Archive for January, 2008

Sugarrae put together 11 SEO’s to get 12000 words on link development ideas.

Here’s the SEO’s who state their ideas on link building: Rae Hoffman - Rand Fishkin – Roger Montti - Todd Malicoat - Eric Ward - Justilien Gaspard - Aaron Wall - Debra Mastaler - Michael Gray - Andy Hagans - & Me.

I like how this interview was put together. All of us wrote 1 question, and they were put together anonymously and we each answered them all w/o knowing what the others thoughts were…like Rae says:

An important thing to remember about this group interview is that no one saw anyone else’s answers before writing their own. This isn’t about a single answer followed by four head nods. Any agreements come from true beliefs and any contrary opinions came from the same. We’re all good at what we do, but it doesn’t mean we always agree. I only saw the other answers as I put this post together and the others will see each other’s opinions on the questions that were posed for the first time when this is published.

Read our thoughts on link building over here. I’ve closed this thread to comments, feel free to comment under the link report on Sugarrae or at Sphinn here.

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Since Donna let the cat out of the bag, I thought I’d follow suit.

A handful of SEO’s are in a contest to lose weight, and to help charities. You can help us as well.

The Women:

DazzlinDonna from SEO Scoop
playing for Hospice Foundation from America

Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide
playing for HMBANA Milk Banks

Nathania Johnson from Bold Interactive
playing for Thyroid Cancer Survivor’s Association

Debra Mastaler from Alliance-Link
playing for Dream Catchers Therapeutic Riding Center

Scottie Claiborne
playing for Sistercare Battered Women’s Shelter

The Men:

Aaron Wall from SEO Book
playing for Amnesty USA

Jim Boykin from We Build Pages
playing for Unity House in Troy NY

Simon Heseltine from Serengeti Communication
playing for Kids Wish Network

Jeff Quipp from Search Engine People Inc.
playing for Tuberous Sclerosis Canada

David Wallace from SearchRank
playing for The Phoenix Rescue Mission

Ben Cook from BloggingExperiment.com
playing for Ronald McDonald Mobile Program

The Rules (listed on SEOsFightFat.com):

"During the two month period between February 1, 2008 and March 31, 2008, each SEO will attempt to lose weight using whatever methods he or she thinks is best. On March 31st, the woman who has lost the most weight (based on a percentage of weight loss) and the man who has lost the most weight (again based on percentage) will be in a finalist face-off. On April 1st, all of you will vote and choose the winner of the challenge from those two finalists. The final winner’s charity will receive all of the sponsorship pledge funds."

So I know what you’re all asking yourself, "How can I help sponsor this cool charity contest" – hey, glad you asked! Check out the Sponsor page.

Why you should sponsor this event:

1. The money will go to one of these charities, and I’m sure all of them can use the contributions to help make the world a better place.

2. All those who donate $20 or more will be entered into a drawing, where 1 name will be chosen. That person/organization will win a one year subscription to Internet Marketing Ninjas (a $2995 value) (Sorry, search engines and search engine employees are not eligible).

3. Sponsors will be listed on the Friends page. (FYI, all links are no-followed….this is not the time or place to debate links).

Google has generiously donated sitewide support, and We Build Pages has donated on my page.

OK, I’m out to win!

Check out SEOs FIght Fat for Charity

Popularity: 2% [?]

Position 6 Filter – Confirmed, and told "Glitch" and "being fixed".

Some laughed, some cried, any many analyzed and made "guesses". We had 6 sites that we clearly saw this happen to, so I was analzying for countless hours since just before Christmas in an attempt to figure out what could have happened to make those sites go from top 5 rankings (mostly #1′s), to having most of their top phrases go to #6 in Google.

2 Days ago I even did a 41 minute video for internet marketing ninjas, along with writing a paper detailing what happened, and some recommendations for possible solutions to this problem. This video will be released tomorrow on internet marketing ninjas.

FYI, solution #1 was "1. Don’t panic. Sometimes it’s just google testing things and you could bounce right back with no changes."

That turned out to be the case this time….but it still begs the question "What were they trying to do (that went "wrong" and caused this "glitch").

My analysis basically showed that there was no common relations between backlinks, forward links, and on page factors when it came to the #6 position filter. So when those factors don’t seem to come into play, what’s left? In other words, we all think "Links and Content", but what are other factors that could be coming into play? My solutions I gave for "possible solutions" involved looking at some of these other factors that might be playing a role in rankings of websites, and how to "optimize" for these other possible ranking factors.

I was a bit miffed this morning when I saw that Matt said "it was a glitch" and things are rolling back….Damn, the amount of analysis I put it…writing papers on it, creating a video, being 1 day prior to release, and finding "it’s a glitch"….but ya know, the more I think about the "possible solutions" I found, the more I think "what was google trying to do" and "what are other factors that might play a role in rankings that normally are not looked at"…and ya know, my "possible solutions" are not what will get you back to #1, but there are valid, and they are worth looking at…so yes, I’ll still put this video and the analysis paper into Internet Marketing Ninjas tomorrow.

In the mean time, feel free to check out the free preview video (~8 minutes) here. FYI, the preview video does not go into the "possible solutions"…I kept the preview to mostly just the analysis.

FYI, you might also note that the video quality is at a whole new level – yes, we’ve got a professional now for filming and for production. All future videos should be of this quality. We’ll also have some news soon about the next round of videos/presenters and more cool value add on items we’re adding to internet marketing ninjas.

I guess in the end I shouldn’t be upset, the sites are coming back to #1…..but I’ll admit, I did cuss when I heard "glitch".

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In Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, they say you should:

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

I know a lot of webmasters have questioned what is the difference between paying Yahoo for a Directory link, and paying any other web entity for a link.

This issue has been brought up as far back as on December 11, 2005 when Josh asked on Matt’s blog:

Question: Generally doesn’t Yahoo’s directory require payment? Isn’t that pretty much the same as getting a paid link? I might be wrong on that, its been a while since I’ve looked at them, just curious.

Matt’s response was:

Josh, with Yahoo, you’re paying for the manual review of a site by an editor–it’s not automatically approved by any means.

A year later, on December 19th, 2006, in Rand’s post called "I Disagree with Danny & the Google Engineers About Link Buying Practices" , Matt commented

I think I’ve been straightforward on Google’s behalf: paid links should have a nofollow attribute. Other choices run the risk of losing trust with Google in various ways.

Which doesn’t seem to address paying Yahoo for a link. But later in the comments robertk asks,

If I paid money to Yahoo to review my site for listing in their directory, would that be considered a "paid link"? Money did change hands and without it, my site would not have been added to the directory. However, there is no guarantee the site will be listed.

So.. is it a bought link, one that Google would like me to ask Yahoo to add a "nofollow" to it, or am I okay to leave things as they are?

Gotta love grey areas

Rand then chips in with:

or paying Citysearch.com for profile listings or paying MSN Small Business directory for inclusion or buying an online newspaper classified and getting a link or paying local directories, industry niche directories for a link. Or buying a BBB membership and getting a link, or donating money to the local Elks club and getting a link… Oh how the list goes on.

The following day (Dec 20, 2006) I picked it up that question about the Yahoo directory being a paid link in my blog post about Paid Links and Loosing Trust. In my comments, Eric Enge from Stone Temple said

Regarding the Yahoo! directory question, there is a clear difference. As I posted in Rand’s blog on this topic, a Yahoo! directory link involves a human review by a trusted editor.

I believe that Matt has been clear that the problem that Google has with paid links is the lack of editorial judgement. It’s the editorial judgement that they are wanting to value when they see a link. A purchased link involving no editorial judgement is what they see as a no-no.

Whereas the Yahoo! directory reserves the right to reject your submission, even though you have paid. In addition, they will put your listing in a directory different than the one you picked, if they feel you recommended the wrong one. 

Later that same day, (Dec 20), Eric Enge at Stone Temple did his own post weighing in on link buying, where Matt commented

I think you put this pretty well, Eric. Search engines want links to be real: editorial votes based on quality and merit. 
With Yahoo, you’re paying for the reviewing service; Yahoo rejects plenty of submissions.

The following day, Dec 21, 2006, Graywolf made reference to Matt’s comment above and said:

So it seems it’s not ok to buy links, however it is ok to pay for an editorial review which may get you a link as long as it’s not guaranteed.

Where Matt replied:

Huh, it feels like I said something similar recently. Oh, I did:
http://www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=100#comment-2259

(comment 2259 says "I think you put this pretty well, Eric. Search engines want links to be real: editorial votes based on quality and merit.
With Yahoo, you’re paying for the reviewing service; Yahoo rejects plenty of submissions.")

So I see a pretty clear consistant line that’s been drawn by Google over the years.

I’d say the message is pretty clear "Links that have been humanly reviewed, where they are not guaranteed a listing, are OK".

On a side note….the Yahoo directory has a description for We Build Pages of "Designs business web sites and offers search engine optimization, link building, and pay per click services."….We don’t design business web sites, we don’t do design at all. When I sent my suggestion for a description, I never said anything about design. Their editor never really reviewed our site or he would have seen no where on our site anything about "design services". They are no better, no worse than webmaster…maybe worse if anything…a webmaster will probably review "submissions" for thier own site better than an editor hired by Yahoo.

So if one were to write to a website with: "Hey, I’d like to pay you to review this "listing", "ad", "site", "page", paragraph", etc. and that webmaster applies his editorial judgement and does not trip any "trust" filter, because the listing is relevant, …the links should be fine….right?

…..feel free to sphinn this to drum up the talk.

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This is one of those emails that gets passed around and around….but I actually found a touch funny….thought you might too.

…………………………………………..

A little boy goes to his father and asks ‘Daddy, how was I born?’

The father answers, ‘Well, son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e -mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:

Scroll down…You’ll love this …

‘You got Male!’

.

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I recieved an email today (referred from a friend), asking for interviewing advice.  After a brief email exchange I sent him 3 interviewing tips that I believe could greatly help one’s impression during an interview. I thought I’d publish them those on my blog to keep on my short blogging roll I’m on today

#1 – KNOW THE COMPANY you are applying to. Research Research Research…Google, Yahoo, MSN the company name and the top people. See not only what they say, but what others say. Comment and ask questions to the interviewer about what has been written – both good and bad.

#2 – Don’t overstate your knowledge. I ask questions about programming knowledge, and once I hear their answer, I pull out a quiz for them. If you overstated your knowledge, my interview is over.  Don’t be suprised if others give some form of quiz. I side with honesty over knowledge.

#3 – Ask questions. Come prepared with questions too. Remember, we really should be selling each other. Often, the brightest employees, during the interview were selling me, and they made me sell to them as well.
Having questions can show you did researched, you were prepared, and you listened and asked about what was being said in the interview.

What advice would you add?

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The Linker – a spin-off of "The Gambler" (Kenny Rogers).

On a cold winters evenin at a Pubcon in Vegas,
I met up with the Linker; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we sat at a poker table, at the Wynn there in Vegas
and as he gathered a pile of chips, he began to speak.

He said, son, I’ve made a life out of linking peoples websites,
And by knowing what the links are worth for the links that I might get.
So if you don’t mind my sayin, I can see you’re short on rankings
For a taste of your jack and coke, I’ll give you some advice.

So I handed him my drink and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he lit a cigarette and asked me for an ashtray.
And the table got really quiet, and his face got a happy go lucky expression.
Said, if youre gonna link in this game, boy, ya gotta learn to link ‘em right.

You got to know when to link em, know when to bait em,
Know when Matt’s talking FUD, and know when he’s got a gun.
You never count your backlinks or get hung up on Pagerank.
There’ll be time enough for countin when you’re number 1.

Now every linker knows that the secret to survivin
Is knowin not to piss off Google, so your rankings you can keep.
Cause some links can be winners, but the majority they are loosers.
And the best that you can hope for is ranking #1 even while you sleep.

So when he finished speakin, he turned back towards the table,
Crushed out his cigarette and headed to his suite.
And later in my hotel room, I thought about his strategies
And then I knew in my head, the links that I could reap.

You got to know when to link em, know when to bait em,
Know when Matt’s talking FUD, and know when he’s got a gun.
You never count your backlinks or get hung up on Pagerank.
There’ll be time enough for countin when you’re number 1.

You got to know when to link em, know when to bait em,
Know when Matt’s talking FUD, And when he’s holding a gun.
You never count your backlinks or get hung up on Pagerank.
There’ll be time enough for countin when you’re number 1.

——————————

Hope ya enjoyed. Feel Free to give it a Sphinn.

Here’s some other SEO Songs I’ve written: Linking Dirty (Blackhat and Dirty) – Don’t Show your Sites to Matt and even some We Build Pages theme songs.

Next week I’ll be doing a video about the "Ranking 6" phenomenon you’ve probably heard about. I’ll probably put a 5 minute teaser here on the blog, and put the full video analysis with my recommendations into the Internet Marketing Ninja Program.

I’m Feeling Lucky,
Jim

Popularity: 4% [?]