Let’s Play With The “Ads Above The Fold” Panda Filter

Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 31-01-2012 | Google Author Page

Category : Google, SEO

Jan 25, 2012 – The Google Beat Down
It’s hard to be frustrated with Panda filters when you do SEO that abides by the great Google Webmaster Guidelines. I’ve actually seen better results come from my main shady competitors getting their links devalued. It makes sense for Google to be going forward with these kinds of filters, as they’ve done so many times before with other kinds of filters (usually with much less publicity).

bad rankingsOutside of my normal day job and clients, I dabble in the dark arts. I have a few sites that I tinker with to see what I can get away with. They’re not high revenue drivers.  Let’s just call them experiments. One experiment had 3 Adsense ad blocks above the fold, making it nice and easy for Google to see what I was up to.  It was pretty much a usability trap.  You search, you click, you land on my page, and you have nowhere to go but click an ad.  You’ve seen these kinds of pages – in fact, you may even find them beating you occasionally.

When Google hinted that they’d be deranking these kinds of sites in a Panda update, I made adjustments to all my spammy pages, except one. And sure enough, last week (some time before January 23), my site got the Google beat down. A total of 16 rankings in the top 10 dropped an average of almost 20 positions. Unlike some past filters, there doesn’t appear to be a rhyme or reason. Some dropped 5 positions, some dropped as high as 47 positions. There wasn’t one single rank gain in a week, despite some typically effective link building.

Today the template was changed (I was using WordPress). My obnoxious ads have been stripped 2/3 down. There’s now only one Adsense block above the fold. I’m going to persevere with the steady link building.  Let’s see what happens.

Jan 31, 2012 – The New Panda Dance
Today I checked my rankings almost a week later, and boom.  Most of my rankings are restored.  The funny thing is, Google hasn’t even crawled my new, non-ad heavy page yet.  So the massive dropping of rank seems to have been part of the new Panda dance that I’ve heard about with these Panda updates.  Like throwing a rock in a lake, the ripples start really bad, but then settle to less aggressive ripples.  I’ve heard with some of these Panda updates that rankings do come back in part, but not all the way.  

So I’m not too shocked to see this bump in rankings.  I’m very interested to see what happens after Google actually crawls my page.  

Stay tuned. 

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Top 10 Lists Must Die

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Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 11-01-2012 | Google Author Page

Category : Content Marketing, SEO

Top 10 Lists Must DieI’ve given up reading Top 10 lists.

We’re an industry that taught the world “content is king,” and we certainly practice what we preach.  We’ve also read a million times that a successful way to draw a reader or search engine spiders is to use something kitschy like a top 10 list (or top 20, or top 30).  Clearly it’s worked for Billboard and Mashable as entertainment.  I’ve certainly been swept up in the hype and recommended it to my clients more than once.  I actually have a “Top X” list somewhere on this blog.  But now I find myself ignoring tweets after tweets promoting another “brilliant” top 10 list.  I’ve seen a million white papers in the last year that have promoted the “Top 10 Best Landing Page Tips,” or “Best Social Media Tips,” “Best SEO Tips,” etc.  I’ve also seen the same posts again just using different words, almost as if it was spit out of The Best Spinner.

We’re talking about online marketing.  It’s bigger than 10 – it’s bigger than a million – and these fluffy pieces tend to make people forget it’s still only as applicable to your marketing campaign as it is relative. 

Today I broke my rule.  I just read a Top 10 from a popular search company, put out as a downloadable white paper (I know it’s a lead generation trick – I’m expecting to be ignoring a call any moment now).  This document was clearly written to be generic “industry” fodder. 

On this list, number four definitively suggested the best marketing landing page is bare-bones, one font page, with very little content, functionality, or design.  Sure, you’ve seen that before, but you’ve also seen others say the complete opposite – that a long, content rich page is the way to go. 

In our industry, for every expert opinion, there’s an expert opposing-opinion.  But not everyone takes it with a grain of salt.

Both of these design “tips” are general, and don’t know a thing about your vertical, customer or visitor habits, business goals, products, brand history, or your own company experience.  To me, that makes a lot of Top 10 lists nothing more than noisy fluff.

For example, are you running an inbound marketing campaign, where your top keywords are for a term or concept that the public isn’t really familiar with?  Do you need to be brief because your searchers are qualified, or do you need to provide options or funnels to support further information gathering?  In this case I’d have to think about what kind of landing page I’d want to create, but I’m fairly sure I’d be misled if I blindly followed this particular Top 10 list.

Personally, I think these lists need context, and need to be way more granular.  Granted, they wouldn’t have as sexy a headline or as wide an audience appeal, but they’d be targeted and, well, useful.  They’d actually provide content that is capable of moving the reader forward in their own goals.  If these lists exist, then I’d be all for them, but right now they’re as real as unicorns.  Maybe they’re just off my radar.  My Twitter stream may just be too polluted with fluff.

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Search Engine SPAM With Facebook (Round 2)

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Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 01-12-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : Google, SEO

In early November Google promoted their ability to execute AJAX/JS to index some dynamic comments.  A few years ago, Jed Singer and I did some digging to see just how well Facebook pages were crawled and indexed.  The answer – not very well, but Facebook still enjoyed decent rankings for profile and brand pages alike, despite spidering issues.  Our review suggested a heavy dose of domain authority and backlinking signals, and not necessarily on-page relevance.  

Then, suddenly, Facebook pages started to show up less and less (somewhere around the time “Google Me” was the rumor) except for specific people and brand searches.  I assumed a manual algorithm tweak to clean up the search engine result pages, and make general Facebook pages less of a player.  The same kind you saw with Digg pages, Amazon subdomains, etc.

But when I read that Google is getting better at interpreting Facebook comments, I assumed they also got better at reading all Facebook’s public tabbed content.  Still, I assumed they wouldn’t change their algorithm suppressing Facebook rankings. 

Wrong…



This is one of several examples I found.  It worried me about my long-tail for my websites, and sure enough, Facebook SERP SPAM there too.  I don’t know if Google took their eye of their algorithm and made some changes without considering their prior intention, or if this is a real decision (can’t imagine why, though).  I expect it won’t last long.

In the meantime, black hats will go at it, and white hats (and shoppers) will need to be annoyed by it. What a thoughtful holiday gift, Google!
 

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An Open Letter To The SEO Client

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Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 15-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : SEO

If you work in an agency or run your own consulting business, I know you’ve been frustrated.  So put your tongue in your cheek, and have fun venting with me.  

By the way, this post was admittedly written with a few past clients in mind, in a previous life.  I’ve since put myself in a position to only work with clients that match with my ideals.  In consulting, that’s how it should be.  I highly recommend happy relationships.  It makes SEO fun.

Dear client,

Chill out.  You hired us to improve your natural search traffic, your brand recognition, and your reputation.  You did your homework and made us prove our value.  The proposal and RFP was brutal. But we passed. Now have faith, and listen.  That’s right.  Listen.  Learn.  We’re trying to help you.  We picked you as a client, just like you picked us as a vendor.

In over a decade of SEO, I’ve had many different kinds of clients.  The big brands you’d see in a mall or shopping center, to small shops that serve the most niche audience.  From hands-on CMOs to passive, uninterested specialists.  I’ve done my best to teach all of you the ways of Google, and to do right by you.  Admittedly, I’ve made mistakes – but I learned.  I’ve also learned a lot while studying your industry, but that took time.  I never told you SEO would give you instant results. You need patience, and you need to give us some space.  I had nothing to do with you setting unreal expectations with your boss – I was very open with you in the beginning.

I also said that to achieve your goals, we would need the full support of your organization.  You need to help us help you.  If you’re the bottleneck, then we’re both going to have pains in the morning.  We’ll both start dreading our SEO calls.  And we’ll start getting snippy with each other.

Granted, we’re in an agency, and ultimately we have to give you what you ask for.  But if you give us a little slack, we’ll keep you from having to worry about SEO.  

Hmm…

I just re-read what I wrote.  Maybe I’ve been a little snarky.  I really do love you, and I really want to make this relationship work.  So maybe we can we try again?  Everything will be great – as long as you never pull this shit again.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

PS: Oh, and a few extra personal notes:

Don’t ever ask me again what your ROI is from a title tag.  I don’t care how big an apparel brand you are.  You’re obviously not listening.

Don’t ever ask me why you’re not getting traffic when you don’t take my deliverables and implement them.  I don’t care how big a television network you are.  You’re not taking this seriously.

And please stop asking me for giant analysis deliverables if you don’t have any use for the data.  I think it’s time we end this relationship… but we can stay friends.

 

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Link Building 101 – I Can’t Find A Lot Of Specific Tips To Make It Approachable

Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 13-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : SEO

I read the results of a poll last year (I wish I could source it here, but I couldn’t find it – you’ll have to take my word for it) that said only somewhere around half of all SEOs do link building. 

I wasn’t surprised. For many, many years, I was one who didn’t do any link building. Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because:

If you’re an SEO who was like me, or a new SEO who needs a place to start, let’s look at each of the above issues through a late-2011 (and personal) lens. My hope is it gives you a footing to make smart decisions around link building.  I remember my bug frustration was there was no manual to link building – I’m hoping this serves as a more valuable pseudo-manual for you. 

I Can’t Find A Lot Of Specific Tips To Make It Approachable
 

I remember when I first started link building, I found more articles about the value of link building than any how-to manuals.  I found – and still find – articles that are more about philosophy than actual “do this, then this…”  The reason, I believe, is partly because SEOs like to keep their tricks mostly out of the eyes of Google.

I remember going to a Jim Boykin presentation at SES in 2010.  He had a huge list of great tips for link building, unlike anything I could remember reading in the blogosphere.  He gave his tips on keeping a clean link profile so Google wouldn’t discover what you’re doing.  He suggested not to report link buyers, because that may bring attention from Google on to you.  This was a great presentation, and I scribbled down notes furiously.

This didn’t give insight into whether Jim was a white-hat, black-hat, or gray-hat SEO – he was just teaching all sides of the topic.  But it really was an eye-opener for me.  Maybe the threat of Google – and their army of hand editors and mis-firing spam detection algorothims – is really something I should take more seriously.  Maybe I should be a little more conservative like other link builders.

And so, I’ve become more covert.

In doing so, I also realized that I’m hiding my tactics from my competitors.  In the agency world, it’s not too hard to find out what agency is handling a competitor’s SEO (with LinkedIn and an SEOs general thirst for blogging).  I constantly look at my competitors backlinks and try to figure out their link building techniques.  Why?  Because I want to make sure I’m going toe to toe with them.  But if they’re doing more than I can recognize from a backlink portfolio, then I would love some kind of insight from their actual SEO.

Believe me – I’ve had a few competitors who’s SEO gave more away than they probably expected to.  Some verticals are very competitive.  In the big dollar market, we can be that CIA about it.

But there are others who are still incredibly successful SEOs and aren’t afraid to give you some actual blueprints.  I try to tweet them out as often as I can (so follow me), but below are a few resources I think you’ll find more than valuable if you’re new to link building.

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Link Building 101 – It Is Hard To Sell Through To Clients

Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 08-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : SEO

I read the results of a poll last year (I wish I could source it here, but I couldn’t find it – you’ll have to take my word for it) that said only somewhere around half of all SEOs do link building. 

I wasn’t surprised. For many, many years, I was one who didn’t do any link building. Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because:

If you’re an SEO who was like me, or a new SEO who needs a place to start, let’s look at each of the above issues through a late-2011 (and personal) lens. My hope is it gives you a footing to make smart decisions around link building.  I remember my bug frustration was there was no manual to link building – I’m hoping this serves as a more valuable pseudo-manual for you. 

It Is Hard To Sell Through To Clients
 

It’s also hard to sell through to your boss (if you’re an in-house SEO).  Until they get into your link building, and see the real value, it’s really an obtuse idea.  They want to know all about it, but they need it presented in a digestible, concise document.  If link building were that cut and dry, everyone would succeed at it; everyone would be doing it.  

A client will want to see the ROI.  I’ve had clients ask how much money they’d make from a link I get them.  We laugh, but we shouldn’t – they just don’t understand, yet.  Since you’re pretty much not ethically capable of guaranteeing that negotiating or buying links will net a financial return in the short run, you may find yourself flailing with explanations.  You can gather and send as many blogs posts about the value of link building, but a busy client or boss won’t have much time to read it.  As a consultant, you need to educate, but more so, you need to show results.

It’s all on you.  Get a proof of concept.  Show them the results.

You know that link building can build your site’s authority and help you rank for your specific target keywords.  If you can’t secure a testing budget, I suggest you work it on your free time.  Pick one or two vital keywords and build some links.  Use your analytics or rank checkers to benchmark weekly (or in light of Google’s recent speedy algorithm updates, maybe benchmark them daily).  By showing ranking growth, you can usually tie the keyword lift to your specific link building, provided you’ve properly annotated your link building steps.  By conversion growth per keyword (via your analytics) you can prove that this was not a fluke (look at your month over month and year over year keyword data).

In my experience, once clients start to see that your link building is working, they begin to trust your “search engine mojo” and decide to go with the flow.

Next Chapter  |  Previous Chapter

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Link Building 101 – It Is Time Consuming

Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 08-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : SEO

I read the results of a poll last year (I wish I could source it here, but I couldn’t find it – you’ll have to take my word for it) that said only somewhere around half of all SEOs do link building. 

I wasn’t surprised. For many, many years, I was one who didn’t do any link building. Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because:

If you’re an SEO who was like me, or a new SEO who needs a place to start, let’s look at each of the above issues through a late-2011 (and personal) lens. My hope is it gives you a footing to make smart decisions around link building.  I remember my bug frustration was there was no manual to link building – I’m hoping this serves as a more valuable pseudo-manual for you. 

It Is Time Consuming
 

There’s no way around this one, especially if you want to do it white-hat.  The investment in link building can be monetary, but it is at least always time.  It takes time to determine your goals, and what keywords will matter to your bottom line.  It takes time to search for link prospects.  It takes time to find email addresses on webpages and draft a custom email to ask for a link.  It takes time to manage each prospect and return to them when they don’t respond with a more appetizing offer.  Link building will really test your patience as an SEO.  It could take months until you start to see results, depending on many things that may be beyond your control.

I like to think of link building like social media marketing.  White-hat link building is all about making connections and nurturing relationships, and we all know how long that takes.

Black-hat link building is something altogether different.  In black-hat link building you want to use as many automated tools as you can get your hands on.  Many SEOs don’t like to share these tools with anyone online because they don’t want to leave a finger print for Google to get back to them, but if you do a search for link automation tools, you’ll find some.  These tools are mind-blowing.  From spamming WordPress platforms, to spamming forum boards, to flooding article hosting sites, to automatically creating thousands of social media profiles and embedding links in the “about me” section.  There’s more.  

In theory, these spammed links are identified and discounted by Google’s algorithm.  However, I have many websites that are beating me in the search engine result pages just on these spam links alone (by checking with the link: operator or Open Site Explorer).

Next Chapter  |  Previous Chapter

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Link Building 101 – It Is Confusing

Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 08-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : SEO

I read the results of a poll last year (I wish I could source it here, but I couldn’t find it – you’ll have to take my word for it) that said only somewhere around half of all SEOs do link building. 

I wasn’t surprised. For many, many years, I was one who didn’t do any link building. Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because:

If you’re an SEO who was like me, or a new SEO who needs a place to start, let’s look at each of the above issues through a late-2011 (and personal) lens. My hope is it gives you a footing to make smart decisions around link building.  I remember my bug frustration was there was no manual to link building – I’m hoping this serves as a more valuable pseudo-manual for you. 

It is confusing

Yes. It still is confusing. On one hand we have SEOs who say link building is the most important SEO tactic. On the other hand, we have others who seem to succeed without doing any. At SES in 2010, Jim Boykin (a well-respected link evangelist) suggested on-page SEO for long-tail keywords, and link building for head terms. In 2011, I think that’s still sound advice. 

But the last year did bring a new discussion of the heavy weighting of social signals, like “likes,” “tweets,” and “shares.”  in theory, this makes sense. Since search engines are looking for new ways to understand a webpage’s value, why shouldn’t they consider these metrics?

The reality is that after many tests, the social signals don’t seem to have any of the weight traditional links do. Can they help? Some – mostly in Bing. But unlike Bing, since Google is locked out of Facebook and Twitter’s API, they’re required to take from public feeds (when they can get them).  That’s less easy.  In return, Google is putting a lot of stock into creating Google Plus to obtain their own social signals, but right now, despite a supposed 50 million sign ups, it’s not seeing the kind of traffic and engagement Twitter and Facebook use. If your stuff gets passed around in Google Plus, you can see a bump in rankings, but it’s in the fringe. Maybe the fringe is what you’re looking for?

What about the difference between paid links and non-paid links?  Google has published guidelines that clearly state they don’t tolerate paid linking as a form of increasing rankings. They’re fine with paid links as forms of advertisements as long as you no follow the links. Granted there are vendors out there who still operate above Google’s guidelines (of which you need to be covert when working with them as to not get caught) that help you get rankings, but what about times where you break their rules innocuously?  What if you sponsor a marathon, and find out you got a link from that marathon’s homepage. That’s a paid link in a sense.  Are you supposed to ask the webpage to nofollow the link?  Are you supposed to be afraid that Google will find out?

Here’s the bottom line. Google probably won’t find out if you buy links, as long as someone doesn’t squeal on you. And even then, they rarely seem to do anything about it. I’ll admit that I’ve squealed on some really nasty spammer competitors, and Google clearly didn’t do anything. I’ve given up believing that they can handle the volume of manual paid link reports. If you’re JC Penny and called out in the New York Post, that’s one thing. But of all the SEOs I know who buy links, 2% have a story where they got caught. And that was only because they were being especially flagrant about it. 

Summary: 

1.  Social signals are not that big at the moment. Work on getting them in the event they become more important, but don’t obsess. 
2.  Despite what Google tells you, don’t believe the FUD. If you have a competitor buying links and dominating for a keyword your site can justify ranking well for, it’s hard to tell you it’s not worth the risk. Truth be told, it probably is. But this is where you need to pick a side and stick with it so your strategies are consistent. 

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Quality Deserves Freshness, The Sequel

Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 03-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : SEO

I remember the Quality Deserves Freshness algorithm over a year ago.  This update allowed fresher content to have a better chance at ranking.  For example, if you’re looking for information on SMX East, you’d want to be served the 2011 conference… not the 2010 conference.

Well sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.  Like many people, we were directed to the 2010 SMX East page in September.

It makes sense that Google would reintroduce this now following so many Panda updates.  It says to white hats, “go forth and write more. We appreciate it.”  It says to black hats, “don’t quickly write crap as a spam tactic.  Panda will get you.”  Whether that’s true or not, I’m sure the timing of this update was by design.

The potential issue with this in my mind is how domain authority may play into it.  Is this a factor that will weigh higher with big websites (high domain authority), of which usually has a higher budget to be able to hire writers to crank out new content more regularly?  I still like the old feeling of natural search being a ground where small guys are on a level playing field with the rich dudes.

Official Google announcement here.

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When Google Gives Us Lemons…

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Posted by @billsebald | Posted on 01-11-2011 | Google Author Page

Category : Google, SEO

Both Avinash Kaushik and Jeff Jarvis tell us that we don’t own our sites. In fact, our visitors / customers don’t even own our site anymore. Google owns our site.

Need proof? Ask your mom to name her favorite store in the mall. Then ask her to their website online. If she doesn’t use the search bar in her browser or go directly to Google.com, I’ll give you a dollar.

We know people are creatures of habit.  Search engines have become the main touch point in their online day-to-day.  For many people, if you restrict their access to a search engine, they’ll fall apart like I do when I’m given an O’doul’s at a party. Why didn’t your mother try to type the website directly into the URL bar?

On the bright side, when 50% of your natural search visits are from variations of your brand name or URL spelling, at least your numbers look good – that may give you some job security if you spin it right.

But Google is a pain in the ass because with all this ownership and inside data, they don’t really play well with others.  They don’t share.  Take WMT for example – it’s very thin data in the grand scheme of things. It’s like giving a free sample, but never letting you buy the product.

And what’s with the rich snippets?  I give you the content, and you post it in your result pages?  I want people to click through.  How do I know they’re not clicking through?  Because I’m not even clicking through on my own site. I’ve been sucked into the Google vortex.

Don’t get me started on feeds, schema.org, or Google Places.

Granted, there’s a lot to gripe about. When I go to a search convention, I see I’m not alone.  I never skip a panel with a Googler – it’s always a fun beatdown.  But the same thing happens every time.  By the end of the scolding, the Googler – be it an engineer or product manager, essentially commits social suicide, as he throws his hands in the air with the answer, “I don’t know.”  As hard as he tries, he can’t answer all the questions he gets.  It’s not always because he’s not allowed to, but I think it’s because he doesn’t know how to.

I think there are ghosts in the machine.

I envision Dali painting with a thousands of gears all clumped together.  Turn one, there’s no telling how many others will connect.  At this point, I don’t think Google knows.  They can try to reshape the monstrosity, but at this point the algorithm has to be pretty insurmountable.  Add on top of this, there are several other algorithms running different Google properties that are probably comparably unruly.

But let’s face it.  Google created this mess, and search engines created the SEO – both the good and the bad ones.  But despite the hat you wear, we’re all dealing with our own KPI’s against this mutant algorithm. So are our competitors.  Trial and error, testing, and patience are the key to building your experience. When you put together a marketing strategy, you’re typically trying to overcome an obstacle.  You’re putting together a plan to move past the immovable objects.  Google is an immovable object, so the SEO needs to strategize with that in mind.  That’s far different than what many SEOs do by trying to defeat or complain about it.  Since goal setting is the key to proper strategy, the SEO (and the employer of the SEO) need to plan touchpoints that accept these realities.
 
Things to ask yourself when choosing your tactics:
  • Why do I think this tactic will work?  (What experience or data do you have)
  • What will this affect if it does not work?  (Will your scheduled touchpoints be affected)
  • What is this tactic’s plan B?  (To stay on schedule, what is your alternative tactic and bandwidth)
  • What are the points where we measure and analyze?  (When do you take a break and make sure you’re on track)
  • When is it time to abandon the strategy?  (Sometimes your best plans fall flat – be willing to accept that)
With this clarity comes opportunity.  Again, many of our competitors are dealing with Google head on, and trying to plow through the algorithm instead of dance with it.  They’re probably granted the same amount of time and budget as you.  SEO is a household word in business, but it’s still rarely done right in the grand scheme of things.  Spend some time with a clear understanding of what Google really is to your website, and spend more time in the planning stage.

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