Posts Tagged ‘spamming’

Search engine optimization-Notify Relevant Bloggers of your content

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Whilst I don’t advocate spamming other bloggers and asking for links - I would recommend that if you write a quality post on a topic that you know will interest another blogger that it might be worth shooting them a short and polite email letting them know of your post. Don’t be offended if they don’t link up, but you might just find that they do and that in addition to the direct traffic that the link generates that it helps build your own page rank in the search engines

Search Engine Optimization

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Search engine optimization has been a hot topic for a last couple of years. With changing algorithms, search engines and directories swapping technologies and services and a general growth (or sense of survival), much has changed in search engine optimization technique. In the early days, spamming your own website with endless strings of keywords with the same color as the background is gone.

Search engine optimization then evolved into a dependence solely upon the content of the metatags regardless of what the rest of the rest of the site was about. Spamming the title and description tags with huge strings of keywords was enough to get top placement in many search engines (SE’s).

Now, however, search engine optimization has come to a place of making the metatag content match the text on the rest of the web page. Throw in link popularity and relevancy and you now have the contemporary formula for top rankings.

In contemporary search engine optimization technique, the title tag is probably the most important metatag on the website. The website’s primary keyword / keyphrase needs to be in the title tag. The description tag and other hidden metatags also are beneficial when they are keyword rich.

Search engine optimization, now also features the creation of keyword-rich and hopefully content rich text for the body of the web page. The keyword-rich text is for the SE’s and the content is for the visitors. Both audiences must be kept in mind when writing this text.

The last element in search engine optimization is the creation of incoming links that are relevant to the main subject of the website. One way to accomplish receiving incoming links is to trade links with another site (reciprocal linking). Another way is to pay another relevant website a monthly advertising fee in order to display a text or graphical link to your site.

Search engine optimization is something that can be accomplished through education, through an SEO company or through software that will create keyword-rich pages semi-automatically.

The educational part of search engine optimization can be attained by reading everything on the Internet focused on this subject. Going with a search engine optimization company will work for others who don’t have the time or inclination to self-educate or who want to get started right away. Software will work for others, though it is generally not as effective as the other two methods since search engine optimization is as much an art as it is a science.

Quick Search Engine Optimization for your images

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Hope you’re already aware of Image Optimization. Designers out there may immediately think about the gif format and image compression, but this is clearly not anything related to reducing image size.

SEO and images are a bit old school I agree. Gone are the days when you had to insert keywords into your ALT tags and get a better rank than your competitor.
In fact, Google has changed it’s algorithm to filter out these “weeds” who’d do anything and everything from stuffing keywords to title spamming to get a better rank.

Though I agree that Search Engine Optimizing your images won’t give you any edge to directly push you over the top of the SERPs, I stick to the idea that they are not completely negligible.

How to generate quality inbound Links?

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

* Quality Content - There are all kinds of link generating systems out there but in my opinion the best way to get links to your blog is to write quality content that people will want to read. You can solicit links with others or sign up for different link building programs or even buy text links on other sites but the cheapest and probably safest approach is to build inbound links in a natural organic way as others link to your quality content.
* Notify Relevant Bloggers of your content - Whilst I don’t advocate spamming other bloggers and asking for links - I would recommend that if you write a quality post on a topic that you know will interest another blogger that it might be worth shooting them a short and polite email letting them know of your post. Don’t be offended if they don’t link up, but you might just find that they do and that in addition to the direct traffic that the link generates that it helps build your own page rank in the search engines (more on letting other bloggers know of your posts here).
* Directories - Another way to generating inbound links is to submit your links to directories. I know of webmasters who swear by the benefits of such a strategy - the first thing that they do when starting a new site is to do the rounds of directories - submitting links to key pages with appropriate keywords in the links. There are loads of directories out there - many of which offer a free submission. Ari Paparo has compiled a list of blog directories that you might want to start with.
* Inter-link your Blogs - Increasingly bloggers are starting or joining blog networks to enjoy the benefits of multiple sites and writers working together. One of the advantages of networks of sites is that they usually link to one another. In doing so you have complete control over how your sites are linked to from multiple domains. It is worth noting that you should be careful with this approach - if all your sites are hosted on the one server many think that Search Engines will work out what you’re doing and the impact will be lessened.
* Buy Links - Many professional web masters have a budget to purchase links from other highly ranked and and relevant sites. I won’t go into this too much here but you might like to read more about it in my recent post On Buying Text Links. update: I’d encourage anyone wanting to buy links to think very carefully about this. Google have been cracking down on sites that use this practice. They can’t catch everyone but some have been caught and seem to have been penalized for doing it.
* Swap Links - Similarly many bloggers swap links with other bloggers. Sometimes this happens pretty naturally (you see someone linking to you so you link back) but in many cases the links are strategic ones and formally arranged between site owners. I get daily requests for such reciprocal links (I rarely act on them). Whilst there is some benefit in such link swapping I would again advise caution here as many SEO experts believe that the search engines have methods for tracking such strategies and devaluing the links. Some try to get around this by doing indirect or triangulated links. ie instead of site A and B doign a direct swap they involve other sites. So A links to C in exchange for D (also owned by C) linking to B (also owned by A) - makes your head hurt doesn’t it!?! There are also a variety of systems around that say they’ll take care of such interlinking for you - I know many who use Digital Point’s Free C0-Op Advertising system. Personally I tend to avoid such schemes and have a policy of linking to sites I think are valuable to my readers. If they link back then so be it.

What Does Google Look for in Links?

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Reading Google’s patent filing it appears that they rely heavily on web site links and anchor text in their algorithm. The items below were some of the items the patent said they look for:

* Tracking of the appearance and disappearance of links over specific times
* Tracking of growth rates of links in other web sits
* Tracking of anchor text and dates established and how they change over time
* Older established links get a higher rating than newer less established links
* Fresh pages might be considered more important
* New web sites don’t normally have a lot of links, but if they come from established web sites they will be tolerated
* Older pages that don’t change very often but have incoming links growth over time can be considered fresh
* Burst link growth may indicate spamming of the index
* Anchor text should vary and not be the same from all incoming sources
* Web site link growth should be consistent and slow