I found the Cemper report to be pretty poor overall (sorry Cemper), but one very useful piece of data was the list of domains.

Here’s what I see on the hit Vs promoted sites:

Exact match keywords used in regular text (not internal anchors) on homepage (e.g. “Anchor Text”):
Multiple times (i.e. 6-10) | few times (1-2)
Domains name used in regular text rather than keyword (“AnchorText.com” vs. “Anchor Text”):
Little or no usage (<2) | More prevalent usage (>2)

The above could be signs of over-optimisation and relaince on exact matchj over brand.

Now the interesting part about links. While Cemper did come to the conclusion that links were the major element in EMD update, they really didn’t back this up very well with their data. Here’s what I found via Majestic SEO (again Hit | Promoted):

Level of EM Keyword anchors (e.g. “Anchor Text”):
Top anchors were EM | Top anchors diverse

Linking root domains:
High number of EM links from each linking domain | Low linking domain:anchor ratio

Top Anchors:
Mainly EM or commercial | Diverse anchors with far fewer EM

There’s no way to know what mix of signals Google uses (other than to be certain it’s complex), but my gut tells me it’s a blend of anchor/link type together with some obvious on-site over-optimisation signals. Basically EMDs without SEO might still enjoy a ranking boost (as per the promoted set of domains in Cemper report).

If correct then diversifying anchor text and reducing on-site optimisation might see EMDs increase rankings as Google refreshes the data.

Of course the above is all humble opinion, and as with everything SEO YMMV.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Thoughts on Google’s EMD update

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We Cant find Your Site On Google.ie

A client received this yesterday from a

—–Original Message—–
From: John Hartley [mailto:traffic@persimmonpublishing.com]
Sent: 28 July 2009 09:03
To: info@somesite.ie
Subject: I visited your website and had a question

Hello,

I was looking at websites under the keyword ‘widget services’ and came
across your site http://www.somesite.ie. I see that you’re ranked
first, but on page 7 in google.ie.

I’m not sure if you’re aware of why you’re ranked this low but more
importantly how easily this can be corrected.

There’s no reason you can’t have a top three ranking for this keyword
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.

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 thousands of people but I am currently
reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ as well. But you’re
my favourite and you are the one I really favour and the one I see I can
monetize the targeted website traffic our linking can deliver.

I have your contact info as: phone no: 01 xxx xxxx. 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,

John Hartley
Tel: 0845 301 7737
Director, Persimmon Publishing Ltd

Persimmon Publishing Ltd is Registered in England Reg. No. 05078726, VAT
No 723 369236.
Registered Office: 311 Shoreham Street, Sheffield S2 4FA, UK

I’ve redacted some info to protect the innocent. So let’s deal with all the “facts” offered by John.

Site Ranks #1 on Page 7 of Google.ie

“I see that you’re ranked first, but on page 7 in google.ie.”

For the keyword given by John (but redacted above) the site in question has ranked #1 pretty much constantly for a few years now. That’s #1 ‘web search’ on page #1 of google.ie.

Persimmon Publishing and Partners Run Domain and Link Farms

“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.”

So let’s be clear here – John and his ‘partners’ over at Persimmon Publishing own large networks of sites, and they can give you links that will help you rank just like that. Apart from being a somewhat shady SEO tactic, these guys can also turn off those links at any time. So what’s the difference between this and Adwords? Both are chronic, but you’re a lot less likely to get banned from Adwords.

The Inferred Blackmail Threat – Buy Our Service Or We’ll Help Your Competitors

“I didn’t send this email out to thousands of people but I am currently
reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ as well. But you’re
my favourite and you are the one I really favour and the one I see I can
monetize the targeted website traffic our linking can deliver.”

Actually I’m willing to bet that John Hartley of Persimmon Publishing Ltd probably did send this out to thousands of people. It’s most likely automated, although it has been written in a way to look fairly genuine.

But the blackmailing reference to contacting direct competitors is disturbing also. For hard-pressed business owners the possibility that this guy will go and point his link network onto a competitors site must be worrying. But you know – if you’re a sucker now what’s to stop the highly ethical Persimmon Publishing from raising your prices later to avoid them defecting to your competition?

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True…

For anyone worried about this – DONT. What these guys are offering (if it’s even real) might work for a few sites in the short term, but I guarantee it wont last in the long run. If you’re concerned about possible scams involving Google or SEO I’d recommend you read this. If you do receive an email from the same company I’d love to hear about it.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Beware Of SEOs Bearing Gifts

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First thought – the server was redirecting different UAs to different pages. But no, the redirect was exactly the same regardless of UA.

So how come different browsers ended up in different locations? In fact the Location was the problem:


HTTP/1.1 301·Moved·Permanently
Date:·Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:33:14 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-mhN: 4
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: http://www.example.com/pagename.html
Location: /
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/html
Cache-control: private


The problem was that the redirect header had two Location attributes. Firefox 3.5 followed the last Location value, while Chrome followed the first. In 2 different browsers the client ended up in different locations.

The answer: Each redirect header should have only 1 Location attribute, and the value should be a fully formed URL (a value of “/” is technically incorrect).

Hopefully this might help someone else debug a redirect which sends different browsers to different pages/locations.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: How Can A 301 Redirect Go To Different URLs?

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Even in 2008 there are still some ‘Online Marketing’ firms who offer the fantastic service known as search engine registration:

This is slightly reminiscent of Omniserve’s Google Rapid Inclusion ‘process’, but at £500STG this latest one sure aint cheap.

To anyone who might be seriously interested in search engine registration I suggest you take a look at Free Search Engine Rapid Inclusion Service.

Oh, and in case anyone (God knows who still reads any of my tripe…) is interested – this might be related to a certain Bord Failte Web Check Thread post I published a few days ago.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Search Engine Registration

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I wasn’t going to engage in this at all. For a few seconds I actually took offense at being singled out in Eoghan’s post, but as he sent me a note saying it was not personal that offense didn’t last.

But someone just pointed this bullshit twitter to me:

LOL at the linkbait debate. SEOs crack me up. Falling asleep with a grin on my face.

Maybe I’m reading that out of context? I hope so, because if not it shows who the real bullshitter in this is…

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Let’s Call Some Bullshit on The ‘SEO is Bullshit’ Bullshitter

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And as a case in point, the site I’ll be looking at may be a perfect case study for excessively linking to external sites. Let me introduce…

The cute whore

There’s a saying, I believe originating in Cork, which refers to certain individuals as ‘cute whores’. I’m not sure if it can be taken as derogatory, but when I use it I do so with respect for the individual I’m referring to. That cute whore in question is just about to go on his holidays, so this post may not be much use to him for a short while. But some use I do hope it will be.

The great SEO freebie give-away

Ok – I hold my hands up and say that the last few guys waiting for their free search engine optimisation reviews really have been waiting. So I’m trying to work my way through the last few site now, starting with Pat Phelan’s Roam4Free. But bear with me while I digress for an instant.

The purpose of business blogging (IMO)

In my view business blogging should have just one ultimate goal – to become an authority in your chosen field or niche. If as a business blogger you achieve that goal I am quite confident that business success will follow. I am thoroughly convinced of this.

In fact this belief is fodder for a post that I have been threatening for a long time, and a subject that I have discussed with an increasing number of people over the past few months. (I really should write the post.)

The reason for this interlude? Pat is a business blogger through and through.

Back to the SEO advice

From what I can determine Pat really is a cute whore. He’s a doer first, and a talker after. You cant but admire his achievements, and look forward to some of the new ideas he has up his sleeve (he’s been kind enough to share a titbit or two with me from time to time).

But Pat has also been blogging significantly over the past year or so. In fact, I think he has probably become somewhat of an authority on his chosen niche – telecoms, in particular VOIP telephony.

Back to the post topic please…

So what about excessive outbound linking?

Well in the case of the Roam4Free blog the homepage (as of 9am August 10) had 18 internal and 66 external links. So Pat is really linking out from his posts. Or so it would seem…

What’s really happening here is that Pat uses Technorati and Flcikr (amongst other web2.0 bits & bobs). So on every post Pat assigns some Tehnorati tags, and he hosts his images up on Flickr. I can remember once reading one of Pat’s posts in Greader. He had an image of Roam4Free in the post and I thought I’d give it a visit to see if he had launched anything new. It was a link, but it brought me over to Pat’s Flickr stream. Hello back button and crappy user experience (IMO).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that Flickr is bad, but I think that people like images, and often click on images, so it’s probably better to link intuitively rather than out to Flickr.

The real problem though is that Pat’s pages are littered with links to Flickr and Technorati, and these links are just spewing PageRank where it could be far better used internally on Pat’s site.

Suggestion #1

Add rel="nofollow" to all the outbound Technorati and Flickr links. If you do want to push some PR to those pages then perhaps do so selectively, e.g. have a link to your Flickr stream from the homepage, or build a page listing (and linking to) your Technorati tags.

I have to be honest and say that I’ve never been a huge fan of tagging, although I know it can have value. In this case those Technorati tags are just sucking the life out of Pat’s blog and really have to go. The same advice goes for the add-to-feed-reader links bottom navigation column. NOFOLLOW those fellas as well.

Suggestion #2

I looked for a robots.txt file and got this:

Error 404 – Not Found

Search bar and other tools go here! If you’re reading this, it needs to be implemented, remind me!

Well Pat, you also need to implement a robots.txt file to block out some of the content that you don’t want wasting Search Engines’ time. For instance, I can see literally hundreds of pages with URLs like index.php?tag=[tag]. At first I couldn’t figure where they were coming from. Then I saw that Pat is using two tagging methods within his posts – one to Technorati, the other within his site.

Well after NOFOLLOWING the Technorati links I think Pat should block access to the internal tag pages. I’m pretty sure that they will produce at least some dupe content, and I think Pat would do better to focus on his posts and categories. (TBH I would drop one or the other tagging techniques)

Here’s the start of what I think should go into Pat’s robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /index.php?tag=
Disallow: */trackback


The other benefit of blocking that content is that you wont be wasting PR on non-performing content. Currently it appears that Pat has almost 2.5k pages in the supplemental index. Most of these are comments feed and the aforementioned tag pages. But there’s quite a lot of post pages in there also. Retaining more PR internally on the site by removing the leakage (#1 above) and removing superfluous content should bring more of those pages back into the primary index.

(Personally I would NOFOLLOW my comment feeds as well, but advising that is sure to start an argument.)

Suggestion #3

Another reason for many of the post pages to go supplemental may be because of WordPress’ inherent pagination issues. These can be solved using Jamie Sirovich’s excellent PagerFix plugin.

The pagination issue will be especially important for Pat’s blog as he tends to be a serial poster making multiple posts on a any given good day. More posts = higher level of pagination.

In case you’re not aware of the pagination problem – the basic gist is that when you first publish a page it appears on your homepage. Then over time it rotates down to page 2. And then further again. Each time the post moves to an older page it adds one more click to the path from the homepage. Each extra click means less PR to the page. If you use WordPress’ default pager that is. PagerFix does just what the name suggests – fix the WordPress default pager.

Any further thoughts?

The only other thing I would suggest to Pat is possibly to link a little more to his own properties from within his posts. Pat has links to ‘Our Brands’ in the sidebar, but my experience is that links within the body content carry more weight, so don’t be afraid to Pat to plug yourself more often

I think that Pat might also be well advised to upgrade WordPress from 2.04 as there may be some security issues with that install.

Hope some of that will help you out Pat, and look forward tot he next toy you’ll be releasing soon.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Can Excessive Outbound Linking Hurt Your Rankings?

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You’ve probably never heard of him. His name is HalfDeck.

I came across HalfDeck over on the Google Webmaster Help Group. He claims not to be an SEO, but I always pay attention to the comments of two individuals more than all others on the Group – HalfDeck and Softplus (of GSiteCrawler fame). That’s not meant as a negative reflection on all the other great contributors who do absolutely trojan work on the Group. It is solely a reflection on my belief that these two guys have a technical knowledge of the subject matter that far outstrips most professional SEOs.

More about the Free SEO Course

HalfDeck is notorious for running experiments to better understand the algo. His site www.seo4fun.com is a treasure trove of experiments he has conducted over the years.

Now he is testing a theory about ranking a page based on relevance Vs. Pagerank:

If I can get at least 8 links pointing to this post with “seo course” somewhere in your anchor text, that should be enough to either prove or disprove my claim that what you publish and what people think of your page is as important if not more than where a page is published.

So there’s the link, and I look forward to the result.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Free SEO Course

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Just about everyone knows that spam is part and parcel of life. We just live with it and try to do our best to minimise the impact it has on our daily lives. Unfortunately spam is a particular issue for the SEO industry, as unscrupulous search marketers often turn to spamming techniques to make a quick dollar.

I get my share of spam at Red Cardinal. Generally I just delete the crap left by ‘kind’ spammers (like Cork Web Design Spammers), but occasionally I do a little digging to see what some of the particularly nasty spammers are at. More about spammers a little later – but first, let me tell you what I think of ‘Long Copy’.

Long Copy Pages for ‘SEO’ tools

I like to include screen shots of pages in my posts. I have a nifty little app that lets me grab entire screen shots from within the browser, not just the visible area.

I wanted to include the sales pages for two SEO tools, both of which use ‘long copy’. Here’s the screen shot of the two pages:

These pages are so ‘long’ that I had to reduce them by a factor of ~14 just to get them that small. Maybe they’re ‘Really Long Copy’, if there is such a thing. (If you want to view those pages in all their glory I’ve ‘published’ the URLs a little further down the page. In case you’re wondering what this is all about I’ll come clean in a second.)

These pages appear to be affiliate sites for two well known SEO tools. I’m not 100% sure what’s going on with these pages as they don’t appear to have affiliate IDs appended to the outgoing URLs. Perhaps the affiliate program uses HTTP referrers for identification. Perhaps these pages are actually proprietary sales pages. I’m don’t know for sure.

So what’s the problem with those sales pages? Purely my opinion, but they look and feel like ‘get-rich-quick’ pitches to me. The message I hear sounds like ‘I’ll sell you this great benefit. But wait, there’s more. Buy now and I’ll include x and y’. Yes, lots of marketers defend this technique. And I know it’s true that ‘long copy’ can be effective, but only when the content is compelling and does not feel like I’m being ‘sold’.

Long Page Copy – Read or Turn Off?

When I see long copy pages like these I just turn off completely. As I mentioned, I just think ‘get rich quick’.

I’ve stuck my neck out on this issue once or twice (hello Copyblogger). I sometimes wonder if perhaps long copy is a peculiar American technique that we just don’t fall for this side of the pond? (And if you’re interested Brian Clarke, a.k.a. Copyblogger, has written a post about the death of long copy.)

Back to the comment spam

So taking a step backward for a moment. Why am I highlighting those two affiliate pages? Keyword Elite and SEO Elite are marketed and sold by Bryxen Software (a firm owned by Brad Callen I believe). As with so much of the US on-line marketing industry, Bryxen uses ‘Long Page’ techniques to sell there software. They also make heavy use of affiliate programs to multiply their sales. A couple of weeks ago Red Cardinal received multiple comment spam like the following:

SEO Elite | +http://SEOElite.gurubuddy.com | IP: 216.16.246.184

seo firm…

Automate your link building efforts and rank high in the search engines easily….

and

Killer Keyword Tool | +http://Keywordelite.find-your-stuff.com | IP: 216.16.246.184

keyword lists…

Generate huge laser-targeted low competition, high demand keyword lists in minutes….

These comments were dropped on multiple posts, and, as you can see above, were left by the same IP. Odd? I think not. Probably the same bot. Checking the WHOIS shows find-your-stuff.com registered to someone in Singapore, while gurubuddy.com is privately registered.

Both of the tools being promoted are from Bryxen Software (Brad Callens company +http://www.bryxensoftware.com/), and the linked sites appear to be affiliates.

Comment Spam by ‘SEO’ Firms – Why SEO has such a BAD NAME

I am sure of one thing – spamming blog comments with links to long copy pages, such as those pictured above in miniature, is one of the main reasons the SEO industry has such serious reputation problems. It is very, very hard to blame people for viewing the SEO industry with suspicion. After all, every day the results of spammers litter our websites and pollute our on-line experience.

The reputation problem is only compounded given that the products marketed by the above spammers are well-known SEO tools: comment spam + SEO tools = SEO spammers. And how can we blame people for making that connection.

I’m very interested in your thoughts on ‘long copy’, and whether you have been converted by a ‘long copy’ page like the ones above.

And if you’re thinking of buying these tools, think about this…

I neither own nor use either of these tools. They may well be excellent tools, and perform their respective task extremely well – I don’t know. But if you want to do the world a favour, don’t buy products that are marketed by spammers.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: A Dose Full of Comment Spam, Long Copy Referrer Pages & SEO Tools – What Do YOU Think?

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The most famous ‘Google Bomb’ was for ‘miserable failure‘, which previously pointed at the White House bio page of George Bush. Searches on that query now produce results pointing at references to ‘Google Bombing’.

What was Google Bombing?

Google Bombing was the practice of extremely heavy and concerted linking campaigns using a particular anchor phrase. In the case of George Bush, links were created using the anchor text ‘miserable failure’:

<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html">miserable failure</a>

Previously Google apparently considered both the anchor text and volume of links as a proxy for authority for a particular search phrase. This no longer happens.

But could this change affect your rankings?

Although we cannot be sure whether these algorithm changes have a threshold before they kick in (I’m sure it’s not so simple), it is worth considering the implications for regular link building efforts. The change seems to filter results – I couldn’t find Mr. Bush’s bio ranked at all for the phrase ‘miserable failure’.

Now Google is known for employing the brightest minds on the planet, and it’s very likely that the changes will not affect any sites other than those that previously ranked well after ‘Google Bombing’ campaigns. That said, Google has been known to make the odd mistake here and there.

If your back link profile is heavily skewed toward one or two anchor text phrases you could see your rankings affected by these changes. I imagine sites that target unrelated or semi-unrelated search phrases would be more at risk.

Varying you anchor text has always been a pre-requisite…..

Professional link builders and SEOs should already know to create a varied anchor text profile for their clients. But in cases where a large proportion of any particular backlink profile target an anchor phrase for which a site is not well trusted you might run foul of this tweak.

It might be timely to watch some of the highly optimised niches to see if any other sites are affected by this.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Say Goodbye to ‘Google Bombing’ & Hello to ‘Take Care with Your Anchor Text’

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Those Awards, a ‘Best Site’, and some META tag fun optimisation

I swore that I wouldn’t mention those awards again (see, I kept my word :mrgreen:), but this post has led to a rather large amount of traffic.

It appears that many people are hitting Red Cardinal off searches for “moviestar”. Here’s a quick screen shot of the Google results for that term:

(You’ll have to take my word for it when I say that my post ranked #2 for that search for a long time. I’m now at #5. Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ve no idea why www.beingthere.com/ is returned at the current #2? And one more thing, does anyone else find that ‘Movistar’ suggested listings in the middle useful?)

Here’s a larger image of my blog post listing on that page:

When I wrote that post I was a little angry at said awards. So I gave the post a META description of “moviestar.ie is NOT the Best Website Launched in 2006″. And boy have I got some traffic from people searching for “moviestar”.

Meta Tag Optimization alive & well

First off, Meta Description tags have little or no ranking benefit. What content you stick in that tag wont make your site rank any higher (well, for Google anyway). But that tag can be hugely powerful for websites that do rank well. That’s because Google generally uses your META Description for the snippet underneath your page URL in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

When you think about your META description tags, you should think of them in terms of getting click throughs, not ranking.

As people searched for “moviestar” many saw my snippet. That snippet aroused curiosity and served as a good call-to-action. And people did act – by clicking and visiting my post.

So next time you’re creating your unique META descriptions for each page (did I mention that unique descriptions on each page reduces the chance of duplicate content filters hitting your site?) you should think about searchers. And you should think about your descriptions as headlines – the more attractive your headline the more likely you will receive that click over a less interesting or off-topic snippet.

People still believe in Meta Tag Optimization

Just as a parting note, I took a quick look in my favourite keyword tool to see what people search for. And they are still searching on phrases related to meta tag optimisation:

[Update] The actual search query is actually “moviestar.ie” (without quotes) – yes, you’d be absolutely surprised at the number of people who search for a domain name.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Who Said META Tag Optimization Was Dead?

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SEM for Emerging Markets.

Quite interesting and shares some parallels with Ireland, which is very much at the nascent stage of search marketing.

Does anyone think that Search Marketing is going to take off next year here in Ireland, and if so what will drive that?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Search Marketing in Emerging Markets

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Alexa collects statistics on general Internet usage from the browsing habits of millions of Alexa toolbar users. This data is then presented on the Alexa website.

Can you trust Alexa?

There’s are one or two problems though – Alexa is too easy to game, and the toolbar users are very often extremely biased both geographically and technically (heavily US tech users).

But, without prejudice to these issues, Alexa does have some nice features. For instance you can compare traffic data from a number of sites over long periods of time.

Strange what you run into

Recently while searching for some info on a particular Irish Property site I noticed a SERP entry for www.alexaholic.com:

This page had been set up by a visitor to alexaholic.com who entered the following five Irish property websites:

1. www.myhome.ie (blue line)
2. www.daft.ie (red line)
3. www.funda.ie (green line)
4. www.sellityourself.ie (brown line)
5. www.privateseller.ie (cyan line)

So what? I hear you ask

Of course just about anybody could have gone over to alexaholic.com and set up this comparison (the site is public and free). But what really caught my eye was the trends of some of the sites.

Now before I go on let me explain that I studied economics at TCD for 4 years, and had a healthy (or perhaps unhealthy) interest in the stock markets. In particular I had an interest in charting and technical analysis.

Trends

Not withstanding the Alexa bias, the following trends are quite interesting:

• November an December are bad months for the property websites;
• Until Q4 2005 both myhome.ie and daft.ie were joint leaders for website reach;
• December 2005 saw myhome.ie visits plunge, while Daft.ie failed to set a new low for the year;
• Since 2005 the paths have diverged significantly for the two large property sites;
• Daft.ie Internet reach appears to have become more volatile but a clear up trend is in place (higher highs, higher lows);
• Myhome.ie conversely has entered a very clearly defined down trend – their reach is falling.

The €50m website

Myhome.ie was bought by the Irish Times last July for a reported €50m. Although no accuracy can be attributed to the Alexa data, over large sample sizes the trends reported may be representative of the actual actual figures.

If so the Irish Times may have quite a job on their hands catching up with Daft.ie.

Funda

Toward the recent area of the chart you might notice a blip in the green line. This is the data for Funda.ie which launched with the Dublin Coastal Development back in September.

The chart shows the uphill struggle Funda will have to compete with the big boys of Irish on-line property.

A pinch of salt

Of course you can’t trust Alexa data. But the charts still give some food for thought and give some indication of the competitive environment facing websites in the Irish property niche.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Irish Property Sites Keeping an Eye on Each Other?

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As there has been quite a bit of discussion recently over on the Enterprise Ireland board about SEO and keywords, I thought this post might be timely.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is probably one of the most important elements of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately keyword research is also very difficult to conduct. In a nutshell, no one method of keyword research is infallible. You have to mix it up. So the more tools you use the better the possible results.

Keyword Discovery

There are many keyword research services available, some free, some not. Keyword Discovery is one such service. It has built a solid reputation over the years for the breadth of it’s keyword database. The only downside is the cost – $69 per month for the cheapest plan.

Nichebot2

For the past 2 months I have been Beta testing a new service – Nichebot2 (yes, that’s an affiliate link, but I don’t go bandying those around willy nilly, and I only earn something if you like the service). Nichebot2 basically gives you a finite amount of access to the Keyword Discovery Premium service for a much lower monthly fee.

As I mentioned, I’ve been trying it out, and find both interface and functionality to be very good (better than Keyword Discovery). Many of the features are very well thought out (e.g. facilities to save, sort, export, clean and filter lists) and the site includes good video tutorials to help you on your way. There are also some good free tools if you’re just looking for some short keyword lists.

Nichebot2 goes live on November 14 and trial accounts cost just $1. The monthly subscription thereafter is $9.95/$19.95 depending on the service level. You can also buy top-up credits if you go over your monthly search allowance.

The affiliate link wont cost you any more, but if you prefer just a plain link, here you are.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Access To Keyword Discovery For $1

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Without naming names I came across an Irish web design company (offering SEO of course) that touted their W3C credentials:

W3C compliant design

Professional web site design using CSS and XHTML to W3C standards.

Suffice it to say the W3C Validator didn’t agree.

In fact it almost got sick :mrgreen::

# Error Line 1 column 0: no document type declaration; implying “< !DOCTYPE HTML SYSTEM>“.
# Error Line 13 column 6: required attribute “TYPE” not specified.
# Error Line 52 column 16: there is no attribute “TOPMARGIN”.
# Error Line 52 column 31: there is no attribute “LEFTMARGIN”.
# Error Line 241 column 123: there is no attribute “BORDERCOLOR”.
# Error Line 241 column 140: there is no attribute “HEIGHT”.
# Error Line 259 column 69: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 263 column 69: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 266 column 27: there is no attribute “BACKGROUND”.
# Error Line 266 column 27: an attribute value must be a literal unless it contains only name characters.
# Error Line 268 column 91: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 276 column 69: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 294 column 34: document type does not allow element “DIV” here; missing one of “APPLET”, “OBJECT”, “MAP”, “IFRAME”, “BUTTON” start-tag.
# Error Line 301 column 34: document type does not allow element “DIV” here; missing one of “APPLET”, “OBJECT”, “MAP”, “IFRAME”, “BUTTON” start-tag.
# Error Line 307 column 20: document type does not allow element “DIV” here; missing one of “APPLET”, “OBJECT”, “MAP”, “IFRAME”, “BUTTON” start-tag.
# Error Line 313 column 20: document type does not allow element “DIV” here; missing one of “APPLET”, “OBJECT”, “MAP”, “IFRAME”, “BUTTON” start-tag.
# Error Line 319 column 20: document type does not allow element “DIV” here; missing one of “APPLET”, “OBJECT”, “MAP”, “IFRAME”, “BUTTON” start-tag.
# Error Line 342 column 69: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 354 column 69: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 358 column 75: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 386 column 100: value of attribute “ALIGN” cannot be “ABSBOTTOM”; must be one of “TOP”, “MIDDLE”, “BOTTOM”, “LEFT”, “RIGHT”.
# Error Line 416 column 160: document type does not allow element “TABLE” here; missing one of “APPLET”, “OBJECT”, “MAP”, “IFRAME”, “BUTTON” start-tag.
# Error Line 535 column 105: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 608 column 75: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 612 column 75: required attribute “ALT” not specified.
# Error Line 680 column 6: end tag for “DIV” omitted, but its declaration does not permit this.

Now that is just bloody awful. It borders on the criminal. OK, I exaggerate, but leaving out the DOCTYPE is just THE cardinal sin in compliant standard web coding.

If you’re going to promote W3C standards you should at least practice what you preach.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: If You’re Going To Promote Your W3C Credentials…

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According to UK-based NetCraft there are now over 100m websites hosted on the planet:

Previous milestones in the survey were reached in April 1997 (1 million sites), February 2000 (10 million), September 2000 (20 million), July 2001 (30 million), April 2003 (40 million), May 2004 (50 million), March 2005 (60 million), August 2005 (70 million). April 2006 (80 million ) and August 2006 (90 million).

Apparently the rate of growth has accelerated considerably in the past year with over 27 million new sites since January. That far outpaces the equivalent figure for the whole of last year – 17 million new sites.

Of course the real significance here is that more content makes things harder to find, and when things are harder to find on-line most people turn to the search engines.

With so many sites out there competing getting found has never been so important.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: 100m Reasons Why We Can’t Live Without Search

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Today there are multiple ways to get noticed on-line. For the vast majority of Internet users Search is predominant route taken to your website.

When it comes to marketing for Search Engines there are two techniques available to you:

1. SEM Search Engine Marketing (e.g. Adwords, YPN); and
2. SEO Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Marketing

The phrase Search Engine Marketing may not be well known to most, but I’m pretty sure that just about everybody who has gone on-line in the past few years has seen SEM in practice. When you use a Search Engine you are presented with a SERP (Search Engine Result Page) for your particular search phrase or word. Here’s an example of a Google search screen (with the SEM paid results highlighted):

Most people are very familiar with this image. To the right of the search results is a narrow column with a number of stacked text adverts. If you look carefully you can just about make out the ‘Sponsored Links’ title at the top of that column.

These adverts are displayed after an auction process – publishers pay Google (‘paid search’) to display their ad in this space, with the highest bidder receiving the highest placement.

Every time someone clicks on those sponsored links Google receives a payment form the publisher of that ad.

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO, on the other hand, refers to techniques used to achieve a higher ranking in Google’s main (‘organic’ or ‘natural’) results:

Google receives no payment for placement in these results. A website’s ranking is determined automatically by search engine algorithms. The higher your rankings the greater the traffic you receive relative to competitor sites.

Search engine optimisation is all about understanding the algorithms employed by the major search engines and optimising those factors that algorithmically enhance your website’s rankings.

Why SEO is more important than SEM

In a nutshell, SEM is a quick fix. The day you stop paying for those ads you will lose all new traffic.

Worse still, the day your competitors decide to bid 5c or 10c more for your keywords you will find that your ad has dropped off the first results page. You might be able to control the cost per click but you cannot control the cost of absolute traffic.

SEO can take time. SEO can be expensive. But when you do attain high organic listings your site cannot be toppled by a mere incremental bid.

Those trusted top organic positions are just that – trusted, and people see the paid listings for what they are – paid.

SEO is a sustainable long-term promotional strategy

SEM is great for the short-term promotion of a website. It gives your site that initial hit that can result in visitors and revenue. But at a cost.

In the long term sustainable high profit strategies convert into higher profit and lower acquisition costs. Those strategies are built around high organic placements and that’s why SEO is more important than SEM.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Why SEO Is More Important Than SEM

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It appears that liberal bloggers in the US are preparing to Google Bomb a number of well known Republican politicians. By linking to unflattering news reports using the politician’s name in the anchor text the bloggers hope to manipulate search engine SERPs for searches on that politician.

Google bombing is not new, but this is perhaps the first time that the tactic has been used by mainstream politics to damage their opponents.

Previously Google bombing was regarded as an ‘activist’ activity (e.g. telecoms poodle), but now that it has hit the mainstream I wonder how long until commercial interests use this tactic in an effort to damage the reputation of their competitors?

I also wonder if Google might start to consider ways to block the bomb in the future?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Google Bombing An Election – Search As A Political Weapon

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As the web continues to change and evolve, our algorithms change right along with it. Recently, as a result of one of those algorithmic changes, we’ve modified our webmaster guidelines. Previously, these stated:

Don’t use “&id=” as a parameter in your URLs, as we don’t include these pages in our index.

However, we’ve recently removed that technical guideline, and now index URL’s that contain that parameter.

So you don’t need to worry about id parameters in the URL any longer, with the following caveat:

….dynamic URL’s with a large number of parameters may be problematic for search engine crawlers in general, so rewriting dynamic URLs into user-friendly versions is always a good practice

This is great news for any site owner that has experienced issues associated with Google mistaking their URL query strings for session id’s.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Google Change Their Webmaster Guidelines

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Here’s a list of my top 13 sins (in no particular order) that will see your advances spurned by Google:

1. Flash-only sites

   No matter what people tell you, getting any sort of decent ranking for Flash-based websites is always going to be far tougher than for the HTML-based equivalent. Flash may look great and often offer a great user experience, but from a Search Engine point of view Flash is a death-trap.

2. Canonical URL issue

   It’s quite well documented that Google sees the non-www and www version of any website as different pages. If your site is accessible via both www and non-www URL you may have some indexing and supplemental issues with Google (to test this type your website address into your browser using first the www.yoursite.com and then yoursite.com and see if either redirects to the other). You can find an entire post about this over on Matt Cutts’ blog.

3. Zero backlinks

   I am yet to see Google index any site that has no backlinks from an external website. While Google may crawl your site (e.g. if you use Google’s submission tool), your site must have at least one backlink to get any pages indexed. The higher the quality of any backlinks the quicker your site will be indexed. (Oh, and just a quick mention that Google’s link: operator only displays a sample of the backlinks your site has. If you want a more complete listing head over to Yahoo SiteExplorer.)

4. Nothing or little to index

   By their nature Search Engines love text. They really love text. Text contained in images cannot be indexed by Google so that beautiful page you just created in Photoshop and uploaded to your webserver as an image file won’t get much lovin’ from Google tonight. Similarly, if your pages contain little text you shouldn’t expect Google to attach much importance to them. (Flash sites also come under this heading but are so notoriously difficult to rank that they deserved their very own listing :))

5. Duplicate content

   Google has a thing for original content. It just eats it up. On the other hand it particularly likes spitting out content which the filters think has been ripped off. So when you copy someone else’s website word-for-word Google isn’t going to think you’re too clever. Duplicate content issues can also occur when pages on your site are accessible via more than one URL (the canonical URL issue in #2 above can also come into play here).

6. Where’s your server? What’s your ccTLD?

   If you are thinking about what TLD domain to use and where to host your website consider this: a site hosted in the US with a .com TLD will not show up in the ‘pages from Ireland’ index. Only sites which Google deems Irish will appear in the Irish search index.

7. Linking to ‘bad neighbourhoods’

   Google tries very hard not to penalise sites based on where their backlinks come from (which makes sense). They do however come down hard on sites that link out to bad neighbours. What constitutes a bad neighbour? Well you can be pretty sure that if you link to adult sites, drugs (pharma) sites or gambling sites that Google isn’t going to look favourably on you.

8. Dead-end objects

   Have you ever clicked on a link to be taken to page with no links? Doesn’t make for a good user experience and search engine spiders aren’t too hot on these pages either. Spiders like to be able to move from one page to another via links. When there are no links on a page the spider is likely to head off elsewhere. So be friendly to the Googlebot and give him as much direction as you can.

9. Cloaking/doorway pages

   Now this is a really big no-no. If there’s one thing Google dislikes it’s when a website displays one version for human visitors and another for the Googlebot. Commonly referred to as a black-hat technique, cloaking is becoming far less prevalent. Do you remember what happened to BMW?

10. Artificial link networks

    When your site goes from having a handful of backlinks to having several thousand overnight you can be quite sure your site is going to be flagged by Google’s quality algo. Google is constantly on the lookout for link networks and rapidly devalues links found to be less than genuine.

11. Hidden text

    Another big no-no is hidden text. As with cloaking, Google likes to see exactly what your human visitors see. If you hide text via CSS or otherwise on your pages you risk the wrath of a Google ban. (If you want to quickly check a page for hidden text press CTRL+a to highlight all text. FireFox users can click CTRL+Shift+s do disable external style sheets.)

12. Build it and they will come

    Well no they wont actually. If your content has no link popularity then don’t expect to come top of the SERPs for anything other than the most off-beat search queries. The most important variable required to achieve good rankings for any page in Google is the link swarm pointing at that content (note: this is my opinion and relates to all but the least competitive search terms). This variable is measured across both the quality and quantity axes – the right links are far more powerful than a mulitude of ‘wrong’ links.

13. Session id’s in your qury string

    Google explicitly states that having any variable in your URL that could be mistaken for a session ID is likely to cause problems for the Googlebot. If your URLs use anything that looks like

    www.mydomain.com/index.php?id=234523353

    you might want to consider revising your page names.

The above list is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to Google indexing problems, but I hope it covers some of the issues that I see recurring fairly often on many webmaster forums and the Google Webmaster Group. (I post under the nickname RedCardinal on quite a few forums and the Webmaster Group.)

In my next post I will be looking at the steps you can take to get the most love from Google.

P.S. If you are looking for Google’s webmaster guidelines they can be found here.

P.P.S If you have any items you would like to add to this list why not leave a comment below

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: 13 Deadly Google Sins – Is Your Website Committing Any of These?

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If you are involved with SEO you probably know that keyword rich domain names receive a certain bais in search results. If you are targeting the search phrase ‘blue widget’ then having the domain name ‘bluewidget.tld’ (replace’.tld’ with your favoured TLD) will get you a boost in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

So just how much bang for your buck can a well targeted domain name give you?

Well as a case in point take a look a the this search. Currently the #1 ranking site is www.powerwashingireland.com (this site has nothing to do with me):

Now my gut feeling is that this site will shortly disappear. Looking at the whois data tells me the following:

Creation date: 22 Sep 2006 10:05:18

while looking at the backlinks:

1 to 1 of 1
URL: www.turnkeyrevolution.com
ANCHOR: Power Washing Ireland

What is interesting is that Google gives this site top ranking. A site with a young keyword-rich domain name (should have very low trust) and just one targeted text link got to #1 for this search phrase (also #1 for allinanchor: with and without quotes).

Why do I think this site will shortly disappear? Well Google is notorious for giving a short-term boost to new sites and quickly relegating those sites to the sandbox for certain search phrases.

I’m going to keep an eye on this particular site – it should be a very good test subject showing how Google treats keyword-rich domain names.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Keyword-Rich Domain Names

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Look, I’m really, really sorry Funda, but I hope this isn’t the end product? Come on? After the great viral I know you have to have something else for us?

Well I suppose I’ll have to give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Their site obviously wasn’t ready in time (the help page is a bit of a laugh).

Maybe after watching that video I was expecting to get bells and whistles galore and some strong unique site features to attract home buyers.

Well it’s all very basic (especially when compared with funda.nl). I’m a wee bit surprised and somewhat disappointed to be honest. The dutch are well known for their JS coders, and those page refreshes onSelect of county/city are ugly. In fairness, the detailed views aren’t too bad, but again a bit of spiffing up with some JS and DOM scripting would make the user experience a whole lot better.

Curiously (for me anyway), Funda.ie don’t bother with the page title (unless they hope to rank for ‘Detail’) and file name structure is going to make it extremely hard to get the site indexed. (Come on, I had to get in something about the SEO!)

I did notice that Funda are looking for both a lead and a developer so I’m sure the website will improve soon.

Oh, and I’m still waiting for the big surprise follow-through that gets us all talking about Funda Ireland and not Dublin Coastal Development. Please don’t let me down Funda.

[Edit - Jason Roe has also been blogging about Funda and the Dublin Coastal Development and has conducted one or two experiments to rank for related key phrases.]

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Dublin Coastal Development a LOT Slicker Than Funda.ie

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Searching Google Trends for the term ‘search engine optimisation‘ returns an interesting result:

Interestingly, while news coverage seems to have increased, the search volume for ‘search engine optimisation’ has been steadily decreasing.

Bad press perhaps?

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: SEO getting bad press?

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Links to your site are one of the most important factors used by the Search Engines in deciding whether your site is listed #1 or #500 for any given search phrase. (I previously discussed the importance of ranking using the AOL data.)

Every link to your site found on the Internet counts as 1 ‘vote’. Oh, didn’t you know? Democracy rules on-line!

It’s an Election Every Day

Just like in the real world not everyone’s vote is equal, and rigging the count isn’t as difficult as you might imagine.

So which votes count more than others? Well they happen to be the votes that the counters ‘trust’. In our case that means links from websites that the Search Engines ‘trust’.

Who Do You Trust?

Link ‘trust’ is a function of a number of factors, but suffice to say that older websites that contain shed loads of quality content and are linked to by similar sites would generally be trustworthy.

One Person, One Vote?

In the real world each individual should have just one vote. It doesn’t quite work like this in the virtual world. On the Internet it is easy enough to vote over and over again.

Search Engines count links to determine how popular you are (link popularity). But more importantly, they check the anchor (this is an anchor) text to decide what your popular for.

Working The Phrase

The key to getting listed in most Search Engines for any given search phrase is to have enough links pointing at your site containing that phrase in the anchor text.

If you want your site to rank well for ‘purple monkey dishwasher’ then you would try to create as many links as possible (on trustworthy sites of course) pointing at your site using the anchor ‘purple monkey dishwasher’.

Google Bombing

Creating an overwhelming number of links is referred to as ‘Google Bombing’, the most famous examples of which are failure and liar.

And closer to home, it appears that a certain broadband lobbying group may have inspired its own mini Google bomb for the term ‘telecoms poodle‘. Well deserved it is.

So now you know that the anchor can be your friend, but it can also be your enemy. Just ask Comreg!

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Text Links Can Bring You Joy….

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You should check out the clickthrough heatmap for Google (Figure 5: The Golden Triangle – Eye Tracking on Google Results (Hotchkiss 2005)) which shows the importance of the top 3 positions in Google SERPs.

The synopsis contains some other good reference material also.

If you are interested in the original Hamburg University study (not a bad read if you have the time and interest) you can view it here.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Excellent Academic Study of Clickstreams

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