BrightEdge Says Companies Risk Damage Due To Illegitimate Links

More than 1,000 Companies Asked for BrightEdge’s Free Brandsafe Link Audit And Hundreds Discovered Improper "Black Hat" Linking by Consultants, Agencies and Even Employees

SAN MATEO, Calif – March 10, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, today released an analysis of the results of the BrandSafe Link Audits it conducted privately by request for more than 1,000 leading brands. The analysis indicates that improper “black hat” SEO tactics are much more widespread than most are aware. They could pose serious financial and reputational risk to hundreds of companies that are most likely unaware of the illegitimate SEO activities that are driving rankings for their brands.

More than 1,000 companies from around the world registered for BrightEdge’s free BrandSafe Link Audit last month. The company launched BrandSafe in the wake of a media whirlwind created by a media outlet’s investigative report on an illegitimate backlinks scheme in use by a major retailer for more than two years. When Google was alerted, the search engine took actions against the retailer that caused it to plummet in search results and lose a huge percentage of its organic traffic, even though the retailer claimed it had been unaware that it was benefiting from the scheme.

"Illegitimate backlinks pose serious risks to the finances and reputations of thousands of companies," said BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu. "If search engines detect these unscrupulous activities, thousands of companies risk losing their high search rankings for terms that drive critical revenue. Company executives need to take a hard, fast look at their SEO practices or run the risk of learning the hard way."

Apparently the damage that backlinks can have on a company is still unnoticed among senior management. BrightEdge said that only about 20 percent of officials requesting the audits reported they were VP level or above.

The vertical industries at highest risk were online services, including real estate sites and photo sharing services. Nearly one-third of these domains had backlinks that put them at risk of corrective action by search engines.

blekko, BrightEdge Team To Bring Brands Into Battle Against Spam

Partnership Between Search and SEO Platform Help Brands Fight Against Increasing Noise on the Web through Transparency and Openness

SAN MATEO, Calif – March 23, 2011 – Search pioneer blekko said today it has partnered with enterprise SEO platform leader BrightEdge to deliver new tools to the world’s leading brands in the fight against spam in search results.

BrightEdge will leverage blekko's open and transparent search index in its enterprise platform so that brands can quickly access up-to-date web data to drive results on the web. In particular, blekko will make available real-time link graph information, enabling enterprises to verify that their own links are legitimate as well as whether sites ranking ahead of them are using black hat or unethical standards to game search engine rank.

"Next to consumers, the biggest losers in the current state of search are legitimate brands that are being outranked by spam," said Rich Skrenta, CEO of blekko. "But too often legitimate companies encounter the unknown when trying to figure out how to get their information in front of consumers who are searching for it. This is a continued step in our efforts to bring transparency to the SEO process."

The BrightEdge-blekko offering will augment SEO reports, dashboards, analysis, and recommendations with real-time on-page, off-page, internal linking, and other key information from the blekko search engine. Brands will be able to see for the first time how spam creators are manipulating paid links and using black hat strategies to draft on brand searches, and then take action to protect the web from such tactics.

"This unprecedented partnership enables everyone from the CMO to the SEO manager to have confidence that the SEO being practiced around their brand delivers results in a responsible manner," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "Through this partnership, any brand on the web can instantly monitor its own and any competitor’s SEO practices on an almost real-time basis."

Current search incumbents give very little guidance to legitimate brands on how they can outrank spam. Companies are forced to operate in the unknown to rise above spam on the web related to their brand and products.

blekko has already enlisted human curators in its efforts to battle spam. This partnership with BrightEdge is its first effort to bring all companies the tools it needs to join the battle against search spam. blekko will continue to make its SEO data free to its users on the blekko website.

Financial terms of the partnership are not being disclosed.

About blekko

blekko was founded in 2007 to pursue innovation in search. The company has raised $24 million since its founding in 2007 from US Venture Partners and CMEA Capital, as well as leading angel investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Jeff Clavier, and Marc Andreessen. blekko has 25 employees, including former Google and Yahoo! Search engineers.

BrightEdge Study Finds 70% of Top 200 Brands Fail at Social Media SEO

Majority of Top Brands Do Not Have Facebook or Twitter accounts in Top 20 Search Results on Google

SAN MATEO, Calif – April 18, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, today announced that according to its analysis, the majority of leading consumer brands are investing in social media presence but doing little to optimize Facebook or Twitter pages to make them more discoverable in search results.

BrightEdge reviewed the social media presence of the top 200 brands in the world. It found that close to 100 percent hold the top or near top rank in search results for the brand name. But in these same brand searches, the company found that 70 percent of these brands did not have Facebook or Twitter pages in the top 20 results. Experts say links that are not in the top 10 search results most often do not get clicked on by consumers.

"Brands today are pouring countless resources into social media channels—and are creating great content that will help them engage with consumers," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "Optimizing these for SEO purposes is a crucial way to drive exposure. Brands may be missing critical customer connection points if consumers can’t easily discover their social media pages in search."

Of the top 200 brands listed in the Fortune 500, approximately 68 percent had Twitter accounts that were not in the top 20 Google results. And about 71 percent had Facebook pages that did not appear in the top 20 results of a search for the specific brand name.

By analyzing various social media accounts, BrightEdge did not always find a correlation between the number of friends or followers and search rank. For example, the Facebook page of a leading photography equipment brand does not rank in the top 20 search results, despite having more than 160,000 Likes. Conversely, a leading auto manufacturer with only 17,307 fans has a Facebook page that ranks in the top 10 of search results.

BrightEdge also looked at individual verticals and found that retailers are the most successful at optimizing their social media pages. Of the top 23 retailers, 13 have Twitter pages in the top 20 search results. The verticals that are currently least effective at optimizing social media are the finance and insurance industries. Only three of the top 43 financial and insurance companies have Facebook fan pages that rank in the top 20 search results.

BrightEdge and comScore to Boost Competitive Intelligence for SEO

For the First Time, Collective Intelligence from One Million Consumers is Combined with Deep SEO Analytics to Help Brands Cut through Clutter on the Web

SAN MATEO, Calif – May 3, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, today announced it is working with comScore, a global leader in measuring the digital world, to help companies rank above the fold in search results. Through this collaboration, SEO managers can now instantly act on comScore’s critical competitive insights to increase revenue from organic search.

"Search is changing quickly - it’s becoming social, local, mobile, and personalized," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "The addition of collective intelligence into BrightEdge enables marketers to stay ahead in this new search landscape. It is a game changer for the online marketing industry."

comScore’s expansive intelligence into consumer search behavior based on its panel of one million Internet users will be fully integrated into BrightEdge’s actionable SEO platform. This combination of competitive intelligence and deep SEO analytics will enable SEO managers and executives to get a complete view of their competitive position across the Internet and identify new strategies to cut through the Web clutter and drive SEO performance.

"Getting comprehensive competitive information is critical to all online marketers," said Steve Dennen, Vice President of Business Development at comScore. "We are excited to be able to offer comScore’s industry leading competitive intelligence to BrightEdge enterprise customers so they can take their SEO performance to the next level."

The integration of collective intelligence into the BrightEdge platforms follows numerous market leading innovations. BrightEdge is the first SEO platform to integrate Web analytics, include global capabilities, make SEO social, and most recently collaborate with search engine providers.

This solution will be available to comScore and BrightEdge enterprise customers initially in the US.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

BrightEdge Signs Agreement with Move, Inc.

Online Real Estate Leader Leverages BrightEdge to Enhance SEO on Real Estate Network

SAN MATEO, Calif – May 31, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, today announces that Move, Inc., the leader in online real estate, has selected BrightEdge to provide insights into its organic traffic from search engines. BrightEdge will work with Move to help enhance the company’s web page rankings, create greater awareness and drive traffic.

"As the trusted leader in the SEO space, BrightEdge is continuously delivering innovations that help elevate search rankings for leading web sites and pages," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "We are thrilled to be working with Move to drive SEO performance using market-leading white-hat techniques."

"With the assistance of BrightEdge, we expect to gain unique and actionable insights about our consumer audience that will benefit our business and our customers," said Scott Boecker, chief product officer, Move, Inc. "We’re looking forward to working with the team at BrightEdge to quickly identify additional ways in which their market-leading platform can deliver value to our various brands."

The BrightEdge solution allows Move to automatically analyze a large number of keyword opportunities, evaluate how search engines are interpreting signals for each of the keywords - including social signals such as Facebook shares and Twitter tweets. The BrightEdge automated dashboards and insights reduce the amount of time spent on analyzing and reporting SEO data.

For more information on BrightEdge's SEO Platform, please visit www.brightedge.com/contact-form.

About Move, Inc.

Move, Inc. (Nasdaq: MOVE) is the leader in online real estate with 14.1 million monthly visitors to its online network of web sites. Move, Inc. operates: Move.com, a leading destination for information on new homes and rental listings, moving, home and garden and home finance; Realtor.com®, the official web site of the National Association of Realtors®; Moving.com; SeniorHousingNet; Top Producer Systems, and ListHub. Move, Inc. is based in Campbell, California.

BrightEdge to Boost Social SEO for Brands on Facebook®

First Offering of its Kind to Help Brands Optimize Their Social Impact

SAN MATEO, California – June 7, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, today announced that it is introducing a new class of capabilities so brands can optimize their social SEO and the impact of their Facebook® investment. BrightEdge is the first social SEO solution optimized for Facebook, enabling brands to tap into the enormous opportunity they have for improving organic search rankings.

Higher Facebook Page ranking in search results allows brands to maintain control of their brand reputation, increase social engagement with their customers, improve brand visibility, and drive additional Likes for their Facebook pages.

"Leveraging Facebook for SEO is a huge untapped opportunity," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "As search engines increasingly look at social media for relevant content and signals of authority, Facebook Pages become highly valuable company assets that must be optimized for SEO. The BrightEdge offering for brands on Facebook will help brands make the most out of their Facebook presence and optimize their social impact."

In a recent BrightEdge study, the majority of the worlds’ top brands are failing to make their Facebook Pages more discoverable in search results. In fact, over 70 percent of these brands had Facebook Pages that did not appear in the top 20 results of a search for the specific brand name.

BrightEdge is publishing a white paper titled “Facebook for Social SEO” that can be downloaded at www.brightedge.com/facebook-social-seo. BrightEdge is also extending its enterprise SEO platform to include recommendations and reporting for Facebook optimizations. For more information on BrightEdge's SEO Platform, please visit www.brightedge.com/contact-form.

Resolution Media Selects BrightEdge's Best-In-Class SEO Platform

BrightEdge adds Resolution Media, an Omnicom Media Group Company to Growing List of Top-Tier Agency Partners

SAN MATEO, Calif – June 7, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, announced today that Resolution Media, an Omnicom Media Group digital marketing agency representing some of the world’s biggest brands, has entrusted BrightEdge’s SEO platform for its organic search practice agency-wide.

"After testing every major SEO platform available today, BrightEdge was the obvious choice due to its ease of use, open integration capabilities and industry leadership," said Bryson Meunier, Director of Content Solutions at Resolution Media. "BrightEdge’s impressive platform enables us to streamline our work and simplifies project management across all of our clients, regardless of size and whether they are focused on local or global markets. And with BrightEdge, we have confidence that we are staying ahead of the SEO market as it becomes social, mobile and local."

Before incorporating BrightEdge into its offerings, Resolution Media used a variety of tools with multiple user interfaces that required manual integration. BrightEdge developed an onboarding plan that enabled Resolution Media to quickly deploy BrightEdge’s integrated platform agency-wide. In just a few weeks, Resolution Media managers were experts on all BrightEdge capabilities -- including industry-leading innovations such as Facebook and other social properties – which they could easily promote with existing as well as new clients.

"We are thrilled to add Resolution Media to our growing list of top-tier agency partners," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "This selection by one of the most sophisticated agencies clearly shows that BrightEdge is the uncontested leader in the SEO market."
 

About Resolution Media

Resolution Media (RM), an Omnicom Media Group Company, is a digital marketing agency with a strong focus on customer insights. RM’s proprietary digital behavior methodology helps brands uncover smarter customer insights and behaviors, allowing brands to understand their customers better than ever before. With service offerings ranging from search marketing to behavioral retargeting to social and mobile, RM provides the tools for a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Clients include Hewlett-Packard, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Norwegian Cruise Line, Briggs and Stratton, Getty Images, Visa and McDonald’s.

For more information, please contact us, visit Resolution Media, friend us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Rosetta Selects BrightEdge Industry-Leading SEO Platform

Top 10 Interactive Agency to Scale Best-In-Class SEO Practice with BrightEdge

SAN MATEO, California – June 30, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, today announced that Rosetta, one of the top 10 interactive agencies in the U.S., has selected BrightEdge as its SEO platform of choice for its rapidly growing business.

"As we continue to expand and bring on new clients at increasing rates, BrightEdge’s flexible platform makes it easy for us to keep up with their SEO needs," said Dave Anna, Partner, Search and Media; Analytics and Optimization. "In addition, BrightEdge’s pace of innovation combined with a great Customer Success team enables us to quickly deliver differentiated value to our clients. We could not be more thrilled with this partnership."

Rosetta's impressive client-base will benefit from the BrightEdge platform, which integrates easily with solutions already in place and has the flexibility to scale quickly. BrightEdge’s emphasis on developing technology also will help Rosetta stay ahead of the ever-evolving search landscape and drive their client’s SEO performance.

"We are thrilled that Rosetta selected BrightEdge to deliver measurable impact and sustainable competitive advantage to their clients," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "This selection by a top 10 agency is the result of our commitment to innovation and another clear example of our leadership in the SEO market."
 

About Rosetta

Rosetta is ranked by Ad Age among the top U.S. digital agencies and was recently named the #1 Agency to Watch in Ad Age’s Agency A-List. Engineered for the connected world, Rosetta was founded in 1998 to pilot brands through an ever-changing marketing landscape and drive measurable business impact. Rosetta enables brands to transform their marketing through the discovery of unique insights about their best consumers’ wants and needs and then translates those insights into more personally relevant experiences enabled by personality segmentation and technology across all touch points and over time. Rosetta recently acquired LEVEL Studios, a leader in combining content, platforms and devices to create engaging total user experiences.

Rosetta has deep industry expertise in Healthcare, Consumer Products & Retail, Financial Services, Consumer Technology, B2B and Travel & Hospitality. Rosetta is headquartered in Princeton, NJ, with additional offices across North America in New York, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago and Toronto. The addition of LEVEL Studios, a Rosetta Company, adds west coast presence to Rosetta’s footprint with offices in Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and San Jose, CA. For more information, visit www.rosetta.com.

Performics Sets Agency-Wide Standard with BrightEdge SEO Platform

Performics Selects BrightEdge Platform to Standardize its Organic Search Practice, Enhance Social

SAN MATEO, Calif – June 30, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, announced that Performics, the leading performance marketing agency owned by Publicis Groupe, selected BrightEdge as its agency-wide platform standard for organic search.

"We chose BrightEdge not only for the completeness of its SEO platform, but also because it is an industry leader and constantly innovates," said Eric Papczun, Senior Vice President, SEO and Conversion Optimization, Performics. "This partnership with BrightEdge enables us to stay ahead of the SEO market and meet the growing marketplace demands for organic search. We trust the BrightEdge platform will accelerate brand engagement on the latest search destinations including local, social and mobile spaces."

Performics leverages the principles of search to create highly optimized marketing programs across relevant channels and screens. The agency’s continued investment in people and technology has made it a leader in the search and performance marketing field. This new partnership with BrightEdge supports its ambitious expansion goals in regards to organic SEO.

"We are thrilled to work with Performics and help them stay ahead of the rapidly evolving organic search landscape," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "This agency-wide selection by one of the most forward looking agencies in the world clearly shows that we are the uncontested leader in the SEO market."
 

About Performics

Performics is the first global performance marketing company partnering with marketers to make smart marketing decisions that improve ROI. Founded in 1998, our performance specialists are certified experts in search, affiliate & feeds, and social & display channels across all screens. Performics, headquartered in Chicago with presence in 14 countries and regional hubs in London, Paris, and Singapore, is part of Publicis Groupe -- the world's third largest communications group and top global search spender..

Google +1 Sees Surge in Placement, but Facebook Still Dominant Plug-In

New BrightEdge SocialShare Analysis Examines Front Pages of Web’s Top 10,000 Sites And Shows Facebook “Like” Used Twice as Often, Despite 33 Percent Spike from Google +1

Silicon Valley, Calif – July 8, 2011 – BrightEdge, the world’s first enterprise class SEO platform that helps brands rise above the increasing clutter on the Web, said a site analysis of the front pages of the Web’s 10,000 largest sites shows a 33 percent spike in placement of the new Google +1 button in just the last few weeks. The report also shows that Facebook still enjoys a two-to-one lead in plug-in placement on these large sites over competing social networks. Nevertheless, the majority of brands today are still missing out on the massive traffic and engagement driver Facebook has become, as links to Facebook pages still appear on the front page of less than half of the web’s largest websites.

BrightEdge's new SocialShare Site Analysis found overall that Facebook is still the preferred social media platform for larger companies with more than 47 percent of sites linking to the network. Following just behind Facebook however, is integration of Twitter into site homepages, which was seen in 42 percent of sites measured. Overall the analysis points to a still much untapped opportunity for social platforms even on sites operated by some of the most sophisticated marketers and executives in the world.

As for social plug-ins on the front pages of these large sites, Facebook is still the dominant tool. Almost 20 percent of these large sites include plugin tools offered by Facebook. Despite the surge in the last few days, Google +1 is only offered by 4.4 percent of these large sites, up from 3.6 percent in June. Plug-ins offered by Twitter are displayed on 3.4 percent of the front pages analyzed.

"Overall, this inaugural version of our SocialShare Site Analysis shows huge opportunity for brands to engage more socially," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "Fewer than half the largest sites on the Web offer any kind of social link at all on their front page and these sites represent a massive slice of Internet traffic on any given day. We would expect to see a land grab effort this year as plug-ins vie for placement on this very valuable Web real estate."

Another notable stat from this first iteration of SocialShare Site Analysis is that YouTube remains a popular social tool for major brands and companies. Almost 17 percent of the 10,000 largest sites on the Web have links to YouTube video on their front page (although this number declined slightly in June to 1,675 sites).

The SocialShare Site Analysis will be a monthly SEO report that tracks the presence and penetration of social sharing tools on the world’s largest 10,000 sites. It will be available at www.brightedge.com/socialshare, where marketers can also register to have the report delivered by their favorite social sharing tool or email.