NetMarketZine

SEO in 2012: The Best of Times or the Worst of Times?

John Bear — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:46:14 +0000

I don’t like trying to package everything that’s happening in our industry into a neat little box, because it’s like trying to describe the cause of the Civil War in two sentences. I’m likely to leave some things out, overstate some factors, and unintentionally offend some people. But I do think that an individual perspective can add flavor and context to an interesting narrative that’s still unfolding right in front of us.

Whether you think all of the upheaval is great or terrible for the industry (or whether you believe there is no upheaval at all), you have to admit that 2012 has been a strange year for search engine optimization so far. It has left me reflecting on who must be loving SEO right now and who must be hating it.

Panda Ripples

Nearly every site was impacted by the original Panda update, which just had its year anniversary. This year, Google has rolled out a series of lesser updates to effectively tackle webspam, all under the Panda umbrella, beginning with version 3.2 and a tweak designed to target ad-heavy page layouts. While Google has been unusually public about this string of updates, it doesn’t change the fact that most SEOs say they haven’t recovered from the effects of the original sweeping update.

When one site gets devalued by an algorithm change, another site is positioned to gain rankings, but most of the sites benefiting from Panda have been big brands (no surprise since Google inherently stands to benefit from larger PPC budgets at these companies and hasn’t been shy of pushing the benefits of SEO + PPC through its own PR machine scientific studies).

There’s probably no better time than now to be an in-house SEO for a large company, based on Google’s update patterns. That said, by now we should know that Google loves high-profile site penalization, since the loss of a couple of high-budget advertisers like Overstock or JC Penney is worth its weight in improved public brand trust for Google.

The Penguin Drops

Google’s 2^nd nuclear algo bomb, code-named Penguin, dropped on those using “aggressive webspam tactics” in late April, 2012. Let’s be honest—this kind of link penalization was inevitable, especially since Google can fairly easily identify link portfolios that match a particular profile for aggressive SEO. Search leaders have been preaching a model of anchor text and quality diversity for several years now. Penguin was also preceded by the very public demise of a widely-used article network, Build My Rank, as well as automated Webmaster Tools messages about low-quality pages and “unnatural links.”

The effectiveness of the Penguin update is certainly up for discussion, though I think the update was positive. I think Joost de Valk is spot on in pointing out that Penguin and Panda aren’t easily distinguishable updates, so it’s hard to identify whether a site is being impacted by one or the other This is compounded by the fact that Penguin was rolled out around the time that Google accidentally deindexed some sites by mistakenly classifying them as parked. One SEO company got off easy by only being deindexed for half a day, but it sparked a wider concern over what Google is capable of doing to reputable businesses because of a few questionable link signals.

Negative SEO and Deoptimization

The ambiguity surrounding site penalization and ranking drops over the last few months has had some interesting consequences.

Penguin produced a lot of angry people who felt they had been penalized unjustly (Panda probably produced a lot more). In one representative incident, an SEO gloated over Google punishing spammers with Penguin and the blackhats retaliated. As a result:

SEOmoz became an even more polarizing entity after Rand offered up his site to the blackhats as a challenge.
“Negative SEO” was called into question as a legitimate threat for the umpteenth time.
The harsh reality of large sites given unhealthy advantage in the SERPs was reiterated.

One of the strange signs of the times I’ve seen from Penguin and the “negative SEO” discussion is the sudden prevalence of the word “deoptimization” in conversation. Last week, I got this email asking me to remove the link from a blog comment made on an old blog post.

How bad is it when your job is to make manual requests to remove legitimate (the comment was from a friend of mine) blog comments? Are SEOs doomed to ride some “SEO-SED(eoptimization)” roller coaster for the rest of their careers? Imagine writing link request e-mails, then later writing e-mails to the same people begging to remove those links. This was painful to read.

Google Giveth…

Google has provided a lot of help to webmasters within the last year.

Supporting rel=”author” tags for better attribution.
Collaborating on schema.org to serve more structured data in search results.
Sending messages via Webmaster Tools to help sites be within guidelines.
Releasing “Search Quality Highlights” which generally allude to the kinds of optimization improvements being made to the search algorithm (although one could argue that these create more speculation than utility).
Introducing Google Plus.

I mention Google+ as a positive in that it aids in the support of rel=”author.” It also confirms that Google is serious about legitimate social signals as ranking factors. This is great for an industry still plagued by some pretty ineffective link building practices. Some SEOs need to be forced to move from easy and automated links to earned and authentic links. The downside to social signals is that we don’t have any conclusive causation data on the extent to which social impacts rankings. We’re getting there though.

Image credit

And Google Taketh Away

Two words. Not. Provided.

I can live without a portion of keyword data, since the remainder is probably a representative sample of the whole. But doing year-over-year comparisons of keywords and keyword groups becomes nearly impossible. This makes it difficult for agency or in-house SEO alike to benchmark their own success using analytics (this year, at least).

Are We Better Off Now?

Just looking back at everything SEO has been through in just one year has given me a much greater appreciation for Danny Sullivan and his search history lessons. chuckle

I honestly can’t imagine working in an industry that didn’t have much to talk about. And every shortcut that Google eliminates for SEOs is one more step in the right direction—toward helping us become great marketers beyond SEO.

Not everything is perfect. It never will be. I know legitimate business owners who lost 60% of their organic traffic to Penguin. And that can make you second-guess yourself.

SEO drama notwithstanding, I think 2012 is an amazing time to be in this industry. Count yourself lucky to be among those rolling with the punches right now.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-in-2012-the-best-of-times-or-the-worst-of-times/43721/

Automattic, the Company Behind WordPress.com, Appoints Stuart West as Chief Financial Officer

Jane Kozlinski — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:46:08 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Automattic, the company behind the popular Web publishing platform WordPress.com, today announced that Stuart West will serve as the company’s first full-time Chief Financial Officer. In this newly created role, West will be responsible for leading Automattic’s global financial strategy, and will provide operational and strategic leadership as Automattic continues to scale WordPress.com, expand product offerings and build the global community of publishers and bloggers. As the company focuses on growth of the business, it has also appointed its first General Counsel, Paul Sieminski.

(Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120425/SF94395)

“WordPress has been doubling in scale every twelve months and we are positioned for further growth and development. Stuart and Paul’s experience will help manage the coming critical stages of intense expansion,” said Automattic CEO Toni Schneider. “Both understand the vision of Automattic and our commitment to grow the company in a way that supports our users and the open source community at large.”

West is a veteran technology executive with deep experience guiding companies through periods of rapid growth. Most recently, West served as executive in residence at Andreessen Horowitz, where he advised the firm and its portfolio investments. For the past four years, West has also served as Vice-Chair of the board of Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit behind Wikipedia. West has previously served as the CFO for Kno, Inc. and Tivo, Inc. and has served as Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Corporate Development for InfoSpace, Inc.

Sieminski has been practicing law as a corporate and securities associate at Gunderson Dettmer. His specialty has been representing emerging growth and technology companies throughout their lifecycles, as well as venture capital and buyout funds in both formation and transactional matters. He has represented consumer internet and software companies, as well as a number of leading venture capital firms.

The appointments of West and Sieminski come in the midst of impressive growth for the WordPress platform. In the past year, the number of WordPress sites has increased from 35 million to 70 million (including websites on both WordPress.com and those hosted elsewhere via the WordPress.org open source community). They will be part of a larger executive team focused on managing the growth of Automattic and WordPress.com.

About Automattic

Automattic offers a network of web services for online publishers including WordPress.com, VIP hosting and support, VaultPress, Akismet, VideoPress, Polldaddy, IntenseDebate, Gravatar, and more. The Automattic network attracts over half a billion worldwide unique visitors every month.

For more information, visit http://automattic.com.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/automattic-company-behind-wordpress-com-141300639.html

SEO Positive Team Renew Microsoft Advertising Exams

John Bear — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:44:34 +0000

Essex-based online marketing company, SEO Positive, are pleased to announce that following the recent merge between search engines, Yahoo and Bing, their PPC team have re-taken their Microsoft Advertising exams.

(PRWEB UK) 16 May 2012

The paid search department of award-winning online promotion agency, SEO Positive, have recently seen an increase in enquiries into their Pay Per Click services, following an alliance between search engines, Bing and Yahoo! The transition means that Bing adCenter ads will gradually be displayed within Yahoo search pages as well, meaning that businesses can run PPC campaigns from both platforms simultaneously. The association was developed in a bid to compete against main rival, Google.

In order to best deal with this market share increase, the entire PPC team at SEO Positive have retaken their exams in order to maintain their knowledge of Microsoft’s paid search platform. Through the Microsoft Advertising Accredited Professional programme, search experts get the opportunity to experience valuable training, as well as gaining industry recognition through passing the Accredited Professional exam.

As an Accredited Professional, members have the opportunity to access the adCenter Training Hub, which outlines new and updated content. It also holds convenient features to track and bookmark their trainings for them. Having recently renewed his exams, Head of Paid Search at SEO Positive, Evaldas Balcius explains the benefits of becoming a Microsoft Advertising Accredited Professional.

“Earning Accredited Professional status is really important in improving the campaigns of our clients. Our team are always looking for ways to increase our clients’ ROIs so in completing this exam we not only have the opportunity to develop our skills but also demonstrate these and stand out among other PPC marketers. Completion also allows inclusion into the membership directory.”

SEO Positive was established in 2007 in Chelmsford, Essex with the aim of bringing effective yet affordable online marketing services to companies from all industries and backgrounds. The company offers a huge range of services including search engine optimisation, Pay Per Click account management, social media marketing and website design.

Ben Austin
SEO Positive
0800 088 6000
Email Information

http://news.yahoo.com/seo-positive-team-renew-microsoft-advertising-exams-172619391.html

moShare Makes Mobile Content Sharing Easier with WordPress Plugin

Jane Kozlinski — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:43:46 +0000

moShare Is the Industryâ€™s First Web-to-Mobile Sharing Service and
the Quickest Way to Share Multimedia Content from the Web to a Mobile
Device
moShareâ€™s Free WordPress Plugin Makes Adding the moShare Button
Easy for WordPress Users
Content Shared Via moShare Is Opened by 90 Percent of Recipients,
40 Percent of Whom Click Through to the Referring Site

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
moShare, the worldâ€™s first
web-to-mobile sharing service, today announced the availability of the
moShare WordPress plugin, that allows the free and easy integration of
moShareâ€™s mobile content sharing functionality to any website built
using WordPress.

moShare is the quickest way for users to share any content (e.g., news,
videos and photos) from any website to any mobile phone via Multimedia
Messaging Service (MMS) technology. More than 90 percent of content
shared via moShare is opened by recipients on their mobile devices, 40
percent of whom then click through to the referring website, resulting
in increased traffic to sites that add the moShare button.

â€œWe knew that social sharing was critical in increasing website
visibility, but we were pleasantly surprised to see how much more
engaged the visitors who were driven to us through moShare are,â€� said
Joey Flores, CEO and co-founder of Earbits. â€œThey stay on our site
longer, visit more pages and are, in general, becoming repeat visitors.
This is much better than what we had hoped for in a social sharing
plugin.â€�

The moShare button is commonly placed alongside the Facebook, Twitter or
Google+ buttons already being used by most web developers. These buttons
are designed specifically to enable the sharing of content and create a
more engaged audience.

â€œWordPress is the backbone of many of today’s top blogs. The one common
goal of each of these WordPress sites is increasing their audience and
traffic,â€� said Noel Saw, senior UX designer and WordPress provocateur.
â€œThe moShare plugin helps accomplish this goal by enabling blog visitors
to share the siteâ€™s content directly to their closest friendsâ€™ phones.
You can’t get more qualified and engaged traffic than by visiting a link
shared by a friend.â€�

With this new plugin, users of WordPressâ€”the most popular content
management system in use on the Internetâ€”can easily add the moShare
button directly on their websites, making the content instantly
shareable for visitors to the site.

â€œMore than 73 million sites use WordPress to create and post their
online content. Developing this plugin enables the entire WordPress
community to add the first share to mobile social button,â€� said James
Citron, CEO of Mogreet. â€œAdding moShare functionality to a website
enables publishers to reach readers on their mobile device â€“ the primary
device in most people’s lives.â€�

moShare is built on Mogreetâ€™s dynamic mobile messaging platform that is
used by Fortune 1000 companies and small business alike to enable their
customers to become loyal brand ambassadors. For information on how to
get the moShare WordPress plugin, visit www.moshare.com/get_button.html.

About Mogreet

Founded in 2006, Mogreet is the leading mobile messaging platform for
the delivery of rich media to mobile devices. The company works with
leading marketers in entertainment, media, retail, consumer products,
health care and real estate. Currently supported in over 175 countries,
Mogreetâ€™s platform can reach 2 billion consumers globally. Mogreetâ€™s
moShare is the worldâ€™s first web-to-mobile sharing service, allowing
consumers to share web content and drive inbound traffic via mobile. The
company has raised $14.1 million in venture capital from Ascend Venture
Group, Black Diamond Ventures, Bryant Park Ventures and DFJ Frontier.
Mogreet is headquartered in Venice, California. http://www.mogreet.com

MogreetSerena Ehrlich, 310-566-0713serena.ehrlich@mogreet.comorMethod
CommunicationsJoshua Heath, 801-461-9794joshua@methodcommunications.com

Source: Mogreet

http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/moShare+Makes+Mobile+Content+Sharing+Easier+with+WordPress+Plugin/7445160.html

Link-Assistant.com Enhances SEO PowerSuite Performance Tremendously, Speeding the SEO Software 20 to 100%

John Bear — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:43:45 +0000

Seven largest SEO PowerSuite performance upturns have been tested out, subsequently added to the software since February 2012 and finally released today to satisfy SEO PowerSuite users’ demand for a faster and more lightweight software.

Minsk, Belarus (PRWEB) May 16, 2012

Link-Assistant.com, Europe-based SEO software house and SEO PowerSuite maker, announced overwhelming performance improvements to its SEO tools. For a few months already, the company has been investing heavily into performance to make the software work with larger data volumes. Over the last months, these upswings have caused 23% more users than usual to order an SEO PowerSuite license.

*Unlimited data in SEO PowerSuite*

One of the things that make SEO PowerSuite stand out among other SEO tools is that it’s unlimited in terms of data search: users check as many sites, keywords, rankings, links, pages as they wish.

“We’ve recently been facing a dilemma here at Link-Assistant.com. The thing is, despite the unlimited stats currently available in SEO PowerSuite, there’s always a challenge to provide our users with even more data, features and flexibility. Extra load on software to process even bigger data volumes obviously causes extra load on the user’s computer,” explains Viktar Khamianok, CEO, Link-Assistant.com.

“In these cases most developers are trying to limit the user, so that they can do less, but don’t notice slowdowns. This is an easy, fast and very cheap solution to the problem. Knowing that SEO PowerSuite users wouldn’t be happy with limitations, we’ve chosen a different strategy: investing heavily into performance.”

*Seven performance upswings*

Starting from February, seven significant software improvements have been made to SEO PowerSuite, with the latest update released today:

1. Quicker adding of updated factors – fresh data is added to the project 2 times faster;

2. Updated factor checking algos – 30% less of computer RAM and 30% less traffic is used;

3. Improved task logging – 40% of memory (RAM) is saved;

4. Faster table drawing – smoother user experience with tables refreshing 1000 times faster;

5. Improved internal memory usage – 27% less RAM usage;

6. Quicker application launch – up to 50% speed boost on application start-up;

7. New optimized user interface – CPU and RAM usage reduced by 18%.

Performance improvement figures are based on reports from users and internal tests – find out more at http://www.link-assistant.com/news/performance.html.

More performance tweaks, including “on-demand” project loading and new software architecture, are yet to come – stay tuned for more updates, get social with Link-Assistant.com on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

*Defining the world standard for SEO software — About Link-Assistant.com:*

Link-Assistant.com is a leading SEO software provider of state-of-the-art site promotion products: 1. Rank Tracker, 2. WebSite Auditor, 3. LinkAssistant and 4. SEO SpyGlass, sold separately and bundled into SEO PowerSuite toolkit.

Contact: Alexandra Shkalikova, ashkalikova(at)link-assistant(dot)com +375447761416

Alexandra Shkalikova
Link-Assistant.Com
+375447761416
Email Information

http://news.yahoo.com/assistant-com-enhances-seo-powersuite-performance-tremendously-speeding-071435998.html

Josh Stein Realtor And SEO Miracle Partner To Promote 100 Latest Sales Of Miami Beach Condos And Homes

John Bear — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:43:33 +0000

Miami Beach condos are in high demand and sales are made each day. Josh Stein and SEO Miracle promote 100 latest sales of Miami Beach condos and homes.

Miami Beach, FL (PRWEB) May 15, 2012

A Miami Beach condo is in high demand in a city which is recognized for its festivals, luxury lifestyle, and a number of international events like the Food and Wine Festival, the International Boat Show, and Art Basel. The Miami Beach real estate market is changing really fast with new sales being made each day.

Josh Stein is a local real estate agent who works in Miami Beach and specializes in the sale of luxury Miami Beach condos and lofts. Josh has been a Majestic Properties top producer for a long time and works with both sellers and buyers, to ensure the highest quality of service. Josh Stein has been a Miami Beach real estate agent for more than 10 years. Besides selling Miami condos and lofts, Josh actively sells luxurious waterfront homes and historic art deco condos.

SEO Miracle is one of the leading SEO companies in the United States that has partnered with many real estate companies to work on different projects in promoting their sale discounts, company image, and everything else they offer.

Joshua Hood, CEO and a co-founder of SEO Miracle, mentioned, “Josh Stein and I go a long way back in successful real estate promoting and today we wanted to announce to the public about 100 latest sales of Miami Beach condos and homes that have been made recently. This way future investors and buyers can stay informed and on track with their plans.”

SEO Miracle will work closely with Josh Stein Realtor to make sure that every potential buyer stays informed on time as well as any other Internet user that types in ‘Miami Beach condos’ in the Google search bar.

Joshua also added, “If you do not want to be as 99% of other people on Earth, and want to be different, a Miami Beach condo is all you need. I have lived in Miami Beach for so long, and still have that same feeling that I had when I first moved in.”

If you would like to check out Josh’s offer, you can follow him on Facebook and Twitter, visit his website http://www.joshsteinrealtor.com or call his phone number at 305-791-5596.

Joshua Hood
SEO Miracle
786-220-4929
Email Information

http://news.yahoo.com/josh-stein-realtor-seo-miracle-partner-promote-100-070419793.html

Automattic, the Company Behind WordPress.com, Appoints Stuart West as Chief Financial Officer

Jane Kozlinski — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:43:18 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Automattic, the company behind the popular Web publishing platform WordPress.com, today announced that Stuart West will serve as the company’s first full-time Chief Financial Officer. In this newly created role, West will be responsible for leading Automattic‘s global financial strategy, and will provide operational and strategic leadership as Automattic continues to scale WordPress.com, expand product offerings and build the global community of publishers and bloggers. As the company focuses on growth of the business, it has also appointed its first General Counsel, Paul Sieminski.

(Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120425/SF94395)

About Automattic

For more information, visit http://automattic.com.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/automattic-company-behind-wordpress-com-141300639.html

SEO COMPANY INDIA, Profit By Search Announces Link Building Services

John Bear — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:42:20 +0000

SEO Firm India, Profit By Search, is now offering Link Building Packages that are customized for the needs of every single client.

Delhi/NCR (PRWEB) May 13, 2012

Creating an effective online SEO campaign is going to take time and energy, but it is necessary for any company that would like to expand their business, attract new customers, and keep up with the competition. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done and many find their websites to be ineffective and not bringing in the traffic that they would like to see. This is why the leading SEO Firm India, Profit By Search is now offering Link Building Packages that are customized for the needs of every single client.

How Link Building Services Help?

Link Building India Services create ties to a website from other similar theme pages. In other words, Link building services garner votes from valuable websites related to the industry or topic. Now, when a website has links to reputable and popular websites, search engines gives higher rank. The more the links the higher the rankings get. Each link also drives traffic to a website and as the visitors come from leading authority websites, it ensures greater conversions.

About SEO Company, Profit By Search

One of the premier providers of SEO Services, Profit By Search not only serve the purpose of increasing a client’s website visibility on major search engines, but it also helps solve various technical problems of a website like providing a client with unique content to keep the website away from getting slapped by the Google Panda, improvise on methods to improve lost rankings, helps fight better with the bounce rates, maximize the rate of return on investment for advertising budget and many other such services.

SEO should be a part of every websites marketing mix, they deliver result for companies around the world so if one wants Profit By Search, India’s #1 SEO Company to help with their big plans then they would take their own initiative to chat about India’s finest SEO Service offerings.

Visit http://www.seoindiacompany.com/ or call (888) 322-7617 for more information about the SEO Plans and other services provided by Profit By Search.

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http://www.prweb.com/releases/seo/seo-services/prweb9501775.htm

SEO COMPANY INDIA, Profit By Search Announces Link Building Services

John Bear — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:42:20 +0000

SEO Firm India, Profit By Search, is now offering Link Building Packages that are customized for the needs of every single client.

Delhi/NCR (PRWEB) May 13, 2012

How Link Building Services Help?

About SEO Company, Profit By Search

Visit http://www.seoindiacompany.com/ or call (888) 322-7617 for more information about the SEO Plans and other services provided by Profit By Search.

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http://www.prweb.com/releases/seo/seo-services/prweb9501775.htm

25 WordPress plugins worth using

Jane Kozlinski — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:42:17 +0000

Looking to add some features to your WordPress blog to increase traffic and build a loyal audience? In this article, you will find a list of 25 of the best plugins around.

All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack was specifically designed with search engine optimization in mind. With this plugin, your blog will become search-engine friendly within minutes.

Bad Behavior

PHP-based sites like WordPress often get inundated by automated spam comments and requests. Bad Behavior works as a shield to prevent malicious activity.

Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps

Sitemaps are a way to invite search engines like Google or Bing to crawl all the articles and pages on a blog, especially those that could be hard to find.

Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps is the “first WordPress XML Sitemap plugin that has support for both sitemapindex and Multi-site websites! You will no longer have to worry about the 50,000 URL limit or the time it takes for a sitemap to be generated. This plugin is fast, consumes much fewer resources and can be extended via your very own modules (yes, no hooks needed!).”

Call to Action

The Call to Action plugin adds a “Call To Action / Author Bio” Box at the end of every post. The box can be displayed as a widget in the blog’s sidebar or in the content as a shortcode.

CommentLuv

CommentLuv allows visitors of a blog to add a link to the last article they wrote on their own blog when leaving comments. With the premium version, they can also choose from their last ten posts or a combination of those and their favorite ones.

ContactMe

ContactMe is a free task management system that also provides customizable contact forms that a user can embed on their pages. The WordPress plugin allows seamless integration into blogs.

Contextual Related Posts

This plugin automatically displays a list of relevant posts at the end of every article and / or in a feed.

Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (GASP)

GASP adds a javascript-based checkbox to comment forms asking visitors to confirm that they are not spammers. The box is invisible to bots.

Hello Bar

Hello Bar allows you to redirect your visitors to the most important content on your blog and / or website by adding a one-line notification toolbar containing a short call-to-action and link at the top of every page.

Jetpack

“Jetpack is a plugin that connects to WordPress.com and enables awesome features, powered by our cloud infrastructure.”

Some features include:

Subscriptions
WordPress.com Stats
Twitter Widget
Short links
Share buttons
Spell, style and grammar checker.

SEO Friendly Table of Contents

A table of contents (TOC) features the title of each section in an article. It helps readers scan content and decide what they want to click, while also creating internal linking.

With SEO Friendly Table of Contents, all you have to do is add a line of code where you want the TOC to appear in your page and / or article.

SEO Slugs

The SEO Slugs plugin removes words like ‘a’, ‘the’ or ‘in’ from URLs to improve search engine optimization.

Sexy Bookmarks

Sexy Bookmarks is a visually appealing social bookmarking plugin, with optional call-to-action.

ShareBar

The ShareBar plugin adds a floating vertical bar on the left of your posts with share buttons to major social bookmarking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Digg, Pinterest…).

SI Captcha Anti-Spam

This plugin helps prevent spam by adding a CAPTCHA code on comments, registrations, lost passwords, and logins.

Social Author Bio

The Social Author Bio plugin automatically pulls your Gravatar and the biographical information in your profile, and adds them in an author bio box under your articles. The box also includes icons linking to your social media profiles.

Triberr

Created for members of Triberr, this plugin instantly sends new posts from a blog to the sharing platform. Users can also reblog content from within their Tribal Stream, as well as leave comments.

upPrev Previous Post Animated Notification

Give your blog a New York Times vibe with upPrev. When a visitor scrolls down an article in your blog, the plugin will display a sliding box to the bottom right corner with a preview of the next available post in the same category.

W3 Total Cache

Caching helps a WordPress blog load faster by reducing the number of queries made to the database. A plugin like W3 Total Cache will greatly improve site performance and user experience.

WP-Optimize

Every time someone reads an article on your blog, WordPress searches the SQL database on your server and renders the data as a page. The larger the database, the more loading time is impacted.

The WP-Optimize plugin allows you to clean up your database and optimize it without having to log into your phpMyAdmin account.

WP Smush.it

WP Smush.it optimizes image files for blogs and websites by removing unnecessary bytes without changing their look or visual quality.

WP Super Cache

Another caching plugin for WordPress, WP Super Cache generates static HTML files from a blog, which decreases load time.

Wufoo

With Wufoo, a free HTML form builder, website owners and bloggers can easily create contact forms, online surveys, and event registrations. The plugin allows seamless integration into WordPress.

WordPress Automatic Upgrade

With this plugin, you can automatically upgrade your WordPress installation to the latest one provided by WordPress.org.

WordPress Importer

WordPress Importer allows you to easily import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file.

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Cendrine Marrouat may be contacted for potential interviews, reviews and general enquiries at info@cendrinemarrouat.com. Website: www.cendrinemarrouat.com.

http://www.examiner.com/article/25-wordpress-plugins-worth-using