The Rank Magic Blog
 December
21, 2006 ::: Online press releases have become popular because
it's been believed that press release can help to increase the search engine
rankings of their web sites based on a link to the website being included in
the press releases.
Do online press releases really
help your search engine rankings? How can you benefit from these services?
What are online press releases?
Online press releases are normal
press releases that are distributed through the Internet. Popular online
press release services are The Open Press, PRWeb and PRLeap. These services
list your press release on their web sites and on a number of partner web
sites.
Many people have thought that the
links in these press releases can help the link popularity of a web site and
thus increase the search engine rankings of a site.
What does Google say about
online press releases?
Matt Cutts is the person in
charge for fighting search engine spam on Google. He says the following
about press releases and high rankings in his blog:
|
A legit press release can
get you written up by reporters, or editors/sites may subsequently
choose to link to your site. But the actual content of the press
release itself doesn’t directly affect a site. For example, those
hyperlinks don’t help [the web site in the press release] in Google. |
What does this mean to your
web site?
Online press releases don't hurt
your search engine rankings. However, they also don't increase your rankings
(unless a reporter is intrigued and decides to write about your business).
The press release alone and its distribution on various web sites seems to
have no effect on your placement in search engines.
If you don't have something
people really want to hear then do not send a press release. You should only
use press release services if you have something newsworthy to say. If you
have an interesting press release then your web site can be mentioned on
many other sites.
December
20, 2006 ::: Webmasters in online forums are reporting a new
Google filter that Google uses to downrank web sites in its result pages.
Has this filter been applied to your web site? How can you avoid Google
applying that filter to your site?
What is Google's Minus-30
filter?
The Minus-30 filter is a penalty
that Google applies to web sites that use spammy SEO techniques. If Google
applies the penalty to a web site, the rankings of that site are dropped by
30 positions. Many webmasters in online forums
reported that they had top rankings on Google and now they can't get beyond
position 31 at the top of page 4 in Google. Some webmasters even report #31
rankings for all of their keywords on Google.
Why does Google apply the
Minus-30 filter to some web sites?
Google seems to apply the -30
filter to web sites that use certain spamming techniques. The following
techniques appear trigger the Minus-30 filter on Google:
-
Guestbook spamming: If
you try to get inbound links by spamming guestbooks and blogs with links
to your web site, then Google might apply the filter to your web site.
-
JavaScript redirects:
JavaScript redirections might be misinterpreted as a spamming attempt.
Better use
301 htaccess redirect if you must redirect URLs on your pages.
-
Doorway Pages: Google
doesn't like doorway pages. If you must use special landing pages for PPC
ads and other ads, make sure that these pages can't be spidered by Google
and other search engines or they may be interpreted as an attempt to spam
the search engines. You can use a
robots.txt file to mark those pages as not to be spidered by the search
engines.
What can you do if Google applies
the Minus-30 filter to your site?
First of all, remove any search
engine spam elements from your web site. If you use JavaScript redirects or
doorway pages, remove them from your site.
The Minus-30 filter seems to be an
automated filter. If you remove the spam factors from your site then you may
get your rankings back after some time. You can also send a
reinclusion request to Google. If nothing helps, then the only way
to get reincluded in Google may be to get a new domain name. (!)
Google doesn't like spammers.
If you want lasting results then you need to employ only ethical
search engine optimization methods. Like we do at Rank Magic.
The Safety of Internet Search
Engines
December
15, 2006 ::: In this context, safety meaning not sending you to web
sites that can infect your computer, harvest your email for spammers, or do
other unsavory things.
According to
a study by McAfee Site Advisor, most leading search engines are similar in
the safety of the sites they link to, though AOL replaces MSN as the safest
engine and Yahoo! replaces Ask as the engine with the most risky results.
Across search engines, they found sponsored results significantly less safe
than search engines' organic results. [Emphasis added}
Unsavory e-mail conduct is the
dominant security risk although search engine users are also heavily exposed
to risky downloads, browser exploits, and scams.
Google Claims Click Fraud Rate
<2%
December
12, 2006 ::: Google says they are already filtering more than 98%
of invalid clicks. Their goal is to filter 100% and suggestions they are not
doing enough are misguiding in their eyes.
Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim reports on a conversation with a representative
of Google.
It's fair to say, though, that
many
webmasters disagree.
10 Signs That Your SEO
Consultant Is a Quack
 December
8, 2006 ::: Jill Whalen of High Rankings® is an internationally
recognized search
engine optimization consultant and host of the free weekly
High
Rankings® Advisor search engine marketing newsletter. Jill's
handbook, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" teaches
business owners how and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web
sites so that they make sense to users and gain high rankings in the major
search engines. Jill specializes in search engine optimization, SEO
consultations, site analysis reports, SEM seminars and is the co-founder of
Search Engine Marketing
New England (SEMNE) a local networking organization.
In another insightful article,
Jill explains how to tell if your potential SEO consultant is on the up & up
or not.
10 Signs That Your SEO Is a Quack
There are so many SEO/SEM
firms cropping up that talk a good game but don't deliver results. This is in
part because there's so much information that is freely available about search
engine optimization. On the surface, SEO sounds easy -- and it really is -- once
you've had a number of sites to experiment with. What's even easier than SEO,
however, is discussing SEO as if you know what you're actually doing (when you
don’t)!
Here are 10 signs to
watch out for that may very well indicate that your potential SEO is a quack.
Please note that one of these individually may not be bad, but if you notice
more than 2 or 3 of these when speaking with any SEO company, you may just want
to head for the hills!
1. Your SEO company
talks about Meta tags and Google PageRank (PR) as if they are the magic bullet
to high rankings.
For the most part,
there's no reason to even bring up the keyword Meta tag nor toolbar PR in a
discussion about what needs to be done to get better search engine exposure for
your site. Both of them are issues that quack SEO companies will talk about
because they actually believe they are the key to SEO success. They are not.
I've discussed in previous articles the Meta keyword tag’s lack of importance,
so I won't go into that again here. In regards to PageRank, increasing the
little green bar graph's number should never be the ultimate goal of a
professional SEO campaign. A good campaign will automatically increase your real
and true PageRank (as measured by Google) without your specifically setting out
to increasing it on your own. Since PR doesn't bring you traffic and sales (nor
rankings), increasing it should not ever be the main goal of your campaign. This
fact is of course lost on SEO quacks.
2. Your SEO
company's site (or those of their clients) has the same Title tags on every
page. Sounds crazy I know, but I've seen this more than once!
I once got a client who
had previously used a very major SEO company that most people have heard of.
They had been with this firm for a whole year, and yet the Title tags on every
page of their site were all the same (the name of the company). Since Title tags
are probably the most important (and easiest) thing to change on a site, any SEO
company that can't do this one basic thing for their own site or their clients’
is most definitely a quack!
3. Your SEO company
talks only about optimizing for the "long tail."
Now, don't get me
wrong, there's nothing wrong with long-tail keyword phrases, as they can bring a
lot of traffic when all is said and done. But you don't need an SEO company if
those are the only phrases you're interested in -- you can do it yourself just
by writing articles. Your SEO company should not be afraid to optimize for the
actual keyword phrases that most people would use at the engines to find your
site. Yeah, it's gonna take time and money to go after the most competitive
keyphrases, but there's usually a happy medium. Most sites have plenty of
phrases that are somewhere between long tail and highly competitive. Those are
the ones you definitely want to target.
4. Your SEO company
tells you it's ALL about links (or ALL about content).
SEO isn't ALL about
anything. It's about lots of things all added together to make the perfect
combination for your site. A linking campaign alone will never be as effective
if you neglect your on-page content, and vice versa. Be sure that your SEO
company looks at your site from all angles and makes sure all your bases are
covered. Otherwise, they're probably a quack!
5. Your SEO company
tells you that you need a linking campaign even though you already have tons of
links and are a well-established popular site in your niche.
Not every site needs
every SEO service out there. Just because your SEO company likes to sell
link-building doesn't mean you actually need it for your site. Why should you
pay for something you don't need? The same thing goes for sites that already
have great, well-written, optimized content. If you've got that, perhaps you
just need a linking campaign to help boost your traffic and sales. Don't allow
an SEO quack to fix what
isn't actually broken.
6. Your SEO company
is almost surely 99% quackish if they tell you that they can rank your brand-new
site in Google for keywords that will bring you traffic within a few months.
In fact, if they claim
they can do it in less than 9 months, they’re either inexperienced or lying.
Google has an aging delay that is most certainly related to the age of the site,
as well as a certain trust factor. It is only the very rare and wonderful site
that can get around this delay. But if your site is like most, you're going to
have to look to the long term for your Google results, regardless of what the
quacks might try to convince you of.
7. Your SEO company
never mentions that they may very well need to redo your site architecture so
that your important pages are prominently featured within your site navigation.
In this case it's very
possible you're dealing with an inexperienced, quack SEO. This is usually
something that is not a quick fix, so most quacks are reluctant to discuss it
with you (if they even know it's important). But if your site architecture is
not search-engine-ready, everything else you do will have much less impact.
8. Your SEO company
can't provide you with any quality references.
This one pretty much
goes without saying, but do be sure to get references, and do be sure to
actually call them. Yeah, a reference may very well turn out to be their cousin,
but you should be able to get some feel for the company you're choosing if you
can at least talk to some references.
9. Your SEO company
tells you that you have to have a DMOZ listing or your site will never be able
to get high rankings.
Sure, a DMOZ listing is
great, but it's a link just like any other. Submit and forget about it. If you
don't get in, it's no big deal -- there are plenty of other links you can get
instead.
10. Your SEO
company's site mentions that they'll get you high rankings in AltaVista, Fast,
Inktomi, Lycos, Excite, HotBot and the like.
If it does, you are
100% positively dealing with a quack! 'Nuff said!
Jill |
Research Report Offers Good
Advice to Online Retailers
December
6, 2006 ::: The results of a survey by Akamai and Jupiter
Research in which 1,058 online shoppers participated has been released. If
you have an e-commerce site, you should study this report and take a
critical look at your web site to ensure you're living up to shoppers'
surprisingly high quality standards. For example, the report reveals that
about a third of those surveyed say they would abandon a web site if a page
takes longer than four seconds to load.
You can download
the entire report (for free) at the Akamai web site.
 December
4, 2006 ::: On the web site
Web Pages That
Suck, you can "learn good web design by looking at bad web design".
While some of the examples they provide may be good for an occasional
chuckle, the web site really is instructional. The author, Vincent Flanders,
says "My goal is to help you design effective and aesthetically pleasing web
pages. My method is to show you bad design techniques so you'll realize what
they are and not use them."
Vincent has compiled a list of
web sites that are so bad, he calls them
The Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015. Somewhat amusingly, he
admits that we haven't reached 2015 yet, "but it's human nature to repeat
your mistakes over and over. But it's human nature to repeat your mistakes
over and over."
|
December
2006
|
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