Monthly Blog Roundup: WordStream's December Highlights

My childhood memories of the days after Christmas are bleak and dark: the incredible letdown of all that anticipation, the pressure to actually use the new toys and wear the new clothes as opposed to simply gazing upon them in a shining pile of potentiality. The day after Christmas was no less depressing this year; I spent most of it at the airport in El Paso, waiting in an unmoving line to rebook my flight which was delayed by 8+ hours. (Note to self: Never, ever book a connecting flight through O'Hare in December. Note to United: Damn you, United!)

But late December does bring some good things—like a little light through the windows when I wake up in the morning (though, as my boyfriend is fond of reminding/tormenting me, "As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen!"). And: a look back at our blog's greatest hits from the month. Come back tomorrow for our best of the year.

SEO Lab: Testing Anchor Text Links: Ken tested the theories that Google only counts the first instance of anchor text on a page pointing to the same URL and that Google does not count nofollow anchor text.

Next-Generation Keyword Tools: In this post Larry announced our two new free keyword grouping tools and explained how they work—and why grouping is so important for PPC and SEO.

The Power of Anchor Text. True Story!: Anecdotal evidence of how valuable well-chosen anchor text is.

Personalized Search: Kind of a Big Deal: A roundup of the coverage of Google's move to universal personalized search, from the freakouts to the who-cares.

You Know You're a Search Geek If...: A peek into the depths of our nerdiness.

Top SEO Toy Websites: A holiday edition of Ken's always popular top SEO websites series.

Google's Real-Time Brandjacking: Google's integration of real-time search pushes our website to #2 in the SERPs for our own brand. Nice going.

Fun with Real-Time SERPS: How Google is Determining Where to Show Real-Time Search: Tom runs some tests to find the key factors that govern whether or not Google includes real-time results in the SERPs for a given query.

Photo credit: Autumnsonata