1. Google Scraper Update (Jan 28) – Google updates the algorithm to decrease authority of “scraper sites,” – the dumping ground of content collected from the others and receive traffic because of their domain strength signals. About time! Hopefully now these sites will be less likely to outrank the original authors.

Further Reading: Mashable, Matt Cutts

2. Larry Page becomes CEO of Google (April 4) – Google co-founder and namesake of the PageRank secret sauce takes the big seat in Mountain View.

3. Google Panda Update aka Farmer Update (Feb 24) – Sites with heaps of low-quality content on large sites were knocked down a peg in the Most Talked About Update of the Year. I love this update, because it’s always been frustrating to justify the time required to create quality content around a keyword, when you know that a page on a site like ehow.com was entrenched. In recent years, Google has taken heat for the overemphasis on sites like these in it’s algorithm, exemplified by ehow.com, associated content, .gov, .edu, about.com and the like.  Articles posted to these “content farms” likely did just fine in search – and because it was so easy, a lot of it, um, wasn’t very good.

Naturally, these sites became so spam-riddled and searchers were met with so much junk that something had to be done. Google appeared to be dragging its feet to deliver the death blow that current #4 search engine Blekko delivered when it banished content farms altogether. Blekko figured that any site that allows submitted content without discretion is doomed to become a wasteland of crap, and should just be ignored.

But Google reached for the the rifle instead of the shotgun with the Farmer update. It claims only the bad content on these sites are punished, and the now-rare quality article remains in its justified position.

Further Reading: Danny Sullivan

(SEO Sidenote: the link in the summary goes to an ehow article titled How to Get a Big Mac for $1 at McDonalds, which concludes a trip to McDonald’s is the prudent move. The page received countless links as an example of what was wrong with ehow.com and all this shit content being created. So what did ehow do with this article and all it’s links?  The page now 301-redirects to a highly valuable page about Real Estate Investing, passing along all that link juice – an evil-genius move that deserves a link from me.)

4. Google + (Mar 30) – Google’s answer to the Facebook ‘Like’ button and semi-social environment where contacts can be easily segmented and authentic interactions can occur.  This is another step to a system where social signals replace PageRank as the indicator of authority.

Further Reading: The Google Plus Videos series set to cool music that makes you feel cool to use Google Plus, Danny Sullivan

5. Query Encryption (Oct 18) – I’m still unclear as to why Google made this move and I hope they reverse it. It severely inhibits Content Marketing strategies and flies in the face of what I thought Google wanted us to be doing as SEOs.

With this update – users logged into Google during a search session will have their keyword choice “encrypted,” or hidden from 3rd party tools, including Google Analytics. So…keyword data from GA is going away.

For example:

Say you’re a doctor in Crystal Lake, Illinois and you blog regularly to engage with your patients as well as reach new ones.  Being in suburban Chicago, sports physicals have become a cornerstone of your business.  So, when the state announces student athletes must now receive a “concussion susceptibility exam” as a part of their physical to be considered valid, you felt it’d make for a good blog post. You turn to your keywords in Google Analytics to uncover varations in keywords associated with the topic (“doctors in crystal lake new physical rules” or “concussions illinois sports”, etc. etc. etc.). You create useful content to match the intentions of the searcher, rank for the various keywords, help your audience find answers, and earn new patients.

This strategy is essentially Content Marketing and is core to Google’s ZMOT or Zero Moment of Truth creed – that as a business owner, you should anticipate and help your customers solve problems and reach them at the moment of truth when they form their opinions on the topic. Well it’s harder to do that now because that specific keyword data is gone unless you upgrade to the new Google Analytics Premium Package – oh wait, this update makes complete sense.

Further Reading: Google

6. Yahoo! Site Explorer is (for real) gone (Nov 21) – Ever since the Bing Yahoo! agreement a few years back, it’s been widely believed that Y! Site Explorer – the best free link analysis tool, would be phased out. We had some great times YSE, RIP.

Further Reading: Y!SE Replacement Tools from SE Watch

7. Freshness Update (Nov 3) – Quickly: blogs are even more essential to compete for Google love and new information is what the people want to see for many queries, or in algorithm speak: “query deserves freshness.”

From Google: “…we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches (results, not queries) and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness…”

This was been a goal of Google’s for a while and makes sense with prior moves such as Caffeine and Plus. Again, the takeaway is that Content Marketing is where the focus should be these days.

For an example, check out the results below for ‘sandusky,’ on 11.11.11, it’s full of time stamps and news content.  Before the story broke, the term was actually somewhat popular because Sandusky, Ohio is a tourist destination. The surge of searches for ‘sandusky’ tripped the Google algorithm to display “fresh” content about the PSU coach and not all the fun to be had in Ohio.

Results for 'sandusky' on 11.11.11

Some day, more people searching ‘Sundusy’ will want content for Ohio and the Freshness factor will fade away, but probably not for several years…

Further reading on the Freshness Update: Google Blog, SEO Moz Whiteboard Friday, Winners and Losers

Those are my top moves for me.  Check out a great collection of the 2011 updates at SEOmoz.

Wonder what the that means too? Basically there are laws.  Read all about it from the good people at How Stuff Works.  If you’d like, you can buy it on T-shirt on your way.

For me, I’m going to keep track of what ranks in Google for this query over time.  I think it’s an interesting phrase to follow because it’ll be forever searched due to people’s reflex to search things they hear; and the promotional contests that drone out the phrase aren’t going away.  Also, this phrase is on billions of websites, so the results might reveal domain strength in the eyes of the Big G.  But anyway:

10.26.2011

1. http://www.vwpband.com/ – ha. love it, it’s a band. That’ll probably go away or become the dominate result for the query complete with  videos, images, news, social, ppc ads, etc. Good luck guys.

2. http://voidwhereprohibited.typepad.com/ – political blog that seems to be trying to get the passerby search traffic…

3. http://voidwhereprohibited.typepad.com/musings/ – gotcha twice Google.

4. http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/118593.html – Google’s answer, a quick answer with links to further reading.

5. http://www.amazon.com/Void-Where-Prohibited-Urinate-Company/dp/0801433908 – book.

6. http://www.amazon.com/Void-where-prohibited-revisited-bathroom-break/dp/0971959404 – a different book.

7. http://voidwhereprohibited.net/ – has the phrase in all the right places.

8. http://voidwhereprohibited.net/index.php?goto=comics – interior page of #7.

9. http://www.visi.com/~tneu/voidwhereprohibited.html -old site.

10. An Associated Content article – an often referenced victim of the Google Panda update (2011) aimed at purging low-quality content.  Anyone can upload content to this site and link out with control of the anchor text. So of course it’s full of junk and spam.  This is a good example of how Google is able to pluck good content out of  the weeds, because this one is well written and would’ve been a bystander causality of a draconian penalty.  Intereseting note: Yahoo! bought AC for $100 million in 2010, that’s $100,000,000.00, which cements founder Luke Beatty among the great “why didn’t I think of that!” guys of the digital age.

Turns out I have Alopecia Universalis – one of our human machine’s operational quirks, hallmarked by the immune system’s war against the body’s hair follicles. Fresh off the diagnosis, I join the legions of people who deal with an immune system disorder. Lucky for me, the mistaken enemy is only my hair; nothing too significant like sufferers of Multiple Sclerosis or Lupus must endure. I’m thankful for that.

My Alopecia Story: the first two years

What follows is my Alopecia story, which takes place from October 2009 until October 2011. I intend to keep writing with the Global Alopecia Mission soon in hopes to find a research to cure Alopecia. Looking at the story now, I certainly follow the 5 Stages of Grief, the well-worn track of feelings after a slam to our sad keys.

Like you might expect, getting Alopecia is tough. At no point was I in physical pain, but having my physical appearance altered was kind of shitty and surreal, but mostly just shitty. In the end, of course, it’s just hair and there are far worse things. To my friends and family who may read this: Thank You! Because it’s hard to get too far down when you have as much as I do. On with my odd odyssey to bald complacency.

The Confused Era (fall 2009)

What struck me at first was discovering how rare Alopecia is. I had never heard of it, or gave hairless people much thought. I recall mistakenly pronouncing it it Aloe-puh-see-uh, which isn’t even close to correct. I’ll never forget when I first heard it pronounced correctly, which came from friend and hair pro, who corrected me when I asked her about it, during what turned out to be my last hair cut.  She learned the word in beauty school.

So begins the confused era, dominated with a a lot of ‘what the hell is going on‘ variances of thought.  I figured that the hair-void in my chin and mustache must have resulted from my habit of thumbing the area while thinking. And, c’mon, what else could it be?

And: I had the worst fever of my life from October 25-31 that year, seemed like it could be related. I missed four days of work that week and had a fever of 103. Immediately after the fever broke, the hair began to fall. Those weeks, I would wake up every morning with my initial daily thought to examine my pillow, then wallow in confusion. But I had the “thumb” and “fever” theories to tell myself – it’ll go away, it’ll go away, as denial set in….

Medical treatment: At this point I called the doctor. “Yep – Alopecia.”  I was prescribed a topical ointment to treat Alopecia Areata, a common form of Alopecia, where people get dime sized hairless patches that quickly hair over – 2% of the US population deals with this in their lifetime. I applied the cream to a small spot on the back of my head, and we left the face untreated.

Denial (winter 09-10)

Rough winter.  It seemed to rain every day in Portland where I lived and I was leaving trails of hair behind. I started to avoid mirrors and cut down on my shower frequency to slow the fallout. I hadn’t told anybody about what I was going through, but I interacted with about 100 people every day at my jobs, and obviously something was up.

During this time, I felt like all eyes were on me and everyone had the same ‘what’s going on with Tyson’s hair’ thought that I too was having.  But I didn’t want to bring it into reality by discussing it.  Meanwhile, my immune system was in full attack mode against the hairy enemy and it didn’t look like I was winning.

Medical treatment: I had two doctors at this point – a Natropathetic doctor and a Dermatologist in Portland.  The oddest thing to me about Alopecia to date is that dermatologists are the default physician for this thing, this still seems seriously wrong. The Natropathetic doctor’s theory was that my digestive system was to blame, so she gave me some pills to do something about that. The Dermatologist opted to give me the standard treatment of local injections of cortisone – a steroid that counteracts the work of my immune system, or “shews” it away.  The dozens of cortisone shots in my skull actually worked but it was always a losing battle against my unrelenting immune system.

Anger/Resentment (first part of 2010)

One year after The Last Haircut, I was dedicating too much time to rubbing my expanding bald spots on my head and face, hoping hard to discover them filled in. Denial ended one evening when my wife took a picture of the back of my head. As she turned the camera to me, I remember slowly focusing my eyes on the screen to the survey the damage. It was real. She shaved my head that moment (my real Last Haircut) and I got on with being bald, which means shopping for a good hat and reliable sunscreen, and adopting a new level of bitterness.

At this point I was upset and frustrated. I gritted through inevitable discussions about my condition. Undeniably sincere, the act of these discussions frequently compelled the other person to share a theory, which felt like getting the same assignment in a class that you hated, over and over again. I was embarrassed and always on the defense, as I came to grips that the doctors couldn’t just fix it.

Medical treatment: I dumped the Natropathetic doctor at this point but continued the local injections. Soon after, the dermatologist recognized the losing battle, and suggested giving me a topical cream that would induce an allergic reaction on my head. This would give my immune system something to do locally and maybe it would work. It sounded cool – if we were doing it to a rat – but it had a lot of side effects and didn’t seem worth it, so I passed on that and sought a doctor with other ideas.

Depression (mid 2010)

People who know me will say that I have plenty of self-esteem in the tank.  At this point I was so tired of talking about it and dreaded the re-indoctrination required with every person I know - the whole thing was just maddening. I felt like I was losing to something that now defined me and I was somehow a failure for it. Also, this era aligns with the final stages of the hair exodus, and I spent a lot of time maintaining the last survivors, notably: eyebrows and eye lashes.

But then started to loose the eye lashes. Consider this: when you loose a quarter of your eyelashes, do you pluck the rest out? What if they grow back and you expunged the faithful survivors? Then there’s the eyebrows. When do you give up and shave the eyebrows? Awkward decisions to make for sure.

To add to the mix, new hair would emerge from the cortisone treatments, so, basically I was quite a sight and didn’t feel great about it. Overall though, I think I took it well enough, again thanks to all the awesome people and activities in my life.

Medical treatment: I left the first dermatologist for a “top” dermatologist in Portland with years of experience treating Alopecia. I was ready to do anything he said. He prescribed more Clobetasol and Monoxidal (Rogaine) twice a day (topical ointments), along with the standard cortisone injections, this time to replenish my eyebrows, which began to fade for the first time. Getting injections in the eyebrows feels exactly how you’d think.

Acceptance (late 2010 – 2011)

It took one full year to go from normal to bald, and for the the Alopecia to spread from from beard, to head, to eyebrows, to lashes. The day came where  I made the call to shave my eyebrows and it was complete. No longer was I trying to maintain something that could fall out, it was all gone. I entered the ‘screw it, it’s just hair’ state of mind and at least not shaving is kind of nice.

Medical treatment: I got deep-tissue cortisone injections in my lower-back/upper-butt area to systemically reduce the work of my immune system along with the Clobetasol/Monoxidal combo for my head. The Chicago dermatologist says that this combo needed a full 6 months before we can determine if it’s working or not.  It didn’t. The next step for the dermatologist community is another experiment: this time an off-label use of a drug used for Psoriasis.  Pass.

Research for a Cure

So now I’m looking to help out the cause and participate in new treatment options that have no side effects and soften the plight of the next guy/gal. I joined the Global Alopecia Mission recently to market the condition and hopefully help eradicate this thing for myself and my new bald friends.

Before

After

One of the Big G’s recent successes is Google Maps. The mapping project known for its data collection vehicles that push our privacy mores as they traverse the planet and even announced this year that they’d be mapping the Great Indoors. The whole project irks our sense of privacy, but it’s a fair trade when you consider the improvements in navigation we gain along with the great shots those cars collect.

In fact, Google Maps is so useful that over 100 million people have the App on their smart phone, and Google has hastened the pace of Tom Tom and Garmin along the path of the Betamax.  Here’s what happened:

The Unfortunate Souls in Milwaukee

Picture this: you’re in Milwaukee and you get a hankering for stale donuts and good coffee. You type in ‘Dunkin Donuts’ on your Google Maps App, and follow it to your sugary reward. Upon arrival, you realize that Dunkin Donuts is long gone and replaced with a boarded-up storefront, Dunkin shaped. If you take the time to drive to the others, you’ll eventually learn that only the downtown DD location actually exists:

This is the problem with Google Maps: outdated information.

A thing of the past. Google fixed this common problem, when last month it filed a patent for a user-generated system to update incorrect data from the App.  Long (and great) story from SEO By the Sea, short: You can now tell Google on your phone the fate of the Dunkin’ Donuts and they’ll update the map.