Google +1 can be seen by logging in with your Google ID and as you search they appear in organic and paid search (Adwords) results

Significantly,  +1 Metrics reporting has now appeared in Google’s WebMasters Tools
For folks outside of the SEO industry, Google’s WebMasters Tools (WMT) is the definitive Google control panel for websites, allowing a registered user to view website stats, issues and errors and even suggestions for improving its Google search performance.

Google +1 is a new ranking factor
There have been regular updates to WMT over the years, and these often provide insight into how Google is tuning its ranking factors; but the +1 metrics addition to WMT has nothing subtle about it with a +1 Search Impact page that will let you see exactly how +1′s affect your site’s performance in search results

The WMT Help + FAQ goes on to address topics like:

• How does +1 affect search results?
• Does +1 affect my site’s performance in search?
• How will the +1 button affect my traffic?
• Will +1’s from my site show up in search results?
• How does the +1 button affect my ads?

Google +1 and your AdWords campaign
Not convinced about the impact of +! yet ? Did I mention that +1 also appears on Adwords ads ?

It would seem that your campaign or even individual ads will be impacted, most likely through the Adwords Quality Score
This is turn means it will effectively cost you more per click if your ads are not getting a few +1′s especially in really competitive campaigns

In summary, Google  has used its considerable influence to “encourage” the use of its own social voting system.
If you want online exposure through organic or paid search it looks like you’ll now have to play the +1 game…

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Defects! What defects?
Well some website defects may not be obvious but its apparent that simple issues like  broken links are having a negative impact on a website’s organic ranking in Google.

The challenge is finding these and any other issues  but thankfully there’s a couple of useful tools to do just that:

WebMasters Tools

Google WebMasters Tools includes a range of diagnostic facilities that allow you to examine things that the Google crawler GoogleBot may have had an issue within your site.
Check out the Diagnostics menu and you will find information on crawl errors (ie broken links  and more) and even suggestions on how to improve your website
Here’s a great video from Google introducing WebMasters Tools

For more info on WebMasters Tools checkout: www.google.com/webmasters

W3C Validation Tool
The Wold Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a standards body that manages technical standards in internet technologies.
There is controversy about W3C standards applicability, especially by Web Devs who have suffered because of display inconsistency across various browsers.

There is a good chance that a W3C non-compliant website wont be considered to be a “good user experience” either.

Its easy to check if your website complies with various standards by using the W3C validation tool.
Resolving W3C issues can be complex however and may require technical assistance.

Website Crawler
Website crawlers traverse your site discovering all about it, in a very similar way that search engine crawlers or ‘spiders’ do.

A good crawler like the GSiteCrawler (download for free here)   will discover and report broken links.
Fix them and re-crawl the site!
A Web Dev’s technical help might be required here too.

The bottom line is to focus on the ‘good user experience’ which includes a defect free website for an optimal Google ranking…
…but don’t forget about the other 199+ factors that influence ranking as well

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The renewal notice email from their domain registrar was apparently lost in the continual deluge of inbox spam; the Domain registrar decommissioned the domain when they had not received a renewal payment and the website simply disappeared off Google’s ‘radar’

This is not an uncommon issue as I described back in early 2008 in Website calamities – Where has my website gone?

The client first noticed they couldn’t receive emails, then with the help of their web dev realised their website had also disappeared, then horror of horror they had also lost their much loved #1 Google ranking for their target term.

Before Google Caffeine this probably would not have been so commercially severe. I recall several cases over the years where ranking had at worst a minor glitch after a website disappeared for a few days (always due to domain renewal oversights ), but it seems now that the additional speed Caffeine has injected into Google that not only are website found faster so is removal removal from search results.

For those interested in operational details:

Google WebMasters Tools didn’t alert me although crawl errors do show “domain not found” on the fatal day. I was really disappointed by this as WMT has previously alerted me to more trivial activities; but this is critical and I would have valued an alert on this!

The site still appears in the site:<domain> search so its still in Google’s index. Rank Tracker shows the site as sitting consistently at Google #1 since late July then plummeting out of the first 100 within two days of the domain de-registration.

We are now 7 days past the domain outage and although the site is operational it is still not ranking at all…

Understandably the client is not happy as this ranking outage a significant commercial impact.

Fortunately their forward thinking Internet Marketer has more than one site ranking for their target terms  :)  So it appears that having more than one appearance in target search results is not only a great way to increase traffic, but is also a great contingency in ranking outages too!

Cheers

Pete

PS See this update to find out how long the site was out of ranking….

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Very useful data if you are trying to win some business online.

The new capabilities exposes more data about the terms (ie keywords), the rank and even the pages that did rank. All essential diagnostic data for this type of analysis.

What is even better about this enhancement is the data is presented in Analytics style charts with great drill down capability building into the UI

Nice work Google WebMasters Tools, and all the more reason you should be using this amazing tool to diagnose your business website’s organic search performance

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How can you get this extended SERP showing on your site ?

Sadly, as mere mortals we don’t have the option to ask for these extended SERPs (Google calls them Sitelinks)
Google decides if it will display Sitelinks with the SERP, but it seem to be based on the site home page having a Google PageRank of 5 or more and the search keyword very relevant to the site

For example the Medibank Private site has a PageRank is 7 and a search of medibank private is as you could imagine very relevant hence a Google search result displays:

It is possible to use Google WebMasters Tools to remove selected Sitelinks

So if your site has a PageRank of 5+ then highly relevant searches may bring up a SERP with Sitelinks

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This is one of a series of YouTube videos that clarify important information about how Google works, because frankly there is a lot of mis-information out there.

To catch more of Matt Cutts and other Googlers on YourTube go to the GoogleWebmasterHelp channel

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At a simple level it shows how you site ranks for various recent searches in different countries’ Google.

The data is displayed in two sections; Impressions and Click Throughs

Impressions

• % shows the portion of the top 100 searches this represents

• Query is the search that someone used

• Position is the highest Google ranking averaged over a week

So in this case 15% of searches for internet marketing featured the Succinct Ideas site and in those searches on average if ranked #15.

Click Throughs

Click Throughs shows how many searchers then visited your site, and confirms the proportion, keyword and ranking

Filtering

This report can be filtered to individual Google country of origin and for a selection of time intervals.

Interpretation

Top Enquiries provides a harsh reality check about search results that your site is being listed in, and begs the questions:

Keyword selection

Do these searches represent business opportunities for your business ?

- Are they unrelated to your business

- Are there too few searches to attract viable traffic volumes?

Ranking

Is your site’s ranking too low to attract viable traffic volumes ?

Conversion

If you site appears in search results why does no-one click on your SERP ?

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