Author Archive
Whiteboard Friday - Get Indexed Faster! with Richard Baxter
Posted by great scott!
One of our favorite things about SMX Advanced is that it brings all kinds of cool people to town, and you know what that means: special guest stars on Whiteboard Friday! This week one of our pals from across the pond, Richard Baxter of SEO Gadget, joins Rand to talk about how to get your content indexed faster.
When you’re covering poppin’-fresh, trending, news-worthy content, there’s no time to sit around whittling miniature canoes and waiting for Google to come crawl your site and index your new content. That sort of passive attitude will allow your competitors to dominate all of that awesome Query Deserves Freshness search traffic and make enough money to go buy real, full-size canoes whittled by fine Native American craftsmen. You’ll be poor and jealous, and we just can’t have that. Watch this week’s video to learn several near-magical strategies to get your fresh content indexed faster than meth-fueled panther (that’s fast, people)!
Okay, you’re so fast that you ain’t got time to watch no stinking video, you just want the overview, well here you go. Mr. Baxter’s five strategies for super speedy indexing:
1. Normal Crawling
No, it’s not fast (usually), but it’s fairly reliable. That said, we don’t care about reliable; patient people are reliable and we’re not patient today, we want it NOW! Normal crawling is for sissies, ignore this point and move on to…
2. Update Your XML Site Map
There’s a link within your Google Webmaster Tools that will let you ping Google and let them know you’ve updated your XML, News, or Video Sitemaps. If you ping them, they will come. They may not come as quickly as they would if you put out a sign that says, "Free Beer," but it’ll definitely be much faster than their normal crawl pace.
3. PubSubHubbub
Say that three times fast! You won’t summon the Candyman, but you will remember the name of this awesome service that can help you get found super quickly. By publishing to a PubSubHubbub Hub (you can use a public one or create your own using Superfeedr), you’ll automatically reach all PSH-compatible services including Google Reader, Friend Feed, and Feedburner. One-stop-shopping, people (and Richard promises that it’s super easy)!
4. Twitter
Okay, okay, it’s not an official signal, but everybody who’s anybody thinks it’s highly likely that Google watches for new and/or popular content URLs that may be emerging faster than they can discover them. Makes sense, right? You and your friends can send word of the latest and greatest Hatchet-Wielding Super Hero faster than Google can find it; and if lot’s of people re-tweet it, there’s a good chance it deserves a little oomph in the SERPs.
5. Ping-O-Matic
Other than sounding like yet another wonderful device from the twisted mind of Ron Popeil, this service is like a combination of tactics 2 and 3. Ping-O-Matic lets you quickly ping a bunch of web services (such as PostRank, Bloglines, NewsGator, and Google Blog Search) notifying them of new content on your site. It’s as if there were a giant alarm that went off alerting the world of your amazing new content, and hey, isn’t that exactly what we’re trying to accomplish (as long as it doesn’t sound like the car alarm that keeps going off outside; I’d like to drop a meteorite on that car)?
There you go, five awesome tactics to get your stuff indexed and out to the public faster than a well-trained team of bobsledding ducks! Big thanks to Richard for hanging out with us this week and taking the time to work a little whiteboard magic.
Whiteboard Interview - Google’s Matt Cutts on Redirects, Trust + More
Posted by great scott!
We’ve got a very special bonus video for you today. Our buddy-and the Googliest spam cop to ever walk the webz - Matt Cutts stopped by to do a quick interview in front of ye olde whiteboard. Watch in wonder and amazement as Rand and Matt discuss headers, status codes, how much of the web is worth indexing, porn, redirect chains, URL structures, geo targeting, leaking link juice, and amateur beekeeping!
Before you get all cynical on me and assume all you’ll hear in this interview is, "design content for users, not for engines," give it a chance. Matt only brings up his trademark catchphrase once in the whole ~20 minute interview, and he is exceedingly candid and forthcoming throughout. I promise you’re gonna walk away from this knowing some things about Google you didn’t know before. If you don’t, I’ll stand on my head. Maybe. Not really. BUT I won’t have to because you’re going to be all super-smart and educated by the end of the video. So put on your learning pants and hit play, you uppity whipper-snapper, or, if you’re like Steve Jobs and are incompatible with Flash video, read the recap below…
If you need a refresher or you’re scared of moving images and prefer the company of fluffy, harmless typing, here’s a little recap of what Matt and Rand discussed.
Should Webmasters Use the ‘If Modified Since’ Header?
The ‘If Modified Since’ header can be used to manually indicate to Google whether or not you’ve made changes to content on the page. According to Matt, they started supporting it in 2003 when bandwidth was a big issue, but nowadays, it’s not very important. That said, he still advises it as a good standard practice, but also notes that it won’t necessarily help you get crawled faster.
Should Webmasters Use 503 Status Codes for Downtime?
503s can help avoid getting a page that’s under construction or experiencing problems crawled and indexed, which can be a big problem especially for large, popular sites (watch the video for Rand’s example of Disney running into this issue). Matt advocates using 503s in this case. You can’t specify when you’d like Google to re-crawl, but they will come back and won’t index the maintenance content of the page.
Does the Number of Outbound Links from a Page Affect PageRank?
For instance, to conserve "link juice" and/or funnel it more discretely, does it matter whether I have three outbound links versus two? In the original PageRank formula, yes, juice flowed out in a simple formula of Passable PR divided by number of outbound links. But nowadays, Matt says it is a much more cyclical, iterative analysis and, "it really doesn’t make as much difference as people suspect." There’s no need to hoarde all of your link juice on your page and, in fact, there may be benefit to generously linking out (not the least of which is the link-building power of good will).
If Google’s seen a Trillion URLs, How Many Do They Pay Attention To?
Since Google crawls in PageRank order, they see the "best" stuff first and avoid a lot of the serious crap. The biggest issue is discovering duplicate or previously banned content. Matt said that about 28% of what they see is duplicate. He also made the careful distinction between "quality" content and "popular" content, further illustrating that traffic isn’t a significant ranking factor: "PR does not reflect popularity in the sense that porn is very popular, but nobody links to porn…(those sites) don’t have the PageRank you’d expect if you went by usage."
Is a Trailing / Important in URL Structure?
Seems like a minor thing right? Do you use url.com/folder of url.com/folder/ in your URL structure? Matt says he would slightly advocate for using a trailing slash simply because it clearly indicates that a URL is a folder and not a document. That said, Google is quite good at differentiating so it’s not a huge deal.
Does Google Crawl from Multiple Geopgraphic Locations?
Should I be displaying geo-specific content based on user IP? It’s a very popular question among SEOs dealing with international sites and users; but how does it affect what Google sees and what shows up in the SERPs?
Matt confirmed that, "Google basically crawls from one IP address range worldwide because (they) have one index worldwide. (They) don’t build different indices, one for each country."
This means it’s very important to avoid showing significantly different content to users from different countries. As Matt says, "The problem is if you’re showing different content-like French content to French IPs-Googlebot may not see that."
Thus, you want to be sure to send everyone to the same content initially and allow them to navigate to geo-specific areas of your site. While Google has gotten better at submitting dropdowns, working with JavaScript, etc., it is still strongly advised that you provide this geo-targeted navigation via static links.
Is It a Bad Idea to Chain Redirects (e.g. 301–>301–>301)?
"It is, yeah."
Matt was very clear that Google can and usually will deal with one or two redirects in a series, but three is pushing it and anything beyond that probably won’t be followed. He also reiterated that 302s should only be used for temporary redirects…but you already knew that, right?
What’s with the Bees?
It’s true, there are bees in Mountain view. A rash of amateur apiculture has sprung up on the Google campus and a few members of the Web Spam Team have caught stinger fever (though not Matt, he prefers cats). Apparently they’ve ven gone so far as to color all of the hives in the apiary in Google’s traditional primary colors…what a bunch of geeks 
Well, that was a whole pile of great stuff we were able to get out of Mr. Cutts (and we didn’t even have to ply him with booze)! Now, go venture forth and use your new nuggets of searchy goodness to clobber your competitors.
Another huge thanks to Matt for taking the time to answer our questions so thoughtfully!
Article Marketing + Submission for SEO | Whiteboard Friday
Posted by great scott!
Content, content, content…everybody wants it, everybody needs it, and you’re great at creating it, but maybe nobody’s reading it. Since that brainy brain of yours is already pumping this stuff out, how can you leverage your great content to get some quick and easy links?
"How ’bout this for a story: ‘Man with giant baby head considers gubernatorial bid’?"
There are all kinds of ways to distribute your content: article submission sites, one-off submissions, self-publication…on and on. As with everything else, there are trade-offs to each dissemination vector and that’s what we’re talking about this week: What are the pros and cons of using article/content marketing as an SEO strategy? Where and how can you identify potential partners to get the highest quality links for your content? When is it better to let someone else publish your work? Are links the best arbiter of value? The answers to all these questions and more await you in this week’s Whiteboard Friday…
Yes, content creation is a lot of work. It takes time, effort, and creativity to generate high-quality content, and that’s why it’s in such high demand. While you may hate to send your precious baby off to live on someone else’s blog, it may be what’s best for the child (and you). Sure, you won’t get as many links as you may have by self-publishing, but if you’re selective about the site, you’ll get one or two very good links, but wait, there’s more…
By publishing on a larger, more visible site than your own, your content could be seen by many more people. This makes it an excellent branding strategy. The reputation effect of an author byline on a popular piece on a well-read site can pay huge dividends in reputation, traffic, and business if you select the right partners. Do you need to publish somewhere directly in-line with your niche? No. Look for sites with relevant readership–SEO content creators may want to look to email marketing, web design, or ecommerce focused publishers for instance–that will have an interest in your topic but may not have as much exposure to it as they would like. This can quickly help establish you as an authority among a valuable audience segment, and once you’re their authority, they’ll seek you out for more content and advice.
p.s. Someone in the comments pointed us to this Guest Blogging Community Portal from Ann Smarty. I haven’t tried it yet, but I think she’s certainly on the right path with that approach.
Whiteboard Friday - Sitewide, Reciprocal, and Directory Links
Posted by great scott!
Link building sucks. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. It can be slow, tedious, and exhausting. It’s also one of the most crucial aspects of complete search engine optimization. So what do you do when faced with the intimidating challenge of building links? Once upon a time, you could’ve just submitted your site to a few hundred cheap directories (or a few thousand like so many of the $99 "SEO" shops offer), arrange for a few dozen reciprocal links from sites with decent PageRank, and maybe even negotiate a nice, keyword-targeted footer link from a reasonably popular blog. Bing-bang-boom, you’ve got several hundred good links with super-optimized anchor text…hellooooo rankings!
Those of you who’ve been playing this game for a while are probably thinking, "ahh, 2004, those were the days!" Everyone else is either looking at the screen incredulously or laughing hysterically, "this stuff doesn’t work at all anymore!" Oh really? Doesn’t it? Sitewide, Reciprocal, and Directory links often have a bad rap because in the last several years they’ve largely become synonymous with cheap, spammy, dishonest, and largely useless scam SEO offers. But here’s the catch: if you’re careful, reasonable, and practical, these oft-maligned practices can still be effective. Don’t go screaming black hat on me, watch this week’s video to learn the how, when, and why of what can make these black sheep of the link building world viable tactics.
As discussed in the video there are times when these strategies can be legitimate. Rand covered these in a lot of detail in our recent PRO Webinar on Advanced Competitive Link Building, so if you’re a PRO Member, be sure to watch the recording. For now, let’s look at some situations where these strategies can still work.
Sitewide Links The early oughties (aka 2000’s) were the like Studio 54 for sitewide links: shady links were snorting coke off of hookers in the dark recesses of footer navigation across the web. Then Google raided the joint looking for manipulative link patterns like the IRS looking for cooked books–the jig was up for footer and sidebar sitewide nav links. To this day you can occasioanlly stumble across a rogue footer containing a few links out to ridiculously unrelated content (one local theater here in Seattle has links out to branded baby care products), but by-and-large this practice is no longer used…except for when it is. Does Disney link to other sites in its content network? Does Lulu link to their SEOmoz and PC magazine awards? Does SEOmoz link to service partners like Distilled and Exact Target? Yes, they/we do and we do so in sitewide footers. These are legitimate and natural relationships. There’s nothing strange or fishy here. In fact, if any of these links were paid, they’d be better off on one or two strong pages rather than on a sitewide navigational element. Basically, you should consider these bad if/when they seem unnatural and/or they’re done alongside other shady stuff.
Reciprocal Links First things first: within niche industries, natural reciprocal links are compeletely natural. In fact they’re often difficult to avoid. Think about the SEO space; SEOmoz, SEOBook, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and all the others…we’re constantly linking to each other, but do we ever call up Aaron or Loren or Matt and say, "hey, I’ll link to your page if you link back to mine with this exact anchor text"? No, that’d be ridiculous. ‘Reciprocal’ becomes a four-letter word when it becomes clear that your site has an unusually high proportion of 1-to-1 links (you and other sites link to each other only once), often with suspiciously consistent anchor text. Those are the phenomena that start to look shady and draw attention.
Directory Links Here’s the litmus test for a directory: Do they care who you are? Good directories endeavour to actually create a high-value resource by excercising editorial control and restricting listings to sites and businesses that will be of value to their users. Bad directories endeavour to maximize the number of people willing to pay them money to be listed next to Der International Haus of Spamcakes because, hey, it’s a PR3 link! It’s really that simple. Directory links of the good variety can be really solid link sources (they’re often niche or local), but the bad kind (of which you can probably find 20,000 for $99) ain’t gonna do a damn bit of good for you.
When it comes down to it, you simply need to use good judgement with your link efforts. Is this a link someone would not be surprised to find on this site and in this location? Is the link from a site you could or would legitimately link to in a blog post? Would your site or page be a good resource for someone visiting a particularly directory? What about the rest of the content and links, do they seem legitimate? A little honest evaluation and some common sense is really all you need to avoid engaging in bad linking practices.
Whiteboard Friday - Google’s May Day Update & What It Means for You
Posted by great scott!
May Day, Roodmas, Walpurgis Night, Beltane…regardless of the name, it’s a time for dancing around the maypole, enjoying the bounties of Spring, recalling the battle for worker’s rights, and lots of other fun things. But for many a search marketer, May 1st (ish) of this year will be remembered as the day the long tail died (bye-bye Misses High ROI…apologies to Don McLean).
Old-Timey Folks Gettin’ Their Maypole On
Okay, okay, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but the search world (including Search Engine Roundtable and Webmaster World) definitely did notice the effects of Google’s so-called "May Day Update". Sure, Google makes minor algo tweaks like this all the time, but around April 28th-May 3rd a lot of sites (SEOmoz included) noticed a sudden loss of 5-15% of their normal long tail traffic. Watch this week’s video to learn more about what may have happened, and what you should do about it, or continue reading below for a summary.
What happened here? Why did you (or someone you love) lose their precious long tail search referrals? There are a lot of theories out there: Google reduced the size and depth of the primary index to keep Caffeine fast; there was broad link devaluation; there was a shift in how phrase match is performed; increased bias was given to authority/brand sites; etc. Some, all, or none of these may be true, the important thing is DON’T PANIC! If you saw a drop in traffic, you need to figure out why…don’t start blindly changing things lest you care to break what may not be broken.
How do you know if you were affected? Well, start by checking your search referral traffic between April 28th and May 3rd; do you see a drop? If so, is the change in the number of referrals, or the number of pages getting traffic? A drop in traffic to your big terms isn’t likely May Day, but a drop in pages getting search referrals (long tail traffic) could be. If you monitor rankings for a handful of obscure tail terms (which you should do specifically for this reason), did your rankings suddenly plummet? Did your indexation or crawl stats change suddenly (you can use Webmaster Tools, site: searches, etc. to check)? These could indicate you were hit by the update.
What to do? Run! Hide! Grab your anti-zombie defensive shotgun that you keep on-hand at all times in case of a Zombie Apocalypse! Just kidding; that would be bad. First, look at your links and give yourself a quality check: have you been a little shady lately? If so, maybe you should spend some effort getting a few high-quality links to spruce up the place (Spring cleaning, natch). Can you spare a bit of link juice from a strong page to give those weaker, but targeted long tail pages a little boost? It might help. Again, most importantly of all, don’t panic…the engines make little changes to the algos all the time. Google made more than 500 changes last year–more than one per day–and 99% of the time you won’t even notice. Even if May Day did impact your site, it could change back next week, so take a deep breath and try to relax. Keep practicing high-quality, fundamental SEO and you’ll be okay.
Whiteboard Friday - What Kind of Links Do You Need?
Posted by great scott!
It’s true you can do a lot of work on a site to optimize your rankings, but eventually you’re going to need some links. While they make small changes all the time, the search algorithms are still based primarily on links. But here’s what you may not consider when you’re devising your link building strategy or working to acquire the links you need: links can accomplish very different things.
Depending on your situation–your site, your link profile, your competition–the kinds of links you need and the things you need them to do for you can vary significantly. Learning how to determine the kinds of links you should pursue, and what they need to accomplish can save you a ton of time, money, and frustration. Watch this week’s Whiteboard Friday to learn how to segment your link strategy and focus on areas of weakness.
Whiteboard Friday - Facebook’s Open Graph WON’T Replace Google
Posted by great scott!
Earlier this week Facebook announced its ‘Open Graph’ at F8. There was all sorts of hubbub (much of it the bye-product of well-orchestrated buzz) about Facebook finally making strides to kill Google’s dominance of the web. So should you hangup your white hat, your black hat, your grey hat, and trade it all in for a blue hat? Much as we love Facebook, the answer, dear reader, is no: SEO is not dead.
Watch this week’s video to hear Rand’s take on how Facebook’s ‘Open Graph’ will impact web marketing and all the ways it won’t. There are all sorts of opportunities that will likely emerge out of this new technology, so you should pay attention. So go ahead and keep an eye out for a nice fitting blue hat in the near future, but don’t plan to throw away your white hat anytime soon.
The sticker we received
Whiteboard Friday - Oh $#!%, I Got a Penalty
Posted by great scott!
Anyone who’s been in internet marketing long knows the feeling: you go to check your rankings one day and something’s different. Your pulse quickens, a cold sweat spreads across your brow, your eyes widen…they’re gone. Your precious rankings are gone! Where did they go? What happened?
Penalties. They can bring the strongest of us to tears. But sometimes we can be too quick to blame a penalty on sudden changes in our rankings. There are lots of things that can cause fluctuations (even major ones) in the SERPs and it’s importnat to know how to figure out why you’ve dropped. This week, we’ll look at how to identify whether or not you’ve been penalized, as well as what to do if you have been smacked down by our Google-y overlords.
Check out this week’s Whiteboard Friday and next time you’re struck with a moment of SERP Shock, you’ll know how to handle it in a cool and strategic manner.
If you want more information on penalties, here’s a slide deck Rand presented at a recent conference….
Whiteboard Friday - Leveraging Syndicated Content Effectively
Posted by great scott!
You see an amazing story somewhere in the vastness of the web and you think to yourself: "Man, that would be perfect for my readers! It’d get great traffic and my customers/advertisers would love it!"
Now, how do you syndicate that content on your site (fairly and legally) without running into the traditional problems of duplicate content, link-back requirements, etc…all things that can really hamper the likelihood of SEO traffic for the content? Watch this week’s Whiteboard Friday to learn some great strategies for getting maximum impact out of content you license (and watch this older one if you have content you want to license out). There are lots of options and it’s important you know your options if you want to achieve your goals.
PS - The folks over at Market Motive put out some great online marketing training courses and have kindly offered SEOmoz readers a discount for the next Master Certification which starts Monday April 19.
The courses are 100% online and include 90-days of lessons with some top people including Avinash Kaushik, Todd Malicoat, Bryan Eisenberg and more. SEOmoz readers can use corporate access code "CERT30SEOMZ" to save $500 off the Master Certification course.
Whiteboard Friday - Link Building with Nudges
Posted by great scott!
Is it better to practically force your users to make the desired conversion action, or is it better to give them a choice? How about a choice between two desired conversion actions? How about giving them choice, but making the more preferred one easier as well as anchoring it in social proof that makes it still more compelling? It’s a powerful way to increase conversion rates and funnel users on your sites, and it’s a concept covered in the book Nudge, by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein.
Will Critchlow covered Nudge in detail on the blog last year, but we’ve recently seen some interesting examples of how you can use this theory effectively in your on-page and social marketing efforts. Watch this week’s Whiteboard Friday to learn more about how you can implement these tactics yourself.