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I was reading
through the blog of Matt Cutts, one of the head
engineer's at google and a very adamant blogger. He
talks a lot about SEO and changes to Google's algorithms
along with the normal personal blog topics like personal
info and video games.
I was doing some SEO research for a new client's website
and I was looking into evidence for the devaluation of
sitewide links. A sitewide link is a link on every page
of a single website. In the past sidewide links were
great for SEO, still are, but they are becoming less
effective on Google. Matt particularly comments on
google's devaulaing of sitewide links in a few posts.
From my experience, on older sites if you have a large
amount of other links, and you get say a link on 50% of
pages on another websites Google will count them all as
links and this will be a bit more valuable then say a
single link, but for a new website, avoid sitewide links
on Google. If you go from having a few links to having a
bunch of links all from one website it's appears that
Google will completely devalue those links because they
appear to have been paid for and one of Google's current
crusades is to cut down the power of paid links.
Currently buying and selling links on the "black market"
is one of the major and very important tactics of modern
SEO. You build a good site, optimize for the search
engines, be creative, try to get as many links as
possible and then buy the rest to give you that "push"
above the competition. Although Matt talks about how
they won't help you, I believe a lot of this is wishful
thinking, or a prediction of the near future. Currently
as long as the advertiser doesn't label your link with a
title link "advertisement, sponsor, link partner" etc,
the link will still count, especially if they include it
in the body of their content with normal anchor text. Of
course you'd better be ready to pay a pretty price for
that service, because they'll actually be sending you
some of their traffic and promoting your product as
opposed to just providing a link for SEO.
One interesting thing to note from Matt Cutts. He
rementions the rel="no" tag. Again for reference this is
the tag that you can add to your links to have them not
pass on pagerank. Now youre first question may be "why
would anyone want to stop a linking from passing
pagerank of relevancy".
There are a bunch of creative answers for that one, but
at the basic level this was designed for bloggers who
could reduce the power of links contained within blog
comments in order to discourage comment spammers. Matt
cutts recommends adding rel="no" to any links you sell.
Now if I was going to sell a link to a poker site or a
bad neighborhood. This might be a good idea as to not
hurt my relevancy in google, but if a website had a
similar topic, and was very legitmate, I'll get a lot
more money and they'll get a lot more benefit from a
regular intact link, and if I hide it correctly, google
will never be able to tell It was paid for it.
Especially if for an additional fee orcourse, I added a
page to my blog or to my site describing wha the other
website was and why I was linking to them, but that's
all hypothetical.
Right now adsense is my only way to monetize this
website and it isn't paying too well, but then again I
just launched this redesign and with some hard work I
should be able to dramatically incrase my traffic
levels, hopefully enough to earn a nice monthly check
from Google.
Summary of two different SEO issues mentioned here:
1. Google devaluing site wide links (links from the same
domain or website) 2. Google devaluating paid links
Web directories are an important component to search
engine positioning. Directories come in all shapes and
sizes, some are generic, while others are highly
specialized. Directories, are defined as categorized
topics or collections of information organized into a
tree like structure where categories are used to define
each groups association.
Large directories like Yahoo tend to have general themes
and may charge for listings. While smaller niche
directories like http://www.finance-investing.com offer
free listings and profit from advertising revenue or pay
per click models like Google AdSense.
Being listed in a directory not only brings in targeted
traffic, it provides a one-way link from a website with
similar content. Directories are generally highly ranked
in search engines, and are considered well respected
resources, two traits that are desirable in link
partners.
While smaller directories that focus on a specific niche
might generate less traffic, the quality of the traffic
from a niche site is usually highly targeted and will be
superior to that generated from general search engines.
If you are selling fire alarms, traffic from yahoo will
be less qualified than traffic from Alarm Tools, http://www.alarm-tools.net
. Most visitors to Alarm Tools will have a genuine
interest in alarms and alerting systems. The nature of
highly specialized directories result in visitors who
have a serious interest in the directories theme, or a
at the very least an interest in a theme related to the
directory.
As a result, web publishers need to make a conscience
effort not to ignore the value of directory listings.
Regardless of their size, a related niche directory
listing can be extremely valuable.
Many directories offer sponsorship opportunities.
Vendors can optionally purchase sponsorship to increased
their exposure with a bold listing or top category
listings.
Determining a Directories Value It is difficult to
assess the value of directory listing, as there is an
obvious advantage to a listing of a closely related
theme directory that is difficult to measure and
quantify. In general, webmasters can use common web
guidelines to determine the popularity of a directory
and assess the directory link's value.
To assess the value of a web directory, consider the
PageRank of the webpage where the link placement of your
site will occur. The PageRank is indicative of how
important Google may find a specific page. Another
reliable third party measuring tool is Alexa. The Alexa
ranking provides insight into how popular a website is.
In general, a link from a web page containing a PageRank
of 5 or higher is considered very good. A link from a
site in Alexa's top 100,000 is also generally very
desirable.
Compare the following two directories' Monitoring Tools
http://www.monitoring-tools.net and RSS Specifications
http://www.rss-specifications.com . Monitoring Tools'
main page has a PageRank of 5 but most internal pages
that contain links have low page ranks and the overall
Alexa ranking of the site is over 650,000. While RSS
Specification's claims a main Google PageRank of 6 and
subpages all contain a minimum of a 5 for PageRank, the
overall site is ranked 32,000. Clearly if you are in the
syndication business, RSS Specification's would be a
very desirable link partner, while you would have to
weigh the cost benefit and position of a link from
Monitoring Tools.
To determine a sites PageRank without downloading the
Google Toolbar, use the following online tool from
RustyBrick http://www.rustybrick.com/pagerank-prediction.php
. A website's Alexa ranking can be found by entering the
URL into Alexa http://www.alexa.com .
It is recommended that PageRank and Alexa ranking be
only used as a guide when determining a directories
reputation. It is important not to get too caught up in
either Google PageRank or Alexa Ranking as webmasters
can use "tricks" to artificially inflate their numbers.
The bottom line, links from directories that are small
but niche, can provide quality web traffic.
Those of you who are long time subscribers to our
newsletter The Search Light (http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/free_newsletter.htm)
will remember my article from way back in December 2001
titled Search Engine Predictions for 2002 (http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com/Search_Engine_Predictions_For_2002.htm).
It's time to take a look at that article and the grand
predictions I made for the search industry to determine
whether I'm a "Nostradamus" or a "NoSuchLuckus".
Here were my personal predictions for 2002:
1. Increase in Pay For Performance (PFP) Options
My first prediction for the year 2002 related to pay for
performance options: "I see this trend increasing, with
the major engines and directories expanding on the range
of PFP options they provide, whether in-house or
outsourced".
Looks like I was right on the money with this one. By
the end of 2002, all but one of the major search engines
and directories had a pay for performance option
available. Paid inclusion services in particular proved
to be a popular addition to search engines in 2002, with
Lycos, FAST / AllTheWeb and Ask Jeeves / Teoma each
introducing a paid inclusion product for the first time.
Pay per click services also gained in popularity in
2002, with Google introducing their AdWords Select Pay
Per Click product in February 2002 (that recently!) and
Overture spreading their market reach via major
partnerships with AOL Europe in January, MSN in February
and September, InfoSeek in March, Yahoo in April, CNET
and AltaVista in May, Lycos Europe in June, Yahoo Japan
in November, CNN and Freeserve in December.
The popularity of Google's AdWords grew quickly
throughout the year, with AdWords becoming a major
competitor to Overture, helped along by new partnerships
with Earthlink in February, AOL in May, Ask Jeeves /
Teoma and AT&T in July, InfoSpace in September and Yahoo
Japan in November. In fact, AdWords became such a threat
to Overture that they filed a patent infringement
lawsuit against Google in April 2002. I believe the
outcome is still pending on that one. Smaller PPC
engines began to gain more market share in 2002, with
eSpotting, FindWhat, Kanoodle and Ah-Ha each finding a
market niche.
And who could forget LookSmart's disastrous entry to the
realm of pay per click in April 2002? The deceptive
nature of LookSmart's announcement and their decision to
force existing Express Directory Submission customers to
rollover into the new PPC system instead of
"grandfathering" their listings demonstrated a complete
lack of market understanding and for some, forever
etched the LookSmart brand with the word
"untrustworthy". It seems LookSmart are still paying for
their mistake months later, with a reduced market share
and a devastated reputation.
As predicted, search engine optimizers have had to
embrace this trend towards Pay for Performance and
integrate it within their traditional site optimization
services in order to offer clients balanced, measurable
and successful search engine marketing campaigns. As a
result, the term SEO has become increasingly eroded by
the more logical term SEM (Search Engine Marketer).
Score: Nostradamus
2. Increase in Paid Submissions
My original article predicted: "I believe we'll see
other engines and directories introduce a fee for
submission to their commercial categories. I think
Google could be the first of these".
While the fairly new JoeAnt and GoGuides directories
both introduced paid submission services late in 2002,
they don't really counteract the fact that LookSmart
dropped their directory submission option in favor of
PPC and (thankfully), Google have refrained from
introducing a Paid Submission service. So much for THAT
prediction! Score: NoSuchLuckus
3. Crackdown on Spammers
My prediction here was: "With engines like Google
leading the way in the crackdown on search engine
spammers, other engines should follow suit in 2002. As a
result, there should be far less spammers and more
relevant results across the search engines by this time
next year."
Other search engines have indeed followed Google's lead
against spam in 2002, by introducing more sophisticated
search algorithms, (such as AltaVista's revamped
algorithm consisting of 100+ ranking determining
factors), by incorporating more spam filtration methods
(such as those capable of detecting invisible text and
hidden links), by providing spam reporting facilities
and by boosting site relevancy factors such as link
popularity when measuring sites against search queries.
Google still leads the War Against Spam, with their
dreaded PageRank site penalty scheme and their crystal
clear anti-spam stance publicized via their Webmaster
Guidelines (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html).
The result has been a victory for searchers - more
relevant searches, less bacon and ham. Even those search
engines and directories renowned for providing
irrelevant results recognized what Google had known for
years: the need to keep searchers satisfied. Yahoo in
particular got back to basics by the end of 2002,
partnering with Google to combine Google search results
with their own directory listings instead of serving
them up separately.
Score: Nostradamus
4. Growth of the SEO Industry
Back then I said: "With the importance of search engines
finally sinking in, the need for quality SEO services is
booming in the U.S. and the U.K. I predict this solid
demand will continue in 2002, especially in newly
developing markets such as Australia/New Zealand and
Europe".
No longer a niche market, SEO/SEM has indeed become
mainstream over the past 12 months and is now recognized
as a vital part of the marketing mix in both the U.S.
and the U.K. Thankfully, search engine marketing has
also become increasingly in demand in European, Asian
and Australasian markets with scores of new specialist
SEM firms springing up regularly and more media coverage
than ever before.
Score: Nostradamus
5. Death of Two Majors
My prediction here read: "I think 2002 will signal the
demise for at least two of the major search engines and
directories".
In 2002 we said goodbye to industry veterans Excite
(http://www.excite.com/) and Northern Light (http://www.northernlight.com/).
Excite ceased to be a major player in January 2002, when
new owners InfoSpace replaced Excite's search database
listings with a mixture of Overture paid results and
Inktomi search results. Excite UK shut their doors
around the same time. These days the Excite portal still
exists, but nobody searches there anymore. Perhaps it's
because Excite now uses a mixture of regular and PPC
listings from Google, LookSmart, Inktomi, Ask Jeeves,
About, Overture, FindWhat and FAST, with no disclaimers
to help searchers identify which are paid results.
In January 2002, Northern Light closed its public search
service. A week later, Divine, inc., a provider of
content management and delivery solutions for enterprise
customers, bought the search site. In a separate deal at
the same time, Yahoo partnered with Divine to make
Northern Light's Special Collection documents available
in a new service called Yahoo Premium Documents Search.
Technically we could say that HotBot (http://www.hotbot.com/)
also "died" in 2002, given it lost its own search
database and became a META search engine in December to
display search results from search FAST, Google, Inktomi
and Teoma under the ownership of Terra Lycos.
Score: Nostradamus
6. One or More Major Partnerships
My prediction was: "I see some major rivals combining in
2002, just to stay alive. I also see some more major
partnerships between online and offline firms".
The Yahoo deal with Google in October 2002 to provide
combined search listings and Yahoo's purchase
announcement of Inktomi in December 2002 spring to mind
here. So do the many partnerships between Google and
search rivals Ask Jeeves / Teoma, AOL and InfoSpace for
the provision of AdWords paid listings (as listed in 1.
above) in 2002 and the expansion of Overture via
partnerships with various search engines, directories
and portals worldwide.
Let's not forget the Lycos / FAST deal for paid
inclusion services either. Yahoo's 2002 move into the
ISP market and Ask Jeeves' provision of an offline
"butler service" are relevant to the latter half of this
prediction.
Score: Nostradamus
7. Move away from In-House to Outsourced Services
My original article predicted: "As search engine
optimization becomes even more complex and time
consuming in 2002, more businesses will realize SEO is a
full-time job and not something their marketing or IT
staff can do 'on the side'."
A year ago, if you had gone to a major employment site
such as careerbuilder.com or monster.com and conducted a
search for "search engine optimization", you would have
been hard-pressed to find many jobs in this field. Do a
search today and you'd be amazed at the increase in
demand for SEO specialists - just as predicted.
Score: Nostradamus
8. SEO industry Shake-Up
My prediction was: "With consumer watchdogs keeping a
close eye, developing industry standards and ethics, as
well as the crackdown on spammers sure to continue, the
SEO industry is sure to experience a major shake-up next
year, with only the most successful and ethical SEO's
left still standing."
You could say that 2002 gave rise to the ethical SEO. A
line in the sand was drawn between so-called "ethical"
search engine optimizers and marketers (SEM's) and
"unethical" search engine optimization firms, nicknamed
"Search engine deceivers" (SED's) by some. A number of
long-time SED's found themselves permanently banned for
search engine spamming by Google in 2002, to the sheer
delight of many in the industry. As more search engines
introduced or tightened their anti-spam filters in 2002,
many shady SEO cowboys were forced to pack up shop as
they realized their spam techniques were no longer
effective.
Google's unprecedented decision to publish their
definition (http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html)
of "ethical" search engine optimization on their
Webmaster Guidelines page forced many search engine
marketing firms to rethink their SEO techniques. It was
also the start of what many believe is a new era in the
industry, where search engines and professional SEO's
start to communicate openly, creating an information
exchange for the possible development of an
industry-wide set of acceptable search engine
optimization standards.
Score: Nostradamus
9. New Technologies
My final prediction read: "I'm sure there will be some
significant technological developments in 2002 that will
impact the search engine industry and make us all head
for the forums and chat rooms in a panic."
Sure enough, developments such as Google News, Gator,
LookSmart LookListings, the SEO Consultants Directory,
Overture's Auto-Bidding Tool, Froogle, Wireless Search,
TopText, Link Loader, MPZ Format, the Chinese
Government's ban on Google and Search King's PR Ad
Network resulted in some frantic forum activity in 2002.
But none of these compare to the storm in a teacup
caused by a little green bar. Yep, Google Page Rank™
gets my vote for the most talked about technology in
search for 2002.
Score: Nostradamus
So with a final score of eight out of nine, it looks
like I'm ninety percent Nostradamus after all (-:
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