Archive for the ‘Effective SEO’ Category
Maybe its just me, but it seems as though lately everybody seems to have an answer since Google’s proverbial SEO “wrench in the gearbox” desecration of the SERPS. It took a couple of months for them to regroup, but they seem to be back again, maybe even stronger? They had to redesign their silly splash pages, write new content, and record new video’s, but the SEO guru’s are back …unfortunately.
Fortunately for me I know better, and from what I’ve wasted my time reading thus far, I know that these purported SEO guru’s don’t know squat about panda’s either. How do I know this? Real simple. Actually open one of the bazillion emails that your inbox and spam folders have been littered with, go to the ugly splash page, and cull a couple of the keywords and long tail phrases from their site and do some random searches. See what I mean? You don’t see their pathetic splash pages there, do you? Yea, and you were actually considering spending the $3-500 for their “guaranteed” backlink generator submission tool thingy, right? Why would you buy something from someone when they can’t even demonstrate that it works for them for effective SEO?
Tip#1
Take your hand off the mouse and step away from the monitor if your thinking about blowing your hard-earned money on some magical devise that will help your site rank high in the SERPS. There is no single devise. Are there software programs and submission tools out there that will help with your SEO? Absolutely! But you better be careful where you step in Google’s minefield because your surely to get your leg blown off!
Tip#2
If your going to implement some effective SEO campaigns you have to be versatile and very, very patient. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, and surely don’t jam 1,000 backlinks to your website in one month. I personally go for quality before quantity, and I’ve heard that perhaps 2-300 backlinks per months doesn’t seem to sending up any red flags, but I would be very careful… If you have to, buy a couple good high PR links, but make sure they come from aged domains that have decent archives, not just jammed content for the past 6-12 months.
By the way, I thought that I would mention that my friend James has got some tips if you need to recover from Google. A lot of good reading over there, and since Griz has been on the lamb “working” — how dare he — I’ve had to find a new source to read from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. How do I know that they now? HINT: “experiments” ;-)
First off I wish to thank all the visitors to this site, and I thank you for your interest and all of your comments as well. That is, of course, with the exception of the SPAMMERS and the PORN SPAM comments.
For those of you who are not familiar with Keyword Luv, please follow this link to better understand how it works: Keyword Luv.
SPAMMERS:
Don’t waste your time — I moderate each and every comment that is submitted to this site. Moreover, before I approve a comment I take the following steps:
- I visit the submitted URL and all site pages
- I analyze the site with the SEOQuake plugin and other tools.
- I automatically delete comments that have anchor text or URL’s in the body of the comment. Not only is it redundant, but with my implementation of “Keyword luv” you can attain a quality anchored text backlink back to your site.
To use the Keyword luv feature simply submit your comments as follows:
Name field: “Your name” “@” “Desired anchor word(s)” Example: “Rich@backlink Builder”. This will give your comment the anchored backlink of “Backlink Builder” for whatever URL you submit :-)
Again, thank for everyone’s visits, interests, and I look forward to approving lots of anchored backlinks to some quality sites!
Backlinks Maintenance
I religiously awake at 3AM every day, fire-up the coffee pot, brush my teeth, log into the computer, smoke a few drags of a cigarette, pour a cup of coffee, and grab a seat at the computer. Every Day! Now some, if not most of you may think I’m nuts — my fiance surely thinks that I am! But average people do not understand the maintenance involved with attending several websites and blogs either. Its a lot more than creating a site, building a few backlinks, and letting it sit there. For example. Do you see the pretty YouTube icon to the right over there? I know, you can’t miss it… That simply happens to be a reciprocal backlink in action. And, I might add the link from YouTube is “follow”! That little project took me about 1-1/2 hours to implement; from creating the YouTube channel, to finding the YouTube icon image, editing it in Photoshop, and uploading it into cPanel and creating the HTML widget to display it on the page. Yea, I’m a little slow, but I’m okay with slow.
You see, I am the type of person who likes to invest constructive time in the process of building natural backlinks to my sites. Although there are many automated link-building software programs out there, I am kind paranoid of being slapped by Google and having any of my sites disappear into cyberspace oblivion because I was too lazy or inpatient to invest a little bit of time into my project(s). A lot of people probably think that I’m nuts for doing things the old fashioned way in this regard too, but when things go bad for these link-building sites and the penalties start being imposed, my investment won’t seem so bad, will it? I thought you might see things my way, and if not I wish you all the best in your risk-taking endeavors. For me it’s simply not worth it.
Comment Moderation
Now in addition to the development processes of my site I also have the painstaking endeavor of moderating my comments and the litany of SPAM that comes in to. For those of you who post relevant comments I apologize for utilizing the term “painstaking” to describe my comment moderation obligation, because in many cases I enjoy reading your comments and answering any questions, etc.
Although I utilize the Akismet application, some times individuals like to post multiple comments with the same text and different backlinks associated with the same text in their comments. I personally categorize those comments as SPAM, period! I mean hey, if you want a backlink I am more than happy to share, but at least take the time to write something constructive to provide some meaningful conversation, questions or whatever? Its only fair in my estimation. And please don’t utilize the same text for multiple backlinks. I’ll give multiple backlinks, but at least invest some time to comment — its really not too much to ask. As you can see from the comments that pass my muster, there are some relatively decent comments from various people and their websites or blogs. And the backlinks in those comments get the follow tag as well. In all cases I will first visit the site from the comment source to ensure that the site is not SPAMMY! Like my article on co-citation clearly describes, I simply don’t want this site or any other to be associated with any SPAM, period! Is this system perfect? Probably not. But its personalized and I have fun doing the work… Speaking of which, It’s time for me to head to my day job so this post is going to be cut shorter than what I anticipated.
Now go get some backlinks and be kind and constructive in your endeavors…
Why Not Link To Sites With Low Page Rank?
It’s no secret in the SEO world that quality, relevant, reciprocal links added to a site in appropriate numbers at reasonable intervals may very well improve a site’s appeal by Google. Moreover, gaining backlinks from high PR (Page Rank) sites provides a higher grade of influence for your site by virtue of the linking sites achieved status via their established Google Page Rank. But does that necessarily mean that sites with low or even zero PR do not provide useful backlinks? And how do you suppose that these high PR sites gained their authority to begin with?
It is estimated that about 99 million of the internet’s approximate 110 million websites never attain a position in Google’s SERPS to really matter. And although most webmasters refuse to admit or otherwise believe it, Google’s algorithms pay very little attention to PR when assigning return positions. So then, if PR is practically irrelevant to your sites return position in the SERPS, and return position is the only thing that determines if you will get page views via Google’s natural search results, then why not get backlinks to low PR sites?
Google, as it has been repeatedly stated in its official pronouncements, considers backlinks an integral and essential part of the web experience; using them as a factor in both its assigned ranking and return position. Just as good links are good links and can be beneficial for your site, bad links are often harmful for your site. The difference between how a link to a so-called “popular” website with a high PR and a less popular site with a lower PR impacts a given site’s return position is simply just a matter of such small degree that PR should really bear no relevance whatsoever in your backlink campaign. The simple TRUTH is that backlinks to quality, content-compatible sites with low or even no PR will not hurt your ranking and can actually drive traffic and customers to your site!
Contrary to the unfounded belief of many webmasters that only PR matters, there simply is nothing in the Google Guidelines which states that they penalize sites for having good but not high PR backlinks. As a matter of fact, the guidelines clearly state that the following “black-hat” linking practices may affect a site’s ranking adversely:
- link schemes designed to increase ranking or Page Rank
- links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web
The Google Guidelines say absolutely nothing about downgrading any website or blog for a quality backlink from a relatively new or otherwise under-ranked site. As such, because there is nothing contained within the guidelines about penalizing good links to low-ranked sites, it is absolutely illogical and bad business practice to refuse a link that would otherwise provide valuable information to your end users, or by creating a portal for new prospects to your site, simply due to the that link’s low PR status.
My suggestion is that when in doubt, read the directives from the source! Don’t fall for all that hype from third parties who get their facts mixed up, or simply create dissension for the sake of acquiring visitors to their sites…
How To Avoid The Bad Neighborhood Blues
I can only suspect that you have managed to find your way to this site because your interest falls into either or both of the following two categories:
a) You are a social blogger looking for popularity and/or fame; or
b) You are a webmaster looking to brush-up on or advance your backlink skills for the sole purpose of successful internet marketing.
Now as most of you may or may not know, the term “SEO” is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. And it is no secret that gaining backlinks is the primary means upon which to get your website or blog positioned well in the search engines… But I’m going to jump a little bit ahead of the game here to help eliminate a potential and inevitable problem that you may face in your backlink building conquest; especially if you are new to the game.
As with any internet marketing technique, there are certain risks attributable to having other sites linking to your site. This is because any given site could ultimately turn out to be a bad reference or otherwise have less than a reputable character with the search engines because they have been associated with SPAM; thereby imputing that status to your site. Although there are some reputable resources out there that teach you skills on how to build effective backlinks — sites I will respectfully endorse a bit further on in this site — for now I find it very critical to focus on a subject that most of these sources simply glean over and/or fail to mention altogether. That subject is known as “Co-Citation”.
Now just like anything else there is both bad and good co-citation, especially when it comes to backlinks. Although the term “co-citation” is rarely used by seasoned webmasters or internet marketers, the term that most webmasters are familiar with when it comes to link building is “Bad Neighborhood”. Both terms essentially have the same meaning, so distinguishing between the two is mere semantics because the term “bad neighborhood” is simply a case of co-citation. Needless to say, at all cost you want to avoid being associated with sites that have been branded as a bad neighborhood! To achieve this it is imperative that you understand how your site might become associated with a bad neighborhood through co citation.
What is Co-Citation?
Co-Citation is a popular similarity measure used to establish a subject similarity between two or more items, in this case we’re referring to backlinks. The following illustration provides an example.
The upper four sites A, B, C and D all link to the other sites 1, 2, 3 and 4, but A, B, C and D do not backlink to each other. However, despite the fact that sites A, B, C and D do not link to each other, search engines imply that sites A, B, C and D are related to each other because sites 1, 2, 3 and 4 link to them. In other words, if your website is “1″, because your site is linked to from A, and A links to sites 2, 3 and 4 your site is considered to be associated in the same neighborhood as sites 2, 3 and 4. Likewise, the relationship of site B linking to sites 2, 3 and 4; or site C linking sites 2, 3 and 4; or site D linking to sites 2, 3 and 4 — all create and form the same co-citation association to your site. If any of sites A, B, C, D or 2, 3 or 4 are associated in a bad neighborhood these backlinks could could substantially jeopardize the trust-rank of your site in the eyes of the search engines.
Therefore, when you are getting backlinks to your site, the most critical element is not only who you link to or receive a link from, but also who is linked on these same sites with you! It does not matter if you are not directly linked to sites that are considered bad, the fact that you are on the same site pages with bad sites means that your site is now linked from a bad neighborhood, which could substantially hinder your sites ranking and trust in the search engines. Granted, having a lot of backlinks to your site is good SEO, but being conservative and cautious as to which sites you link with could save you from potential problems in the long run.