Below are 40 search quality highlight changes from Google. There’s still a lot of changes going on but this recaps February.

• More coverage for related searches
• Tweak to categorizer for expanded sitelinks
• Less duplication in expanded sitelinks
• More consistent thumbnail sizes on results page
• More locally relevant predictions in YouTube.
• More accurate detection of official pages.
• Refreshed per-URL country information.
• Expand the size of our images index in Universal Search.
• Minor tuning of autocomplete policy algorithms.
• “Site:” query update
• Improved detection for SafeSearch in Image Search
• Interval based history tracking for indexing
• Improvements to foreign language synonyms
• Disabling two old fresh query classifiers
• More organized search results for Google Korea
• Fresher images
• Update to the Google bar
• Adding three new languages to classifier related to error pages
• Improvements to travel-related searches
• Data refresh for related searches signal
• International launch of shopping rich snippets
• Improvements to Korean spelling
• Improvements to freshness
• Web History in 20 new countries
• Improved snippets for video channels
• Improvements to ranking for local search results
• Improvements to English spell correction
• Improvements to coverage of News Universal
• Consolidation of signals for spiking topics
• Better triggering for Turkish weather search feature
• Visual refresh to account settings page
• Panda update
• Link evaluation
• SafeSearch update
• Spam update
• Improved local results

For more details on each on these listed items you can go over to official search blog of Google.

[Fresh Factor addressed in new Feb 2012 Panda update - which is rolling with additional changes]

Google recently changed it’s search algorithm to include results based on timely happenings. It has built upon the Caffeine update and it has been said to affect 35% of all the search queries being performed.

We probably have all performed searches that have returned old results when we were looking for current information, this is expected to change that issue quie dramatically.

Here’s a well documented article from DevWebPro that goes into more detail entitled: Google Update Increases Search “Freshness”

If you are looking to take advantage of this new and improved algorithmic shift for your own search results, request a complimentary SEO Analysis Report or call us (610) 768-0357 for more details.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has become more involved over the past couple years including additional activities that need to be performed to stay competitive. An SEO has been upgraded to “Organic Web Strategist“, according to a blog post on SEOmoz by Rand Fishkin.

Sometimes it’s difficult for the average business owner to understand the value of organic search engine optimization, but you should realize that by gaining a #1 ranking on Google for a keyword that would drive 5000 new and relevant visitors a month to your website would mean (even at 1% conversion rate) would equal 50 new sales a month! When you multiply this with your average customer value you can determine how much revenue a #1 ranking would produce on just one highly relevant keyword phrase.

To get an idea of how much additional SEO work is needed to compete, below outlines activities by the SEO era. By no means is this an exhaustive list but provides an outline of how SEO has become more involved, more work. There’s more competition than ever before so it takes more work to get that coveted top tanking for your best converting keywords.

Before 2004 SEO consisted of:

Accessibility:

• Crawlability of Wesbite
• Spider-Readable Content
• Search Engine Friendly Navigation/Architecture
• Limiting any Duplicate Content Issues
• On-Page HTML Sitemaps

Keywords

• Basic Keyword Research
• Keyword Targeting for Individual Web Pages
• On-page in-content Text Links

Link Building:

• Reaching out to other webmasters
• Directories
• Blogs and related Sites
• Guestbook and Signature links

Search Verticals:

• Images

From 2004 to 2008 SEO expanded to include the below items in conjunction with the items above.

Accessibility:

• XML Sitemaps
• Quality Content Creation – no thin content
• Rel=Canonical
• Issues with the Nofollow Tag

Keyword Research now includes:

• Keyword Difficulty Analysis
• Keyword Commercial Value
• Keyword Usage in Images
• Keyword Manipulation generally in Footers

Link Building added:

• Social Media Marketing specifically for Link Building
• Press Release and PR Tactics
• Content Syndication
• Badges and Widgets
• Embedded Content
• Guest Blogging
• Article Marketing
• and more

Search Verticals added:

• Local SEO, Maps and Google Places, Bing Local, etc.
• Video
• Shopping
• News

Here is the over all picture in 2011, these SEO activities and responsibilities include:

Site Accessibility

• Developing a website that can be easily crawled and indexed

Market / Keyword Research and Targeting

• Picking and testing the right keywords, knowing they convert via PPC tests, and then employing them effectively for organic search

Content Strategy

• You need a plan on how to leverage your businesses resources to develop useful, valuable, relevant and share-worthy material

Content Creation

• Creation of blog posts, evergreen content, infographics, interactive works, apps, tools, and more

Link Building

• Investigating, tracking and acquiring high quality links

New Search Protocols

• Schema.org, Rel=Author, Video XML Sitemaps and more

Search Verticals

• Images, local, video, news, blogs, social, mobile, product, and more

Community Management

• Creating and participating in conversations around your brand/sector in beneficial ways to drive awareness

Social Media Promotion

• Utilizing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+1, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, etc., to improve reach and social buzz

Social Network Reach

• Improving the size, depth and breadth of your social networks to reach more potential customers and connections

Reputation Tracking

• Watching your brand’s search results, social media remarks and web content to track success and monitor danger

Local / Maps Optimization

• Optimizing for placement in local search and local portals, both web and social including monitoring local activity

An Organic Web Strategist then would be defined as having many more online marketing responsibilities than the basic or advanced Search Engine Optimizer – as it incorporates many facets of the growing social web. Any business that wants to succeed in the future needs an experienced SEO Company aka organic web strategists to get the results and the ROI that will allow you to continually expand your online marketing efforts.

For the sake of the new SEO blog design, I am going to dump a bunch of SEO knowledge and promotional tasks one can do to improve website performance in the search engines, namely Google. User Experience is super important in the eyes of the big “G”.

You can get free SEO reports from a few good sources online each covering varying SEO factors and other web optimization issues.

Below are a list of things that can be done, checked and modified for better SEO and increased visibility in Google’s search engine results.

Take into consideration:

The time it takes to load your site, or site load time – this has become an important factor to Google.

How many current visitors your website is receiving – a catch-22 – the more visitors the better your site will do in Google (more on how to get plenty of visitors to your site).

You should know how many web pages you have Google’s index versus how many actual pages you have.
You can do a “site:domain.com” to see all your pages in Google and also do a  “site:domain.com keyword”
This asks Google to show all the pages in your web site, in their order of importance that relate best to that keyword and theme.  The page that is listed in the first place position for that keyword should be the page and keyword you are optimizing for, or your homepage.

Your site should declare the language and the proper Doctype.

Text to Code Ratio

You should use compelling and keyword rich Title tags, Description tags, 66 and 154 characters respectively.

Your Robots.txt file should block all folders that do not need indexing, this will help speed up the bots which will then be able to spider more of your site and pages quicker increasing the amount of pages in Google’s index.
(Example:)
User-agent:*
Disallow: /images/

A properly developed XML sitemap will also help get a higher indexed page count. I’d recommend using GsiteCrawler to build your own XML sitemap and set priorities.

Is your site Mobile ready with a properly setup micro format?

Have a QR code yet?

A KML file?

Google Verified?

Tracking Visitors with Analytics?

Utilizing Google Places and Webmaster Tools? (Bing webmaster central also)

Is your website valid or close to being valid by W3C standards?

Does your site use either the www  or non-www redirect and not both. If your site shows up for both versions this could be considered duplicate content, a duplicate home page!  Same with http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Is your content truly unique? Any copied or badly re-written content that resembles already established content on another site will really hurt your chances of your site doing well. Duplicate content ON your site is bad. Google looks at the author or the originator of the content, where it is first indexed as the source… you want to be the source of the content you publish.

Heading (H1 and H2 tags being utilized).

Are theme and related keywords being used within the content of the page and main keyword you are targeting? Do you know how to find Theme or LSI keywords?

Are you internal linking your keywords within the content of the site. Google can distinguish what content is in the sidebar, header, footer and content area, this is why it is important to like within your content to other pages in your site.

Page names, or URLs – short and keyword rich, close to the root?

Describe images with image alt text (not real important but every little thing adds up)

Does your site have a Search function and an on-page sitemap?

Usability and Promotions:

Is your current website design and footprint modernized with top notch graphics that provide clear call-to-actions with your phone number prominently displayed and a form to capture emails to build up your email list?  A list is an asset, you can be building one with a free report or special coupon or deal, be creative but provide value.

Are you utilizing a blog to publish new content. Are you syndicating that content out to your social sites automatically?

LINKS LINKS LINKS

Links pointing back to your site with the keyword text your targeting for a top ranking can be the one biggest influence on your ranking. So how do you get more links.  There are old ways which work okay still and other ways that work very well

Make sure your listed in the top directories in your niche, the general directories and even the top paid directories if your serious about competing for top keywords.

Article directory links via author resource box.

Forum commenting with keyword signature text.

Use classified advertising with a twist to stay on top and drive targeted traffic to your site.

RSS Feed submissions – Top Blog directory submissions

The under-utilized Press Release marketing strategy.

SOCIAL MEDIA is HUGE:

Facebook fans, Twitter followers, LinkedIn, YouTube channel, etc., ALL becoming a MUST to stay relevant.

The various channels of social media marketing:

TOP NETWORKS and NETWORKING sites
NEWS STORY
BOOKMARKING
MICRO BLOG
VIDEO, AUDIO, PHOTO
DOCUMENT SHARING (PDF, PPT) aka Scribd
ANSWERS (Ask, Yahoo Answers)
AGGREGATION/SYNDICATION
RSS, PING, WIDGET
SLIDESHOW, WIKI
BLOG CREATION, SITE CREATION

More about Links:

Things to consider when acquiring links…

Anchor text and PageRank of linking site. The age of the link. The number of outgoing links from linking site. Prominence of link placement, early in HTML is better, in-content links are better.

Whether it is Panda or some other future organic Google algorithmic shift update you need to know the real foundation of good SEO to be less affected or even rewarded when major shifts happen.

Can you remember back to some these Google updates, and how well your site did or did not do?

The good ‘ol Big Daddy update
The “False” Update – This was a big update with many changes
Bourbon Update
Allegra Update
Brandy Update
Austin Update
Florida Update
Esmeralda Update
Dominic Update
Cassandra Update
Boston Update

There is a lot to keep up-to-date on, but good foundational SEO will keep you safe and prospering for years to come.

First Place Positioning provides foundational and expert SEO Services, fully-functional easy-to-update SEO Web Design and Development, Social Media Marketing and Syndication and quality Link Building.

First Place Positioning will also SHOW and TELL you everything you need to know, we lay it all out for you, all about SEO and ranking – then you can do it all yourself and dominate your industry and keywords with the knowledge we gained over the 13 years in the SEO industry… we continue to adapt and refine to help our clients stay on top and continue to modify processes and strategies that work like gangbusters!

We will be putting out a free report that expands on the information in this post, just subscribe to our RSS feed and you will be the first to know about the free SEO/SMO Marketing blueprint that you can readily download when available.

If you want a Internet marketing consultation fill out the form to the top or right and we will contact you with a scheduled time.. no obligation and no initial cost… limited availability.

Search engine optimization is the process of employing specific strategies that will help you to gain a top search engine ranking. This has become paramount to the online success of websites.

The major search engine Google will display your website at the top of the search engine results when optimized correctly with on-page and off-page factors being fully implemented. There are numerous ways to promote your site with inbound keyword link text which is one of the most essential factors in gaining that coveted top ranking on those keywords that will drive new customers to your site.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, organic natural search engine rankings are the key to the success and growth of your website. Unless you are willing to pay thousands of dollars through PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, organic SEO is the smart businessman’s choice. You can use both PPC and SEO in conjunction with each other or choose just to dominate the organic natural results.

We know that getting a top search engine placement for your best keywords, consist of more than just optimizing the meta tags for each website page. By utilizing white hat techniques and best practices for Google, we’ve found over the years this gives your keywords the most longevity in the top positions. This works for Yahoo! and the Bing major search engines as well, and in the long-term having very little risk of losing favor with these major search engines.

Below are some SEO and promotional tidbits

Domain age plays a role but can be overcome with high quality link building and proper on-page optimization more than ever before.

By analyzing the top ten listing results for your keyword(s) you can uncover the theme words needed to employ in your content to dominate that specific keyword ranking.

Get your web site rank up for your words and watch the sales and leads start flowing into your email box through your opt-in form

Develop off-page keyword links that will result in improved search placement, and optimize in-content links giving more weight to those keyword phrases.

Having an optimized blog that will allow you to add pages and content on a regular basis that will help keep your site fresh and fully indexed by Google. At the same time allow other users to engage if you desire them to, and open up additional blog linking opportunities, RSS feeds and Blog directories to name a couple. You’ll be able to use tags or tagging of your posts, along with trackbacks.

We have all the SEO and site tools necessary to uncover and out-rank your competition on most any term targeted, both nationally if needed and especially locally. By optimizing your Google Places account you can see an immediate jump into the local box of search results for your main keywords.

After so many years in the SEO business we have a mission to give you the most bang for your proverbial buck with our SEO service, one that will rival any competitors SEO service.

We help you select a set of keywords that have an intrinsic SEO value and a high commercial value so the SEO efforts applied will pay off handsomely for your company in the least amount of time.

You will see exact match domain names getting top spots on keyword searches, but once again this can be overcome by out-performing that domain in on-page factors and high quality and high PageRank links back to your web pages.

Marketing online has hundreds of facets that need to be considered for today’s webmaster.

Even now more than ever, the traffic sources available are limitless. SEO can cover the whole gambit of online marketing solutions. Building a list of leads, various submissions, article development, clean HTML code, relevant content, algorithm changes, better crawl rate, topic centered content, competition analysis, social media marketing, etc.

Optimize the organic elements of your website correctly and your site will be visited by the engine’s spider more often.
Directory inclusion

Industry related directories and sites
Paid online directories
Press Releases
Content syndication
Analytics for analysis of visitors click stream.
Check code for compliance
Complete SEO web development from the ground up at a low-cost.
Look for long-term experience from you SEO firm and a guarantee as it relates to more traffic, not necessarily a #1 ranking for a particular keyword.
A fast server
Custom designed Facebook business pages
Custom Twitter backgrounds with auto-following techniques to effectively target the right audience in the right geographic location.
The popularity of your site, based on links will help with search engine rankings when that linking popularity steadily increases over time.
Your site will reach a wider audience get more sales, receive more search traffic.
Get SEO tips and strategies and become a part of the process of getting your site to be a dominate player in your industry.
Your visitors will now take more decisive action.
Assign an author to your blog, allow comments to be considered and make it a more interactive experience for your visitors.
Develop different copy to be published on social media sites
Video usage and optimization
Linking management, maps, media placement, technical insight, and more
Getting conversions is the goal
Time-tested SEO methods, monitor of keyword rankings
High PageRank links
RSS availability
Give searchers what they are looking for
Address on your web pages for local search traffic
Choose the right categories for your business
Register and claim your Google listing
Use the right color scheme for your website
Develop a community from within your site or through the social networks.
Research and reverse-engineer competitors
Improving inbound link profile
The right SEO methodology does indeed get the results.
Proper use of redirects
Stay out of the sandbox!
Site navigation structure should support your main keywords, successfully themed and supported by related terms

You will want to make sure you write your web content for both the users and the search engines, a fine balance which after years of practice is simple to perfect with a little hard work and research of your market keywords and target audience.

Let the world see your webpage in the top positions for your most important keyword phrases if indeed your business deserves this.

News on Google
——
By Chris Crum
WebProNews

Google just dropped a bombshell: Eric Schmidt is out as CEO (as announced in the company’s earinngs report. We’ll be covering the company’s earnings call, which is sure to have more on this.

He will step down from the role starting April 4, and co-founder Larry Page will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as CEO. Co-founder Sergey Brin will devote his energy to strategic projects like working on new products.

Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

On the Official Google Blog, Schmidt writes:

When I joined Google in 2001 I never imagined—even in my wildest dreams—that we would get as far, as fast as we have today. Search has quite literally changed people’s lives—increasing the collective sum of the world’s knowledge and revolutionizing advertising in the process. And our emerging businesses—display, Android, YouTube and Chrome—are on fire. Of course, like any successful organization we’ve had our fair share of good luck, but the entire team—now over 24,000 Googlers globally—deserves most of the credit.

And as our results today show, the outlook is bright. But as Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey and I have been talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making—and over the holidays we decided now was the right moment to make some changes to the way we are structured.

For the last 10 years, we have all been equally involved in making decisions. This triumvirate approach has real benefits in terms of shared wisdom, and we will continue to discuss the big decisions among the three of us. But we have also agreed to clarify our individual roles so there’s clear responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

Larry will now lead product development and technology strategy, his greatest strengths, and starting from April 4 he will take charge of our day-to-day operations as Google’s Chief Executive Officer. In this new role I know he will merge Google’s technology and business vision brilliantly. I am enormously proud of my last decade as CEO, and I am certain that the next 10 years under Larry will be even better! Larry, in my clear opinion, is ready to lead.

Sergey has decided to devote his time and energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products. His title will be Co-Founder. He’s an innovator and entrepreneur to the core, and this role suits him perfectly.

As Executive Chairman, I will focus wherever I can add the greatest value: externally, on the deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership that are increasingly important given Google’s global reach; and internally as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

We are confident that this focus will serve Google and our users well in the future. Larry, Sergey and I have worked exceptionally closely together for over a decade—and we anticipate working together for a long time to come. As friends, co-workers and computer scientists we have a lot in common, most important of all a profound belief in the potential for technology to make the world a better place. We love Google—our people, our products and most of all the opportunity we have to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

Earlier Schmidt wrote an ineresting post at Harvard Business Review today indicating that Google’s strategic initiatives for the year are all about mobile. He wrote:
First, we must focus on developing the under­lying fast networks (generally called LTE). These will be 8-to-10- mega­bit networks, roughly 10 times what we have today, which will usher in new and creative applications, mostly entertainment and social, for these phone platforms.

Second, we must attend to the development of mobile money. Phones, as we know, are used as banks in many poorer parts of the world—and modern technology means that their use as financial tools can go much further than that.

Third, we want to increase the availability of inexpensive smartphones in the poorest parts of the world. We envision literally a billion people getting inexpensive, browser-based touchscreen phones over the next few years. Can you imagine how this will change their awareness of local and global information and their notion of education? And that will be just the start.

Here’s the full release including the financials (see the balance sheets here):

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – January 20, 2011 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter and the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010.

“Q4 marked a terrific end to a stellar year,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. “Our strong performance has been driven by a rapidly growing digital economy, continuous product innovation that benefits both users and advertisers, and by the extraordinary momentum of our newer businesses, such as display and mobile. These results give us the optimism and confidence to invest heavily in future growth — investments that will benefit our users, Google and the wider web.”

In addition, Google has also announced plans to streamline decision making and create clearer lines of responsibility and accountability at the top of the company.

• Starting from April 4, Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, will take charge of Google’s day-to-day operations as Chief Executive Officer.
• Sergey Brin, Google Co-Founder, will devote his energy to strategic projects, in particular working on new products.
• Eric Schmidt will assume the role of Executive Chairman, focusing externally on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership–all of which are increasingly important given Google’s global reach. Internally, he will continue to act as an advisor to Larry and Sergey.

Commenting on these changes, Eric said: “We’ve been talking about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making for a long time. By clarifying our individual roles we’ll create clearer responsibility and accountability at the top of the company. In my clear opinion, Larry is ready to lead and I’m excited about working with both him and Sergey for a long time to come.”

Larry said: “Eric has clearly done an outstanding job leading Google for the last decade. The results speak for themselves. There is no other CEO in the world that could have kept such headstrong founders so deeply involved and still run the business so brilliantly. Eric is a tremendous leader and I have learned innumerable lessons from him. His advice and efforts will be invaluable to me as I start in this new role. Google still has such incredible opportunity–we are only at the beginning and I can’t wait to get started.”

Q4 Financial Summary

Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2010, an increase of 26% compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs (TAC). In the fourth quarter of 2010, TAC totaled $2.07 billion, or 25% of advertising revenues.

Google reports operating income, operating margin, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures in the accompanying financial tables.

• GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.98 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $2.48 billion, or 37% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $3.38 billion, or 40% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.76 billion, or 41% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.54 billion, compared to $1.97 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.85 billion, compared to $2.19 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $7.81 on 326 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $6.13 in the fourth quarter of 2009 on 322 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $8.75, compared to $6.79 in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• Non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin exclude the expenses related to stock-based compensation (SBC). Non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS exclude the expenses related to SBC and the related tax benefits. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the charge related to SBC was $396 million, compared to $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. The tax benefit related to SBC was $89 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 and $62 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Q4 Financial Highlights

Revenues – Google reported revenues of $8.44 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, representing a 26% increase over fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $6.67 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.

Google Sites Revenues – Google-owned sites generated revenues of $5.67 billion, or 67% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 28% increase over fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $4.42 billion.

Google Network Revenues – Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.50 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from fourth quarter 2009 network revenues of $2.04 billion.

International Revenues – Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $4.38 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 52% in the third quarter of 2010 and 53% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2010 through the fourth quarter of 2010, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 would have been $201 million lower. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the fourth quarter of 2009 through the fourth quarter of 2010, our revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010 would have been $132 million higher.

• Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $878 million, representing 10% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 12% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
• In the fourth quarter of 2010, we recognized a benefit of $25 million to revenues through our foreign exchange risk management program, compared to $8 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 11% over the third quarter of 2010.

Cost-Per-Click – Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 4% over the third quarter of 2010.

TAC – Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 25% in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.74 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $333 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Other Cost of Revenues – Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, amortization of intangible assets, content acquisition costs as well as credit card processing charges, increased to $877 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $688 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Operating Expenses – Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $2.51 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, or 30% of revenues, compared to $1.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, or 27% of revenues.

Stock-Based Compensation (SBC) – In the fourth quarter of 2010, the total charge related to SBC was $396 million, compared to $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

We currently estimate SBC charges for grants to employees prior to January 1, 2011 to be approximately $1.6 billion for 2011. This estimate does not include expenses to be recognized related to employee stock awards that are granted after December 31, 2010 or non-employee stock awards that have been or may be granted.

Operating Income – GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.98 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $2.48 billion, or 37% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $3.38 billion, or 40% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $2.76 billion, or 41% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Interest and Other Income, Net – Interest and other income, net increased to $160 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $88 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Income Taxes – Our effective tax rate was 19% for the fourth quarter of 2010.

Net Income – GAAP net income in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $2.54 billion, compared to $1.97 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income was $2.85 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $2.19 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $7.81 on 326 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $6.13 in the fourth quarter of 2009 on 322 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the fourth quarter of 2010 was $8.75, compared to $6.79 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Cash Flow and Capital Expenditures – Net cash provided by operating activities in the fourth quarter of 2010 totaled $3.53 billion, compared to $2.73 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. In the fourth quarter of 2010, capital expenditures were $2.55 billion, which was primarily related to the purchase of our office building in New York City, as well as IT infrastructure investments, including data centers, servers, and networking equipment. Free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures. In the fourth quarter of 2010, free cash flow was $981 million.

We expect to continue to make significant capital expenditures.

A reconciliation of free cash flow to net cash provided by operating activities, the GAAP measure of liquidity, is included at the end of this release.

Cash – As of December 31, 2010, cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $35.0 billion.

Headcount – On a worldwide basis, Google employed 24,400 full-time employees as of December 31, 2010, up from 23,331 full-time employees as of September 30, 2010.
WEBCAST AND CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION

A live audio webcast of Google’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2010 earnings release call will be available at http://investor.google.com/webcast.html. The call begins today at 1:30 PM (PT) / 4:30 PM (ET). This press release, the financial tables, as well as other supplemental information including the reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to their nearest comparable GAAP measures, are also available on that site.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include statements regarding our continued investments in our core areas of strategic focus, our expected stock-based compensation charges, and our plans to make significant capital expenditures. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. The potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted include, among others, unforeseen changes in our hiring patterns and our need to expend capital to accommodate the growth of the business, as well as those risks and uncertainties included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, and our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2010, which are on file with the SEC, and are available on our investor relations website at investor.google.com and on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Additional information will also be set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, which we expect to file with the SEC in February 2011. All information provided in this release and in the attachments is as of January 20, 2011, and Google undertakes no duty to update this information.
ABOUT NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

To supplement our consolidated financial statements, which statements are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, we use the following non-GAAP financial measures: non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP EPS, and free cash flow. The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. For more information on these non-GAAP financial measures, please see the tables captioned “Reconciliations of non-GAAP results of operations measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures” and “Reconciliation from net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow” included at the end of this release.

We use these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. Our management believes that these non-GAAP financial measures provide meaningful supplemental information regarding our performance and liquidity by excluding certain expenses and expenditures that may not be indicative of our “recurring core business operating results,” meaning our operating performance excluding not only non-cash charges, such as stock-based compensation, but also discrete cash charges that are infrequent in nature. We believe that both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing our performance and when planning, forecasting, and analyzing future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate management’s internal comparisons to our historical performance and liquidity as well as comparisons to our competitors’ operating results. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors both because (1) they allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision making and (2) they are used by our institutional investors and the analyst community to help them analyze the health of our business.

Non-GAAP operating income and operating margin. We define non-GAAP operating income as operating income plus stock-based compensation. Non-GAAP operating margin is defined as non-GAAP operating income divided by revenues. Google considers these non-GAAP financial measures to be useful metrics for management and investors because they exclude the effect of stock-based compensation so that Google’s management and investors can compare Google’s recurring core business operating results over multiple periods. Because of varying available valuation methodologies, subjective assumptions and the variety of award types that companies can use under ASC Topic 718, Google’s management believes that providing a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes stock-based compensation allows investors to make meaningful comparisons between Google’s recurring core business operating results and those of other companies, as well as providing Google’s management with an important tool for financial and operational decision making and for evaluating Google’s own recurring core business operating results over different periods of time. There are a number of limitations related to the use of non-GAAP operating income versus operating income calculated in accordance with GAAP. First, non-GAAP operating income excludes some costs, namely, stock-based compensation, that are recurring. Stock-based compensation has been and will continue to be for the foreseeable future a significant recurring expense in Google’s business. Second, stock-based compensation is an important part of our employees’ compensation and impacts their performance. Third, the components of the costs that we exclude in our calculation of non-GAAP operating income may differ from the components that our peer companies exclude when they report their results of operations. Management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from non-GAAP operating income and evaluating non-GAAP operating income together with operating income calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Non-GAAP net income and EPS. We define non-GAAP net income as net income plus stock-based compensation less the related tax effects. We define non-GAAP EPS as non-GAAP net income divided by the weighted average outstanding shares, on a fully-diluted basis. We consider these non-GAAP financial measures to be a useful metric for management and investors for the same reasons that Google uses non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin. However, in order to provide a complete picture of our recurring core business operating results, we exclude from non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS the tax effects associated with stock-based compensation. Without excluding these tax effects, investors would only see the gross effect that excluding these expenses had on our operating results. The same limitations described above regarding Google’s use of non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin apply to our use of non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS. Management compensates for these limitations by providing specific information regarding the GAAP amounts excluded from non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS and evaluating non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP EPS together with net income and EPS calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Free cash flow. We define free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities minus capital expenditures. We consider free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by the business that, after the acquisition of property and equipment, including information technology infrastructure and land and buildings, can be used for strategic opportunities, including investing in our business, making strategic acquisitions, and strengthening the balance sheet. Analysis of free cash flow also facilitates management’s comparisons of our operating results to competitors’ operating results. A limitation of using free cash flow versus the GAAP measure of net cash provided by operating activities as a means for evaluating Google is that free cash flow does not represent the total increase or decrease in the cash balance from operations for the period because it excludes cash used for capital expenditures during the period. Our management compensates for this limitation by providing information about our capital expenditures on the face of the cash flow statement and under the caption “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K. Google has computed free cash flow using the same consistent method from quarter to quarter and year to year.

The accompanying tables have more details on the GAAP financial measures that are most directly comparable to non-GAAP financial measures and the related reconciliations between these financial measures.

————–

What does all this mean to your visibility on Google. . .

Obviously, the Internet is huge and the latest data tells us there are 1,802,330,457* people that are connected to it. All types of subjects about the Internet are now being discussed in everyday life all around the world. One area that has grown steadily is how to get a top ranking in Google. There are a lot more people wanting to know more about search engine optimization. There’s a considerable amount of curiosity about how to get a top search engine ranking on the internet as this paves the way to website visitors and new sales. Knowing what to do can be overwhelming, so keeping it simple is best if you are just learning SEO.

This article is intended to assist you a little further on how to get a top search engine ranking. If you want to know how to get a top search engine ranking continue reading and find out how to do it in 3 easy steps!

Step one is to choose one specific keyword phrase through performing research that shows enough traffic and not too much competition and that is highly relevant to your website. If you choose to target the wrong keywords your efforts may not bring the best results. Finish this step promptly, correctly and completely. This is very important. If it isn’t done correctly, for whatever reason, then you will get the wrong type of visitors that don’t convert or you will be unable to rank for that specific keyword target.

You can use the Google Search Based Keyword Tool or better yet use the Download Your Free Copy of Market Samurai and save a ton of time and find those ‘money’ words much faster.

The next step is going to be optimizing all the possible on-page factors for that keyword phrase that make sense for that page. Things you will want to look at optimizing are using the keyword phrase in the Title, Description, H1 tag, using in-content links for that phrase, and you should also add related keywords in the body that would occur naturally around this keyword phrase, or LSI words. Words that relate to your keyword but do not have the main keyword in the phrase. Synonyms, and words only those in the industry would know. We actually offer an in-depth FREE SEO REPORT that will analyze a specific page of your website for a specific keyword and give that page an SEO Score which and will give advice and point out areas for better optimization.

The third step will be to gain different types of backlinks with the specific keyword phrase in the link text. This can be done many various ways, and should be. Having a variety of links is better than having all your links coming from one or two sources. Ways to get links include article marketing, participating in related forums with your link in your signatures, blog commenting, social media profiles, social media syndication and bookmarking, press releases, directories – general, niche, blog, rss directories, micro-blogging i.e. Twitter, video, audio, photo sites, document sharing like Scribd.com, even creating an account at a Question and Answer site, these all give you the opportunity to build your own links specific to your target keyword phrase.

This is very important because the more links you have with that keyword phrase the better your chances will be to move up the search engine rankings.. What’s important to avoid here is spam linking or linking on PageRank 0 sites. Higher quality links are much better and worth much more in the eyes of the top search engines and are truly worth the effort of finding and developing links on these high PR web properties.

Follow the steps outlined above and you ought to be able to gain that top search engine ranking on your specific keyword target. Then take advantage of the fruits and benefits of having a traffic producing keyword at the top of the search engines that you will have earned by your time and effort.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

If you would like help with keyword research and your SEO Campaign please contact us at (610) 768-0357 or get yourself a no obligation, free SEO report for one of your individual web pages and get to work on that first place ranking on Google for that target keyword that will drive hundreds of new visitors to your site!

Keywords have a monetary value when ranking in the top positions of Google even at the lowest conversion rates.

Learn to convert better and increase the value of your current traffic overnight!

1. If a keyword has 100 searches a day, that’s 3000/month.
2. If you ranked #1 on Google you would get approximately 42% of the clicks or 1260 visitors.
3. At a 1% conversion rate you’d get 12.6 sales.
4. Determine your average customer value, let’s say $325, that’s an extra $4,095/month form ONE 1ST PLACE RANKING KEYWORD!

This is why keyword research is so important, target the right keywords and get the most from your SEO efforts.

Just came across this in my email this morning and thought it good to keep things accurate, so I’m posting it here for you.

How to Value SEO Ranking

Ed Gluzman at 10:18 pm – March 27, 2010

The first question to ask before investing in an SEO campaign is “What is the value of the first page organic ranking anyway?” For example, I’ve calculated the annual market value of a first page Google organic ranking for ‘Cosmetic Dentistry’ to be $295,367. For a strategic business decision maker, putting a dollar value on the 1st page organic ranking is critical in determining how much time, money and effort to invest into your SEO campaign. Armed with this information you can perform a pro-forma ROI analysis that compares search engine optimization with other forms of marketing such as PPC or direct mail.

Calculating the fair market value of an organic ranking is a straight forward process that requires a few assumptions. Google gives you most of the information you need with their keyword tool, and the assumptions can be gathered from the analytics data collected from your web site, or from other sources. The fair market value calculation is basically a “comp analysis”, or what would be the price of another comparable source to drive the same amount of targeted traffic to my website.

You may have had to perform a fair market value “comp analysis” the last time you purchased a new home. When performing a home comp analysis, you average the price of other comparable homes recently sold in your area. If you can calculate what the market is willing to pay for a given home, you can determine if the seller’s price is fair. This same type of analysis can be performed before undertaking a search engine optimization campaign by analyzing what your competitors are paying Google Adwords to rank for a given search term. If your SEO campaign is going to cost more than paying a search engine directly for the traffic, SEO may not be the optimal solution. Of course pay-per-click can be extremely effective when applied correctly.

So here’s how I came up with a conservative estimate for the fair market value of the search term “cosmetic dentistry” using Google keyword tool:

SEO ValuationDetermining value of a top SEO rank

The first step is to gather 2 pieces of information from the keyword tool. You will need the Global Monthly Search Volume and the Estimated Average Cost Per Click. In the case of ‘cosmetic dentistry’ search term, the Exact Match values are 40,500 and $7.15 respectively. These figures are outlined in red in the screen shot. Please note that I changed the match type to Exact, so that my valuation will not include any of the long tail derivative rankings. Usually when you optimize your website for a specific search term such as ‘cosmetic dentistry’, you will also attain top rankings for long tail keyword phrases such as ‘florida cosmetic dentistry’ or ‘cosmetic dentistry specialist’. Since we’re working on a conservative estimate, these rankings will not be considered in this valuation.

To complete our analysis we need to know the average click through rate of a top organic search engine position. If you already use a web analytics tool such as Hitslink, you may already know the average CTR for your organic listings. Other sources such as Enquiro/Marketing Sherpa B2B Survey indicate that 52.6% of all search engine visitors click on a top 4 organic listings. Further, the study shows that 27.1% click on the first organic listing. Since this is a conservative estimate, I will drop the top position and will only consider positions 2, 3 and 4. So subtracting 27.1 from 52.6 and dividing by 3 gives us an average click through rate of 8.5% for positions 2 through 4.

Taking all of the figures here is the estimated annual value of the top organic ranking for the ‘cosmetic dentistry’ search term:

12 x (Monthly Exact Volume) x (Avg. Click Through Rate) x (Estimated Average CPC)

or

12 x 40,500 * 0.085 * $7.15 = $295,367

As I said before, this is a very conservative estimate, that does not account for long tail derivative search terms and only assumes Google traffic. You can adjust this value by including contributions from other major search engines into the calculation. According to Net Applications, global search engine market share for Google in February 2010 reached 85% of the total search engine market share.

We can use this data to modify our formula and get a slightly better view of the valuation:

12 x ((Monthly Exact Volume) / (Google Market Share)) x (Avg. Click Through Rate) x (Estimated Average CPC)

or

12 x (40,500/0.85) * 0.085 * $7.15 = $347,490

Now you have a very simple technique for estimating the annual value of attaining a top organic position for a particular search term. For more in-depth and detailed analysis of your search terms and web site optimization requirements, retaining an SEO consulting firm can lead to increased search engine visibility and consequently ROI.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization: (from Wikipedia): “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.”

Google is the number one search engine as it receives 272 million unique searches per day. That is more than 11 million searches per hour. Although MSN and Yahoo! have a share of the search market, the effort to focus ranking on Google far outweighs the others. Although MSN and Yahoo! say they have a better conversion ratio in the Pay-Per-Click arena, there is no comparison to Google when it comes to organic results.

The bottom line is that Google supplies a lot more traffic, which means you will make more money by using Google. Driving traffic to your website is the goal but ultimately you want your revenues to increase. So converting that traffic is a big key for your SEO campaign to be a success.

It all starts with keywords… keyword phrases. Knowing the keyword phrases that actually convert into revenue before optimizing your site is a step that must not be understated. Using various keyword tools (like Wordtracker) will reveal the keyword data that people are actually searching on. Choosing and testing those keywords for the potential to convert into sales is a crucial step that can be accomplished through a simple keyword tracking PPC campaign and then once these keywords are proven to convert… than the organic optimization process can be put in place.

While focusing on your core terms is vital, uncovering other phrases that will bring the right visitors to your site can set you apart from your competition and get you targeted leads quite quickly.

Here are some keyword research tips that can accomplish this:

Using Wordtracker or other keyword tools, it is best to utilize “action related” root words to see how that word is exactly being used within phrases. Words like: Take, Stir, Hold, Make, Create, Fix, Repair, Replace, Shift, Retract, Lift, Assemble, Cool, Start.

Explore keyword data with a focus on the natural power of prepositions. Examples of a few Prepositions:
From, Across, During, Between, Beside, Below, Inside of, Outside of, Over, Past Toward, Under, Through, Since, Until, Around, Against.

Explore the data with the flexibility of extreme opposites: Antonyms
Start, Begin, Best, Stop, Finish, Worst, Newest, Oldest, Advantage, Disadvantage, Always, Never, Common, Rare, Easy, Difficult, Exterior, Interior.

Keep in mind Seasonally related, News related, Topic related (common hot topics) keywords. Also words that relate to all kinds of “Color”, “tools”, pricing “Numbers” and Semantics (supporting terms rather than exact topics).

Other words to consider at the start of the digging process:
How-to, Stop, Cure, Solution, Answer, Free, Learn, Treat, Quit, Help, Lose, Fast, Find, Deal, Offer.

Buying keyword modifiers like, Shipping , Delivery, Order, Cost, Price, Rate, Charge, Fee, etc., can open a door to phrases that you may have never thought of or considered.

Using an optimization process utilizing your core terms, mid-level terms and long-tail keywords after an in-depth keyword research process will give you a big jump on your competition plus you will have a good list of terms you can build content around on an on-going basis.

There are over 200 factors that Google takes into account when ranking web pages. We offer full SEO reporting on many of these factors so you can easily distinguish what your web pages need as far as optimization to gain top search engine rankings. The bulk of this report is focused towards the on-page factors, although your site and your top 10 competitor’s link popularity are analyzed to determine the competitive nature of the keywords being targeted for top ranking.

There are many other items not revealed in this report, many of a technical nature which we can also reveal to you. The bottom line is that we can optimize any website and have an immediate effect in top rankings and targeted visitors. There has not yet been a website that we’ve come across that was fully optimized. Of course, the number of links you have pointing to your website is 80% of the battle. This is why we have processes in place to increase link popularity of websites in the shortest time possible.

There are many ways to dominate the search engines, but here are three.

1. Optimize/add quality content to your web pages and optimize on-page factors related to the keyword phrase
2. Develop an SEO optimized Blog/add quality posts
3. Syndicate your blog content to social network sites/add network profiles for aggregation and syndication

Performing all three of these strategies will work wonders for your keyword rankings when properly setup and executed!

We are running a special on optimized blog development where we will develop your custom look blog and set it up with content syndication. Normally, a full content management system with social syndication will run $2500 but we are discounting this complete turn-key system and offering it for only $1495 until April 15th, 2009. We give you the free option to add a new keyword rich domain name with one year hosting on our servers at no extra charge, allowing your business total control of a new web property that promotes your main web site’s sales funnel.

We will also optimize your individual website pages at only $100 for each web page focusing on a primary and secondary keyword phrase. This includes in-depth keyword research so that additional keywords can be used in your content and be found literally on hundreds of keywords for just one of your web pages. The goal will be to focus on your top 10+ keywords and get them on the first page of Google within 2-4 weeks.

With the proper setup that we’ll implement for your blog, we can accomplish first page rankings in less than an hour for those keywords that drive targeted traffic and sales to your site. All the links from your new blog will point back to your website and will be coming from different IP addresses which hold more value. Either way, hosted on your server or ours, the blog syndication setup works very, very well.

Additionally, each new blog post is like another web page, another entry point for a potential customer to find you on the web. This is a terrific way to get found more often and much quicker for many more of your important keywords. We focus your posted blog content around the researched keywords that actually are proven to convert in your business/niche.

We can develop a Six-Month or One-Year plan and will consider shorter campaign lengths along with performing specific individual jobs your site may need, like article marketing or blog commenting, etc. You can see on our main website the various optimization and marketing services we do provide.

On an important side note… First Place Positioning is currently in development of an SEO Membership Site where all processes, tactics and strategies will be revealed. Covering not only SEO, but also PPC strategies, Social Media Syndication and Promotion strategies, Niche Research, Affiliate Marketing, Copywriting, everything from soup to nuts when comes to running, optimizing and promoting a successful online business!

Spots are limited so please sign up to get on the waiting list and be the first one to be informed when the SEO Membership Site goes live. The actual domain will be revealed at a later date but we have temporarily setup a site where you can add your name to the list to be notified at: http://www.theseomembershipsite.com.

Don’t forget to request your Free SEO Report, your Free Syndication Revelation Report and the specific strategy to gain top Google rankings in less than an hour. You can click the links above or find these three options at the top right of this SEO Blog.

We will prove our results in real-time so you are absolutely positive we can, and we will, get the keyword rankings and conversions for you!

First Place Positioning
Gregg Thorpe – President
King of Prussia PA 19406
800.430.0205 Toll-Free
610.768.0357 Direct
484.801.1432 Fax

For International clients we have opened up the opportunity for the use of Skype to better serve you: Skype ID: gregg.thorpe