Archive for December, 2009
Is SEO Science or Art?
Recently SEOmoz posted about running a test that proved their thesis that nofollow PageRank sculpting still works (while actually only proving issues with sample size & methodology). But the issue of “proving” things with SEO publicly is typically a misguided one.
It is so hard to control variables in tests, and even if you could set up a control set many test types would be isolated to fictional words. But the issue with that is that the relevancy algorithms can change based on your location, the location where a particular keyword is commonly searched from, how many other competing results there are for that query (and what those other sites are changing while you test), and whatever algorithm shifts happen in Google while your test is going on (like promotion of certain vertical databases, baking in new pieces to the relevancy algorithms, improvements in related vocabularies, introduction of new penalties and filters), etc etc etc
But lets ignore all the above and pretend there is a way you can isolate variables or you notice something new and different and important. What happens when you mention it? Typically people tell you that you are full of crap, even when you are right.
Even if the test they did was legitimately scientifically valid they still likely would have got mocked for their efforts, just like I did in the above image (when I was right).
And the more data you share to “prove” your case all you are doing is lessening your competitive advantage over other market competitors. Lets say I wrote a blog post about “5 surprisingly strong links you can use to spam Google with great results” … well after I publish that the same day Google engineers will torch those link sources. The net effect of such efforts would be:
- wasting my time and money and competitive advantage
- harming a business model, business, and/or website that was helping me
- making Google look stupid (and having them dislike me)
- wasting your time (and a link source you could have used)
It is one of those rare lose/lose instance where literally nobody gains (unless it creates a self-serving controversy).
In what other “science” could reporting your results instantly alter/destroy them?
One conference I went to a while ago I only went for 1 day instead of 2. And then I saw on Twitter someone complained about me not showing up. Then I looked and saw that one of their sites competed with one of our sites. Was I really going to benefit by speaking on a panel where I give a direct competitor (with VC backing, decades of cumulative experience, more algorithmic leeway, etc.) any SEO tips? As an SEO that also does publishing you are only sacrificing your future revenues and your future net worth if/when you review competing sites and tell them how to compete better against you.
In the SEO industry it is hard to land 5 figure clients. But it is easy to build websites that make that recurring. You just have to put the time and effort in. But the only reason to share new and useful tips publicly is self-promotion. But even that is often a misguided effort because earning money servicing the SEO market is a bit like squeezing water out of a rock. People have free in their mindset and are irrationally stuck on free rather than the benefits of spending to save time and grow and earn more. Sorta self-defeating and certainly misguided if you take it too seriously, which is why I have been looking to build out other sites in other fields too. 
I used to dislike misinformation in the SEO industry, but I have since come to realize that the more misinformed the public is the more opportunity there is for me. If it wasn’t abstract and full of misinformation then someone overseas would be doing it for $5 a day and I would lose most of my income. So I say lets see some more bogus scientific studies. Let there be published book authors telling you that the best backlinks to get are the ones which are shown in the Google link: search.
If the end value is $10’s of Billions but the market sets a price of free, then misinformation is a big piece of the price…that is basic economics.
The money doesn’t care how it got into your bank account (as long as it was legal). And you don’t have to spend a lot of time backsolving everyone else’s success … a lot of that time would be better spent building your own success. Truthfully most people who are successful can’t even tell you why they themselves are successful. Worse yet, the “scientific” case study earns nothing while the non-scientific site with tons of traffic (built through small incremental daily improvements by an amateur) can earn a lot of money.
Years ago I gave away so many valuable tips that simply just created competition for myself. (And eventually I woke up to that when some of the people who would contact me begging me for discount SEO services while claiming they were broke also sent buy requests into other sites I ran that they didn’t know I owned). There are lots of other issues like non-disclosure agreements that mean nothing when someone has access to your stats + owns competing sites, fake investors who try to scam you for your information, etc etc etc.
I still love this site as though it is a child…it was the first site that really helped build me into a position where I had more options and opportunity than time. And due to our current pricing point filtering out most of the SEO market the forums are still a great place for me to learn more 
But, truth be told, in the SEO industry (as a service provider) almost everyone who comes to you likes to pretend that they are poor. They want to discount the price to nothing to help discount risk, but rarely (if ever) do they want to remove all risk and give you a piece of the upside for the millions of Dollars worth of extra profits you create for them.
But the cool thing with search is you can start off small and grow to compete. Sure it is always getting more competitive, but publishing tools are improving rapidly. If a person could read the archives of this blog for years and not be able to make money from search it simply means they lacked effort. Search offers so much opportunity that even without talent eventually anyone can stumble into something that works for them.
And that is the thing about SEO. Search offers so much opportunity that even without talent eventually anyone can stumble into something that works for them.
But they have to have the right mindset to succeed.
Dear sirs explain me all link buildings method are crucial to make me riches. Is very important Aaron Walls personally answers me this free and promptys … well that is not the right mindset, is it?
Investing time and money and effort and blood and tears…that is the right mindset. If you got nothing then you got nothing to lose. Give it your all.
Lots of the most interesting bits that you learn are from accidents that happen with experience. Accidentally blocking a part of your site in robots.txt, doing something weird with a redirect, having your host go down and getting your site crawled in a weird state, etc etc etc. Screwing up is where you learn a lot because that is where a lot of the surprises are. And it is far easier to learn when you are working on a number of sites at various stages of development…it gives you lenses through which to view search.
What works for one site might not work for the next. What works for one person might not work for the next. But there are many models that work and paths to success. Some people succeed because they are simply the best, or they love what they do, or they show up every day for years and years and years. Others succeed due to their irrational bias and ignorance. And some people were just early to the market and sorta fell into success.
One company spreads hyped up misinformation to an audience of ignorant drones who spread the misinformation, the next buys old domains that are heavily linked to and then pours garbage content into them using an assembly line sort of production model, the next has a person who does black public relations and tries to take down other industries (while learning their business models and working to clone them).
And yet other people are popular just because they are popular. Or because they were born rich and launched a sex tape on the web (complete with bogus fake legal stuff just to suck in more press coverage and “build the brand”).
Is SEO scientific? Yes, in the same way that sociology, psychology, and economics are scientific. But economics is referred to as the dismal science.
Anything that involves understanding human behavior and trying to influence it is not just science. It is also an art.
Here is to hoping you have a healthy, happy, profitable, and ARTISTIC 2010
Local SEO - A Case Study
How Do You Do Local SEO?
It’s quite clear that local SEO will be *one* of the places to be in 2010 and beyond. Need convincing?
Check out:
- Google and Yelp’s failed deal - If local search was unlikely to see a decent ongoing up tick, Google might not have as much interest in acquiring a site like Yelp. Even if Google was just buying Yelp out to remove competition for it’s own local stuff, it still shows an acknowledgement that local search is quite important.
- Google’s Flat Rate Local Adwords Pricing Model aimed at local businesses
- Google’s Local Business Center is becoming a more and more robust service.
- The local 10 Pack continues to show up in general service related queries. Local SEO is also about gaining visibility in Google’s 10 pack and maps in general so it is equally as important to be optimized for your geo-specific keywords as it is to be set up to succeed in the local pack
Speaking of the local 10 pack, it appears to have done part of its job for Google. Consider the following from TMPDM/ComScore
So Google’s maps increased sharply, likely due to the local 10 pack being shoved down people’s throats. I happen to like the 10 pack to some degree, more when I type in a town/city + service instead of my town + service because lots of times they pull from my IP which is a ways away from where I am now, which kind of renders the initial map findings a bit useless for me. I also like it much better when it takes up #4 in the rankings rather than having be at spot 1 or 2
The Process
One of the nice things about local SEO for me is that I don’t have to fuss around with a bazillion different keyword tools, cross reference data points, wonder which data sets are more accurate (and which ones are entirely useless), or spend time creating a site structure which ultimately has to be redesigned after finding some some of the keyword data was rubbish.
There are a few ways get a general idea of which keywords you should incorporate in your campaign. You can use tools like Google Trends, Google Insights, as well as PPC campaigns. You can also look at competing sites to see how they structure their page or site in order to target specific keywords.
A Case Study
So you just spoke at a local chamber of commerce meeting in your hometown of Atlanta and now you have the locals all fired up about search marketing. You end up landing a client named Mary Smith who owns Peachy Insurance Agency which has offices in Atlanta, Savannah, Macon, and Athens.
Mary has decided her agency is going to focus on vehicle insurance only. So she asks you to begin the process of figuring out which keywords best suit her goals. Will it be broader geo-local keywords (on the state level) or pursuing really local keywords (down to the town level) or both?
In this case, we have to figure out if car insurance or auto insurance is the more popular keyword in this specific area. I would start with the Adwords Keyword Tool to figure out if there is any big difference from a broad perspective
It appears that the modifier georgia and “auto” is a bit more popular (but it is pretty easy to work in other variations like the state abbreviation into your on-page copy)
Then I would head over to Google Insights for additional data points, one targeted to the state and one broader country wide search with local modifiers
Broad Search with modifiers
Broad Keywords but geo-targeted by region
Lastly, from a tool standpoint, I would give google trends a shot. They break out volume by town/city but I would still test that heavily in Adwords.
My next step would be to type in some keywords, since the difference is not huge and trying to target both might be a good move
Note the local box on the more niche, local search. Also, note how some sites target both car/auto. From a relevancy standpoint, Mary’s site should be able to do pretty well in these SERPS as a local resource guide, a local insurance agency, and a site which is not essentially a lead generation site. If Mary can create content which is valuable to the local community, earn local links, promote the site in local communities, etc.. she should do pretty well when compared to either thinner affiliate sites or one page off-shoots on a large lead generation domain.
Georgia Auto Insurance
Georgia Car Insurance
Atlanta Auto Insurance
Atlanta Car Insurance
The best way to figure out local keyword volume, or really any keyword’s volume in most cases, is to set up an adwords campaign. I like to set up 2 PPC campaigns:
- Campaign 1 - no radius targeting, targeting keywords with specific geo-local modifiers (georgia auto insurance, car insurance in atlanta, etc)
- Campaign 2 - targeting by maps (state of Georgia and specific zip codes) with no geo-local modifiers (auto insurance quotes, car insurance quotes) etc.
So that second option will probably be fairly pricey but the long term payoffs of making sure you or your client are optimized for the correct keyword variations in your market are much bigger than any nominal PPC campaign costs.
Conclusions
So the volume might not be huge but keep in mind this is a local insurance agency. They may not be able to scale their operation with a huge firehose of traffic (say the 10’s of thousands places like Geico and Progressive receive per day), it is all relative.
You might proceed as follows:
- Go with the state level keywords on the home page and try and grab the exact match if possible (either GeorgiaAutoInsurance.Com or GeorgiaCarInsurance.Com depending on what your PPC campaign tells you has the higher volume)
- Target towns/cities on individual pages like peachyinsurance.com/atlanta-auto-insurance.com
Most of the time local SERPS are ripe if you can figure out which angle you want to pursue, be able to execute it, and have a client willing to spend some capital
Must have resources, for me, when launching an SEO campaign is to browse through the local search ranking factors and see how I can apply them to my client’s site. Also, I am a big fan of Andrew Shotland’s Local SEO Guide & understanding Google maps & local search.
2009 in Pictures & SEOmoz’s Seattle Meetup on Wednesday 1/6
Posted by randfish
What a year! From traveling to software development, saying goodbye to old friends and growing the team with new ones, we’ve had a tremendously exciting 12 months at SEOmoz. To celebrate, next week, on Wednesday, January 6th 2010, we’ll be hosting an informal meetup at the Elysian Brewery on Capitol Hill in Seattle, WA. Everyone from the Seattle technology, startup and SEO community is welcome to attend, and we’ll be hosting a special guest, Distilled’s Will Critchlow (who’s chosen the worst possible time, weather-wise, to visit our fair city). Please RSVP via the Google form below!
In addition to the meetup, I thought it would be appropriate (and fun) to celebrate the year with a look back in pictures. Enjoy!
SEOmoz’s Mel Gray, Matt Heilman, Gillian Muessig, Nick Gerner, Sarah Bird & Mike Thompson at Seattle’s Big Climb Event, raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
The SEOmoz December holiday party at Olive8 - (Left to Right) Arden, Jimmy, Christine, Sarah, Ben Huff, Timmy, Gillian, Adam, Sam, Jen, Rand, Chas, Kate, Darren, Danny & Nick. Why did we all stuff into the dual showers? Umm… I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. You can watch our holiday video greeting and more holiday party photos on Facebook.
SEOmoz’s Chas Williams and Sarah Bird won most festive attire at our holiday event.
Tony Adam (BillShrink), smiling next to his SEOmoz Werewolf/Search Spam card at Pubcon Las Vegas in November
Kristy Bolsinger (blog), Kate Morris (blog) & Matt Cutts (blog) at the SEOmoz Werewolf Party at Pubcon Las Vegas
Ben Hendrickson and Jen Lopez, attired in full moz regalia, carrying "link juice" by the SEOmoz booth at SMX Advanced in Seattle
Ben, Danny (with a mustache! - he’s hidden so look real close), Chas, Scott & Timmy at lunch downstairs from SEOmoz’s offices at the Elysian Brewery on Capitol Hill
Sarah Bird hard at work in our cramped conference room
Sometimes, when we have tough decisions to make and could go either way, we Roshambo. I lost this round, and we ended up spending $5K on some professional services in our search for a new VP of Engineering.
Aimclear’s Marty Weintraub sent us a singing gorilla for the holidays. Tragically, I was out of town, but got to watch the video on Facebook 
At the beginning of the year, we had some construction work done on the office to help accomodate new arrivals
Mozzers hard at work in the conference room (and apparently freezing cold, too).
Ben Hendrickson explains ranking models and how we can "prove" H1 tags don’t really matter for SEO
Rand, Sarah, and SEOmoz board member & investor, Michelle Goldberg at The Naked Truth (a startup event in Seattle). Leaning on my shoulder is Mystery Guest, who tragically forgot sunglasses (why didn’t I give her mine?!)
The Conversion Rate Experts squirrel (yes, they have a mascot) at the SEOmoz/Distilled London PR) Training Seminar in October. Must check on progress of the SEOmoz Ring-tailed Lemur mascot costume.
Jon Kelly (Quinstreet), Tony Adam (Billshrink), Andy Liu (BuddyTV) and Neil Patel (Quicksprout) at SEOmoz’s annual party after SMX Advanced in Seattle at the Garage (photo-bombing courtesy of Matt Cutts)
Rand on Hubspot TV with Mike Volpe in Hubspot’s Boston offices (Rand: "My grandparents asked what channel I was going to be on.")
Rand is subsumed by Kristjan Mar Hauksson’s (of Nordic eMarketing) gigantic Viking hands in an Icelandic ice bar in the capital, Reykjavik following RIMC 2009
Dixon Jones (Receptional), Adam Lasnik (Google) & Rand go glacier hiking in Iceland
Rand at Searchfest Portland with Anne Kennedy (BeyondInk) and Adam Audette (Audette Media) speaking about SEOmoz’s history & future (apparently I was a bit more animated than most other folks)
On a panel at SES London chaired by Mike Grehan (SES), Rand pictured with Brett Tabke (WebmasterWorld), Chris Sherman (Third Door Media), Jill Whalen (HighRankings) and Kevin Ryan (WebVisible)
Outside the Chicago Hilton for SES Chicago with Richard Zwicky (Enquisite), Bill Leake (Apogee), Aaron Kahlow (OMS)
Jane Copland (Ayima), Danny Dover, Rand & Richard Baxter (SEO Gadget) in London following the Distilled/SEOmoz PRO Training Seminar
Mystery Guest gives Rob Kerry (Ayima) a gift in London on our way back from lunch near the Ayima offices. ("Why is my love always a source of linkbait?" - MG)
Rand & Will Critchlow (Distilled), standing under their respective time zone clocks in Distilled’s London offices.
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Alexander Holl (blog), Rand, Sandra & Matthew Finlay (Rising Media), Marcus Tandler (Mediadonis) at an SMX Munich party
Rand with Vanessa Fox (NineByBlue) & Mystery Guest in Bled, Slovenia for a day trip following SMX Munich
Rand & Mystery Guest join Nirav Tolia (Fanbase) for lunch in San Francisco during one of Rand’s VC fundraising expeditions to the valley
Bob Rains (blog), Lawrence Coburn (Rateitall), Lauren Vaccarello (Salesforce), Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl) and Donna Rains in a limo during a (loosely SEO related) wine tasting trip in Monterey, CA
Laura Lippay (blog), Mystery Guest, Vanessa Fox (NinebyBlue), Lauren Vaccarello (Salesforce) & Jessica Bowman (SEM in House) in San Francisco following the Jane & Robot conference
Rand, Tom Critchlow (Distilled), Ken Jurina (Epiar), Dharmesh Shah (OnStartups & Hubspot), David Mihm (blog), Matt Brown (Define Search Strategy), Danny Dover & Nick Gerner at the SEOmoz PRO Training Seattle
Mystery Guest homemade retro Star Trek outfits for Halloween this year (and got a wig + Vulcan ears to complete her ensemble)
Rand with his grandparents, Si & Pauline Fishkin at a Broadway musical following SMX East in New York City
Rand & Cindy Krum (Rank Mobile) tour Soho during SMX East in New York City
Left to Right: Rand, Greg Boser (3Dog Media), Barry Smyth (BSocial), Stephen Pavlovich (Conversion Rate Experts), Rob Kerry (Ayima), Aidan Beanland (Yahoo!7), Michael Motherwell (MMIT Search Australia), Bruce Clay (Bruce Clay, Inc), Greg Grothaus (Google)
The SEOmoz whiteboards in our conference room, showing off early concepts of new software (codenamed "Turbomoz") we’re hoping to launch this coming June
Ciaran Norris (Mindshare) was interviewed by Channel 4 in the UK on social media, search & Rupert Murdoch’s threats to shut off Google traffic. Tragically, he appeared garbed in naught save rags, and couldn’t be bothered to properly attire with a cravatte. Credit to Jane Copland for the image capture.
Rand, with a traditional Colombian hat, a gift from Gustavo Parra (at right) pictured at SMX Advanced Seattle
The SEOmoz crew outside the Garage following our party at SMX Advanced
David Temple (SEM Scholar), Gillian Muessig and Barry Smyth (BSocial) at SMX Singapore
Jen Lopez at SMX Advanced with Michael Gray (Wolf Howl)
Oh, and just FYI, the photos above are in no particular chronological order.
NOTE: If you’ve got other photos to share, please feel free to link to ‘em!
Broadening my Reading: 10 Sources I’ve Come to Love
Posted by randfish
Historically, I’ve been fairly narrow in what I read in the blogosphere and tech arena (almost all SEO-centric stuff). You can see my Firefox sidebar list here, which hasn’t changed much since 2008 with the exception of the blogs and news sections. But, over the past 6 months, I’ve been broadening out considerably and found that it adds a great deal to the conversations I’m able to participate in and contribute to, especially as SEOmoz itself has expanded from the SEO world to the larger technology and startup world. For the New Year, I thought I’d share some of the sources that have contributed most on this front and some of my favorite posts/contributions from those sources.
#1 - Hacker News
I find more good stuff here than anywhere else, and the diversity is impressive, too. Tragically, Hacker News is also a place for lots of misinformation, fear, and loathing around SEO, but it’s good to get a sense for how the rest of the technology world still views our niche. The signal to noise ratio is higher than on places like delicious/popular, the tech subreddit or Digg (which has become largely useless to tech professionals as its moved away from its roots).
A few items I’ve found via Hacker News include:
- Why everything you think about User Centered Design in Wrong
- On Self Promotion
- The death of the boring blog post
#2 - A VC
Fred writes compelling pieces consistently, almost never gets preachy, is self-promotional in a highly credible and useful way and brings up topics I wouldn’t have thought about without him. Most of us can’t have Fred on our boards or as an investor, but we can get into his head via his blog and participating more in the comments there has been a priority of mine for a while (he’s built a remarkable community in the comments).
Some favorite posts:
#3 - Chris Dixon
Chris, like Fred, delivers crystal clear value propostions with his posts. And IMO, he’s even higher signal to noise than Fred. I don’t always agree with him on everything, but I like the way he thinks about problems, I like the ones he brings up and I think he has his finger intensely on the pulse of what startups and technologists (and technical marketers like SEOs) are thinking about and dealing with. It’s a pleasure to see a new post from Chris - here’s to hoping he makes many more in 2010.
Some favorites include:
#4 - Techmeme
Techmeme is an obvious choice, but it’s also critical to the list. If it weren’t for Techmeme, I’d have to wade through ReadWriteWeb, Mashable and Techcrunch post-by-post, every day. Don’t ever leave us, Gabe.
No specific posts here - there’s far too many to name, and the site updates much too quickly for me to even recall all the great stuff I’ve found here. However, I will say that I highly recommend m.techmeme.com for mobile browsing. It’s been a joy to scroll through every time my wife takes extra-long in the dressing room at Anthropologie.
#5 - Answers On Startups
(http://answers.onstartups.com)
Launched just this past October, Answers On Startups has become a haven for learning more about the challenges, issues and questions entrepreneurs face in the technology world. I’ve recommended it before, and early on participated heavily (and I’d like to do more of that in the future), but if you’re seeking answers from highly authoritative folks in a scalable fashion, this is the spot. I’m really impressed by the quality of many contributions there - the signal to noise is pretty exceptional.
Some of the best include:
- What’s more important: release fast or getting it right?
- Free Trial vs. Freemium
- Qualities/skills of a CEO
#6 - Daring Fireball
In my ideal world, 5 years from now, when I’ve been put out to pasture by someone smarter and more capable, or bought out I’d have a blog like this. Some entries are just links, some are lengthy and thoughtful and all are interesting and worth reading. Author John Gruber also brings a remarkably diverse range of topics to the site and yet somehow, signal to noise remains high.
A few recent picks:
- Google’s Meaning of Open (a short, but flawless skewering)
- The Next iPhone
- A Liberal, Accurate Regex Pattern for Matching URLs
#7 - Steve Blank
A few of Steve’s posts are not only relevant, but serve to actually change direction in the executive ranks here at SEOmoz. That’s high praise, but if you read the blog, you’ll see what I mean. Steve’s been there, and his experiences run in shocking parallel to the issues we face or worry about on a regular basis. Even when I disagree with points, the logic and thought he puts into the post makes for a great read and a hard think.
Some of his best:
- The Elves Leave Middle Earth - Sodas are No Longer Free
- Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves
- Good Enough Decision Making
#8 - NYTimes Most Emailed
(http://www.nytimes.com/gst/mostemailed.html)
Despite the financial and institutional problems they face, the NYTimes still puts out absolutely phenomenal content on nearly every area of life. From cooking to politics, travel to health, there is amazing material to be found in the Grey Lady, and the Most Emailed list is the place to find the best of the best.
Some favorites:
- Twitter Chatter During the Superbowl (I love their interactive graphics)
- Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners
- Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine
- 100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1)
#9 - Venture Hacks
When I was out trying to raise a second round of VC this summer (big mistake - more on that in a future post), Venturehacks’ historic content was invaluable. However, visiting the site made me realize how much good stuff there is that doesn’t apply only to those currently raising money. They’ve got some seriously great writers/contributors, invaluable interviews and tackle tough subjects.
My personal favorites recently included:
- 10 Skills I look for before writing a check
- How to develop your customers like you develop your product
- The Arrogant VC: Why VCs are disliked by entrepreneurs
#10 - Twittersphere
Since they don’t publish archives (the most frustrating feature), I’m unable to show off just how cool this site is and has been over the last few months, but just try visiting a couple times a day for the next few weeks and you’ll see. It’s remarkable how much good stuff gets re-tweeted (and how much junk - signal to noise is about 15%, which is still decent since it’s easy to skim and consume at will). You can also get a sense for how important Twitter’s link graph is to the engines through Twittersphere - a lot of pages that have 0 links will have thousands of tweets pretty fast.
Your turn! I’d love to see the sites outside the SEO world that give you the most professional value (and I’m certain the rest of our readers would too). Feel free to link drop even to yourself, so long as it’s relevant
Tests Show PageRank Sculpting with Nofollow Still Works
Posted by Danny Dover
Update: Based on some excellent feedback in the comments (Seriously, thank you everyone!) I have updated the post with some clarifications and more added data. Specifically, I added a diagram of the page setup and removed a confusing comment I made about Javascript links.
As SEOmoz has matured as a company, our SEO team has shifted away from treating SEO purely as an art and more toward treating it as a science. There is certainly the necessity for both perspectives but I believe we are now much more centered.
As a result of this shift, we have been running more tests and analyzing more data. Before I get into the topic of our latest test results, let me provide some important points to establish context.
- There is overwhelming evidence that from a "ROI on time spent working" perspective, there is much more value in link building and creating content that is link-worthy than obsessing over search engine algorithm fluctuations like PageRank sculpting. Link building is human oriented and thus more inline with the long term goals of the search engines. Links also have the added bonus of being easy to measure and thus easier to prioritize.
- We can’t directly measure how PageRank flows so we can only infer results. This needs to be acknowledged when interpreting test results. That said, we also can’t directly measure objects outside our solar system and this solution of inference has become the basis for modern Astronomy. (If it is good enough for NASA, it is good enough for SEOmoz ;-p)
The Experiment
We chose the following five PageRank sculpting methods to test:
Rel=‘nofollow’ - The standard mechanism for nofollowing a link. <a href=’http://www.example.com’ rel=‘nofollow’>example</a>
Link Consolidation - Consolidating low priority pages. You can read more about link consolidation here.
Iframe - Include a standard link in an iframe that is blocked via robots.txt or meta robots so engines can’t follow it.
Javascript - An external Javascript file (blocked from robots) that inserts links into divs when the page renders.
Control Case - Null test with standard links.
Page Setup
We then built five standardized websites that used these different methods (one used iframes for its test links, another one used Javascript for its test links, etc..) and included one normal link with the anchor text of a phrase that was completely unique on the Internet.
Each website in the experiment used the same template. Each keyword phrase was targeted in the same place on each page and each page had the same amount of images, text and links.
The standardized website layout contained:
- Four pages per domain (the homepage and the keyword specific content pages)
- One internal inlink per page (Links in content)
- One inlink to homepage from third party site
- Six total outbound links.
- Two "junk" links to popular website articles to mimic natural linking profile (old Digg articles)
- One normal link to keyword test page
- Three modified links (according to given test) to three separate pages optimized for given keyword
- Links to internal pages only came from internal links
- The internal links used the anchor text (random English phrase) that was optimized for the given internal page
- Outbound links (aka "junk" links) used anchor text that was the same as the title tag of the external page being linked to (Old Digg articles)
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Example Test Website
Please note that the above example was NOT actually used. I provided a fake example to maintain the integrity of the testing platform for future tests.
The experiment variables were:
- links (based on experiment type)
- colors
- photos (although alt text was standardized)
- text (randomized text based on proper English grammar using a standardized word-set)
We then did everything we could to make sure that all of these pages received the same amount of link juice from external sources.
The null result would be a random assortment of experiment types ranking in the SERPs.
The alt result would be one experiment type outranking all of the others.
Redundancy
We then duplicated this experiment eight times in parallel. This meant 40 different domains, 40 different IP addresses, 8 different WHOIS records, 8 different hosting providers and 8 different payment methods. (We then went outside and drank)
We ran this test for 2 months.
The Results
| PageRank Sculpting Method | Average Rank in Google |
| Nofollow | 2.4 |
| Link Consolidation | 3.0 |
| Iframe | 3.1 |
| Javascript | 3.2 |
| Control Case | 3.2 |
| Rank | Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Test 4 | Test 5 | Test 6 | Test 7 | Test 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | nofollow | nofollow | control | nofollow | consolidation | iframe | nofollow | control |
| 2. | javascript | iframe | javascript | consolidation | iframe | consolidation | consolidation | iframe |
| 3. | consolidation | javascript | nofollow | iframe | nofollow | control | control | javascript |
| 4. | control | control | consolidation | javascript | javascript | javascript | javascript | nofollow |
| 5. | iframe | consolidation | iframe | control | control | nofollow | iframe | consolidation |
As you can see, the nofollow method ranked an average of 1 place higher (0.7) in the SERPs than the control result. This is significant when you realize the total is out of 5.
It appears that the iframe method and link consolidation were slightly effective but the margin was so small that they could be contributed to error.
The Javascript method did not work at all.
The Bottom Line
Despite what the search engine representatives say, nofollow is still an effective way for sculpting PageRank. If you have nofollow sculpting already installed, don’t remove it. If you don’t have it installed, implementing it probably won’t make a drastic change but we encourage you to test this when it is responsible to do so.
I invite you to share your interpretation of these results in the comments below. As with any experiment, these results are not valid unless they can be reproduced and stand up to the critique of others. What should we do differently in future experiments?
Using SEO?Techniques to Improve Your Website
The terms SEO?and website quality may have once been at polar opposites, but today there are a number of ways that you can improve your website and your ranking.
Everybody knows about the bygone era of SEO. Where keyword stuffing was commonplace and the visitor was far from being the top priority. But it has evolved [...]
WhiteBEARD Friday - 12 Link Strategies of Searchmas
Posted by great scott!
Welcome back to our second installment of this very special WhiteBEARD Friday! Last week Rand Fishclause discussed how the new school way to get links is to give back to webmasters. That’s right, you’ve gotta give a little to get a little. This week, in the spirit of Searchmas©, we’re giving you 12 examples of sites that exemplify this new model.
From video hosting, to awards, to social profiles, and many more, we hope you’ll come away with some great ideas about what you can do to provide outward value to the linkerati and get a whole lotta link love back in return.
SEOmoz Whitebeard Friday - 12 Link Strategies of Searchmas from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
From all of us here at SEOmoz, thanks for joining us every week for our 2009 season of Whiteboard Friday, and for being part of one of the most vibrant, fun, and talented communities on the web. Your participation and readership really means the world to us, and we can’t wait to share 2010 with you. Until then, happy holidays
Improving Site Speed and Search Rankings
The issue of page load time probably seems about as detached as you could probably get from traditional SEO, or at least it will if you have missed the recent news emanating from Google HQ. Yes, site speed is about to become a ranking factor.
As with any ranking factor, site speed will now come under [...]
Google’s Youtube Potentially Cloaking? Or VEVO Launch?
[update: Matt Cutts contacted me and mentioned that this was due to the Vevo launch which occurred after that page was cached. Over time that means such pages like the one mentioned below should be purged from the Google search index.]
Google claims they try to be pretty fair with publishers and publishing business models. They are fine with indexing preview versions of a page and just showing a user that, you can make the full article free, you can make the first x clicks free.
OR you can put it all behind a paywall and not get any search exposure.
UNLESS you are Youtube.
In which case you can put whatever you want behind a subscribe wall, still have that registration-required/paywall content fully indexed in Google, and then force users to sign in to view the content.
On the cache copy of pages people still can view the pre-roll ads, but not the content
Search Google for “poker face”, observe all the Youtube data in the search results, click the top Youtube listing, and watch them send you to a login page so they can better track you and target ads against you.
Many publishers that are having trouble figuring out search (from a business model perspective) would have no problem making a ton of money from search if they got the good ole home cooking treatment that Youtube currently enjoys (universal search promotion + cloaking forcing registration).
And this is where Google being rumored to acquire other content properties (like Yelp) becomes scary for users and publishers and advertisers alike.
Publicly Google preaches the virtues of openness
To understand our position in more detail, it helps to start with the assertion that open systems win. This is counter-intuitive to the traditionally trained MBA who is taught to generate a sustainable competitive advantage by creating a closed system, making it popular, then milking it through the product life cycle. The conventional wisdom goes that companies should lock in customers to lock out competitors. There are different tactical approaches — razor companies make the razor cheap and the blades expensive, while the old IBM made the mainframes expensive and the software … expensive too. Either way, a well-managed closed system can deliver plenty of profits. They can also deliver well-designed products in the short run — the iPod and iPhone being the obvious examples — but eventually innovation in a closed system tends towards being incremental at best (is a four blade razor really that much better than a three blade one?) because the whole point is to preserve the status quo. Complacency is the hallmark of any closed system. If you don’t have to work that hard to keep your customers, you won’t.
Open systems are just the opposite. They are competitive and far more dynamic. In an open system, a competitive advantage doesn’t derive from locking in customers, but rather from understanding the fast-moving system better than anyone else and using that knowledge to generate better, more innovative products. The successful company in an open system is both a fast innovator and a thought leader; the brand value of thought leadership attracts customers and then fast innovation keeps them. This isn’t easy — far from it — but fast companies have nothing to fear, and when they are successful they can generate great shareholder value.
Open systems have the potential to spawn industries. They harness the intellect of the general population and spur businesses to compete, innovate, and win based on the merits of their products and not just the brilliance of their business tactics. The race to map the human genome is one example.
But as soon as Google gets a market dominant position, you can bet on them locking it down to enhance ad revenues. The secret search relevancy algorithms, AdWords ad quality score, using AdWords rebates to push Google Checkout, always-on search personalization (even when logged out), mystery meat payout rates to AdSense publishing partners, universal search algorithms that allow them to arbitrarily promote their own websites, YouTube cloaking, etc etc etc
It looks like they jumped the gun on Yelp. Google was already integrating Yelp reviews in their AdWords ads before the acquisition was finalized.
What does it mean for the rest of us?
I am not sure.
It depends on if Google believes in what they say or what they do. They can’t believe both.
How Personalized Search Changes SEO (and Doesn’t)
Posted by randfish
Earlier this month, Google launched personalized results by default for all users. SEOs should have already read Danny Sullivan’s analysis of the shift (which is quite excellent) and I also suggest checking out David Harry’s Guide on the topic. Sadly, despite some good advice, it appears that a lot of folks are still worried that this is somehow the "end of SEO" or demands a "completely new look at SEO practices." Let’s do a brief analysis:
What’s the Impact for SEOs?
- Rank Checking is Less Universally Accurate
While not the biggest tragedy, it’s certainly a bit frustrating to know that rank tracking (manually or with tools) may provide somewhat less authoritative data than before. Though, to be honest, rank tracking has always been about establishing a baseline, not about exact results (see previous posts on this). Still, if you’ve been using this data to see how you fluctuate in the "normal" (non-personalized or geo-targeted) results, it’s still solid for that purpose and may actually help you determine if you’re gaining or losing in the new, personalized world (if you get more traffic but rankings stay the same, personalized might be helping; if you gain rankings but don’t proportionally benefit in search traffic, it may be hurting).
_ - The Rich Get (Even) Richer
Those at the top of the results, who "own" the queries around their niches are likely to benefit disproportionately as mid and long tail queries that would once have shown more alternative sources will now bring up those "previously visited" sites even if their traditional relevance and popularity scores wouldn’t have earned them a top position. This will likely contribute to some lowered diversity in the results, but may help fight against low quality re-publishers and content aggregators in favor of trusted brands.
_ - User Experience & Branding Boost SEO (Even More)
It’s always been critical to make users love your site, but now the direct SEO impact can be felt even more strongly. Sites and brands that "suck at SEO" may even find themselves performing better if their users love them and the pages are, at least, accessible to engines. I’m buying Steve Krug’s new book - Rocket Surgery Made Easy - ASAP either way
_ - Buying Traffic May Now Help Organic Results
If Google really is using signals from all sources of data, the paid results and their impact on search and visit history might now give a boost (indirectly) to positioning in the organic results. In fact, it could be that even services like Google AdSense or other paid advertising that leads a visitor who’s logged in to their Google account and using the toolbar (or other detectable methods of tracking) will "count" towards the personalization metrics. I expect lots of SEOs to start testing and reporting on this soon.
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What Should We Do Differently in our Campaigns?
- Get More Visitors (Any Way We Can)
Depending on how Google is counting visits and traffic (which they haven’t and probably won’t ever fully disclose), any way you can drag a visitor to your site and give them a good experience is likely to positively contribute to your chances of ranking better in personalized results.
_ - Improve Brand Loyalty
SEOs haven’t classically focused on brand metrics and branding as a marketing practice, but it’s long past due. The benefits of building a strong brand are evident everywhere in the consumer (and B2B) marketplace. Now Google’s giving us one more reason (and a more direct one at that) to start earning visitors’ love and, in turn, be rewarded by higher rankings.
_ - More Tightly Integrate Metrics w/ Rank Tracking
Again, this has been a wise move long before personalization, but with the expansion comes renewed need for weaving together the 3rd-party tracking of rankings with the traffic metrics from your analytics to provide a full picture of how your site is performing in the search engines.
_
The big takeaway here is that these action items aren’t particularly groundbreaking. We should have been doing all of these as responsible, effective Internet marketers anyway.
Is this a Major, Tectonic Shift in SEO?
No. I’m maintaining my previous stance that unless a shift from Google fundamentally changes the classic SEO process:
- Make pages accessible
- Target with keywords that searchers employ
- Build content that users will find useful and valuable
- Earn editorial links from good sources
It doesn’t qualify as a "tectonic" or "massive" or "fundamental" change in SEO. The best practices we’ve been recommending to clients, developers and content creators for the last half-decade are actually less impacted by this change than by some of the other items we’ve encountered recently (Bing + Yahoo! combining, real-time results at the top of query results, more vertical results in the SERPs, etc.). These latter examples call for much more active changes, learnings and direct action on the part of SEOs vs. personalization, which by-and-large just strengthens the reasons for best practices we’ve long known to exist.
p.s. Tomorrow evening at 6pm (Tuesday Dec. 22nd), I’ll be attending an informal SEO meetup in San Diego, CA at the Gordon Biersch Brewery in Mission Valley - 5010 Mission Center Road San Diego, CA 92108. Hope to see some of you there before the holidays!