Newfold Digital has acquired Yoast, the WordPress SEO Plugin. Yoast is currently installed in at least 12 million websites worldwide. Newfold Digital is a leading web presence solutions provider, and their brands include Bluehost, CrazyDomains, HostGator, Network Solutions, Register.com, Web.com, and others. I use the Yoast WordPress plugin on this site, as well as many other sites and client sites that I work on. Yoast will continue to provide it’s WordPress SEO plugin, and all of the Yoast employees will join Newfold Digital, including the leadership team and Joost de Valk. In a blog post ..read more

Have you ever searched for an address on Google Maps, checked out the Street View 360 degree photos, and found that an entire location, building, or house is blurred? Google usually uses their technology to automatically blur faces and license plates. But, did you know that upon request you can get your house or building blurred? If you’re interested in getting Google to blur the photo of your house, for example, then there is actually a way to request that they blur your house’s photo on Google Maps. Here is how to do that. How to Get Your House Photo Blurred There are several reasons why Go ..read more

If you were a member of the settlement class of the Google Plus Profile Litigation, then you may have received a payment from PayPal. Just like others are reporting via social media posts, I received my settlement payment of a whopping $2.15 to my PayPal account today. If you have not received your $2.15 via PayPal, then you may still receive the payment. Based on what I’m seeing, several people previously received their payments a few days ago, and I just received my payment today. I can imagine that sending out millions of PayPal payments takes time, even if it’s an automated process via Pa ..read more

In this episode of the Digital Marketing with Bill Hartzer, I took some time to go over my detailed checklist for migrating and moving to another domain name. I’ve heard so many people say that you shouldn’t move to another domain name because there will be issues, you’ll lose traffic, or rankings. That’s simply not true; at least in my experience. All of the domain migrations that resulted in LOST traffic and dropped search engine rankings were a result of a bad domain migration. In other words, whoever did the migrating didn’t do something right. Or, they didn’t follow best practices for do ..read more

Recently, I discovered a technique for reclaiming RSS feeds for link building purposes. Many RSS feed usernames on Feedburner, for example, are available to be claimed. Claiming an old username and attaching it to the RSS feed, there’s a good likelihood of you being able to take advantage of links pointing to the feeds. Some RSS Feeds also have traffic and clicks associated with them, which is a bonus. I have been testing this on a few websites, and it seems to be a promising new SEO technique for those who are looking for something new and who understand the risks. I’ve decided to share my kn ..read more

According to reports that have been sent directly to me, contractors in California are being penalized by the State of California. They’re being penalized for not displaying their license numbers on their Google My Business websites. Apparently the State of California considers a Business.Site website to be advertising (just like a website hosted on a unique domain name). Therefore, if a contractor does not display their California license number on the Google My Business site, as defined in the CSLB Rules and Regulations. I took a look at the CSLB Rules and Regulations, which can be found in ..read more

Someone stole the domain name Perl.com. They thought it was just a domain name snafu, but in fact it was stolen, transferred from one domain name registrar to another without the owner’s permission. I am seeing more and more domain names get stolen recently, especially as the value of domain names goes up. After all, some domain names are selling hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, it’s imperative that you protect this valuable digital asset that you own. If you suddenly find that someone stole your domain name from you, then you need to act quickly. The longer you wait the more difficult i ..read more

In the latest episode of the Digital Marketing with Bill Hartzer, I talked about some basics of video SEO, but also discussed how to get Key Moments In This Video in the search results. I go over generating Video Schema and a show you a good site for generating schema markup code. As an extra bonus, I also show an example of a website that has a featured snippet but it cloaking their page. Here is the full transcript from this podcast episode: Bill Hartzer(00:01): Hi, this is Bill Hartzer, and this is the digital marketing podcast with Bill Hartzer, for April 29th, 2021. And today I’m going ..read more

On this episode of the Digital Marketing with Bill Hartzer podcast, I talked with Travis Bliffen from Stellar SEO about link building and link building strategies. We talked about where links are placed on certain parts of the page and their value, versus having links in content. Link relevance is a big discussion point, as well, and nofollow versus ‘dofollow’ links are discussed. It’s an interesting episode It’s been a while since I spoke with a real link building expert, I’m sure you’ll enjoy listening. Here is the full transcript of the podcast with Travis Bliffen from Stellar SEO, talkin ..read more

Recently, there has been an uptick in the number of domain names that are being stolen. I am not sure if it’s because of the worldwide pandemic and people are getting more desperate for money, or if domain name thieves are taking advantage of the changing digital and tech environment. COVID-19 is causing more of us to be online and conduct business online. But that also means that many don’t fully understand how to properly protect their digital assets, like domain names. This may be why we’re seeing more and more online scams, phishing, and online theft in general. Digital Assets When I thin ..read more