This month is mainly focussed on Google because Google has been even busier than usual.

Google+ redesign

Google have announced a number of new features for Google+ including navigation and design changes.

Google says, “We think you’ll find it easier to use and nicer to look at, but most importantly, it accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google.”

Google targets web spam

In the last week of April Matt Cutts announced that Google will make changes to its algorithm specifically to target Black Hat SEO, or what Google call Black Hat WebSpam.

Here is an example of the type of WebSpam Google will be penalising (read the text it makes no sense):

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Another step to reward high-quality sites

Google search query data improvements

When you log into Google Webmaster Tools you have probably noticed the Search Queries tool under Your Site On The Web. Over the last year this tool has changed a lot including some changes that to be honest aren’t great: such as the average top position change which tells you your average top position for a keyphrase, however the problem is that this is an average and it you have listings in all 3 top positions your average position is 2.

Anyway, the changes include more historical data – from 35 days to 90 days, you can now see this data as soon as you verify your website and it collects up to 2,000 search terms.

Although this looks like a great tool I still think that Google Analytics is the best place to go for your website historical data.

Google Analytics 5

For a while now Google Analytics 5 has been an optional Beta and you have been able to switch to the older version. Now Google Analytics 5 is the main version and there is no more living in the past.

It may take a little bit of time to get used to the new layout but as soon as you do I’m sure you’ll love it – We do…

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Moving your website? Or just a redesign?

When moving a website to a new domain name or redesigning a website with a new URL structure we always recommend setting up 301 redirects from the old content to the new content.

For small websites this is easy however for larger websites this is a lot more time consuming and web developers always recommend only redirecting some of the pages. Such as the top 10% of pages visited, or the top 200 pages.

Although the Google Webmaster Guidelines recommend redirecting all pages it is great to see Google writing an article to back this up: How to move your content to a new location.

Submitting images to Google

Google has announced how important it believes image searches are and offers additional information to help you get you images searched: 1,000 words about images.

Bing Keyword Suggestion Tool

Bing have released a new keywords suggestion tool.

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This is a good tool to accompany other keyword suggestion tools. It is good for suggestions but it still makes more sense to use the Google Tool to work with search volumes.