SeoUnique Blog

Will Google discount Blogroll links

Matt Ridout — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:52:02 +0000

Google have been clear and expressed their feelings about paid links. We all know we shouldn’t do it, it’s against the webmaster guidelines, you can get penalties and even removals from the index.

I will put my hand up and say I have dabbled in buying links, if you’re talking to an SEO who says they’ve never done it then they may be fibbing (or they have only been doing SEO for a short period of time).

We all know the following:

• Buying links for PR is not allowed
• Selling links to pass PR is not allowed
• Buying links to manipulate the SERPS is not allowed
• Excessive link exchanges are not allowed

There is of course the snitch form report a paid link form by which members of the law abiding public can notify Google if they detect any paid links on a web page. Google can then take their appropriate levels of action towards the websites in question.

Besides from the awesome report a baddie form Google uses variables in their algorithm to detect paid links automatically. Webmasters often leave a trail when adding paid links, be it through code comments, stupid ad placements, link relevancy, backlink increases and trends over time – heck there’s probably a hundred more factors.

Now, to get to my point, in 2005 there were a recorded 60 million blogs worldwide so you can imagine the 2008 figure could be close to 100 million. My preferred method of blogging is Wordpress; it’s simple, easy to setup and pretty damn search engine friendly. So say 40% (my personal estimate) of all blogs worldwide are run using Wordpress, that’s 40 million blogs all with the option to use their “blogroll”.

For you that don’t know what a blogroll is, it is a widget that can be used on blog themes that displays links that you can add through the CMS. Although you can get plugins that change the link relationship to NoFollow, it’s not a popular choice. To be honest why should you change the relationship? If you like websites and think they add value to your website, bloody link to them.

I can’t help but think that there must be hundreds of millions of links all originating from blogrolls alone, a good percentage of these will be paid links, purely because it’s easy to setup and harder for Google to recognise the link, i.e. it won’t have the same characteristics as say a footer link. Unless you are building too many links, using the same kinds of anchor texts, how will Google know your links in the blogroll are genuine or paid? (site relevance must also be a factor).

How Google will react to the continued war on paid links?

My guess is they will discount all blogroll links entirely, either by looking at the website code or making a deal with the blogging software companies and making the default setup NoFollow. I know it sounds rash and perhaps this is the ramblings of a tired man coming to the end of a long hard week? Who knows…

Name and Shame Secret Cloaking Website

Matt Ridout — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:56:56 +0000

Just over a month ago I decided to start looking at click tracking using heat maps. Heat maps track the mouse movements and clicks on a page which can help with usability. I found a free one here http://www.labsmedia.com/clickheat/index.html by someones recommendation. The install was easy and the data started pouring in. Now I kept this running for a good month before deciding to remove the code from my site. The data was useful and I was grateful to the site by providing good content - right? Well not at all unfortunatly, as I decided to look at the code “through the eyes of a search engine” using SEO Browser I noticed something odd.

As you can see there was a link appearing to the search engines, now sometimes I get a bit of flack for having a short term memory but I would remember adding a link at the top of my own blog right? So to investigate further I looked at the site, no visible text.

So I obviously checked the source code too, nothing visible either.

So looking at the source through Plesk I located the header file for the blog where I had originally included the tracking code and to my surprise a little piece of code had appeared!

This was swiftly deleted with stern presses of my keyboard. I looked at other websites I had once used this tracking for and sure enough a succession of hidden links popped up, most IT related or Russian links.

I do warn people not to use these guys at all costs. I consider myself lucky that I wasn’t penalized by the search engines for this even though it was not my fault. I think I was more annoyed that I had been leaking link juice to these random websites for a period of time!

The other side of the coin suggests this method is obviously working for them and it was not detected by Google at all - guess the guys at the “Big G” should download a copy and try it out lol!

Past Google Page Rank Updates

Matt Ridout — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:08:51 +0000

I have been seeing a lot of people arguing about when certain updates have happened (more to the point page rank). So I decided to share my data with my readers to help clear up any confusion.

06/06/2007

20/10/2007

11/01/2008

29/02/2008

29/04/2008

The dates have been collected every time Google updates their page rank - data centers tend to go down a week before an update and a backlink update also occurs before a PR update.

If I was to hazard a guess I would say the 4th PR update of 2008 will happen at the end of June 2008

10 Common SEO Mistakes

Matt Ridout — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:19:32 +0000

Again I apologize for not having time to write more - The list is based on observations I commonly see on a day to day basis. If you notice your website with any of these, either bury your head in the sand or change it immediately to see better search engine rankings!

1. Using the same keyword more than twice in a Title tag - Having the same keyword listed in your heading 3 times or more will in fact reduce the relevance and strength of those keywords. Most important factor is that it’s readable to the user and is an accurate description of your page.

2. High keyword densities - Including your targeted keyword is obviously important but don’t think for one minute putting the keyword in every link on the page and in every paragraph will make your page more relevant - it won’t.

3. Not having a Valid XML Sitemap - Create one and submit it to the webmaster consoles on the major search engines.

4. URL’s not containing any keywords - Yes, I’m still seeing utterly useless URL structures. Just remember to include an accurate description of the page content in the URL.

5. Using

tags more than once on a single page - There should only be one

tag per page.

6. Not giving each page unique Meta data - should be relevant to each page’s content and unique - you will see benefits in doing this - trust me!

7. Using the same anchor text in all links - Unless you have been around for years, just don’t bother using the same anchor texts in your links. Make them as varied as possible, you will see see an increase in your targeted keywords if your site is optimized properly.

8. Putting analytics code at the beginning of your body content - Doing this will slow down the page content load which will effect usability. The amount of time is not large but noticeable to search engines, always put it at the end of the tag.

9. Not using accurate image descriptions - Stuffing keywords in image descriptions will do nothing for you and may even harm your rankings if used excessively.

10. Not having a 301 redirect setup - It’s not hard to do and it will help with your indexing like you wouldn’t believe!

Analytics software can harm your website

Matt Ridout — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:10:35 +0000

All this week I have been attending Webtrends Marketing Lab training. For those od you that don’t know what webtrends is - it’s an expensive yet very comprehensive analytics package.

I know a lot of my readers probably would prefer to have Google Anlytics, which is still a very powerfull tool (and free) but webtrends is a massive program which is very customisable. With many clients it proves a more fitting solution.

Until now I hadn’t really considered there might be negative implications of adding tags to pages - well there is, so be careful.

Webtrends allows you to to add perameters to pages enabling something called “Smartview” which is essentially a site overview. However you can display paths, actions, conversions and all kinds of other data. This is achieved by adding the WT.svi parameter - when you do this you are creating a duplicate page - which obviously can have a negative impact on search results.

Something to bare in mind when setting up any analtics software!

Big UK brand blackhat exposed

Matt Ridout — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:11:21 +0000

I recently came across a document which highlighted a SEO strategy for a major UK based company. Now for legal reasons I can’t mention which company it is but they are huge in the UK and their industry is insurance.

Now I work on many clients but primarily the insurance sector, which is highly competitive and very lucrative if the rankings are achieved. Most of the clients I manage SEO for have achieved top 10 positions for their keywords but there are always a handful of websites that always sit on top, no matter what.

I have of course researched my competitors thoroughly, which everyone in SEO should do, looking at their design, backlinks, content, IP locations etc. At first glance all these elements look pretty standard, not much out of the ordinary – so it was a nice treat to see how these “top dogs” have managed this.

A huge network of at least 100 websites has been created; some websites date back to 1999 so this method has been used for a long time, and has really only started working perfectly for the last 12-18 months. Each of these websites is very high quality, most of them ranking in the top 5/10 for each niche. The niches aren’t limited to one or two either, they are quite varied.

The network is made up by at least 15 different IP addresses, each providing between 4-20 websites on each, the more important websites being hosted on IP’s with the least amount of websites or even on their own.

Paid links have been commonly used on most of these websites which has added to their individual values, but here’s the sneaky part. If a new website is added to this network (which probably pays an enormous amount of $$$) then no links are bought directly, instead the related sites on the network get the links they then link to the “new site”. This means with these high quality sites only having 2-4 outgoing links, the juice is massive!

Now I know that most companies have sub departments with additional websites but this method is taking it to the next level. Literally millions of $$$ have been spent on this network but for this one particular insurance company, that price must have been recovered in a few weeks.

It’s just worth noting that even “trusted” brands that have been around for many years might not always play nice when it comes to rankings and strategies.

Are you an SEO lemming?

Matt Ridout — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:40:05 +0000

Firstly a brief definition on what an SEO lemming is;

“An SEO lemming is a human being whose nature it is to believe another human being because they sound like they know what they are talking about. In doing this you will be influenced in to doing anything without realising it. You may find yourself digging a hole with your bare hands for no apparent reason, building a bridge, parting with huge sums of cash to appear on the first page of Google – or if you’re really unlucky you will notice a number appear above your head and proceed counting down.”

How to avoid becoming an SEO lemming?

1. If you receive an email from an “SEO Company” with their “analysis” of your website, right click and mark as spam – exposure to such material can lead to SEO lemming symptoms.
2. If you are approached by anyone in regards to SEO without asking to be, just mention you know what an SEO lemming is and don’t want to become one!
3. You want to invest in SEO, that’s excellent news – read some trusted SEO blogs on the basics so you know what to avoid. Simply type “seo blog” in Google and choose the websites on the left of the page with a white background.
4. Understand this – SEO is a long term strategy that requires investment. If you are after a “quick fix” then unfortunately you are already under the influence and you’re an SEO lemming – watch out if you find your hair turning green.
5. If you submit a tender and you are approached by SEO companies, check their websites out. If you see any of the following phrases, please avoid;

a. Top 10 or your money back
b. Guaranteed first page
c. Only $xxx to get on Google
d. We have been around since time began
e. SEO lemmings are cool

I am already an SEO lemming – what can I do?

1. The first stage of recovery is to acknowledge you are an SEO lemming – well done!
2. If you are showing symptoms at an early stage, there is still time for you – please revert to point 3 in the section above for a minimum of 2 weeks with lots of rest.
3. If you are going to part with cash make sure you talk to the guys and question them about their SEO methods. It’s advisable that you have a sit down with the companies – this will combat most SEO lemming judgements.
4. Use your common sense, if you can remember what that is. If it sounds quick and easy it’s expensive and useless.
5. You can try denying the fact that you are an SEO lemming, this might make you feel better temporarily but this is not a long term solution.

On a side note - if you would like to play the original game:
http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

Small Businesses save £1000 in SEO by reading this post

Matt Ridout — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:45:07 +0000

If you have just setup a new website or your small business has just gone “live” for the first time then I hope I can help you save money.

Once your website is live you may of course wonder why you are not receiving tens of thousands of visitors. Surely everyone needs or wants your product or service? A little rule, even if you were giving out free gold bars very few people would know about it – although I imagine your website would become popular by word of mouth - that’s a whole other story!

How do I get traffic to my awesome website?

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
2. PPC (Pay Per Click)
3. Affiliate Marketing
4. Social Marketing
5. DM (Direct Mail)
6. Email
7. Word of mouth

The bad news is that most of these options will cost you money, and to achieve large numbers of targeted traffic it will cost a lot! I will attempt to give you new websites some very basic tips to follow and implement that a lot of “SEO companies” would charge well over £1000 for.

Some basic tips

You will of course need some basic HTML knowledge for this, although some points require no prior experience.

1. Make each page Title unique to the page; keep the length to 60 characters or under. Any more and the search engines will not list the words in the results but you will see little dots…

Example:

Important Keyword | Relevance Word | Company Name

2. Create a Meta description that describes your page in a readable format; consider it a window to your larger shop.

Example:

3. Create a Meta Keywords tag, and include words that might not appear in your copy and misspellings of your keywords.

Example:

4. Make your

tags contain the most important keywords on each page – only one

tag per page.

Keyword

5. Make your

tags contain your less targeted keywords

Less important keyword

6. Give all your images “Alt” descriptions, these should describe the images perfectly

7. Create an XML sitemap

Visit: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ - to have one generated for you

8. Submit your XML sitemap to each webmaster console

Google - http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
Yahoo - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
MSN - http://webmaster.live.com/webmaster

9. Submit your website to a list of trusted directories. A good list can be found here:

http://www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories/

10. Make any links on your site include keywords rather than “click here” or “read more”

Keyword

The list above is just some basic standards to follow. Of course if you have a good website built for you then some of these will not be an issue, you will be surprised though.

Find some free backlinks

It amazes me how lazy some people are, I see many “SEO companies” charge anything between £50.00 - £1000 just for 250 backlinks – these often tend to be non-relevant so actually do very little for your search rankings.

This is how I find relevant backlinks, granted it may be time consuming but it’s cheaper or often free and the results actually work.

1. Go to http://www.linkdiagnosis.com/
2. Enter a competitors website
3. Look at the results

You will often find free resource sites and directories that carry some weight using this tool. If not you will see where “the enemy” are getting their links from – which you can follow.

You can also use another tactic whereby you write comments on blogs that count as backlinks:

http://www.dofollowblogs.com/
http://www.digeratimarketing.co.uk/2007/07/20/over-160-relevant-link-following-blogs/

To finish this post off I will just add a few more tips, more server side that are always recommended. I would guess for sure that if you implemented all I have listed here, a new, un-optimised website would benefit from it (I guarantee that some SEO companies will charge well over £1000 for this sort of work)

Final Tips

• Implement a 301 redirect on your domain, if you do not know how, visit the link below:

http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

• Make sure your URL structures contain keywords:

Example: http://www.yourdomainwithkeyword.com/productnamewithkeyword

Join the SeoUnique Team

Matt Ridout — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:26:45 +0000

SeoUnique has reached a point where I am looking to expand it’s horizons by looking for additional bloggers to join the team. SeoUnique has been live for nearly 12 months and has its foundations in place to provide Internet Marketing insights for its readers.

Potential Candidates:

1. You must list some previous SEO posts you have written or contributed to

2. Blog posts must be on the subject of SEO, SEM and Internet marketing

3. You will be asked to post at least once a month, this will give you an opportunity to generate your own reputation

4. You can be of any age, as long as you show maturity in your writing style, of course it can be fun!

5. You must know how to work with Wordpress

Apply Here

Bloggers will be announced as soon as they are chosen

Thanks

Why new websites get high PR - explained

Matt Ridout — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:43:03 +0000

As you will all know by now yesterday saw the third PR update in 2008 and we are only in April. The majority of webmasters will care more about SERPS more than PR but if you monitor your site enough you will see some correlation involved.

A few months ago I entered the “Yicrosoft Directory” competition at SEO Noobs dot com, although I didn’t win I implemented a some standard SEO practices on a standard Wordpress theme and built up under 100 backlinks with 3-4 variations of anchor texts.

Now what is strange is that on reflection on the new update I looked at my site which I hadn’t touched in months or even accessed. To my surprise the little green bar was displaying a PR4, I then proceeded to look at the PR for the top 4 sites under “Yicrosoft directory” and their page ranks were all 4-6. Quite high I’m sure you will agree for websites that are only a few months old about a subject that was made up. This is also not the first time blogs and websites have received high PR updates on young domains.

Now what I believe Google to be doing here is ranking based on an industry level. Say for example you want to rank for a competitive term such as “bank loans” – you may have a 3 year old domain, 50k backlinks and an SEO friendly website, however you still only have a PR of 3 or 4.

Matt…what are you talking about – explain yourself immediately?

Ok, stay with me here – If you have a new keyword phrase, as we all played for (Yicrosoft directory) then out of all websites competing for the term the distribution is shared.

For example:

“mortgages”
• Position 1 - PR 6
o Backlinks: 3 Million
o Domain Age: 2001
• Position 50 – PR 4
o Backlinks: 6,000
o Domain Age: 1996

“Yicrosoft Directory”
• Position 1 – PR 6
o Backlinks: 2,000
o Domain Age: Feb 2008
• Position 50 – PR 2
o Backlinks: 273
o Domain Age: Feb 2008

I know I have only used 4 examples here but you can see the PR’s match but what doesn’t match are the backlinks and domain ages.

So I guess what I’m trying to explain here is that for your website to rank well in the SERPS and achieve a high PR in competitive industries is a lot harder than on less searched terms. Although this conclusion is far from revolutionary, it does explain why new websites and blogs are ranking highly in Page Rank. To me this indicates the up most relevancy and value of a link to your industry or service, random PR links may not be as valuable to you if they are not directly related.