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seo news

Google’s Over SEO penalty threat | Critically Examined

by Rooturaj on March 18, 2012

Hi Guys,

Google (Matt Cutts rather ) dropped another bomb after last weeks declaration about Turning off a method of link evaluation that had been around for many years. Now they say they will

Penalize websites for OVER SEO Optimization

Well, as usual, there was an uproar over the issue for a while. Now it is back to business as usual. I am noting down some great points from a discussion from SEO Chat.

In a discussion with Matt Cutts ( head of Google anti web spam team) and Duane Forrester (Manager, Product Marketing, BING) Danny Sullivan of Searchengineland wriggled it out of Matt.

Here is the Audio. I got it from SearchEngineLand. Thanks Barry.

You can go through the full audio it is very informative. But the BOMB we are talking about Matt Saying -

We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect.

We are left with the following questions.

  • What exactly demarcates Optimization from Over Optimization?
  • How can we stay clear of Over-Optimization?
  • What is the future of SEO?

What exactly demarcates Optimization from Over Optimization?

This is the most important question. To make it simple for you I will say anything that is NOT natural or anything that appears to screw the Search Engine algorithms are going to land you in trouble.

Take the case of keyword stuffing.

How many times do we come across search results like these?
“Delhi tour package, Tour package delhi, New Delhi India tour package, Cheap best fantastic exotic Delhi India tourism”
If Google marks such practices as over optimization, then so be it. I would love to see such sites die. Kick them out of the SERPs all together.

Cases of Link Spamming

Face this rapid fire round of SEO practices questionnaire. When it ends, if you are a smart SEO, many of your questions about the penalty system proposed will be addressed automatically.

  1. Do you think it is natural that 100s or may be 1000′s of backlinks materialized to your site in a week?
  2. Do you think it is natural when all the links carry the same anchor text?
  3. What sense does it make when most of the links point to the sales page with almost no unique information?
  4. Why would a dozen blogs from the same IP link to your website? Are they a part of a link scam? Possible is it not?
  5. How is it that almost all links to your website are from Social Bookmarks? If you are so popular why dont people mention them anywhere?
  6. Is anyone talking about you on Social Media? Why not?

User behavior

Search Engines have evolved drastically over the last few years. Unfortunately most of the self proclaimed SEO experts live 10 years behind their times.

One of the simple things that some people do not understand is User Behavior and its effect on SERP rankings for a website. This is today a strong signal that tells the search engines if a particular result is worthy of its current rank. One such factor is Bounce Rate.

Google and Bing need not have access to your analytic software to calculate your bounce rate. For instance if the User clicks your search result, goes to your website, finds it unusable or not what he was looking for, and returns to the search engine – its a Bounce. (there are exceptions though)

Other things that are important in User behavior is Time spent on site, deep navigation etc.

One thing to remember is what Google keeps saying – Google Does NOT hate SEO. In fact SEO is that what tells Google what a page is about. But spamming the web to screw their algorithm is what Google cannot digest easily and that is why they are considering penalizing such spammers.

I have always believed that factors that are not directly under our control should not result in a penalty against us.

So, I still maintain that a link profile, how ever shaddy should not effect a penalty. It should rightly be devalued. Now, we must see DEVALUATION and PENALTY in different lights.

While devaluation means that you still rank for whatever is rightly yours, a penalty means that you would rank further below for whatever is rightly yours because you crossed a line somewhere.

In no circumstance Google/Bing will want to leave a system open that will allow us to build tons of crap links to new websites that have really great content and blast them out of the competition.

 

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Google Latest Link Evaluation Update | NOT Panda 3.3

by Rooturaj on March 6, 2012

The SEO Industry news got hot last week as Google Rolled out 40 new changes to its Search Algorithm. For those who do not read properly and keep scream ‘Panda – Panda’ the Panda update and Search Algorithm are not one and the same thing.

The Search algorithm is way boarder in scope and complexity than the Panda. Read more about Panda and Inside Search.

Well let’s get back to the hot story. Out of the 40 changes listed the one that made the most noise was ..

Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.

Now what has been bothering me and a big chunk of the SEO world is what refers to as “method of link analysis that we used for several years” <- this one is probably ‘anchor text’ signal. Here is a reference to a discussion on WmW.

Over the last few months there have been several independent tests by SEOs to determine the role of anchor text today as a signal to SERP rankings. Here is one I remember. Now with the recent declaration that one of the signals is being turned off, we SEOs increasingly feel that its the Anchor Text signal. I mean the ‘exact anchor text’ signal.

Our Link Building activities for the last month has confirmed the suspicion. We got almost no results from ‘exact anchor text’ links generated through social bookmarks. Please note that the bookmarks were the highest quality possible with 100% unique test descriptions in proper English. With about a 100 links to each target keyword we failed to hit the SERPs as hard as we used to do two months before in November.

So, in the eventuality that ‘anchor text’ signals are now dead, what are our options to tell the search engine what is this link about.
How does google calculate what ‘keyword’ to generate for that link in question?
Consider this situation,

We have a great page on “lens making”. So does that mean the link with anchor text “photo films” will carry no benefit at all for the keyword “photo film” because the page that links it is not exactly about it???

In the past we have bragged how related niches that are not competitive provide strong links. But what now?

A lot remains to be answered. We are devotedly researching these developments and we assure you we shall update you with more information that will assist you in keeping your business alive in the face of tough competition and Google Quality standards.

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How is Social Media going to influence SERPs in 2011?

by Rooturaj on November 14, 2010

Many of my students and clients ask me – is it ture that that the search results we see are biased by our Social Networks? I don’t prefer answering without substantial proof to back any of my claims. So I did some research on it to find to what extent is Social Media influencing our search results on Google, Bing etc.

Believe it or not, but yes

Your Social Network influences your Search Results

Now you might ask – To what extent and when?

Now that is a tough nut to crack on my part. I will cite some numbers as proposed by big wigs in SEO arena. SEOMOZ recently announced that social media statistics influence upto 6% of search results today.  You want it or not the search-scape is changing to include user opinion and its time we start preparing our surfboards, the big wave is almost visible now.

How will it exactly affect my Search Results?

As I mentioned before it will take in public opinion apart from links.  Hyperlinks had been the ruling factor in determining authority till date and that is now going to change. Major players will be Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Four Square, LinkedIn etc.

Number of followers you have on twitter, no of likes your facebook page has got, your LinkedIn connection, number of reviews you have received on yelp, the frequency and bulk of people checking in at your place on foursquare will be the new factors that determine your authority on the world wide web.  Do not even imagine for an instant that creating fake followers or fans or reviews could help you rule the SERPS. The algorithms will be able to weed out or penalize spammers by measuring the followed – follower interactions and other factors profile authority of the followers and reviewers.

Cases of Search influence based on our social network.

I am searching for Pizza Home Delivery on Google.

Right now I see Pizza Hut on top followed by Dominos.  In future we could see something like this.

Dominos has 1,000,000 followers on twitter and Pizza Hut has only 450,000 and both of them are verified twitter profiles. I also have a twitter profile and I follow both. So since public opinion goes with Dominos I could well see dominos as my top result. Lest assume that both of them have got almost similar link trust.

Again let us imagine I am twitter user but I do not follow either of Pizza Hut or Dominos but my friends are. Suppose 200 of my friends ( twitter followers or facebook or myspace friends) like Pizza Hut while only 50 like Dominos. So I might be seeing Pizza Hut as my top result.

I am not a social media user at all and I am not even signed in to my google search. So what do I get? I should be getting an aggregate of all authority and link factors. That is a weighted mean of backlinks, follower counts, reviews, facebook likes etc.

Your GEO location as usual will also magnify the Influence of Social media. If Pizza Hut has more followers/likes/reviews from Delhi based users then no doubt Google/Bing will be recommending that to me too.

That might all sound very intricate now but we are all heading towards it. The faster we master the art (science or whatever) using social media for our SERP advantage the better it will be for our SEO business. I cannot give you an exact date or period as to when this gets big. But you can take my word and my references and trust the fact that the new war has already begun. You don’t have a choice to join it or not to join it. Your only question is when you should start preparing. If you ask me I say – NOW.

Ref :

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-medias-direct-influence-on-search-engine-ranking/5576/

Many of my students and clients ask me – is it ture that that the search results we see are biased by our Social Networks? I don’t prefer answering without substantial proof to back any of my claims. So I did some research on it to find to what extent is Social Media influencing our search results on Google, Bing etc.

Believe it or not, but yes

Your Social Network influences your Search Results

Now you might ask – To what extent and when?
Now that is a tough nut to crack on my part. I will cite some numbers as proposed by big wigs in SEO arena. SEOMOZ recently announced that social media statistics influence upto 10% of search results today. You want it or not the search-scape is changing to include user opinion and its time we start preparing our surfboards, the big wave is almost visible now.

How will it exactly affect my Search Results?

As I mentioned before it will take in public opinion apart from links. Hyperlinks had been the ruling factor in determining authority till date and that is now going to change. Major players will be Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Four Square, LinkedIn etc.

Number of followers you have on twitter, no of likes your facebook page has got, your LinkedIn connection, number of reviews you have received on yelp, the frequency and bulk of people checking in at your place on foursquare will be the new factors that determine your authority on the world wide web. Do not even imagine for an instant that creating fake followers or fans or reviews could help you rule the SERPS. The algorithms will be able to weed out or penalize spammers by measuring the followed – follower interactions and other factors profile authority of the followers and reviewers.

Now here are some cases of Search influence based on our social network.

I am searching for Pizza Home Delivery on Google.

Right now I see Pizza Hut on top followed by Dominos. In future we could see something like this.

Dominos has 1,000,000 followers on twitter and Pizza Hut has only 450,000 and both of them are verified twitter profiles. I also have a twitter profile and I follow both. So since public opinion goes with Dominos I could well see dominos as my top result. Lest assume that both of them have got almost similar link trust.

Again let us imagine I am twitter user but I do not follow either of Pizza Hut or Dominos but my friends are. Suppose 200 of my friends ( twitter followers or facebook or myspace friends) like Pizza Hut while only 50 like Dominos. So I might be seeing Pizza Hut as my top result.

I am not a social media user at all and I am not even signed in to my google search. So what do I get? I should be getting an aggregate of all authority and link factors. That is a weighted mean of backlinks, follower counts, reviews, facebook likes etc.

Your GEO location as usual will also magnify the Influence of Social media. If Pizza Hut has more followers/likes/reviews from Delhi based users then no doubt Google/Bing will be recommending that to me too.

That might all sound very intricate now but we are all heading towards it. The faster we master the art (science or whatever) using social media for our SERP advantage the better it will be for our SEO business. I cannot give you an exact date or period as to when this gets big. But you can take my word and my references and trust the fact that the new war has already begun. You don’t have a choice to join it or not to join it. Your only question is when you should start preparing. If you ask me I say – NOW.

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