The SEO Blog from cognitiveSEO

In the old days of Black Hat SEO, these techniques, tricks, tactics or however you'd like to call them may have worked, until the search engines started taking actions and updating algorithms to penalize websites using such Black Hat SEO Techniques. And, as the search engines don’t like to let themselves and their users be tricked, they took measures to keep the search results as clean and accurate as possible. Using the proper techniques to rank and to get organic traffic can be hard, [...]

OK, Google! Please write an article for the cognitiveSEO blog that will bring millions of readers and shares. As I got no luck with Google Assistant, I’ve tried the same thing with Siri, Cortana, just that this time I’ve been more polite. I said “please”. Still no luck. This being said, after a few more attempts I reconciled with the idea that I have to document and write on the “voice search revolution” myself.     And as I dug deeper into the "voice search SEO" area [...]

There is no need to stress more the fact that Google has just made an innovative update: Penguin 4.0 –  a real-time, granular algorithm update that allows both real-time penalties and incredibly quick recoveries. However, with such a big controversy around this update, what we need to dwell on more are case studies and analyses in order to have the best understanding of the latest Penguin phenomenon.     As (we hope) you’re already used to, at cognitiveSEO we are highly i [...]

Penguin 4.0 is here and is real-time. This means that the Penguin portion of the algorithm will always be “on” and updating from now on. As we have previously developed in an earlier blog post, Penguin going real-time is huge news for the SEO community. With Penguin 4.0, the algorithm should now catch spam link profiles more quickly. Aside from the fact that Penguin’s data is now refreshed in real time so that changes will be visible much faster, Penguin will be able to devalue spam by [...]

There is a lot of buzz and fuzz regarding the influence of shares, comments, likes, etc. on SEO in general. Yet, the question that is on everyone’s lips is actually: “Are social signals a ranking factor?” There have been lots of discussions around this topic, both pros and cons; even some studies were conducted on it. Yet, no clear light has been shed on the matter. If social signals affect SEO, how does it happens?    And, as we think that research is one of the most exciting and [...]

Long content or short content? Which one is better? What is the case? The more the merrier, or less is more? Well, the answer is rather complicated and needs a bit of unpacking. If you are looking for a short answer you need to know that there is no such thing. Long and short content alike can be better, depending on the context and on your needs: rankings, conversions, followers, popularity, authority, engagement, keyword optimization, etc. TL;DR – This is quite a large study. If you don� [...]

Creating high quality content is a highly important aspect, not only for gaining high ranks but firstly for making users or readers happy. Yet, we all know that running a blog with constant valuable and high quality content might sometimes be difficult as it is a resource-consuming process.   Therefore, why not getting the best out of the content that you’ve already worked on? You sometimes don’t want (or don’t have the means) to reinvent the wheel every time you create a new piece of [...]

Every site owner’s dream (and goal) is to rank as high as possible for their target audience. Every search engine’s dream (and goal) is to make sure that the most relevant websites rank the highest. But how is that relevancy built and interpreted? Does it have anything to do with what you say? That much we know to be true. Does it have anything to do with how (or where) you say it? That’s what we set to find out. Having this in mind we’ve conducted an in-depth research, with a set of [...]

Here, at cognitiveSEO, we believe that things are always evolving, and that such evolution is nothing but necessary. Not only for us, but for our day to day users, our readers, our fans, our critics as well. We strive to push our limits and overcome our struggles. And when we do, we get to know ourselves better. This is how we came up with a series of brand new improvements today, specially designed for you, our beloved cognitives.   Today it's our Site Explorer's turn to get updated. [...]

Bad marketing is, most of the time, simply bad strategy. For instance, it might be tempting to think that all you need to succeed today is a strong social media presence and fan base. However, that would be a huge mistake on your part, strategically. Sure, social media might be a good place to promote a product or service, but there isn’t really any return on investment on that promotion, as Facebook users simply don’t engage with brands. What you really need is an interaction environment wh [...]