We've written about the rise of mobile and what it means for internet marketing a good bit in recent weeks, and specific ally touched on how paid search performed over the holiday shopping period. Also important is the explosion of mobile across the globe and the international SEO implications that follow. An intriguing element to mobile's growth is tracking its impact on specific international markets and how it is changing the internet in those countries.

In the end, Wednesday's SOPA blackout impacted some more than others, but the point that was trying to be made was indeed heard both online and in mainstream media. Opinions of the proposed legislation run the full spectrum and many high profile figures and news outlets have emerged with a particular stance. The proposed bill would impact different people to varying degrees, but everyone that is online has a vested interest in the issue, from bloggers and musicians to SEO firms and marketing consultants.

China's online potential has been mounting for some time, but in recent years it has been fully realized. Much has been written about China's censorship of the internet, and the implications that it has on companies trying to operate in the country, and more recently, experts have been noticing a potential repositioning by Google on their China stance. All this is relevant because of the tremendous potential of the internet in the country. Thus, it is worth then taking a closer look and letting the potential for international SEO and other online marketing services in the country sink in.

Nonprofit organizations rely heavily on donations, and online giving has been steadily on the rise in recent years, and still trending upward according to the latest figures available from Blackbaud Index. Online giving rose by over 10% in both of the 3 month periods ending in September and October 2011, in comparison to the same time-frame in 2010. Thus, online giving is beginning to demand more attention from nonprofit leaders, and it is only picking up steam.

The situation is well reported now. This past Friday, Mocality, an online Kenyan business directory, issued weighty allegations that Google scraped their database of businesses and attempted to sell their competing "Getting Kenyan Businesses Online" program to those companies they found while also claiming to be Mocality partners. Mocality founder, Stefan Magdalinski , alleged this poaching of customers and false claims of partnership in a blog post on Friday that immediately received attention across the web.

The use of mobile phones, and by extension, the use of mobile internet is on the rise globally. International SEO experts are recognizing the increased potential for optimization in new markets with the rapid expansion of the mobile web. More and more people are using their smartphones to surf the web, and thus creating more of a need for optimized content on companies' mobile and standard websites. New research offers insight into mobile internet use across 30 different countries, and I'll touch on the highlights for Asia, a region we haven't discussed much as of late.

Low-cost high-speed internet is a recent development in France as communications company Iliad popularized the service through their cost-effective packages making inexpensive broadband a reality for many. Iliad has their eyes set on doing the same thing again, only now for the mobile industry. The new service, called Free, centers on a €19.99 plan that includes unlimited domestic and international calling, text messages, and data.

In recent months, Google has been running a series on their blog relating to search improvements they make every month. The latest installment carries 30 improvements, from more rich snippets to better spam detection with Image Search. Todd touched on several of the updates, particularly the "Megasitelinks" improvement, how it delivers more relevant sitelinks based on location, and how that impacts SEO in his post on Monday. Here I want to touch on the improvements that have further location-specific implications and are international in nature thus having significant international SEO implications that are important for developers to be aware of.

Following yesterday's post, I continue today discussing the specifics of Forrester Research's recent study on the difference in social media use throughout the world. As we'll see there are very real implications for international SEO and marketing efforts as a whole. I'll present information reported by Forrester according to the three main takeaway points outlined yesterday.

Social media is both a domestic and intercultural phenomena as individuals not only communicate with others from within their same borders but with those from other countries as well. The fact that the reach of social media platforms extends throughout the entire world is one of its greatest leverage points. Internet users in North America only make up a fraction (13%) of the total users online throughout the world. As a result, there is much more web landscape beyond our borders than within, and the more in tune with what is happening in these markets, the better off companies will be.

We don't hear too much about Web 2.0 anymore, so are we in a post-Web 2.0 era then? Well, it never really went away, only infused its principles and characteristics into the everyday functioning of the internet. Privileging participation and information-sharing, Web 2.0 proclaimed that users are the drivers, creating the content and directing the online landscape.

At the core of any SEO campaign, there are keyword analyses that produce a firm understanding of the terms that all efforts are geared around. This is essential and always completed early in campaigns usually after client identity and objectives have been established. This process, however, takes on a whole new look, and degree of relevance, when dealing with international SEO. As companies continually expand their presence into new markets internationally, they encounter a whole host of new challenges getting across their message.