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Search Engine Roundtable

• 

  The Negative SEO Debate Sparks Up Again

  Fetched: April 21st, 2012, 5:03pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  The topic of negative SEO is not new. It is the process of downgrading your competitor's rankings in order to help boost your own rankings.

  But it is highly debated in SEO circles for a few reasons.

  (1) The ethics behind hurting someone's income, livelihood by trashing their sites in Google.

  (2) Does negative SEO really work and can someone prove it does work?

  (3) If it does work, why can't Google prevent it from working?

  Now this has sparked up again with the recent announcements by Google on sending out unnatural link warnings and the over optimization filter.

  Where this gets interesting is that a forum thread at TrafficPlanet.com went after a well known SEO named Dan Thies to prove negative SEO can work. Why Dan, well he congratulated Google's Cutts for mass penalizing the blog networks and it upset some people, so they wanted to make an example out of him.

  Thing is, while Dan's ranking may have dropped, Dan says it has nothing to do with these negative SEO efforts.

  Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz is so confident that negative SEO can't work, he offered up his sites as sacrificial lambs for anyone who wants to prove him otherwise. He said:

  I'd like to offer up Moz or my personal website, randfishkin.com as targets for these efforts. I think it would be fascinating and revealing if external link manipulation could hurt either one.

  Will people take Rand up on the offer? Maybe but some say that since this is public, Google can be aware of it and make sure it doesn't impact his sites.

  The core issue, as Aaron Wall explains is not negative SEO, it is SEOs going after SEOs. There is little unity in the SEO space and that is a huge shame. Although I personally do not think it should be the SEO community versus Google, that was how it was back in the day. It wasn't SEO vs SEO, which is how it is today. I personally think this attitude was created when Google introduced the nofollow attribute back in 2005. I am too tired to explain why because that is it's own blog post and maybe I'll do it another day. FYI, I did elaborate more in my video blog post.

  Either way, this is a very interesting debate being discussion at TrafficPlanet.com, HighRankings Forums and SEOBook.

  
  

• 

  Poll Results: Social Required To Compete In Search Rankings

  Fetched: April 13th, 2012, 6:21pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A few months ago, I ran a poll asking if it is required for SEOs to have their sites participate in social sharing elements in order to compete in the search results.

  I personally felt, with the value Google is placing on Google+ and the value Bing is placing on Facebook likes, social is and will be a necessity to compete in the search results going forward. Most SEOs agree with me on that.

  I asked, To Compete, Does Your Site Need To Be Social? The results are in:

  • 59% said yes, you do need social to compete in search.
  • 34% said no, you don't need social to compete in search.
  • 7% did not know either way.

  I am honestly surprised more aren't saying yes, you need social to compete.

  Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

  This was written yesterday and scheduled to be posted today.

  
  

• 

  Googler Teaches Anyone How To Build A Search Engine

  Fetched: April 12th, 2012, 5:26am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  One of the best ways to understand how search engine optimization works is to build your own search engine. Now, wouldn't it be outstanding to have someone who works at Google teach you how to build your own search engine? Wouldn't it be better if it was free? You are in luck!

  Udacity has a class on building a search engine 101 and it is being led by a Google Fellow named Sebastian Thrun. He is pretty well known, check out his Wikipedia page; he is a Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and works on Google's self driving car.

  In fact, he even got Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, to vouch for people to take the class. See the video below:

  I am going to sign up myself, I just hope I can make it through with a new baby, my existing work schedule and all.

  Michael Martinez posted this in the High Rankings Forum and is worried it will lead to tons of rogue spiders going wild all over the internet. In response to that, one of the students said:

  @seo_theory Udacity told us not to go rogue, used test sites, not real Internet, discussed politeness, cost, had Google guest speaker, etc.

  — P. Oppenheimer (@priscillaoppy) April 10, 2012

  Forum discussion at High Rankings Forum.

  
  

• 

  High Rankings Forums Sees 50% Traffic Increase From Google

  Fetched: April 4th, 2012, 1:55pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Well respected SEO Jill Whalen who runs the High Rankings Forum recently upgraded the forums to the latest version of Invision Powered board software and see said soon afterwards traffic increased 50%.

  Jill explained:

  Just compared the organic Google traffic which came directly to forum pages for the past 2 weeks since the new forum with the new "SEO friendly" URLs in place, and was surprised to see that the visits are up 50%.

  Interesting. Will see if that's just somehow because it's all new, or if it will remain that way.

  I don't think anyone should be telling people that changing URLs will lead to even a temporary loss of traffic. If 301's are done correctly and the overall information architecture of a site isn't changing, no organic Google traffic should be lost. Most likely it will be gained.

  Now, who knows if it is the "SEO Friendly" URLs, although keywords in URLs do help, were the main impact here if any. 50% increase is a huge increase. I wouldn't be surprised to see traffic patterns level back to where they were or dip slightly for a bit and then go back to where they were over the next couple weeks.

  The cool part of this software was that it was intelligent enough to create the 301 redirects. Jill said, "this software seamlessly created all the 301's," and she said they worked.

  Congrats Jill, I hope the traffic continues to climb!

  Forum discussion at High Rankings Forum.

  
  

• 

  Blogger Search Preferences For Redirects, Robots.txt, Meta Descriptions & More

  Fetched: March 22nd, 2012, 6:00pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Google's Blogger has added several new "search preferences" settings to the Blogger administration controls.

  You can now configure your robots.txt file, meta descriptions, meta tags, set up redirects, customize your error pages, add alt and title attributes to links and even add the nofollow attribute to the links.

  The Google Operating System blog uses blogger and they posted a screen shot of one of the search settings page:

  Here are help documents on how to use each of these new features:

  • Search Description
  • Custom robots header tags
  • Custom Page Not Found
  • Custom Redirects
  • Image properties
  • rel='nofollow'

  For the general blogger and SEO document see this page.

  Forum discussion at Google+.

  
  

• 

  What SEO Geeks Argue About

  Fetched: February 13th, 2012, 6:57pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  This morning, I spotted a group of SEOs arguing about if a URL can be "indexed" if the page is blocked by a noindex tag or robots.txt file?

  It is a valid SEO question but when you ask that in a room of SEO geeks, the responses can get pretty wild.

  You've all seen examples of URLs in the search results that just list the URL but not the actual title tag and snippet of the page. That is typically because Google has a copy of the URL in their database as a reference but has not crawled or indexed the content on the web page because it is restricted to do so for one reason or another.

  The question is, is that URL considered indexed or not? That depends on the definition of "indexed" and which SEO you ask.

  Let me share the tweets about this:

  Yep -> RT @rustybrick: @AndyBeard but a page URL can be indexed without being crawled @seosmarty @rishil

  — Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) February 13, 2012

  @rustybrick @seosmarty @rishil In google terminology that is just a reference

  — Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) February 13, 2012

  @AndyBeard but a page URL can be indexed without being crawled @seosmarty @rishil

  — Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) February 13, 2012

  @AndyBeard but a page URL can be indexed without being crawled @seosmarty @rishil

  — Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) February 13, 2012

  @rishil indexation=appears in search results (index). crawling=going through the page itself - right? cc @AndyBeard

  — Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) February 13, 2012

  @seosmarty @rishil A page has to be crawled first to be indexed... a reference link != indexed

  — Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) February 13, 2012

  @rishil indexation=appears in search results (index). crawling=going through the page itself - right? cc @AndyBeard

  — Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) February 13, 2012

  The discussion went on for dozens and dozens of tweets with no one winning.

  Matt or John, want to chime in and give the final answer?

  Forum discussion at, um, Twitter.

  
  

• 

  Can White Hats Use Black Hat Tactics?

  Fetched: January 6th, 2012, 2:46pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A Cre8asite Forum thread has a nice deep discussion around the use of black hat SEO techniques while being a so called "white hat."

  The question at hand is can a white hat SEO use some black hat tactics and still call themselves a white hat SEO?

  As the conversation went on, the discussion went into definitions, as you can imagine.

  What is black hat? Is it hacking? Is it stealing? Is it just using automated tools? Is it buying links? Writing a ton of content that isn't quality?

  At the same time, some say that learning from black hats make you a better white hat SEO. Moderator, iamlost, said they are "pushing the envelope" and you can learn from that. But is it the black hat who is "pushing the envelope" or just the savvy marketers? Some black hats don't do anything smart, but rather use brute force. While others think up new techniques that can often not be classified as black hat at all and thus maybe they aren't black hat.

  As you can see, the discussion gets into many areas, as do most of these type of threads.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forum.

  Image credit via ShutterStock for white/black hat.

  
  

• 

  Excellent Article On Duplicate Content & SEO

  Fetched: November 22nd, 2011, 4:42pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  There is an outstanding post by Dr. Pete on SEOmoz named Duplicate Content in a Post-Panda World.

  The article isn't really Panda specific, but it talks about duplicate content issues in 2011, which is the year of Panda.

  Here is the outline, but make sure to check out the article:

  I. What Is Duplicate Content?
  II. Why Do Duplicates Matter?
  (1) The Supplemental Index
  (2) The Crawl "Budget"
  (3) The Indexation "Cap"
  (4) The Penalty Debate
  (5) The Panda Update
  III. Three Kinds of Duplicates
  (1) True Duplicates
  (2) Near Duplicates
  (3) Cross-domain Duplicates
  IV. Tools for Fixing Duplicates
  (1) 404 (Not Found)
  (2) 301 Redirect
  (3) Robots.txt
  (4) Meta Robots
  (5) Rel=Canonical
  (6) Google URL Removal
  (7) Google Parameter Blocking
  (8) Bing URL Removal
  (9) Bing Parameter Blocking
  (10) Rel=Prev & Rel=Next
  (11) Syndication-Source
  (12) Internal Linking
  (13) Don't Do Anything
  V. Examples of Duplicate Content
  (1) "www" vs. Non-www
  (2) Staging Servers
  (3) Trailing Slashes ("/")
  (4) Secure (https) Pages
  (5) Home-page Duplicates
  (6) Session IDs
  (7) Affiliate Tracking
  (8) Duplicate Paths
  (9) Functional Parameters
  (10) International Duplicates
  (11) Search Sorts
  (12) Search Filters
  (13) Search Pagination
  (14) Product Variations
  (15) Geo-keyword Variations
  (16) Other "Thin" Content
  (17) Syndicated Content
  (18) Scraped Content
  (19) Cross-ccTLD Duplicates
  VI. Which URL Is Canonical?
  VII. Tools for Diagnosing Duplicates
  (1) Google Webmaster Tools
  (2) Google's Site: Command
  (3) SEOmoz Campaign Manager
  (4) Your Own Brain

  Phew!

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  Image credit: Bannykh Alexey Vladimirovich / ShutterStock.

  
  

• 

  E-Commerce SEO & Out Of Stock Items

  Fetched: November 11th, 2011, 7:11pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A Cre8asite Forums thread asks a fairly basic SEO question that I don't think we've covered here in the almost ten years of covering SEO.

  The question is, what do I do with my product pages where those items are sold out or out of stock?

  One one hand, I know the item will come back in stock and hiding or deleting the page will hurt the rankings of the page. But on the other hand, customers who want the product now that go to the page and find it to be out of stock will be upset. What do you do?

  My advice would be to say it is out of stock, give an estimate in stock (to be shipped date) and let customers buy it with the estimate ship date and/or sign up for an email alert for when the item comes back in stock.

  Apple does this with the unlocked iPhone for sale in November, which is still not for sale yet. Many e-commerce sites do this. In fact, many don't even say it is out of stock, they make you buy it and then 2 days later you will get an email that they don't have it in stock. That is even worse.

  The bigger question to me is should Google or Bing temporarily penalize (downgrade the ranking) of a product page that says "sold out" or "out of stock"? I personally would if it was my search engine - like a temporary page not available (503) but lesser extent.

  What do you think?

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

  Image credit: Oxlock / ShutterStock.

  
  

• 

  SEO Sharing Is Limited In Public Settings

  Fetched: October 29th, 2011, 6:08am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  It is commonly known that when an SEO discovers something that works that most no body else knows about, they won't share it even with their best of friends. But they would never in a million years share it in a public setting, like a discussion forum or conference.

  That being said, a WebmasterWorld thread has one member teasing the rest claiming to have found an awesome SEO technique that is golden. He said:

  I discovered something in one of my zillions of tests I always have running, something huge. Something so huge in fact that after several additional tests has me shaking today.

  I do not think it is a bug, with one change I can outrank any site in Googles index that competes with me. For all you smart arses no it is not adwords. I have never seen anything like this, not since Google was born. Not since all the web or webcrawler or av.

  So if you discovered this, what would you do?

  No one in their right mind would share the details right away. They would use it up for as long as possible until the technique no longer works. Once it stops working or working as well, they might share it with friends and then those friends might share it in a public setting. That is how it works.

  Which often makes most SEOs claim that forums are public conferences are wasteful. I disagree that they are wasteful, because you can still learn from these things.

  What would you do?

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  Image from Oleinikova Olga/Shutterstock.

  
  

• 

  SEO Poll: Would You Work With Competitive Clients?

  Fetched: October 29th, 2011, 6:08am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A Sphinn discussion asks, would you accept new work if that new work is competitive to your existing client's niche?

  In short, do you offer official or non-official exclusivity to your clients?

  Most of the responses in that discussion claim they would never work on a competitive project. They said it just isn't fair to their clients. Here are some of the responses:

  Just imagine the situation you could get into with one doing 10 times better than another. Or one gets dinged by Panda and the other doesnât. Too much hassle for me explaining that.

  No no no no not ever nohow no way. And believe me, I've been asked. In fact, none of my partners are allowed to take on a client that directly competes with one of my existing clients. That's the way we've operated since 1996, and that's the way we will continue to operate (as long as I'm calling the shots here).

  But I know many companies that do, especially the larger ones. Their rational is that they have different teams working on different projects, so they won't put the same team on two competitive projects, they would just give it to a new team.

  In addition, some argue, working on two clients in the same niche would benefit both clients because they learn twice as much.

  In any event, please take our poll and let us know if you would take on competitors:

  Would You Work With Competitive SEO Clients?

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  Image from bioraven/Shutterstock.

  
  

• 

  SEO: My Content Is Useless Without Traffic

  Fetched: October 26th, 2011, 10:32pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A HighRankings Forum thread has an interesting post by a person who has a site that wants more traffic.

  He made one statement that stood out to me, actually a few, but one more than others. The statement is:

  All the design and content in the world are useless without traffic, and thus the real world need for SEO.

  In today's world of SEO, this thinking seems backwards to me. All the design and content in the world leads to more traffic. Content and site design is part of SEO, it is SEO. Without the quality content, without the awesome user interface and site architecture - how do you get quality traffic from Google or Bing?

  SEO 8 years ago, yea - this made sense. But nowadays, in most established niches, including insurance lead generation, you need the content first to get the traffic.

  Ammon Johns, aka BlackKnight, who is an old time SEO and relatively quiet in the forums for the past few years, chimed in on this one adding:

  First there seem to be the fact that you created a website without actually knowing what it is for. 'Possibly more' than a test site? It leaves me wondering if it really looks as professional as you hope, when yours apparently has no clear reason/purpose for existence other than to test some SEO ideas.

  Secondly there's that whole thing of being overly concerned with what other sites are doing - researching the design, content and keywords of the top 20 websites in what field? The top 20 SEO test sites? How did you know they were top 20 before knowing what keywords they'd be ranked in the top 20 for? Do you see what I mean? There's a lot of logical fallacies involved here.

  Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

  Image credit: robodread / Shutterstock.com.

  
  

• 

  Google & Bing See Canonical Tags Differently

  Fetched: October 11th, 2011, 5:17pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Nick Roshon has an excellent post on the difference between how Google & Bing handle the canonical tag, something non of us really noticed before until he pointed it out.

  The key differences are two fold:

  (1) Mass use of the canonical tag and

  (2) Canonical tag pointing to itself.

  How does each engine differ?

  (1) Google doesn't care if you use the canonical tag on hundreds or thousands of pages, where Bing says they will trust the tag less if you do.

  (2) Google doesn't care if you link a canonical tag to the same page (i.e. a redirect back to the redirect), but Bing does and says don't do it.

  Nick quotes Bing's Duane who wrote, "the rel=canonical is that it was never intended to appear across large numbers of pages" and "Its best to leave them [canonical tags] blank rather than point them at themselves."

  Nick then quotes Google's Cutts and Ohye who say, "it doesnât hurt to have this on every page of your site," and "it's absolutely okay to have a self-referential rel="canonical". "

  These are very interesting distinctions between Bing.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Are Search Query Defined Dynamic Headlines Allowed?

  Fetched: October 1st, 2011, 3:59am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  There is an excellent thread at HighRankings Forum asking if it would be acceptable to change the page's headline based off the search query the user came from via the search engine.

  For example, someone goes to Google, searches for [big blue widget] and clicks on your page. The page title by default reads, "Blue Widget" but in this case, the headline would dynamically change to "Big Blue Widget" because that is what the searcher search for.

  Is that acceptable?

  We covered a similar topic back in 2005 about highlighting search queries based on referrer data in the document. But what about changing the actual text on the page based off of it.

  I think this might be a bit in the gray area. I mean, technically, what you would be serving GoogleBot would be different from what you are serving the searcher - slightly different.

  Michael Martinez responded that this wouldn't be a high risk issue, he said, "In my opinion, as you propose it is probably not a high-risk practice but you'll only know for sure when you try it."

  Anyway, I am not sure how Google would react to this, so if you have done this and have experience with it, do share.

  Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  Image from iQoncept/Shutterstock.

  
  

• 

  Can Google Index Disqus Comments? No But Here Is How.

  Fetched: October 1st, 2011, 3:59am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Personally, one of my favorite features on my site is the commenting, which is powered by Disqus.

  But this being a site on search engines and SEO, how do I get around making sure Google, Bing and other search engines can index the comments? As many people know, Disqus comments are viewable only through JavaScript - so how do you get the comments to be indexed by the search engines?

  When we implemented this on version 4 of the Search Engine Roundtable, I made sure to leverage the Disqus API.

  Why?

  (1) I wanted to own all the comments and have them as a backup in my own database.

  (2) I wanted to make them search engine friendly

  (3) But I also love the user interface and ease of commenting via Disqus, so I took that

  (4) I also wanted Disqus to deal with the comment spam and server load issues caused by that.

  So to a user, the comments seem to be fully powered by Disqus. But I manage the comments via the API but on the CMS backend we built. So when I remove a comment for spam, it removes it from both the search engine's view and user's view.

  Let me say that this is not cloaking or anything like that because users and search engines are seeing the exact same content.

  That being said, let me show you how it works.

  Here are some comments on the blog:

  If you view source, they show in the source code as this:

  And yes, Google knows about the comments, it shows up for searches for the comments:

  Anyway, it works well for me and I kind of feel I get the best of both worlds with this solution. It isn't "easy" to code this all out, but I feel the approved comments add a lot to the articles I post here and thus want them indexed by the search engines.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  How Video Content Can Hurt Your Site's Conversions

  Fetched: September 10th, 2011, 12:53pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  One of the best ways to get exposure to your web site is to have video rank a page of yours and lists that ranked result with a video thumbnail.

  The video image thumbnails standout in the Google results and typically result in a higher click through rate.

  But is it always a good thing?

  A WebmasterWorld thread says not always. One SEO said:

  We recently put a few videos on our site that play from our server. Google liked those and moved the positions a couple of spots higher but replaced the normal results with a video link.

  The problem is the clicks dropped 50%. Our niche is for buying people who look for certain products but they are not interested in videos.

  Another one backed this user up and offered advice, saying

  Same thing happened to me too. I had to move them to dedicated video pages.

  Create separate pages with videos that auto-play (just like a youtube page), add video-meta-tags to those pages, and create a video-sitemaps for them.

  Add links to video pages from content pages (or Google might not index them). Use javascript to invoke a lightbox to play videos within the content page.

  Do you find this to be an issue for you?

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Do You Have Too Much Search Traffic?

  Fetched: September 1st, 2011, 4:43pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Matt McGee started an excellent discussion thread at Sphinn asking, "How Much Search Traffic is Too Much?"

  It is a good question, especially with the ups and downs sites see with Google and Bing doing algorithm updates.

  How much of your overall traffic should be from search engines? Is it ever too much?

  I have some clients that have over 90% of their traffic from search engines! Over 90%! My sites, like this one and others, normally get about 60% or so from search engines - we get a lot of social media traffic, direct and so on.

  Is 90% excessive and borderline scary? What if Google changes their algorithm or mistakenly labels your site as a site doing something against their guidelines. What if your developer does something stupid and Google drops you from their index?

  Should you rely that much on search traffic?

  Now, you can easily look at your traffic overview and see how much traffic you get from search engines versus referral sites and so on. But if you drill in, often the search traffic is from people doing direct searches, looking for your company by typing in your company name. Does that count?

  Let me share some of the outstanding posts at Sphinn:

  Matt McGee said:

  I'll go first today and begin by saying that it proably depends on the type of site involved, the industry and other factors. But ... generally speaking ... I get alarmed when I see a website getting 70% or more of its traffic from natural search. Sure, it might be a testament to the SEO's skills, but what if the algorithms change next week? Where's all that traffic gonna come from them?

  Several years ago, Andy Hagans wrote a great article about the idea of "defensible traffic" -- i.e., it's good to have a variety of traffic sources so you can withstand the loss of any one of them. I'm a big believer in that, so I don't like to see too much traffic coming just from search. You?

  Todd Mintz said:

  I'm not sure that there is an ideal breakdown. So long as you are working all the channels in an optimum fashion, the breakdown shouldn't matter.

  Jill Whalen said:

  Something to consider these days is that direct referrals may appear to be lower with search referrals higher when it comes to brand terms these days. This is due to people using Google to easily get to sites they know about rather than bookmark or type them directly. Plus sometimes you just type the domain into the wrong browser box.

  In other words, don't worry too much if your search traffic seems awful high, at least where branded terms are concerned.

  There is a lot of other great comments in the thread and please add yours to the Sphinn thread.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Does More Content Mean More Search Referrals?

  Fetched: August 2nd, 2011, 3:21pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around the topic of content and SEO. In short, the webmaster wants to know why that after he has added more content, that his traffic did not pick up.

  In short, the more pages you have give you more of a chance to rank well for a more diverse set of keyword phrases and thus should technically lead to more traffic from Google, Yahoo and Bing.

  Makes sense, doesn't it? That is why many blogs do so well.

  Truth is, it doesn't always work like that. Google, now more than ever, don't just want more content, they want content that they feel is quality.

  Adding tens of thousands of pages, although a good thing, needed to be added with care and thought. Each and every one of those pages need to be quality. What is quality, I won't get into that here, I've written about it a hundred times.

  So while I believe the concept of more pages should equal more traffic. The pages must be deserving of ranking well. If you have more pages that deserve to rank well, then it is a win - win.

  Here are two quotes from the thread:

  Having more pages that are optimized for different keywords gives you increased opportunity for traffic. It doesn't necessarily mean more traffic, though, since it depends on how popular and how competitive those new keywords are.

  It's not just that you add more pages and you get more search coverage and VOILA! you get more traffic.

  The pages have to create unique enough value that they can be distinguished from other similar pages by the search engines. Lacking that intrinsic value, they will have to be distinguished by inbound linkage.

  Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

  Image credit Horia Varlan on Flickr.

  
  

• 

  Poll: Do You Provide SEO Ranking Reports

  Fetched: July 7th, 2011, 8:11pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  There is an outstanding discussion taking place at Sphinn now on the topic of providing SEO clients with ranking reports. There are arguments for both side of the debate.

  On one hand, to prove your worth the money your clients are paying you - they want to see what you have done for them. You can provide them basic keyword ranking reports to show them that the clients rankings have improved for X number of keywords over time.

  On the other hand, you and I know that Google's search results can differ based on who is searching. Google personalizes the results based on a ton of factors including location, previous searches and clicks, web history, social metrics and so much more. So proving a ranking report really doesn't do justice to what the real searcher sees.

  Finally, Google provides their own ranking reports within Google Webmaster Tools and soon, coming to Google Analytics. Other means of getting the data is often against Google's terms of service.

  That being said, do you provide client's with keyword ranking report. Take our anonymous poll:

  Do You Provide SEO Ranking Reports?

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

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  Journalists Upset Over Focusing On Keywords In Stories

  Fetched: June 17th, 2011, 2:18pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Kim posted a new thread on Cre8asite Forums after watching the Has Weinergate reporting gone too far? on CNN.

  The story was about how reporters and journalists may be going too far in their reporting.

  But a little bit after 6 minutes into the video, one person said that he received an email - I have to assume from his boss - telling him to use specific keywords in his posts. The keywords included; "Anthony Weiner's Wife Pregnant", "Pregnant wife of Anthony Weiner", 'Pregnant wife out of the country",etc." The journalist admitted it made him sad to see such a request.

  Here is the video, skip to 6 minutes in.

  There is no doubt journalists need to focus on SEO and keywords but clearly this is not about bad SEO, but rather a style of journalism targeting people searching for sensational headlines.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

  
  

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  2011 Search Ranking Factors Released By SEOmoz

  Fetched: June 11th, 2011, 4:39pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  SEOmoz posted the 2011 search engine rankings study they polled in 2011. The last time they did this was two years ago and it is one of the most comprehensive polls done to determine what SEOs feel the most important ranking factors are.

  Rand from SEOmoz explained that they "aggregated opinions of 132 SEOs around the world with correlation data from over 10,000 results in Google."

  I am not going to go through each piece here but you can at the SEOmoz blog.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

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  SEO Ranking Factors As A Periodic Table

  Fetched: June 6th, 2011, 6:33pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Danny Sullivan has put together a mind blowing style of inforgraphic named The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors.

  Danny explained he put this together in order to "help clear away some of the mystery and fear for those new to SEO, and provide a "reset" for those who are experienced."

  Here is a closer look at the details:

  You can find the full size image and links for more information at searchengineland.com/seotable.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

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  Search Engines Team Up On Rich Markup Language via Schema.org

  Fetched: June 4th, 2011, 11:19pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  The big news yesterday from the major search engines was the launch of schema.org. This is the search engines uniting to make HTML markup for structured data to be used on the search results display easy and more manageable for webmasters.

  This markup language is typically used by search engines to show richer content in the results. Like for recipe results, ratings, reviews, etc.

  The full documentation is over here.

  Google, Bing and Yahoo all jointly announced it together.

  Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land has a very good write up explaining why they are doing this and more importantly do you need to change anything going forward.

  The quick answer is if you have already done markups, you won't have to change anything because the search engines will continue to support the old markups. But if you are building out a new site you may want to adopt the new markup schema.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Cre8asite Forums.

  
  

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  57 Item SEO Audit Checklist

  Fetched: May 25th, 2011, 9:14am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A new post at SEOmoz shared a detailed 57-point checklist for performing a technical audit on a web site for verifying the site meets many of the SEO requirements.

  This checklist is extremely comprehensive and can aid new and existing SEOs on preparing a technical audit for their clients.

  The checklist goes through the following areas:

  • Content
  • Duplicate Content
  • Accessibility
  • Site Architecture
  • Technical Issues
  • Canonicalization
  • URLs
  • Internal Linking
  • Title Tags
  • Meta Tags

  This might be a great start for those looking to really tear apart their site from a technical and web developer point of view, when considering SEO challenges.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

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  What To Do When Your SEO Competition Is Catching Up To You

  Fetched: April 19th, 2011, 10:43pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  There is a great thread at Cre8asite Forums on the topic of what to do when your SEO competition is gaining on you within the search results.

  It happens all the time, you watch a specific set of search results and you slowly see a specific site climbing up to your ranks. What can you do to make sure that site does not pass you?

  Moderator, EGOL, replied saying that you make your site better. He said:

  • For an information site I would improve the content on the pages that are being defeated. Produce content that is best-on-the-web for your topic and that can attract links that will lift you in the rankings. Promote those pages to all relevant traffic on your site with the hope of collecting some links, "likes", tweets, etc.
  • For a retail site... I would create useful and informative content that is best-on-the-web related to my product pages that are being defeated and link to those product pages from that content. The hope is that your great content will attract links, "likes", tweets, etc. Also, your page of useful and information might pull in some traffic and that traffic might follow the link to your sales page.

  He also recommended that you create more than one page on your site targeting that keyword phrase and see how it does. EGOL explained:

  For especially valuable turf, and where my site is strong enough, I don't hesitate to create two or three pages that compete for the same keyword. If you can get one of your pages to #1 and a second page to #10 then the second page will be listed beneath your first page and you can have #1 and #2 for that keyword. I have seen Google award up to four positions to a website for a single keyword. That can really push your competitors down below the fold.

  Administrator, Iamlost also came in and offered a defensive strategy against low quality sites gaining in the ranks. He offered five tips:

  (1) First: many/most scrapers take the easy route - they scrape your RSS feed. He offered defenses with protecting your RSS feeds.

  (2) Second: many/most scrapers do not always cleanse scraped links. So add links to your feeds.

  (3) Third: as an increasing number of scrapers are 'reformulating, i.e. spinning, scraped content it can be impossible to prove copyright infringement. So be more specific in your content.

  (4) Fourth: build bot defences in depth including reverse DNS and blocking. Bouncing bots before they can scrape is a good thing.

  (5) Fifth: attack: Use DMCA request, report spam to Google and so on.

  This thread is worth a read.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

  
  

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  Forgotten & Underused SEO Tactics

  Fetched: March 10th, 2011, 5:24pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A Sphinn thread has a nice discussion around the "most underrated SEO tactics" used by webmasters and SEOs.

  I thought I'd share some of the tips and tactics given in the thread and have you add your own.

  • Blog comments that are properly moderated.
  • Clean and easy to manage site code.
  • Analytics to catch "low hanging" keyword phrases.
  • Server set up, such as proper redirects and status codes.
  • Unique and relevant images
  • Internal linking
  • Optimized Google Place pages
  • and much more...

  Check out the full thread at Sphinn and share your tactics and tips.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

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  IPv6 Coming: SEOs May Want To Prepare

  Fetched: February 21st, 2011, 1:04pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  IPv6, Internet Protocol version 6, is the Internet's answer to running out of IP addresses. IPv4 had 4,294,967,296 IP addresses because it was 32 bits and ultimately was a test that became real. IPv6 is 128-bit and has approximately 340 undecillion or 3.41038 IP addresses - it's a lot and we wouldn't have to worry about running out of IP addresses.

  But to make the change our computers need to update. That means your web site host needs to update things, like your servers, the routers, DNS, and so on. It also means that ISP, the way you connect to the internet, also need to update things.

  Why the big rush now? Well, there is no rush but technically, the last block of IP addresses were just sold, so we are officially out of new IP addresses. Got that?

  SEOs of course want to make sure that (1) the search engines can crawl, index and rank their pages and (2) searchers can click over and view their web pages from the search engines.

  When IPv6, if you are not ready, it is possible you will be missing out on either one or two. But no need to panic, we are a far way from that.

  The internet community is holding a World IPv6 Day and players like Google and Bing are partaking.

  But again, SEOs are concerned and one expressed his concern in a Google Webmaster Help thread. I responded that this SEO should not worry but if they want to learn more, they should read the Google post and see google.com/intl/en/ipv6.

  Google's JohnMu came in to confirm what I said but also add:

  Even though it might not be necessary at the moment, I think it's a great idea to move forward see what you'd need to do to enable IPv6 connectivity, both where you're working (or at home) and where your site is hosted.

  SEOs may want to consider joining the World IPv6 Day and prep some of their sites for this transition. There is plenty of information at the World IPv6 Day page.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  
  

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  Poll: The Yearly Cost Of SEO Education

  Fetched: January 19th, 2011, 1:02pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks how much does it cost to learn SEO.

  As you can imagine, I am sure the answers run from nothing to thousands of dollars. I think I personally learned from testing and reading a book that cost $15.

  But most SEOs have annual education on some level. Either they go to conferences, do webinars, pay for access to exclusive forums or just spend their own time testing things out.

  For the sake of the poll below, please assume any time you spend is not worth anything. Instead, what is the true annual cost in terms of dollars you spend out of your pocket or your company's pocket, on SEO education. This can be in the form of going to conferences, having SEO training, buying books and so on.

  How Much Do You Spend On Learning SEO Annually?online surveys

  Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

  
  

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  Overstock.com Organic Search Rankings on the Rise

  Fetched: January 17th, 2011, 10:51pm CET by Chris Boggs

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Search Engine Optimization is a marathon, not a sprint, when properly strategized and implemented. The most effective SEO case studies look at periods greater than one year, and measure sustained improvements in organic search exposure. Typical metrics that I enjoy tracking include growth in the number of unique keywords used to enter the domain, as well as unique entry pages. Bounce rate is another one to keep an eye on to determine how effectively search engines are ranking the "right" pages of a site.

  In order to get the most of competitive assessments, you should be monitoring top performers for a long time. Obviously when looking at others you can't have all of the above data, although tools such as the SpyFu Recon report and from more robust competitive intelligence such as Hitwise do help to do case studies of competitors within a more condensed time frame. Additionally, monitoring rankings and getting a "feel" for improved performance happens when you are closely following a certain vertical or set of keywords.

  A recent discussion at Webmaster World Forums describes one such observation, when a new member notes improved Overstock.com Google Rankings and wonders: any ideas on what they did?

  WMW Admin "Tedster" (Ted Ulle - one of the leading Google experts not actually working for Google) typically doesn't allow case studies and site reviews at WMW, but makes an exception in this case. He doubts a sizeable 2010 influx in inbound links as being the likely cause, but does suggest micro-formatting may have something to do with it:

  What they apparently did do last year is add rich meta-data in the RDFa format to all their product pages

  Ironically, I have actually used Overstock over the past few years as a "go-to" example for a good way to add content to eCommerce pages. A few years back I noticed their use of descriptive content at the very bottom of pages, and found that those mostly category-level pages were improving in relevant "head and shoulder" search results. This strategy seems to still exist on some pages, however a "site:" Google operator for the site also tells an interesting story: "Guides" seem to be highly listed in the order of returned pages.

  Upon very early inspection, I feel the continued growth of relevant content coupled with internal linking is likely the strongest factor in their improvement. What are your thoughts? Please share at Webmaster World Forums or in the comments below.

  
  

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  2011 Search Ranking Signals

  Fetched: January 5th, 2011, 10:23am CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  A WebmasterWorld thread has a discussion around what these SEOs feel will be the most important ranking factors in 2011. Guess what? In this 2011 SEO thread, no one is talking about links or link popularity.

  Instead they are discussing social factors, brand factors and human factors. The three main things SEOs think 2011 will be about include:

  • Social Factors such as Facebook and Twitter
  • Brand Factors & Prominence
  • Less Ranking Factors, More People Factors

  Yes, the first and the last go hand in hand but there are ways of not using social factors to think human factors.

  Join the 2011 SEO factors discussion.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

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  Getting Started in the SEO Field

  Fetched: December 30th, 2010, 8:14am CET by Chris Boggs

  Tags:  SEO Search Engine Optimization  

  Education is always a step towards a rewarding career, but as any recent college graduate can attest - getting a job right out of school can be difficult these days. There are some fields that are hiring at a rapid pace, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of them. A recent post at High Ranking Forums from a new member asks what are the best first steps into career in SEO.

  The poster describes having just completed a certification program at Search Engine College(SEC), and needing to find work without much "real life" experience under her (his?) belt.

  The city where I live only has 1 SEO firm that isn't currently recruiting, and I'm wondering the best way to gain some experience so that I can eventually turn this into a full time career. I know there is a lot of SEO work available on freelance sites... but I don't think I have the experience yet to attempt to bid for those kind of jobs.

  First of all I have to congratulate "Gena" for not trying to fake experience. Some of the resumes I have seen are filled with downright lies when it comes to past experience. I even saw one where the person claimed to be a former Director of SEO at the agency where I work! (No one had ever heard of him)

  SEO and other search engine marketing certification programs from entities such as SEC, SEMPO (disclosure: I serve on the Board of SEMPO), and Bruce Clay provide the necessary education to get started in the field, but most fall short when it comes to job placement, based on my observations. SEC does state on its domain that there is access to job seeker forums, and SEMPO promises similar support, but frankly once you get the degree, you are still on your own when it comes to getting a job in the field.

  Gena's frustration is partially because of living in a town with only one SEO practitioner. I hate to say it, but one shrewd move would be to consider moving to a more marketing agency-centric location. Of course, not many agencies are going to foot the bill for that travel, given low experience level. Perhaps Gena can go pitch a local design or marketing firm and convince them that they need to add SEO to their suite of services.

  I can tell you from personal experience (and sometime anguish) that it is very difficult to find a junior resource that has any SEO training, and is willing to move on their own dime. Of course, more experienced SEOs are even harder to find, so in this case being green may be less of a hindrance than for other industries.

  I would recommend that Gena keeps networking and perhaps can find a job remotely. Please share your thoughts, experience, and advice at the High Rankings Forums or in the comment below.