How Google may Identify How Related Different Entities Are

A patent granted to Google this week attempts to identify similarities between different types of entities, when it finds information about them on the Web. It refers to these types of similarities as commonalities, as in things they may have in common. Google may use these similarities in a number of ways, such as supplementing search results containing related information based upon results that might be in the same category or possibly located in the same region.

The things identified as common may be for things that are moderately unique, but not completely rare.

The patent say “entities,” but it seems to be focusing upon different businesses that might share some similarities. For example, they refer to a food critic writing about restaurants a few times and tell us that the things such a critic might write about different restaurants might be used to find similarities between those places.

This method describes finding commonalities between entities.

For example, that critic might tell us about two different restaurants that both serve the same types of food, such as specializing in certain types of seafood, or that may be located near each other.

The patent is:

Identifying interesting commonalities between entities
Invented by Tamara I. Stern, Gregory J. Donaker, Jason Lee, Bernhard A. M. Seefeld
Assigned to Google
US Patent 9,116,982
Granted August 25, 2015
Filed: March 14, 2013

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating descriptions of relationships between entities.

In one aspect, a method includes:

• Identifying one or more related entities for a particular entity based at least in part on commonalities between the particular entity and the one or more related entities
• sorting the commonalities according to a measure of uniqueness of each of the commonalities, and
• identifying a subset of the commonalities having a measure of uniqueness above a lower measure of uniqueness threshold.

The identified subset of commonalities can include one or more commonalities. One or more commonalities can be selected from the subset of commonalities as indicative of a relationship to the particular entity, and a description of the relationship can be identified based on the selected one or more commonalities.

Take Aways

We are told in the patent that sources such as reviews of places might be looked at while also identifying similarities or commonalities from sources like a food critic’s articles or blog posts.

At present, I’m not seeing the kinds of recommendations fo “similar” places in search results, then again, this patent was just granted a few days ago. It’s possible that Google may have developed a process like the one described in this patent, but hasn’t released it to the public yet.

They tell us that the things they might look for similarities about specific entities might be scored on a “uniqueness” score, based upon how frequently those features might show up in a body of information that the entities (or businesses) might be located in. So, a uniqueness score for (entities) like restaurants may be restaurants could be based upon both offer a rare and unique dish such as Spanakopita, or that they share a map location, or that they share the use of some unusual language

The purpose of this patent seems to be to enable Google to offer searchers “similar” places when they perform a search for a particular type of business.

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Through the Google lens: Search Trends August 21-27

The terrible images from the WDBJ shooting in Virginia dominated Google searches over the last few days. Here's a look back at the week in search.

WDBJ tragedy
A small TV station in Roanoke, Va., is reeling after two of its journalists were shot and killed live on air Wednesday morning. Police identified the gunman as a former reporter for the station, and if his horrible crime was designed for maximum shock and attention, it worked. Searches for Bryce Williams—the on-air name former employee Vester Flanagan went by—ran into the tens of millions as people looked for information and video of what had happened.

Searches in the path of the storm
Thursday marked 10 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, but searchers in the U.S. over the last 48 hours have been looking ahead to another storm. Today, news outlets are reporting that Tropical Storm Erika has already been responsible for deaths in the Caribbean island of Dominica. As Florida’s governor declared a state of emergency ahead of Erika’s predicted U.S. landfall Monday, the city of Hialeah in South Florida is the top of the list of cities searching for information on the storm. But whether the storm searches are coming from the U.S. or the Caribbean, “Erika path” and related terms are up more than 1000 percent this week.

Reading the search tea leaves on Swift, Minaj and Styles
Get out the popcorn. MTV’s annual Video Music Awards is coming up this Sunday, and all eyes will be on Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj following their much-buzzed about Twitter spat over nominations for Music Video of the Year. We turned to search to see if trends could show us whether people are leaning Team Swift or Team Minaj headed into the weekend. Tay-Tay’s music video “Blank Space” is in the lead in the Best Female Video category, followed by Minaj’s “Anaconda.” Though “Anaconda” was not nominated for Music Video of the Year—a category that Swift also leads for “Bad Blood,” according to Google searches—Minaj is top of the search pile in the Best Hip Hop Video category.

In other music news, a report that One Direction will be parting ways up brought a 200,000 search spike earlier in the week. “Are One Direction splitting up?” (perhaps we should make that “ARE ONE DIRECTION SPLITTING UP??!?! :(:(:(”) was the top search question, before the band clarified they are actually just taking a break. As former band member Zayn Malik has already decided to go solo, we read the search tea leaves to see what kind of popularity the current members have should the band, well, disband. Most likely to launch a successful solo career based on search buzz? Harry Styles is the resounding winner, taking a whopping 60 percent of the 1D searches. Our advice for Liam Payne: at 1 percent, don’t give up your day job.

Posted by Abbi Tatton, who searched this week for [roanoke va]

6 Quick Tips to Prevent SEO Annotations from Becoming a Chore

Too busy to do SEO annotations? Determining what warrants being annotated in the first place, writing everything down, and evaluating your process are a few ways to make the process less overwhelming.

When Is a Pivot the Right Thing to Do?

Let's face it -- situations change. When you started your company, you knew the market, had a plan and probably executed it with precision and focus. Even if you did everything right and had a good, solid run, you may find yourself facing a changing business environment. So, before you hunker down and try to power through the change, here is a simple five-step test to see if you need to be thinking about a pivot.

1. The Competitive Environment Changed.

We're living in a time where technology is fueling changes across many industries. Amazon is driving retail to speed up delivery, Uber is inviting consumers to expect car services to provide efficient and seamless service. No matter how forward-thinking you were when you began your enterprise, chances are technology is changing consumer expectations in your thriving enterprise. New technology is inevitably changing the competitive environment you're operating in. There may be downward pressure on pricing or a need to improve terms. For example, shipping is now something consumers expect to be free. The biggest mistake you can make is ignoring changes in your environment. If consumers expect free shipping and free returns, it's time to adjust your model.

2. The Customer Needs Have Changed.

Venture investor Chris Sacca tells a great story about getting an early look at Airbnb and telling the founder that there was no way it was going to work. Too much risk, not any customer demand. A terrible idea. He was right of course, looking in the rear-view mirror. But only the founder could know that there was an unmet need for low cost, human-scale, room sharing. Airbnb turned couch surfing into a business, and a very big business indeed. Brian Chesky saw the future, and he built it. With $2.3 billion in funding, Airbnb now has has over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries since its founding in 2008. So, how does the growth of Airbnb change the hospitality market? Does it impact your business? Does it open new opportunities? Customer needs are changing in many sectors -- staying in touch with those changes is critical to saying ahead.


3. The Barriers To Entry Have Dissolved.

Many years ago I owned a television production company. We owned expensive video cameras, costly editing gear, and the edit rooms and support services that our clients - mostly TV networks - expected when they came to edit a program or a series of promo spots. I remember the day I saw Apple's first edition of Final Cut Pro. It was an entire edit room on a laptop. I saw it in an instant. The barriers to entry in post production would vanish. Talented editors would no longer need my overhead. Networks would bring post in house. The hourly rate we charged would plummet and eventually vanish. It didn't happen overnight, but slowly we transitioned from expensive gear to low-cost software, and we lowered our hourly rates to meet the market. Today post production has declined for all but high-end effects. The business vanished as quality, low-cost production arrived and empowered new competitors.

4. Your Drive And Passion Has Changed.

We're all driven by different things. Some of us are driven by innovation. Some of us want to build big things. Some of us want to change the world. But as part of the magical entrepreneurial elixir, there's always an element of passion. Passion is what drives innovation, and gives entrepreneurs the confidence to take on big things and have the confidence, and some would say hubris, to believe that they can see the future and build that vision. As important as it is to have drive and passion, it's also important to know when you've run out. For some entrepreneurs, success can lead to boredom - and that means it's time to pivot. Either taking on new challenges or step aside. But understanding what drives you is critical to remain charged and striving for continued success.

5. New Opportunities Have Emerged.

One day - you may wake up and see that the path ahead of you has taken a turn. It may be an evolution - or it may be a revolution. If it's an organic and natural step in your path, then an adjustment or a pivot may be all it takes to stay focused on what lies ahead. Chances are, if you've already been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and built a business - it's going to happen again. Maybe you'll be lucky, and the new opportunities will be on the path ahead. But chances are you'll find your passion driven by something really new - brand new - and divergent. So, don't be afraid to make the pivot a big one, even a life-changing one. There's little to be gained by staying at any party too long.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

AdWords Dynamic Structured Snippets Are Here and the Results Are Mixed

Appearing differently than Google intended, dynamic structured snippets have started showing up in AdWords campaigns and possibly point towards a trend in greater automation.

A 4-Step Breakdown of How I Started 3 Companies This Summer

This summer I set a goal to launch one company a month in June, July, and August. As every entrepreneur knows, being goal oriented is a key to success. Without goals, our ideas are just dreams.

For me, as a young entrepreneur in college, I set actionable deadlines that push myself forward. I knew summer would fly by fast but I had three solid ideas that I wanted to turn into realities. The first was our new line of watches at Yes Man, called the Shot Caller. The second was a new watch company called Azula that would create the first ever fabric-faced watch, handmade with fabrics from around the world. Last but not least, I had the idea for Corked, a lifestyle brand crafting premium accessories made from high quality cork.

When planning my route of action, it was important for me to realize that all three of these projects had some overlap. They all needed manufacturers, designers, photographers, web developers, lawyers, and more. I realized I could use the same photographer for all three projects as well as the same web developer. This streamlined the creative process as they already were familiar with my goals and vision.

Through this process of starting three companies in one summer, I have come to realize the keys of creating a company lie within four steps. As a founder, you have to make the most of what you have, yet also need to realize the value of your time. Here are the four steps I took to creating three companies this summer:

Automate

Software is out there to help you streamline your work. If you aren't making the most of what's available then you're missing out. I automated my social media growth, hacking Instagram and Twitter. On Instagram, I used a platform called Instagress that automatically likes and follows images/accounts. For Twitter growth, I utilized Narrow, a platform that automatically favorites and follows tweets/accounts. Both this platforms enabled my companies' social media accounts to grow substantially without much work on my part.

Outsource

If you haven't heard of a virtual assistant, it's time you look into one. A virtual assistant is like a personal assistant who works remotely and can do monotonous tasks for you while you focus on other work. When preparing for the launch of Yes Man, Azula, and Corked, I had a virtual assistant research relevant media outlets that would be interested in covering us. This work was considered data entry and within a day I had a hundred contacts to writers and bloggers who had covered similar companies.

Be Resourceful

One of the keys to becoming a successful entrepreneur is making the most of what you have. I've found the best way to do this is to be resourceful through a community that has similar goals. As an example, I am part of a group on Slack that focuses around marketing. Through this group we can share insight on how to drive traffic, cross promote our products, and learn what works. These people aren't direct competitors but rather compliments to my companies. By creating a community around what you're doing, you can not only learn a lot but make the most of what's available through them.

Track

Just as you would track your weight when dieting, you need to track your goals by breaking them down into small steps. For example, if you plan to create a cool website, your first step would be picking a theme, finding a host, and then finding a developer to work with. Another aspect of tracking comes down to sales. Though there are a ton of CRM systems out there, one of my favorite ways to track sales is through SideKick by Hubspot. This is a neat Gmail plugin that enable you to track opens and clicks on an email. Through this app, I can see if the recipient read my email, how many times they read it, where they opened it from, and more. Tracking our progress is what motivates us to push forward.

As you look to become an entrepreneur or launch new companies, be sure to use these four keys to progress your plans in a smooth way. An unorganized entrepreneur rarely finds success. Getting initial traction is key and understanding your strengths and weaknesses will help you move forward faster.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Facebook Forks Out S**tloads to Disrupt Digital Assistants

Facebook debuted a digital assistant, M, that mixes artificial intelligence with human hands. Could M be the definitive digital assistant, or is the social media giant trying to do too much and spending lots of money doing it?

Improving Public Alerts for hurricane season

Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast of the United States, flooding cities, displacing thousands of people, and causing billions of dollars worth of damage. It is the costliest natural disaster, and one of the deadliest hurricanes, in U.S. history.

After rescue efforts began in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, some Googlers wondered how they could connect people with useful information and resources related to the storm. With the help of many third-party organizations, small groups of our employees worked to display satellite imagery of affected areas in Google Earth and helped build searchable databases so people could check on the safety of friends and loved ones. These early efforts later became some of the standard actions taken today by the Google Crisis Response Team following natural disasters, from hurricanes to earthquakes to tsunamis.

As the U.S. enters hurricane season again, Katrina remains a stark reminder of the devastation a storm like that can cause. We want to be as prepared and as helpful as possible for the next one—no matter where it hits, or how big it is. So we’re always working to improve our Crisis Response efforts to help people stay safe and informed during these events.

With that in mind, we've launched some improvements to weather forecasts and Public Alerts in Google Search to track storms during this year's U.S. hurricane season. Now, when you search the web for information about particular storms or tornadoes, you may see:

• A map showing your location in relation to the oncoming storm
• Visualizations of its forecasted track, wind severity and arrival time, courtesy of NOAA
• Concise instructions for preparing and staying safe, customized for the estimated intensity of the storm and its arrival time relative to your location, from FEMA and ready.gov

The safety recommendations you receive will be tailored to reflect the current status of the event and your context. For example, if you search for a specific storm when it’s still several days away, you may see a map of the developing weather event and a recommendation to start preparing an emergency kit. If the storm is only hours away from your location, you might receive a reminder to start charging your phone in case power goes out. And if you search when the storm is nearby, you'll get the most urgent information, like how to avoid injury from fast-moving water or flying debris.

Tropical storm alert with precise location, wind details and customized safety checklist. Improved tropical storm alerts like this will appear in Search on mobile and desktop.

Not every storm is as devastating as Katrina was, but they all have the potential to cause damage, disrupt lives, and uproot communities. By providing useful, accurate, early-warning information, we want to do our part to help people prepare. More information won’t stop natural disasters from occurring, but it can go a long way to keeping people safe, and in some cases, could even save lives.

Posted by Pete Giencke, GIS Data Engineer

Moz's Acquisition of SERPscape, Russ Jones Joining Our Team, and a Sneak Peek at a New Tool

Posted by randfish

Today, it's my pleasure to announce some exciting news. First, if you haven't already seen it via his blog post, I'm thrilled to welcome Russ Jones, a longtime community member and great contributor to the SEO world, to Moz. He'll be joining our team as a Principal Search Scientist, joining the likes of Dr. Pete, Jay Leary, and myself as a high-level individual contributor on research and development projects.

If you're not familiar with Mr. Jones' work, let me embarrass my new coworker for a minute. Russ:

• Was Angular's CTO after having held a number of roles with the company (previously known as Virante)
• Is the creator of not just SERPscape, but the keyword data API, Grepwords, too (which Moz isn't acquiring—Russ will continue operating that service independently)
• Runs a great Twitter profile sharing observations & posts about some of the most interesting, hardcore-nerdy stuff in SEO
• Operates The Google Cache, a superb blog about SEO that's long been on my personal must-read list
• Contributes regularly to the Moz blog through excellent posts and comments
• Was, most recently, the author of this superb post on Moz comparing link indices (you can bet we're going to ask for his help to improve Mozscape)
• And, perhaps most impressively, replies to emails almost as fast as I do :-)

Russ joins the team in concert with Moz's acquisition of a dataset and tool he built called SERPscape. SERPscape contains data on 40,000,000 US search results and includes an API capable of querying loads of interesting data about what appears in those results (e.g. the relative presence of a given domain, keywords that particular pages rank for, search rankings by industry, and more). For now, SERPscape is remaining separate from the Moz toolset, but over time, we'll be integrating it with some cool new projects currently underway (more on that below).

I'm also excited to share a little bit of a sneak preview of a project that I've been working on at Moz that we've taken to calling "Keyword Explorer." Russ, in his new role, will be helping out with that, and SERPscape's data and APIs will be part of that work, too.

In Q1 of this year, I pitched our executive team and product strategy folks for permission to work on Keyword Explorer and, after some struggles (welcome to bigger company life and not being CEO, Rand!), got approval to tackle what I think remains one of the most frustrating parts of SEO: effective, scalable, strategically-informed keyword research. Some of the problems Russ, I, and the entire Keyword Explorer team hope to solve include:

• Getting more accurate estimates around relative keyword volumes when doing research outside AdWords
• Having critical metrics like Difficulty, Volume, Opportunity, and Business Value included alongside our keywords as we're selecting and prioritizing them
• A tool that lets us build lists of keywords, compare lists against one another, and upload sets of keywords for data and metrics collections
• A single place to research keyword suggestions, uncover keyword metrics (like Difficulty, Opportunity, and Volume), and select keywords for lists that can be directly used for prioritization and tactical targeting

You can see some of this early work in Dr. Pete's KW Opportunity model, which debuted at Mozcon, in our existing Keyword Difficulty & SERP Analysis tool (an early inspiration for this next step), and in a few visuals below:

BTW: Please don't hold the final product to any of these; they're not actual shots of the tool, but rather design comps. What's eventually released almost certainly won't match these exactly, and we're still working on features, functionality, and data. We're also not announcing a release date yet. That said, if you're especially passionate about Keyword Explorer, want to see more, and don't mind giving us some feedback, feel free to email me (rand at moz dot com), and I'll have more to share privately in the near future.

But, new tools aren't the only place Russ will be contributing. As he noted in his post, he's especially passionate about research that helps the entire SEO field advance. His passion is contagious, and I hope it infects our entire team and community. After all, a huge part of Moz's mission is to help make SEO more transparent and accessible to everyone. With Russ' addition to the team, I'm confident we'll be able to make even greater strides in that direction.

Please join me in welcoming him and SERPscape to Moz!

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Backlink Analysis: How to Judge Good Links from Bad

Backlink Analysis: How to Judge Good Links from Bad was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Backlink analysis is a much-needed SEO skill today. Our SEO analysts spend hours analyzing backlinks for clients — whether they came to us specifically for help removing a Google penalty or not.

These days, all webmasters need to keep an eye on their backlink profiles to identify good links to count as wins and bad ones to target for link pruning. Here we’ve outlined our internal process for analyzing SEO client backlinks to judge which links to keep and which to get rid of. You'll find recommendations along with resources to help with your own backlink cleanup including:

• Criteria for judging backlink quality
• How to nofollow links
• A handy Backlink Evaluation Flowchart

Read the full article on backlink analysis

Why Local Is Vital, Even for National Brands

This post is part of a series on the relationship between small businesses and their communities. For more posts in the series, visit the What Is Working: Small Businesses page.

Most entrepreneurs understand that being involved in the community needs to be an integral part of every business plan. Whether you're a restaurant sourcing local food, or a software company providing donuts to the downtown community each morning, the fact is, local is central to business success.

People want local.

Who would you rather do business with? A small company down the street who can respond to your needs quickly, or a national company on the other side of the country where you get passed from person to person before getting your questions answered?

Local companies definitely have a home field advantage when it comes to winning business in their own communities. And programs like Local First and similar programs across the nation have only fueled this movement.

Even here at Incorporate Massage potential clients ask me every week, "Are you guys local?"

Plus, a lot of large companies make it a point to award a certain amount of business to local companies as part of their own efforts to support their own local community, so take advantage of those opportunities.

Even though my company has grown from a small start up in Salt Lake City into a full-fledged national brand, local is still key to our strategy.

Community Service is key.

The best kind of local involvement for a company is arguably community service.

Clearlink, the 4th fastest growing company in Utah, is actively involved in their community and they have seen tremendous results from those efforts in recruiting and employee retention.

Tyson Olcott, Public Relations Manager at Clearlink has seen these results first hand: "We've discovered that employees feel more engaged within our walls when they are able to get out in the community and build meaningful relationships will fellow coworkers in while engaging in the community."

Clearlink seeks guidance from their team on what matters to them, and then acts on it. From tree-planting events and cleaning up local canyons, to volunteering at animal shelters and helping with vision screenings at local elementary schools, Clearlink invests a lot into their community, and reaps the rewards of happy, motivated employees who stick around.

And here at Incorporate Massage, we've seen similar results with our team's favorite program, Taking Care of Teachers. Local communities in each state we operate in can nominate teachers who go above and beyond the call of duty, and then our team votes on the school in each community we want to reward with a day of free massage for the entire faculty on Teacher Appreciation Day.

What about national and global brands?

Even global companies like Aptean look to their employees to fuel the direction of their community involvement. Christina McCoy, Vice Chair of the ACARE board at Aptean states, "If there is a need in the community and drive and passion by our employees to help, we're here to support."

In Aptean's ACARE program employees volunteer their time to raise awareness and money for lots of different causes from providing food for orphanages and planting trees in Bangalore, to cleaning up trails in Atlanta and and collecting food for the homeless in England.

Aptean has seen a sense of pride grow in each of their global locations as a direct result of these efforts, and McCoy states, "That pride results in better employee retention and certainly, happier employees."

Local isn't just soup kitchens and trees.

If service projects aren't feasible at your company's stage right now, there are lots of other ways to harness the power of local to grow your business.

Serve on community boards and councils.

A great way to grow your business is to serve in local organizations in your community. Here in Utah I serve on the Utah Worksite Wellness Council with other wellness professionals from companies across the valley. The Council has been a big propellant to my company's growth because it builds a reputation and credibility for me and my company, it's a valuable networking resource where I get to rub shoulders with potential clients, and I get to stay on the pulse of the corporate wellness industry. This single way of being involved has resulted in many large contracts for my business, and it's also a great resource providing value to out existing clients as well.

Be involved in the community as an employer.

Entrata is a company in Utah who really does this well. They roll out in their double decker bus and provide an evening of fun and entertainment for the local community to attract applicants. Everyone knows who they are because they are an active part of the local community as an employer, and it's really paid off well!

No matter which route you choose, harnessing the power of local needs to be at the core of every company, and is vital to your success as a business.

This blogger graduated from Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses program. Goldman Sachs is a partner of the What Is Working: Small Businesses section.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Google's CTR Dominance Is a Double-Edged Sword

Google trounces Yahoo and Bing when it comes to ad impressions and CTR, but the numbers are much closer than they were three years ago. Less competition - and lower CPC - is definitely a factor.

8 Ways Content Marketing and SEO Can Work Together

Content marketing and SEO should work together to get the best from both disciplines. Here are eight ways in which they can complement each other.

5 Steps for Infiltrating Communities for Links

Social media can be just as effective for getting links as time-wasting. By finding and becoming part of webmasters' communities, you can make social an integral part of your link building strategy.

Google Local Pack Is 233 Percent More Important

Google's recent modifications to the Local Map Pack has made optimizing listings an even greater priority, but why were these changes made? How will this impact your local strategy?

Google Denies EU Antitrust Charges as Legal Battle Looms

Google says the European Commission's antitrust charges are "wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics."

The SEO Professional's Guide to Waterfall Diagrams

Posted by Zoompf

As we know well by now, the speed of a web page is very important from an SEO and user experience perspective. Faster pages have higher search engine ranks, and users will visit more pages and convert higher on a fast performing website. In short, the smart SEO professional needs to also think about optimizing for performance as well as content.

As we discussed in our last article, WebPageTest is a great free tool you can use to optimize your website performance. One of the most useful outputs of the WebPageTest tool is a graphic known as the waterfall diagram. A waterfall diagram is a graphical view of all the resources loaded by a web browser to present your page to your users, showing both the order in which those resources were loaded and how long it took to load each resource. Analyzing how those resources are loaded can give you insight into what's slowing down your webpage, and what you can fix to make it faster.

Waterfall diagrams are a lot like Microsoft Excel: they are simple in concept and can be very powerful, yet most people aren't using them to their fullest potential. In this article, we will show how an SEO professional can use waterfall diagrams created by tools like WebPageTest to identify and improve their site's performance and user experience.

How to read a waterfall diagram

If you haven't done so already, go to WebPageTest and run a test of your site. When the results are finished, click into the first test result to see the waterfall. Below is a sample waterfall chart (click for a larger version).

As mentioned above, waterfall diagrams are cascading charts that show how a web browser loads and renders a web page. Every row of the diagram is a separate request made by the browser. The taller the diagram, the more requests that are made to load the web page. The width of each row represents how long it takes for the browser to request a resource and download the response.

For each row, the waterfall chart uses a multi-colored bar to show where the browser spent its time loading that resource, for example:

It's important to understand each phase of a request since you can improve the speed of your site by reducing the amount of time spent in each of these phases. Here is a brief overview:

• DNS Lookup [Dark Green] - Before the browser can talk to a server it must do a DNS lookup to convert the hostname to an IP Address. There isn't much you can do about this, and luckily it doesn't happen for all requests.
• Initial Connection [Orange] - Before the browser can send a request, it must create a TCP connection. This should only happen on the first few rows of the chart, otherwise there's a performance problem (more on this later).
• SSL/TLS Negotiation [Purple] - If your page is loading resources securely over SSL/TLS, this is the time the browser spends setting up that connection. With Google now using HTTPS as a search ranking factor, SSL/TLS negotiation is more and more common.
• Time To First Byte (TTFB) [Green] - The TTFB is the time it takes for the request to travel to the server, for the server to process it, and for the first byte of the response to make it make to the browser. We will use the measurement to determine if your web server is underpowered or you need to use a CDN.
• Downloading (Blue) - This is the time the browser spends downloading the response. The longer this phase is, the larger the resource is. Ideally you can control the length of this phase by optimizing the size of your content.

You will also notice a few other lines on the waterfall diagram. There is a green vertical line which shows when "Start Render" happens. As we discussed in our last article, until Start Render happens, the user is looking at a blank white screen. A large Start Render time will make the user feel like your site is slow and unresponsive. There are some additional data points in the waterfall, such as "Content Download", but these are more advanced topics beyond the scope of this article.

Optimizing performance with a waterfall diagram

So how do we make a webpage load more quickly and create a better user experience? A waterfall chart provides us with 3 great visual aids to assist with this goal:

1. First, we can optimize our site to reduce the amount of time it takes to download all the resources. This reduces the width of our waterfall. The skinnier the waterfall, the faster your site.
2. Second, we can reduce the number of requests the browser needs to make to load a page. This reduces the height of our waterfall. The shorter your waterfall, the better.
3. Finally, we can optimize the ordering of resource requests to improve rendering time. This moves the green Start Render line to the left. The further left this line, the better.

Let's now dive into each of these in more detail.

Reducing the width of the waterfall

We can reduce the width of the waterfall by reducing how long it takes to download each resource. We know that each row of the waterfall uses color to denote the different phases of fetching a resource. How often you see different colors reveals different optimizations you can make to improve the overall speed.

• Is there a lot of orange? Orange is for the initial TCP connection made to your site. Only the first 2-6 requests to a specific hostname should need to create a TCP connection, after that the existing connections get reused. If you see a lot of orange on the chart, it means your site isn't using persistent connections. Below you can see a waterfall diagram for a site that isn't using persistent connections and note the orange section at the start of every request row. Once persistent connections is enabled, the width of every request row will be cut in half because the browser won't have to make new connections with every request.
• Are there long, purple sections? Purple is the time spent performing an SSL/TLS negotiation. If you are seeing a lot of purple over and over again for the same site, it means you haven't optimized for TLS. In the snippet of diagram below, we see 2 HTTPS requests. One server has been properly optimized, whereas the other has a bad TLS configuration: To optimize TLS performance, see our previous Moz article .
• Are there any long blue sections? Blue is the time spent downloading the response. If a row has a big blue section, it most likely means the response (the resource) is very large. A great way to speed up a site is to simply reduce the amount of data that has to be sent to the client. If you see a lot of blue, ask yourself "Why is that resource so large?" Chances are you can reduce the size of it through HTTP compression, minification, or image optimization. As an example, in the diagram below, we see a PNG image that is taking a long time to download. We can tell because the of the long blue section. Further research revealed that this image is nearly 1.1 MB in size! Turns out the designer forgot to export it properly from Photoshop. Using image optimization techniques reduced this row and made the overall page load faster.
• Is there a lot of green? Chances are there is a lot of green. Green is the browser just waiting to get content. Many times you'll see a row where the browser is waiting 80 or 90 ms, only to spend 1 ms downloading the resource! The best way to reduce the green section is to move your static content, like images, to a content delivery network (CDN) closer to your users. More on this later.

Reducing the height of the waterfall

If the waterfall diagram is tall, the browser is having to make a large number of requests to load the page. The best way to reduce the number of requests is to review all the content your page is including and determine if you really need all of it. For example:

• Do you see a lot of CSS or JavaScript files? Below is a snippet of a waterfall diagram from an AOL site which, I kid you not, requests 48 separate CSS files! If you site is loading a large number of individual CSS or JavaScript files, you should try combining them as with a CMS plugin or as part of your build process. Combining files reduces the number of requests made, improving your overall page speed.
• Do you see a lot of "small" (less than 2kb) JavaScript files or CSS files? Consider including the contents of those files directly in your HTML via inline <script>, <code>, or <style> tags.
• Do you see a lot of 302 redirects? Redirects appear as yellow highlighted rows and represent links on your page that are usually outdated or mistakenly made. This creates an unnecessary redirect which is just needlessly increasing the height of your waterfall. Replace those links with direct links to the new URLs.

Improving rendering time

Recall that the Start Render time represents when the user first sees something on the page other than a blank white page.

What is your Start Render time? If its longer than 1.5 seconds, you should try and improve it. To do so, first take a look at all the resources "above and to the left" of the Start Render line. This represents everything that should be considered for optimization to improve your render time.

Here are some tips:

• Do you see any calls to load JavaScript libraries? JavaScript includes can block page rendering, move these lower in your page if possible.
• Do you see a lot of requests for separate CSS items? Browsers wait until all the CSS is downloaded before they start rendering the page. Can you combine or inline any of those CSS files?
• Do you see external fonts? When using an external font, the browser won't draw anything until it downloads that font. If possible, try to avoid using externally loaded fonts. If that is not possible, make sure you are eliminating any unnecessary 302 redirects to load that font, or (even better) consider hosting a copy of that font locally on your own webserver.

As an example, here is the top of a waterfall diagram:

The green start render line is just over 1 second which is pretty good. However, if you look to the left of the line, you can see some optimizations. First, there are multiple JS files. With the exception of jQuery, these can probably be deferred until later. There are also multiple CSS files. These could be combined. These optimizations would improve the start render time.

You may need to coordinate with your designers and your developers to implement these optimizations. However the results are well worth it. No one likes looking at an empty white screen!

Other factors

Is my server fast enough?

We know that the time-to-first-byte from your server is a factor in search engine rankings. Luckily a waterfall tells you this metric. Simply look at the first row of the diagram. This should show you timing information for how the browser downloads the base HTML page. Look at the TTFB measurement. If it is longer than about 500 ms, your server may be underpowered or unoptimized. Talk with your hosting provider to improve your server capabilities. Below is an example of a waterfall diagram where the server was taking nearly 10 seconds to respond! That's a slow server!

Do I need a CDN?

Latency can be a big source of delay for a website, and it has to do with the geographic distance between your server and your website visitors. As we have discussed, latency is driven by distance and the speed of light; a high speed internet connection alone doesn't fix the problem. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) speed up your website by storing copies of your static assets (images, CSS, JavaScript files, etc) all over the world, reducing the latency for your visitors.

Waterfalls reveal how latency is affecting the speed of your site, and whether you should use a CDN. We can do this by looking at the TTFB measurements for requests the browser makes to your server for static assets. The TTFB is composed of the time it takes for your request to travel to the server, for the server to process it, and for the first byte of the response to come back. For static assets, the server doesn't have to do any real processing of the request, so the TTFB measurement really just tells us how long a round-trip takes from a visitor to a user. If you are getting high round-trip numbers it means your content is too far away from your visitors.

To determine if you need a CDN, you first need to know the location of your server. Next, use WebPageTest and run a test from a location that is far away from your server. If your site is hosted in the US, run a test from Asia or Europe. Now, find the rows for requests for several images or CSS files on your server and look at the TTFB measurement. If you are getting a TTFB for static content that is more than 150 ms, you should consider a CDN. For commercial sites, you might want to look at the enterprise grade capabilities of Akamai. For a cheaper option, check out CloudFlare which offers free CDN services.

Summary

Believe it or not, we have only scratched the surface of the performance insights you can learn from a waterfall chart. However this should be more than enough to begin to understand how to read a chart and use it to detect the most basic and impactful performance issues that are slowing down your site.

You can reduce the width of the chart by optimizing your content and ensuring that each resource is received as quickly as possible. You can reduce the height of the waterfall by removing unneeded requests. Finally, you can speed up how quickly your users first see your page by optimizing all the content before the Start Render line.

If you're still not sure where to start, check out Zoompf's Free Performance Report to analyze your site and prioritize those fixes that will make the biggest impact on improving your page speed and waterfall chart metrics.

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Danny Sullivan & Ginny Marvin Video Speed Interview: What’s Trending at SMX

Danny Sullivan & Ginny Marvin Video Speed Interview: What’s Trending at SMX was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Yesterday morning, Danny Sullivan — a key SMX conference organizer and founding editor of Search Engine Land — shared his thoughts on SEO, the digital marketing industry, and how he keeps SMX at the top of its game. With his fellow Search Engine Land editor Ginny Marvin, they talk about the top things digital marketers must be paying attention to through the close of 2015, including mobile website experience, Yahoo Gemini, new tools and reporting, and direct answers. This rare opportunity to hear why SMX matters and what the year's SEO trends are from Danny himself is not to be missed!

Check out the 18-minute video interview and read the transcript in What's Trending at SMX: Danny Sullivan & Ginny Marvin Video Speed Interview.

How Union Square Cafe Found a New Home & Set a New Standard

This fall, Union Square Cafe will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the day Danny Meyer opened the restaurant's doors at 21 East 16th Street. The restaurant helped revitalize the Union Square neighborhood into the vibrant community it is today and has become an icon of the hospitality world. And next spring, it will leave the original location to start a brand new chapter at 235 Park Avenue South.

Union Square Cafe's story has driven home the problem of restaurant closings caused by skyrocketing rents in New York City. But what's arguably more remarkable than the price of leases is the generous, open-minded way the team has approached the impending move.

As Managing Partner Sam Lipp explains, "This is a 30-year startup that we're undertaking. This is a brand new business that we're opening and we don't want to assume anything going into that. That mindset makes this such an amazingly exciting opportunity for me and for my team and for this company to really move forward with another chapter for this restaurant."

Sam shared with us the full story behind the new Union Square Cafe, from the decision to move to hunting for locations and, finally, to building and retaining a successful team.



"Our top priority was not to leave our location"

In 1985, Danny Meyer took over an existing lease to open Union Square Cafe, and in 1999 he renewed it for another 15 years. So the countdown to 2015 began long ago.

When the team sat down to begin negotiations with their landlord, Sam says they had every intention of renewing the lease -- leaving wasn't an option on the table. Their deep roots in the community and long-standing relationships with guests, purveyors and staff members have given the space a special significance over the years.

But there were problems, too. The air conditioning was unpredictable and needed replacing, as did the electrical wiring and plumbing. Stoves, ovens and other kitchen equipment were held together with "string and duct tape." Going into negotiations, Sam says he wanted to invest in the next 30 years of the restaurant and look at long-term solutions for the brand so they wouldn't be negotiating again every few years. Ultimately, it became clear that investing in the space and accommodating the rent increase would be too expensive to make sense.

"Once we got to that point, it was emotional," says Sam. "We paused and said, is this the end of the brand? It was really an awesome moment because Danny and I both looked at each other and said, 'Absolutely not. There is gas in this tank. We have so much more to give and we just can't wait to do it.'"



"These are our people"

When the search for a location began, a new priority emerged: to stay in the Union Square neighborhood. Not only was it the namesake of the restaurant, it housed the community the team forged relationships with over the years.

Since the move was announced last summer, Sam has spent his time in the dining room playing one part therapist, one part champion of the Union Square brand for loyal guests who can't imagine saying goodbye to the beloved restaurant. After the initial shock, however, guests were excited to hear that the new Union Square Cafe would have bigger bathrooms, more space in the bar, and a private dining room for celebrating special occasions.

"I try to tell people, yes, there are memories in those walls. Yes, there is a real connection with that space. But the two most important things about this restaurant are the people who work there and the people who dine there. And both of those groups have the ability to move."

The criteria for the new location were three-fold: It had to have warmth, character and soul. It also had to be in the neighborhood (defined by 14th Street to 23rd Street and Irving Place to 6th Avenue) and it couldn't be much smaller than the current space, which is 6,100 square feet. Since the chef at Union Square Cafe shops at the Greenmarket every day that it's open, they also decided that they'd have to be able to push a handcart or wheelbarrow from the restaurant front door to the Greenmarket in less than 10 minutes.

Finally, they turned to their most loyal guests. Since lunch is typically based more on convenience than anything else, they mapped the routes of their 25 most frequent lunch diners to make sure they would be closer to the new space than they were to the original.

"It's who we are," says Sam. "Those people are part of the makeup of the restaurant, so why wouldn't we include them in the constituent when we're considering all the different factors?"

Continue reading "How Union Square Cafe Found a New Home & Set a New Standard" on Open for Business.

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