.

“We’ve been working on changes where if you’re a white hat or you’ve been doing very little SEO, that you’re going to not be affected by this change,” Cutts says. “But if you’ve been going beyond the pale, your site may not rank as highly as it did before.”

Matt Cutts warns over optimizers: changes are coming.

Google isn’t the only search engine that recognizes the need to address the SEO-on-steroids techniques that some people use. Duane Forrester, senior product manager with Bing’s Webmaster Program, also took part in the SXSW session and reiterated “over-SEO is always a problem.”

Ali Husayni, Master Google’s CEO, welcomes the change to Google.

“When Matt described an ethical SEO professional who makes sites user-friendly and more crawlable, he could have been describing us,” Husayni said. “We use only white-hat techniques because we understand that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.”

“What’s interesting in Matt’s approach is that he mentioned two of the most common black-hat SEO techniques: keyword stuffing and link-exchange,” Husayni said. “So by over optimization, he means black-hat SEO. Unfortunately, Google has recently lost its handle of such practices as I explained in our recent post. So, Matt is on the right track here.”

Husayni predicted that this next Google change will further weed out bad SEO providers and enhance our clients’ rankings on Google.

“When you’re doing everything above-board, you don’t have anything to worry about,” he said. “But when you’re trying to cheat the system, Matt’s team at Google has shown time and again that they will catch onto you eventually.”

EVERGREEN, CO — I’ve been a fan of white-hat SEO for many years. After all, Google likes white-hat SEO, and from its early years, I have promoted Google for its accurate search results. In my opinion, the main reason for Google’s success has been that its team of engineers in the anti-spam department, headed by Matt Cutts, has worked tirelessly for many years to prevent spammers from exploiting SEO techniques in order to rank themselves above the competition, when those types of tactics don’t deserve Google’s approval.

Matt and his team’s work has been no small task as new black-hat techniques are created on a daily basis by websites looking to shortcut their way to the top – at the expense of quality websites on the Internet.

However, it surprises me that Google is still unable to detect old black-hat SEO techniques. For example, a few days ago, I was shocked to see one of our peers’ sites securing a #5 rank on Google organic results for “Best SEO” using (for the most part) black-hat SEO techniques. Interestingly, Google has known most of these techniques for years. So, I’m wondering how they get away with tricking Google.

Image Courtesy of SeoBook.com.

Matt… if you’re reading this, please write a post and let us know how this website slipped through the cracks of your genius team – especially that they’re affiliated with SEOmoz.org, which I’m really proud of for their great SEO software development.

The site in question is: www.localseocompany.net.

The keyword I searched for is: Best SEO

The page that comes up #5 is: http://www.localseocompany.net/best-seo-company/

And now the main black-hat techniques they’ve used:

1.  Keyword Stuffing: the site mentions “SEO” exactly 40 times. The term “best SEO” has been repeated 20 times.
2. Excess use of H1 tags: there are seven H1 tags throughout the code of this page.
3. Self-linking anchored texts: there are 21 links on this page using anchored texts that are linking to the page itself – thus sending Googlebot in circles.

Interestingly enough, this page has ZERO inbound links (however, the root domain is very popular getting links from sites such as Adobe and SEOMoz.org).

Leave your thoughts and comments; I’m interested to know what you think of this.

Please note: I’m not going to report this page to Google for SEO malpractice – because I honestly think Google should have been able to detect it by itself.

Our notes have been made only because we love Google and we want it to stay at the top of the game in regards to being the best search engine out there.

SANTA MONICA, CA — It’s refreshing to alleviate dread when it comes to the beginning of the work week, especially where our clients are concerned. For our clients who formerly had ineffective SEO strategies in place, the week often looked bleak when assessing the week’s SEO goals with a company that just wasn’t working for them the way they had hoped. For Shawn Sandifer and Timothy Booth, this was their experience until they came to Master Google wanting more than unfilled promises for their website, TenList.com. TenList.com is aiming to be the go-to source for home improvement and construction-related services, and they are well on their way.

Shawn Sandifer and Timothy Booth of TenList.com.

Last week, TenList reached a daily record that had not been crossed since Aug. 15, 2011: organic search results that brought in 5,690 visitors. This week, the site has already reached another record high for 2012 of 6,048 visitors, a number that the website last experienced on Aug. 1, 2011. Sandifer shared his relief that Mondays mornings are no longer going to be a major source of dread.

“Mondays were dark days for sometime and it’s nice to start the week off once again on a bright note,” Sandifer said. “We could always determine how the rest of the weeks’ leads and traffic would be depending on the Monday’s numbers.”

Living on the TenList roller coaster ride was not the track that the website wanted to stay on, and that’s where Master Google came in.

Why Google Rankings Fall With the Wrong SEO Company

While Mondays used to be one of the TenList.com team’s favorite days of the week, as SEO efforts with other companies always started out well, the inevitable drop was hard to take. After all, trusting the wrong SEO company can leave you feeling more lost in the shuffle than found at the top of Google. What makes a good SEO company is often misunderstood, according to a post by Master Google CEO Ali Husayni. Husayni said that most of the SEO companies claim to be SEO experts, when the truth is that they only know a few small aspects of SEO.

“They read a few articles, make some changes to the site’s meta tags and claim that your site is ready for Google,” Husayni said. “Then, a few months later, when you are frustrated at the lack of progress, your so called SEO expert tells you that you have to wait as it takes longer for Google to rank your site.” And the wait is all in vain.

Don’t Be Afraid to Switch Up Your Normal SEO Efforts

At first, Husayni’s ‘clean-house’ approach to TenList’s SEO strategies felt like a big overhaul, but by taking on the broken parts of their current system, TenList was really able to make drastic improvement that they appreciate now, according to Booth.

“By challenging our current culture, they have helped us develop a greater understanding of our business and help us map out our goals and take steps to achieve them,” Booth said.

Sandifer seconds the relief that Booth shared about TenList being headed in the right direction this time, happy that Master Google is on board and exceeding their expectations.

“With the drop we had in traffic due to bad direction by consulting companies it is nice to finally see a growing trend,” Sandifer said. “This means we can finally begin to plan for the future and growth of our company and stop trying to figure out how to dig ourselves out of the hole we were in.”

Always Look Toward the Future and At Your Ranking Reports

Master Google Editor-in-chief Lorrie Walker looks forward to seeing what the next writing campaign will do for the success of the site, and knows that the site will grow as its quality content does.

“We’re embarking on a three-month content writing campaign to really get the word out about the relevant, useful information the site provides to those who need the services,” Walker said.

“It is rare to find a company in the SEO space that will go month to month, in their business relationship with you and to continually prove their value to your site,” Booth said. “Our traffic is growing at a quicker pace than their original estimate. Their value to our company at this stage cannot be overstated.”