Having jobs we love (heck, having jobs at all) makes it that much easier to work hard and provide our clients with the best in search engine optimization, technology and customer service. It also makes it possible to recognize those that are struggling and find ways to give back to our communities.

We are always looking for ways to help out those who have been hit hard by the economic downturn. Two years ago we held a contest for companies affected the most from the recession and were able to provide the winner with a 6-month contract of free SEO services to help them get back on their feet. This year we enlisted the help of our employees to provide new socks and underwear to needy children, collect food for the Utah Food Bank, and gather coats and other winter wear to donate at local shelters.

My favorite experience happened last month with our own version of an Angel Tree. I wasn’t sure if we would be able to pull it off since the needs of the family we were helping were so great, but when I saw all the gifts wrapped and ready for delivery my expectations were exceeded. I also may have shed a tear or two. As I said before, really awesome people work at SEO.com.

Individually, we can’t help everyone but together we can fight disease, homelessness, addiction, political issues, humanitarian relief and more. Make Change! Trust, an affiliated organization, uses the power of technology to help nonprofits market their charities online and create sustainable social advancement for those in need. Efforts like these help nonprofits reach more potential donors, which in turn allows others to feel the joy of giving.

Here’s wishing you all a Happy New Year from SEO.com!

I’m not seeing it yet, but Google was nice enough to include a picture of what the new bar will look like in their blog post.

The new Google bar will sit in the same place as the black bar did but links to various services will appear in a new drop-down menu. If the service you need does not appear in the menu, simply hover over the “More” link at the bottom of the list.

What do you think about Google's latest rounds of design changes? Are they an improvement over the way Google products used to look?

To learn more about the new menu, Google has released the following video or visit their Help Center.

Privacy and SSL encryption are important to a lot of internet users. Google recognizes this and is always looking for ways to improve online security for its users. A major announcement was published yesterday on the Google Blog, touting enhanced search privacy for signed-in users.

Last year, Google introduced an encrypted search service for those who opted to use it. Now that same service will be the default search experience for users signed-in to their Google Accounts, redirecting them to https://www.google.com. According to Evelyn Kao, Product Manager at Google, the change will encrypt search queries and the results page. “As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver,” wrote Kao. For those not signed in or for those who don’t have a Google account the secure site can still be accessed by navigating directly to https://www.google.com.

What does this mean for Analytics?

Currently webmasters are able to see when a visitor arrives via Google, complete with the query. Once this change rolls out, that search query will no longer be available. Those visits will still be attributed to organic search, but webmasters will see “not provided” in place of the actual search query.

Search query data will still be available in an aggregated list through Google Webmaster Tools and will show the top 1000 search queries bringing in traffic over the past 30 days.

Several Googlers estimate this change to impact a minor amount of website visits, and Matt Cutts estimates the impact to be as small as a single-digit percentage.

What are your thoughts? Is this a good or bad change for webmasters, business owners, and search marketers? For searchers?

It was only a matter of time but in less than 90 days Google+ has gone from being invite-only to available to everyone! The announcement made today on the Google blog also includes announcements for expanded Hangout features and search options.

In nearly 3 months, the Google+ project has seen 91 different improvements, which according to Google’s Vic Gundotra is a result of user feedback. “For the past 12 weeks we’ve been in field trial, and during that time we’ve listened and learned a great deal,” wrote Gundotra.

The changes, which include Hangouts on your phone and live broadcasts for Hangouts, brings the total number of improvements to Google+ to 100 and will roll out over the next day. But they are not stopping there. Get a sneak peak of what’s next for Google+. And if there’s something you missed, previous updates can be found here.

Last week Google announced a change to the way they classify internal and external links in Webmaster Tools. The update shouldn’t change the number of links, but should report your links in a more accurate way in regards to where they are coming from.

In the past, links from subdomains (ie: example.seo.com) were classified as external links. Even a link from the non www version of your site was classified as external. With the changes, links from these types of domains will now be considered internal links, as long as you also own the root domain.

With this change you may notice your total number of external links go down, but this is only because some of your links that were previously classified as external are now being classified as internal. Your total number of links should remain the same.

image by TechWyse

For example, if a result’s page consists mostly of a structured list, Google will show “a list of three relevant rows or items underneath the result in a bulleted format.” Google also plans to include an approximate count of the total items listed on the page.

In the past week, Google has launched rich snippets for music and +snippets for those using Google+ and the +1 button. Keep an eye out as Google plans to make more improvements to snippets in the future.

In just a short time, the Google +1 button has reached over 4 billion daily views. That number will most likely continue to rise with the announcement of 2 new features.

Share directly with Google+ circles
As of yesterday Google+ users can easily share a webpage with a designated circle by using the +1 button. Simply click on the +1 button as usual and look for the “Share on Google+” option. From there leave a comment, specify a circle and share your link.

+Snippets
Snippets have also been added and “automatically include a link, an image, and a description in the sharebox.” Google is calling these “+snippets.” Seeing a snippet along with a link makes the content more engaging when a link is shared. Along with this change Google is giving publishers the opportunity to customize their snippets, giving them the ability to determine what is displayed.

Both of these changes are rolling out over the next week and should encourage the sharing of more content via Google+. And as daily views increase and Google receives more feedback, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the changes to Google+ and the +1 button. Stay tuned.

Fundamentally, sitelinks haven’t changed and will still only appear if Google considers them useful for a specific search. But visually there are a few changes:

• Full-size text links with a URL and a line of text, making the sitelinks easier to see.
• Maximum number of links that appear has been raised from eight to 12.
• The separation of the top domain and other domains is clearer. If sitelinks do appear for the top result then all other results will be other domains, with the exception of links for subdomains of the top result.

This week’s launch also includes a change in which sitelinks will appear. According to Google, “sitelink selection and ranking can change from query to query, allowing more optimized results.” Also through the use of a Webmaster Tools account, users can suggest a demotion for a particular sitelink if they don’t feel it is appropriate or if they feel it is incorrect. Removal is not guaranteed but it never hurts to make a suggestion to Google to enhance the way your own site and its corresponding sitelinks are viewed.

Social Search features links shared by your friends on the web based on the relevancy to your search. An annotation will show up under the link stating where the link appears and which of your friends shared it.

In order to see Google+ posts in your search results you must be signed into a Google account and the posts must be public.

When Panda launched it affected almost 12% of English queries significantly enough to be noticed. For most other languages the change will impact 6-9%. This most recent launch also includes some minor changes to the English version.

The objective of the Panda algorithm update  is to help in cleaning low-quality sites out of search results and improve rankings of high-quality sites. This focus aligns with Google’s goal of giving users the most relevant answers to their search queries and to do it as quickly as they can.