Taking place in the business suites at Chelsea Football Club in West London on May 14 this year, the news is something of a coup for the popular international search summit.

The session that M. Far will host will discuss how the rel=”alternate” hreflang should be implemented, following Google’s recent introduction of the new multilingual web page markup.

Delegates will be advised what effects on geo-targeting and international SEO strategy it will have, and Pierre will field questions from the floor. He will also take the opportunity to focus on other areas of how his company handles international content.

It is likely to be a well attended session, with international marketers often discussing geo-targeting on SEO forums. With breakout groups following his presentation, there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss what has been said.

The summit will also see many other sessions, with Google’s introduction of Search Plus our World also being showcased. For those interested in how best to approach local search too, there will be much for marketers from Liverpool to London to discuss.

Other speakers confirmed for the event are Nick Garner from Unibet, Bas van den Beld of State of Search and Andy Atkins-Krüger from hosts WebCertain.

The event has been running since 2008 and has always been well attended. With a limited number of tickets available, those wishing to learn useful tips and benefit from knowledgeable insights would do well to book early.

The owners of businesses use the Business Photos service to entice customers, with good quality images on Google Places and Google Maps. Google also offers an interactive service and a 360-degree view of an interior. Once a local photographer has been located in the area, the business owner can either call or email to arrange a suitable time for the photo shoot and to agree a price for the work. A collaboration between business owner and photographer will determine how the location is captured, before the photographer uploads the images to the Google sites. Following the photos being uploaded, a 360-degree image will appear on Google Maps, on Google Places and will also appear in the results for Google search.

The new scheme is much easier, quicker and provides support for local photography businesses. Trusted Photographers is available in the UK, New Zealand, France and Australia, while 14 cities in the US have the service.

New developments such as this can make SEO jobs more complex, although they play an integral role in any search engine optimisation campaign. Businesses have to be aware of new developments made by Google, as changes to their SEO campaign may be required.

For all SEO professionals it is an occasion that has many merits. It aims to provide a forum for the latest news and techniques to be discussed and help ensure that web sites are optimised for the latest crawling techniques.

It also will again focus on keyword analyses, helping to understand how these can be more successful than ever before. With plans for better constructed link building to be discussed too, it could offer a chance for many stuck in a rut.

There are likely to be exhibitions from leading exponents in all forms of search marketing; from local searches in Liverpool to global campaigns throughout the world. Many experts of the present have often commented that their skills have been honed at previous events.

SES also hopes to provide the perfect opportunity for networking. With the chance to engage with industry leaders, vendors and those shaking up the face of search in the years ahead, it is little wonder the organisers make such a claim.

The event takes place from February 20 – 24. For marketing teams and SEO consultants alike, it will provide the chance to learn and grow and get yourself out there in a rare environment that doesn’t only rely on the written word.

YouTube

According to Google, the data collected is used to improve the experience of users of Google products, like the targeting of advertisements. A letter was composed and sent by eight members of Congress to the CEO of Google, Larry Page, requesting further details of the changes. The letter reads:

“While Google suggests that the purpose of this shift in policy is to make the consumer experience simpler, we want to make sure it does not make protecting consumer privacy more complicated.”

It was also mentioned that, as Google reaches out all over the world, the changes “potentially touches billions of people worldwide”. The letter asks for details of data which is collected, and how the information will be used.

Betsy Masiello, from Google, responded by pointing out that data is only collected when a user is logged into a product. A number of products are available for use without logging in. Users who are logged in to a product are able to control their search histories by either turning them off or editing them. For example, Google Chat may take place using “off the record” or by using “incognito mode”.

Businesses have a reliance on data being collected by Google to enhance their search engine optimisation campaign, although a number of changes could make some SEO jobs much harder.

The US study, its findings have to be mitigated by this of course, make for interesting reading for those with SEO careers in the UK. Though there will be some differences of course, the basis of the study will point to certain trends this side of the Atlantic.

Taking place over a four day period, the research by ad network Chitka looked at “hundreds of millions” of site impressions from the big five search engines in the US: Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask and AOL.

The clearest result was that searches average between 4 and 5 words across all sites, with Ask.com users topping this with an average of 4.81. Lowest of all was AOL, with a 4.07 word average.

It is perhaps little surprising that Ask topped this poll, as its focus has very much historically been on researching full answers to questions, something it has again pushed in recent years.

The big three all show similar averages, with Google at 4.29, Bing at 4.31 and Yahoo at 4.49.

Other than partial data a couple of years ago by Google, confirming that 54% of searches are over three words, the search engines do not release such average word count information themselves. It would be useful though, certainly where SEO is concerned and particularly if search construct could be analysed too.

Perhaps this is something to look at, unless length really is not that important after all.

Twitter

Facebook

SEO

In a first of its kind, the two major players have joined forces with the likes of Flicker, LinkedIn, Tumblr and so forth, to hit back at the Search Plus Your World offering from Google, which has caused such a furore.

Users downloading the browser bookmarklet will perform the search query against the most relevant social results. Google+ will still be interrogated in these queries, but the results will not be given ahead of all others on the SERPs.

Personal results will also be listed in much the same way as SPYW works, but these too will collate information across all of a user’s connections; possibly the most notable concept.

However there is one slight drawback in that it is not compatible with Internet Explorer though browsers such as Firefox, Safari and, interestingly enough, Chrome do support it.

The project has been largely led by Facebook despite Twitter complaining the loudest about SPYW. However, no official comment has been forthcoming from either side, whilst Google have also remained resolutely silent.

Available as a free download, the open-source code is simple to install and provides clear instructions for those choosing to install it. As such, it is likely to be popular with many, though the marketing of it will be key.

The change is in reaction to user comments about how their experience is worsened by pages where finding readable content is hard. As such, it will impact those sites where there is only a

“…small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content persistently (being) pushed down by ads.”

Though the volume of adverts a site has will be the most determining factor for those affected, how a site looks overall will be important too, with the statement also warning about other ways in which content is obscured.

As such, strong page construction and flow could also be counted towards its user value.

It is yet another move to make things more enjoyable for the user and comes on the back of similar updates. It all means that those with modern day SEO careers have a good deal more to focus their efforts on.

The way an entire page is laid out will be evermore important; not as critical as the content and its relevancy, but certainly a bigger concern than ever before.

Google state that somewhere in the region of just one percent of sites will be affected and that there will be a number of weeks for webmasters and SEO marketers to enact changes.

It is likely to be a very busy year for such work though, as this latest update is apparently just the first of more than five hundred such changes to be introduced in 2012.

According to the research, when we require information we reach for the Internet, using it as a sort of external memory drive, just as the external hard drive on a computer may be used. The study also revealed that when laptops, smartphones and other technological gadgets are unavailable, people display withdrawal symptoms if they can’t find the answer to a query immediately.

During some of the tests, the results indicated that if participants believed that facts could be searched for later, they wouldn’t bother to memorise them. The researchers state that the Internet and Google have become a part of everyday lives, available 24 hours every day. One researcher admitted that it was difficult to remember how information was found before Google and the Internet arrived. If people want to locate an old friend, or discover facts about an actor they can just look it up on the Internet. The paper reads:

“When faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it.”

Just as the study shows, Google plays a huge role in everyday life and discovery of information, which is why it is primarily included in the search engine optimisation of any business.