Listing Details| ID: | 2248 |
| Title: | SEO Book - http://www.seobook.com |
| Description: | Search Engine Optimisation Book is an SEO blog providing daily search engine news. SEO Book keeps up with the latest trends in search engine algorithm changes and provides daily SEO tips. SEO Book also offers a search engine optimisation ebook for sale. |
| Category: | Blogs: Search Engine Optimisation |
| RSS Feed: | Latest blog from SEOBook |
| Added: | August 03, 2007 08:35:35 PM |
| Referrals: | 2 |
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| Latest feed from SEO Book Google Outsourcing Their Search Algo.....To You! Not really. But kinda. Google have announced the release of SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. Don't like a result? You can vote it down. Likewise, you can vote links up if you think they deserve a higher rank. These changes will only appear in your Google account, and won't influence the result sets as seen by others. However, it is hard to imagine that Google won't take note of such signals, especially if they see broad patterns emerging, and then feed this data through into their algorithm development. When asked about this point, Google sounded a little cagey: "Dupont was noncommittal about whether the company planned to build in that feedback loop, either directly as a signal to influence search rankings or indirectly as extra data that could help the company judge the relevance of its search results. But he certainly didn't rule the idea out. We don't close any doors. We constantly evaluate signals" that are incorporated into the search results algorithm. Search is adapting to the Internet as it becomes a more participatory medium. Now you have people telling us specific things about how they'd like to see their search results." Make of that what you will. Is this a sign Google are looking for other signals of quality? Do too many people know about the influence of inbound linking these days? Quick, vote down Wikipedia! ;) Curiously, Wikipedia's seo page already has 4 negative votes. Seriously though, let's try an experiment. We here at SEOBook.com love votes for link building, seo tools, and seo ;) Best review on seo for Seobook.com wins a free month of Aarons world-famous SEO training program. SearchWiki could also be seen as another distribution channel and potential link source ie: the people who look at the SearchWiki are likely to be webmasters. Something to think about if you're targeting this group. The Moral Authority of a Search Engine John Andrews highlights the fallacy of "make good content" If we follow this “make good content” path eventually the search engines will fail to deliver meaningful search results, either because of the excessive noise or because they enjoy such a monopoly they find market exploitation irresistably more rewarding. At that point the White Hat SEOs won’t know what to do anymore, and the creators/artists will refuse to work for the nickels offered. The web will become the cesspool Google says it already is. So much is lost in the attention whoring that is claimed to be professional SEO that less than 1 in 100 "professionals" understand the above and are willing to think it through to its end. Using critical thinking skills does not make one a terrorist or a black hat individual. We are not the ones promoting infidelity (as Google has done for years). InLinks.com - TLA Launches In Links, an Inline Link Buying Program Just in time for the holidays, Media Whiz's Text Link Ads launched a new links product named InLinks, which puts text links inside the content of sites powered by Wordpress, MovableType, and Drupal. Rather than links sticking out like a sore thumb by putting a rail of paid links in the sidebar or footer (the old text link brokering model) this allows for a more efficient marketplace that is more likely to pass link juice and be a bit harder to detect. Link Location Matters Yahoo! Search's Priyank Garg highlighted that they look at link location when determining the value of links: The irrelevant links at the bottom of a page, which will not be as valuable for a user, don’t add to the quality of the user experience, so we don’t account for those in our ranking. All of those links might still be useful for crawl discovery, but they won’t support the ranking. As Jim Boykin would say, you want links within content linking to content. Does Google Like This? Matt Cutts was quick to say that this link buying program violates Google's TOS (and might be against an FTC guideline), but Shoemoney highlighted how Google is known to look the other was on such decisions when it is profitable to do so. Every time paid links is brought up Matt Cutts brings up the FTC’s “suggestions” on bloggers disclosing things they have been compensated for. In no where in these “suggestions” does it talk about paid links. But even if it did they are just suggestions. They are not law and if Google was following the FTC’s suggestions I doubt Google Adsense/adlinks would be engaging in some of the most deceptive advertising methods I have ever seen on the internet. Google promotes infidelity. When Google launched their affiliate program, you could only tell that the blended inline text links were affiliate if you read a small blurb when you scrolled over them. Some AdSense ad units do not even have the word ad near them...one commenter thought people could think a blog was promoting/endorsing homosexual fitness dating because there was no disclosure. This entire page is a Google advertisement with no disclaimer on it It appears Google needs to clean up its own act before people will take that FTC comment seriously. Should You Buy Text Links? Quoting liberally from Bob Massa's great blog post on link buying: Invariably I get the question, SHOULD I BUY LINKS? Wanna know the funny thing? Most of the people who ask me that question are the people who least need to worry about the risk. The risk motivating the question being whether or not they may be penalized by google instead of the risk being about going broke. Logic would dictate that anyone concerned about the risk of being penalized by Google, is actually worried about losing something they already have. In this case sales coming from targeted traffic generated from superior organic placements in the SERP’s. Fine, that makes sense as that is pretty much the definition of risk. Losing what you already have or at least losing a perceived opportunity that you have already made an investment in, (which was a calculated risk the minute a decision was made to put up a webpage and long before this question ever came up). But far more often than not, when I take a look at the site belonging to the askee, I see a site that looks like a third graders ransom note and written by a Marlon Sanders school of “But Wait – There’s More” drop out with a title tag that reads, index-Mozilla Firefox. Little traffic to speak of and certainly no sales to lose. There is VERY little visible investment in design, content or anything else. Yet they brag of the #3 spot they have for a keyword with over a million results like that is all they need for proof of their valuable contribution to the world of online commerce. Read more of Bob's wisdom at Should You Buy Links? The Truth Shall Set You Free How to Buy Links Safely I spoke to some folks at Text Link Ads who said that the InLinks inventory is separate from their traditional old-school link inventory. Is this new network on Google's radar? Absolutely, but then what did Google expect when they only penalized one link broker while letting all the others rank? In doing so, Google made their fighting paid links program much more difficult to manage. Might they catch some publishers? Sure, especially if they are greedy, aggressive, and use little to no editorial oversight. But some will do it smartly, and for most advertisers the risk is minimal so long as you use it lightly...many of these sites are well ingrained into the web, with thousands of legitimate inbound and outbound links. Most search traffic goes to the top few ranking results. I wouldn't use this type of linking program to try to go from #103 to the first page, but if you are ranking #8 or #12, buying a few of these links might be all you need to capture a profitable top Google ranking. Save $100 Today /* */ and get $100 off your order by using the code 100free. Try it out, see if you like it, see if it works for you, and cancel if you don't see the movements you were expecting. |