Mark Traphagen

"Thanks for sharing my interview with the amazing Brian Fanzo!" - Mark Traphagen

"Thanks for sharing the rebuttal by Yonatan Zunger, Martin. So few people have heard that. My take is that they will continue to make some of the most successful aspects of Google+ available without a G+ label on them, while retaining access to them for G+ users as well. They can repurpose those products without "splitting up" G+." - Mark Traphagen

"Yes, those started showing up in personalized (logged in) search the same day Authorship results were removed. BUT...these only show for Google+ posts by your G+ friends, NOT for sites they have plussed outside of G+." - Mark Traphagen

"Yes, the "your friend shared this on Google+" annotation was around for a long time after the +1 annotation disappeared. They are not quite the same thing, as the +1 annotation included things that friends had plussed out on the web, whereas the friend share notification is only for things shared on G+." - Mark Traphagen

"Still can't find anyone documenting exactly when it went away, although I'm pretty sure it's been gone since at least last summer. However, even though they no longer show the recommendation visibly, tests Eric Enge and I did have shown that in personalized (logged in) results, pages that have been +1'ed by your Google+ friends still get elevated in search (i.e., show at a higher position than they do in non-personalized search)." - Mark Traphagen

"Right, I got that...hence my apology." - Mark Traphagen

"That's when it first appeared. We're looking for when it disappeared." - Mark Traphagen

"Sorry, didn't mean that to sound as condescending as it does! I've had it happen myself that I notice something "new" in the SERPs only to find out it changed a long time ago. I just hadn't noticed. Will try to find some documentation of when it was removed." - Mark Traphagen

"Seriously? That's been gone for at least a year, maybe more." - Mark Traphagen

"Ah, you're referring to the "related searches" above the answer box. I've never seen a result like that before, and I can't reproduce it. When I do that search now, all I get is an ad and then the Answer Box with the answer from medicinenenet.com." - Mark Traphagen

"Meh, how is that an example? There's an attribution link in that Answer Box to medicinenet.com, the site from which the answer was extracted!" - Mark Traphagen

"Siddharth, it's impossible to make a generic estimate of what will help in ranking a page. However, in the context of this article, it's possible that individual answers from an FAQ could get featured in a Google Answer Box." - Mark Traphagen

"Meh, I would agree that such a strategy is not worth "a lot of time," but that does not make it worthless. See the link I posted in my first comment above. A friend of mine saw a huge traffic jump when his content got into an Answer Box, allowing him to outrank Wikipedia for the first time on a popular question query. I get your secondary point that Google could take away the link at any time. But 1) why not get traffic while you can? and 2) I seriously doubt that Google will ever present clearly scraped content without an attribution link of some kind." - Mark Traphagen

"Thanks for reading my article. If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in a follow-up post I did about various types of direct answer boxes that seem more likely to either steal or build your site traffic: https://www.stonetemple.com/ca..." - Mark Traphagen

"Thanks, Shari! As I've been exploring the sites that tend to get featured in Answer Boxes, I'm noticing that better UX/UI and IA may indeed be factors." - Mark Traphagen

"So glad you found it useful, Jack. Eric is going to continue to keep track of those 850K queries he tested, and from time to time he'll be updating on our Stone Temple Consulting site about how answer boxes are growing and the new varieties we see." - Mark Traphagen

"You're welcome!" - Mark Traphagen

"Thanks Zoom Web Media. You might be interested in my follow-up post https://www.stonetemple.com/ca... . Whether or not an answer box will cause you to lose traffic may vary greatly." - Mark Traphagen

"Huh, that's odd. I have Facebook for iOS. Scrolling down under "More" in the "Settings" section I have: Help Center Activity Log Privacy Shortcuts Report a Problem Code Generator News Feed Preferences Settings Terms and Policies Log Out As you can see, the seventh choice is "settings." Tapping that, I THEN get the list you show above, with the addition of "Location" right after "Videos." One question: Do you have location tracking enabled in the general settings for your phone?" - Mark Traphagen

"I don't see this having any application to such businesses, as Facebook is making it linked to actual locations. Facebook will have to have a verified business address. They want it to be a place the user can actually go to, nearby her present location" - Mark Traphagen

"Sandro, it's incredibly buried. You have to click the "more" link at the bottom of the app, then scroll all the way down to "Settings," But wait; you're not there yet. Incredibly, there is a "settings" link under Settings. Tap that and you should find the Locations settings. Whew!" - Mark Traphagen

"Hi, I'm the author of this post. Thanks for reading! I welcome your questions or comments." - Mark Traphagen

"Thanks, Dino. That's very helpful. I understand you can't give away all the "secret sauce." I was just curious about some of your general criteria, because automating prediction of content quality and sharability is extremely difficult, as I'm sure you know. Google has spent years, millions of dollars, and the minds of some brilliant people trying to crack the former (content quality) and they still have a long way to go." - Mark Traphagen

"I'd like to see more information on what criteria this engine will base its predictions, other than post length." - Mark Traphagen

"Luke, I think those are actually excellent examples of the mindshift that is needed. Because Google is not as easily manipulated by one-off tricks as in the past, SEOs and all digital marketers need to pay more attention to things like trends over time. If a business can't understand why "19% more return users" is more valuable than a vague "25 links!" they are probably doomed." - Mark Traphagen

"I like the canary in a coal mine analogy, Ronnell. Coal miners don't spend their days staring at the canary, but if they ignore it completely, they do so at their peril." - Mark Traphagen

"Obviously I disagree, but I'm not going to debate here something that already has plenty of long threads devoted to debating it." - Mark Traphagen

"Hi! I'm the author of this column. Thanks for reading it. I'll look forward to interacting here with any comments or questions you might have. One item that I would have included in this article but which came too late before submission: I highly recommend the recent post by Rand Fishkin "Why SEOs Need to Care More About Correlation As Much (or More Than) Causation" http://moz.com/blog/seo-correl... Rand makes a case that an over-fixation on causation metrics (such as "can we prove that our Tweets led directly to sales?) can actually lead to conclusions and consequent actions that may hurt a site in the long run. In contrast, while correlative metrics (and I think most engagement metrics fall in this category) must be approached carefully, they can be read to give indications of bigger trends that may actually be more valuable for the long term health of a business." - Mark Traphagen

"Yes, really. You had trouble reading the URL? ;-)" - Mark Traphagen

"I'm going to post here the entire letter by Krauss, as the summary in my first comment may not provide enough context: I was rather surprised to read the unfortunate oped piece “Science Increasingly makes the case for God”, written not by a scientist but a religious writer with an agenda. The piece was rife with inappropriate scientific misrepresentations. For example: We currently DO NOT know the factors that allow the evolution of life in the Universe. We know the many factors that were important here on Earth, but we do not know what set of other factors might allow a different evolutionary history elsewhere. The mistake made by the author is akin to saying that if one looks at all the factors in my life that led directly to my sitting at my computer to write this, one would obtain a probability so small as to conclude that it is impossible that anyone else could ever sit down to compose a letter to the WSJ. We have discovered many more planets around stars in our galaxy than we..." - Mark Traphagen

"@seraphim 1. Krauss isn't making a claim. He's refuting Metaxes' claim that life is necessarily unique and rare. Metaxes can't make such a claim so emphatically when their remains the possibility that life can arise by multiple means. 2. True, we don't yet know exactly how life begins. But it is also true that the plausible theories for the possibility that it arises spontaneously, inevitably, and possibly more than once given the right conditions are increasing. See for example: http://www.sciencedump.com/con... Again, keep in mind here that Metaxes has made a bold claim that life has been "proven" by science to be extremely unlikely. If credible scientists are saying the opposite, than his claim is invalid. 3. Your statement here makes no sense to me. Life on earth has been "exposed" to the environment of earth. Krauss' point is simply that we have the life we have (on earth) because it evolved to the conditions of earth. Therefore, life on earth has the appearance of having been..." - Mark Traphagen

"Physicist Lawrence Krauss's critique of Metaxes's editorial is worth repeating: 1) While scientists know the factors that led to life on Earth, life on other planets could be based upon a different set of factors. 2) The odds of life on other planets have increased, not decreased with greater scientific evidence. 3) Life is fine-tuned for the universe rather than the universe being fine-tuned for life. 4) The appearance of design in life on Earth is due to the "remarkable efficiency of natural selection." He submitted it as a response to the WSJ, but they declined to publish it. You can read his full response at https://richarddawkins.net/201..." - Mark Traphagen