Emails that harm our reputation

The SEO community is very good at rising up and defending our reputation. It is a shame we have to. Every month I hope we'll see less and less cowboy practices but each month I usually see something that annoys the heck out of me.

Yesterday I was emailed the following. The emphasis is mine. Doesn't it make you feel great to be an SEO?

I was looking at websites under the keyword New York Plastic Surgery and came across your website http://www.bigmouthmedia.com. I see that you're not ranked on the first page of Google for a New York Plastic Surgery search.

I'm not sure if you're aware of why you're ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.

There's no reason you can't have a top three ranking for the keyword New York Plastic Surgery based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site.

You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you're interested I can help you with this...

I'm talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality websites is what produces the rankings you are looking for http://www.bigmouthmedia.com.

The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking....and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

My partners and I own 1000's websites and offer private linking to hundreds of website owners just like yourself.

I didn't send this email out to very many people but I am currently reaching out to a list of your "keyword competitors" as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic the keyword New York Plastic Surgery can deliver.

I have your contact information and phone number. Is it ok if I give you a call?

I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it's risk free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes

Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

Sincerely,


Adam Ross
(480) 588-8900 ext. 600
www.linkshog.com

P.S - If the tables were turned and somebody I didn't know came to me with a proposition, even one that was appealing, I would be hesitant because I would be wondering - what's the catch? What does this guy know that I don't.

But then I would think he does know something that I don't know. He does have thousands of high PR websites, he does have hundreds of thousands of pages indexed and ranking in Google Yahoo and MSN. Sites that can deliver the quality anchor text backlinks. I would also think that I need to get my website in the top rankings. And he is offering to turn key top rankings for me...on all my keywords including New York Plastic Surgery. Even keywords I'm not currently competing for. Keywords that produce traffic that's potentially worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.

I emailed you because It's a win -win for both of us. Think of it this way - Who wouldn't be interested in buying money at a discount? Because that's what I'll be able to do offer you...Money at a discount.

Is it Ok to give you a call? Or you can can call me anytime at the number above?


To not receive future emails from Links Hog please reply to this email or send a message to Links Hog, 14350 87th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85054.

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In the Shadow of Linkbait

SubBait? SubscriberBait? ScriberBait?

Yesterday I published three posts:

• Words of Wisdom from IT
• When Google Confuses Search with Content
• Search Engine Land's Secrets: Mining SearchCap

True. I spent hours over the weekend putting together the Search Engine Land stats. I did so because I was interested and because the effort had some linkbait ROI there...

... however I feel that the most important post I made was When Google Confuses Search with Content. The easy linkbait, I think, got all the attention over the more niche Paid Search post. Perhaps I should buzz Barry Schwartz or Andy Beal and get their opinion on the Content versus Search question? Would that encourage more comments or thoughts on the issue? I did sphinn the post and as of the time of writing this I've had 10 sphinns. I think the truth might be that the Search community pays a lot less attention to PPC/SEM than it does to SEO. Well, that's okay, I can live with that.

I did have good success with the SearchCap Mining post. My MyBlogLog has been a veritable who's'who (including JZawodn) so I should be thankful.

It's early days yet but let's look at my feedburner stats? Do they reflect my (in terms of traffic) best post yet?


Not yet. No.

I'll hold my hands up again and note that there may well be a delayed effect. It might not be until today (the day after) that people subscribe or that feedburner notices the hike - so I'll keep the situation under review.

However, it may well be that we need to break down tactics into linkbait and subbait. Now that could be fun; one tactic to attract eyeballs and another to keep them. Marketing Pilgrim comes to mind as it's the blog that I watch closely that tends to run the most competitions related to encouraging people to sign up. Is that the approach?

What about the term SubBait? Too dodgy? Over at SEO Chicks I laughed (and stumbled) Lisa Ditlefsen's Master Baiter t-shirt. Would a SubBait tactic require a Sub Master Baiter t-shirt?

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Google recommends Text Link Ads

Google recommends Text Link Ads - how's that for a controversial title? It isn't a complete lie either. I love the new personalised search recommendation button from Google. Google does StumbleUpon.

Today's list of 50 recommendations includes Text-Link-ads.com. The irony is there for all to behold.

Given I spend my life online and live and breathe the twin obsessions of Search Marketing and Gaming (the old fashioned tabletop type of games) I wondered how well Google would do at making recommendations. Here's the list.

• [search] Keyword Selector Tool


• [gaming] The Hypertext d20 SRD


• [search] SEOBook


• [gaming] Wizards of the Coast


• [search] Commission Junction


• [gaming] Reaper Miniatures


• [search] Ad:Tech


• [gaming] Javascript D&D 3.5 Character Generator


• [search] SEO chat


• [gaming] White Wolf


• [search] Google PageRank Checker


• [gaming] Giant in the Playground Games


• [search] XML Sitemaps


• [gaming] Games Workshop


• [search] Text Link Ads


• [gaming] Dungeons and Dragons Tools


• [search] AdBrite


• [gaming] Infinite Interactive - The Challenge of the Warlords


• [search] Google Rankings


• [gaming] Fantasy Name Generator


• [search] 301 Redirect - How to create Redirects


• [gaming] RPG Sheets


• [search] High Rankings


• [gaming] System Reference Document 3.5


• [search] Ezine Articles


• [gaming] Gen Con


• [search] Submit Express


• [gaming] DriveThruRPG


• [search] Check Page Rank


• [gaming] BoardGameGeek


• [search] PageRank Prediction


• [gaming] RPGnet


• [search] Affiliate Guide


• [gaming] Fantasy Flight Games


• [search] Google Sitemap Generator


• [gaming] WizKids Games


• [search] LinkShare


• [gaming] Never Winter Nights 2


• [search] Google Page Rank Checker


• [gaming] RPGNow


• [search] Giving search engine spiders direction - 301 redirects


• [gaming] ENWorld


• [search] Marketleap Link Popularity Check


• [gaming] Mongoose Publishing


• [search] 136 SEO Tools


• [gaming] Profantasy Software


• [search] WebsiteOptimization.com - Tool


• [gaming] Wikipedia - List of Prestige Classes


• [search] AzoogleAds


• [gaming] Wikipedia - Dungeons & Dragons

How about that? Not just a 50%/50% split but the sites (listed in the order Google recommended) alternate preciselybetween [search] and [gaming].

An interesting twist is the number of 301 redirect articles and PageRank checkers on the list. Do I search for those? No! I know 301 redirects inside and out. I don't have PageRank obsession. I do write about 301 redirects and PageRank a lot, though, and I do run Google Desktop Search on all my computers and laptops. It could just be that if you pick a random [search] site then there's a high chance it'll be talking about 301s or PageRank but I do wonder whether Google is using my desktop data.

I also notice how Ezine Articles falls into place as a [search] site. Google clearly knows why people write articles or issue press releases.

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I support Matt Cutts

Ah-ah. Lots of SEO people normally like to reinforce how much they like Matt and how they got on well with him. I've only personally spoken to him a few times at SES this year - and I'm not going to claim anything more than that. What struck me was how pleased he was to talk to other search engine programmers but also webmasters.

I've not been afraid to be unpopular with this blog and say that I support nofollow. I even pushed the boat further out by explaining why link sellers are taking a risk. I imagine that if this blog had a higher readership then I would have had more angry comments.

It should come as no surprise that I wholeheartedly support Matt's post to encourage people to report paid links. Use the spam form (authenticated or not) and include "paidlink" in the text body.

A lot of people are hostile to this. Why?

• They've sold campaigns to clients and explicitly said they would buy links - now they're exposed
• They've convinced themselves that some paid links are appropriate - I think this is the most common one
• They make most of their money buying or selling links
• They need to buy links in order to get their SEO to work

The thing to note is this - Google's guidelines have said that ethical agencies report spam. They have said this for a while.

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Linking to other sites increases your stickyness

I really like Google Analytics. You can do more clever analytical reviews with it than many people assume. Ever since I kicked this blog out of the long grass at the start of the year I've been using user-defined segmentation. I've been tracking link clicks.

On this blog there are four types of clicks that I track:

• Blog Clicks - clicks on the blog roll
• External Clicks - clicks to external sites
• Nav Clicks - clicks on the navigation
• Social Clicks - clicks on the digg, del.icio.us, etc links at the bottom of the posts

The P/Visit column is the one to watch. This records the pages per visit. The highest value is on External-Clicks up at 2.89. That's nearly twice as many page views any other.

To be brutal - these are low P/Visit counts. Blogs tend to be low as readers pop in based on an RSS prompt or tag match and then leave again. However, this data goes back until Janurary so there is a clear trend.

This data should not be taken as scientific. I've not closed the test. I meddled with my tracking some point.

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Linkbaiting takes a hit with the fall of the Googlebomb

A certain Matt Cutts (I have a good feeling about him - I sense he'll go far in Google) over at Webmaster Central Blog has inscribed an epitaph to the Googlebomb.

Ryan Moulton and Kendra Carattini (I suspect we'll be seeing their names again) used some of their 20% time time to improve Google's algorithm, making it more robust to Googlebombing.

It seems that we're more likely to see results talking about the googlebomb rather than the googlebomb itself. I can see how this will work on the historic googlebombs but surely this will be trickier on any new attempt? It also looks as if the algorithm looks for related content to the Googlebomb attempt. The editorial opinion patent is coming into play here. This is a patent application which describes how an editorial opinion could influence the SERPs. This tweak looks like a practical use of the idea.

This will effect linkbaiting and widget promotion too. It's pretty easy to make sure that a widget has some search benefit too - just include an HTML element as well as the standard JavaScript. The catch now is that that HTML element will be the same all over the web. A wide number of blogs linking to your target site with the same anchor text due to your clever use of a widget will have a similar footprint as a googlebomb. The main difference in this example is that the Googlebomb links will tend to be contextual whereas the widget won't be.

Linkbaiting often has a similar footprint to a Googlebomb. If I titled a post Lisa Barone is Bruce Clay and published a cunning dossier of photoshopped evidence, if the linkbait works, then a host of search blogs would be linking to me with the Lisa Barone is Bruce Clay shocker anchor text but this new algorithm tweak may thwart me. Blogs writing about my sly linkbait attempt would win, especially if Google saw them as a favoured source.

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World of Search on Flickr (update)

The first World of Search on Flickr did very well. This is thanks to Andy Beal who not only picked the post up, but called it for the sly linkbait it was :) Did the post generate a lot of links? Eh. Well. No. But! It did move this only-recently-kick-started blog up a peg on the awareness ladder.

A number of SEOers have been added to the list. Here's who's new:

• Kim Krause Berg, cre8pc


• Scott Clarke, Site Creations


• Lara Kulpa, Anubis Marketing


• Rae Hoffman, Sugarrae


• Dave Dugdale


• Natala Menezes, Google


• Nathan Holman, Vizion Interactive


• Markus Urban, AU Interactive


• Camron Deen


• Tony Spencer


• Tamar Weinberg

Google Analytics, which I like a lot, proves that some SEOrs visited the site. I use the "Network Location" option (In Visitor Segment Performance) to see if any one "big and interesting" visited. I say "big" because you need to be more on the M side of the SME in order to have a network name for yourself. SEO consultants tend not to need a whole network of computers.

I can see that I had a visitor from Bruce Clay LLC. That doesn't necessarily mean it was Lisa Barone but that's not a silly guess. Also - and how cool is this - a visitor from Apple too. Here's the full list:

• Microsoft Corp


• Reprise Media LLC


• Kinetic Results


• Apple Computer


• i-level Ltd


• Bruce Clay LLC


• Yahoo Europe Operations

The screen shot is added as evidence. How come the Google Analytics list just shows these visitors and no one else? That's because the filter option supports the | or character.

Apple will probably leave "Apple Computer" footprints on the web for a while despite their re-name to "Apple Inc".

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Matt Brittin joins Google from Trinity Mirror

As the Guardian says:

His role will be UK-specific, working alongside Mark Howe, who is the UK director of sales focusing on agencies.

Google UK counts "agencies" as a vertical. When you visit you'll find Account Managers who specialise in the likes of Travel or Finance or... Agencies. Mr Brittin is coming in to oversee relationships with advertisers. I suspect this will be larger firms who come to Google directly.

Matt Brittin has come from Trinity Mirror where he was the the Directory of Strategy and Digital. The funny thing about Trinity Mirror is that I always associate them with the icNetwork because of a fairly aggressive sales call I was once ambushed with. Despite explaining again and again that we didn't buy links because we felt it was neither ethical nor in the best long term interest of clients it was one of those calls that would not finish. I need to have two phone manners; one for clients and one for everyone else.

The links there come from the bottom of icWales's homepage. Some links go to partner sites (also within Trinity Mirror) like AdZooks and other links point to competitor sites for Trinity Mirror properties.

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Answers.com sells links and still enjoys Google's favour

I don't do link buying. The search engine optimisation agency I work for does not do it either and takes the "white hat" approach of directory submissions, articles, press releases, social media and encouraging the client to have the right sort of quality content instead. It's important to me, to us, to do it right.

Back in September 2005 Matt Cutts wrote:

I wouldn’t be surprised if search engines begin to take stronger action against link buying in the near future.

The quote is from the Text Links and PageRank post.

Answers.com enjoys a special relationship with Google's GUI. If you search for any word or phrase then, in the top right, there is a link to Answers.com page about it. There are somethings to note here.

• For the most part Answers.com's context is duplicate and taken from elsewhere
• Google crawls Answers.com

I've never needed to scroll to the bottom of an Answers.com page before. However, I was checking why an Answers.com URL appeared as backlink to a finance site today. The answer? Answers.com seems to sell them.


Yuck. Just yuck.

Dictionary.com must have wept the day that they lost the right-hand spot from Google's GUI. Answers.com must have clapped with joy. The prototype Google GUI, which everyone has seen, with the PageRank-like bars on the left of the page looses this link though. Answers.com may still loose out. Further more, Google has the define search command which it could link in instead or, perhaps one day, use GoogleBase.

In the meantime I hope Google continues to crack down on link buying. A great way to do so would be to scare the heck out of link sellers. If you could harm your site's Google's presence for selling links... would you? No.

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Google crawling Google Finance

The days of me anally watching everything Google did are gone. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I had time to be a fan boy. It is a badge of pride. At work, I now have teams of people who watch what Google does and report to me. I'm still informed but it means I rarely get to "discover" stuff myself any more. A good thing I'm not an American guru who has to break discoveries to the blog and forum community as the only way to keep his profile in the limelight.

Here's today's discovery: Google has begun to crawl Google Finance.



That screen grab comes from a link: command too. Pretty neat. We've a backlink from Google Finance.

When Google Finance went live the general Google robots.txt blocked spiders from it. Now spiders can get in.

The other little spin here is that Google Finance uses event driven text. Text that is only visible to user when they mouse over the management team (check YHOO as an example) but which is visible to the search engines all the time.

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