| LED Digest 2030: Ranking on PageRank |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. September 29, 2005 Issue #2030 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Google PageRank ==-- ~ Dirk Johnson "The real goal should be to establish good, deep content, focused, and optimized." ~ Shari Thurow "WebPosition might be useful for most uneducated...SEOs." --== The Future, Microsoft, and ASPs ==-- ~ Scott Wang "There's a price to be paid for the latest and greatest technology..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Storms and Less Spam? ==-- ~ Tom Aman ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Dirk Johnson Subject: Google PageRank > I'm not saying that we should stand around and just watch > our Google PageRank, but I strongly feel that it's one method > of determining how a site is doing in the search engines. - Renee Kennedy, LED 2029 Renee, I am not here to argue if PR [PageRank] is good, bad or inconsequential. I tend to ignore the number in my work, but I realize from your post why it has value to your situation. It is an indicator of a site's "establishment", and you seem to use it as such. I am just trying to add to the discussion of PR and how it us pursued by other people. Too many prospective clients come to us with the single-minded goal of establishing a high PR for their site. Let's call it "PR chasing". They often want to use shortcuts and gamesmanship to get there. Especially when it comes to linking, with notions that contrived linking "formulas" will work for them, carefully crafting a linking profile or a PR threshold for sites they link with. This attitude derives from their having read all kinds of theories and strategies on the SEO forums. Much of what is presented on those forums is terribly misguided, misinformed, and shallow in it's factual foundation. Then again, some of it is valid. It occasionally spills out into the larger realm of published articles and even SEO conference presentations, where it gains even more traction. Lacking experience, it is very hard for the average business owner/manager to sort through it and figure out what is legitimate and what is being presented to them as "we have the secret formula" scare tactics. The real goal should be to establish good, deep content, focused, and optimized. Then combine that with relevant link popularity, continuously pursued. This typically yields stable, progressively improving search results for a wide variety of search terms that are relevant to their business, with the least competitive terms gaining traction first, followed by improving results for the most competitive terms. It takes time. It is a matter of understanding the true end game, then positioning a site to compete, which takes research, work, and continuous commitment. And it must be done against a competitive backdrop. Well-established competitors cannot be knocked off easily. It takes parity, or better. We see sites that have modest PR values holding first place positions in search results over very long periods of time, while the sites who are actively chasing high PR may never really get there. The latter's site owners fail to understand that abbreviated gamesmanship may work in uncompetitive situations, but it very stands little chance against a well-entrenched, legitimate site. This is not rocket science, yet many people are in deep denial, based upon what they have read or heard and subsequently believe. PR chasing borders on religious zealotry at times. So, a high PR is often set as a "goal" for a site, and there is widespread belief that it can be achieved via careful gamesmanship. Maybe it can. It is natural to want shortcuts. But if such shortcuts worked well and consistently, then they would reveal themselves in the results all across the web, displacing well-established sites in the search results. The "secrets" of how to do this would get out rather quickly, and everyone would be doing it. That's not happening. For what it's worth, I see the most success in search results coming from genuine efforts to establish good, deep content, focused, and optimized. Then combine that with relevant link popularity, continuously pursued. Yes, I am repeating myself, for a reason. The pursuit of PageRank itself leads to misguided effort. The fact that Google even publishes the number causes people to try to game it. Frankly, a lot of site owners would be less confused and become a lot more focused on what works in real search results if the published Google PR value just went away. Best regards, Dirk Johnson, Partner - Operations DomainDrivers LLC www.domaindrivers.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Shari Thurow Subject: Google PageRank Hi all- This is in response to Renee Kennedy's post in LED #2029. In her post, she stated: > We can sit back and not look at PageRank or Alexa Ranking or > WebPosition (all of these have been trashed at some point), but if > you do that, how will you measure your success? What "outside" > metrics do you propose that we provide our clients if we aren't > going to use those? I have trashed all 3 of these so-called metrics systems mostly because they are not accurate measurements of user behavior. I also believe Michael Martinez's previous post (in LED #2028) was right on the money. So let's begin with the first one. (1) Google PageRank Toolbar tells me nothing. You don't know if the the PR7 (as an example) comes from high-quality or low-quality links. You don't know the visitor behavior of a site that has a PR7. Sites can have a PR10 and not close sales. A site with a PR0 can make millions of dollars in sales. People who focus on a number between 1 and 10 are NOT focusing on their users. I am tired of people being obsessed with a number on a toolbar rather than measuring, testing, and analyzing visitor behavior on their own sites. That's where the focus should be. Period. I don't care if what any other SEO says. I've never run my business obsessing over a toolbar number, and I've never run a link development campaign obsessing over a toolbar number. (2) Alexa requires a toolbar installation. Fine. I'm on a Mac. Don't have the toolbar installed. So that makes my user behavior, even though I am the exact user persona for shopping sites (in particular), invalid because I do not have the Alexa toolbar installed? Now multiply the number of visitors (who fit a persona) that by the number of people who do not have the toolbar installed. There are millions of people who are a site's exact target audience (buyer and repeat buyer) who do not have the Alexa toolbar installed. I recognize that anecdotal evidence isn't always hard evidence, but I've personally seen with the vast majority of my clients that the Alexa toolbar does not match the site's actual Web metrics (from WebTrends, Omniture, etc.) It doesn't measure conversion points per persona or actual sales. So I don't really care what the toolbar states. (3) WebPosition might be useful for most uneducated (or at least they believe they're educated) SEOs. But it still does not tell me anything. I've looked at site statistics data for a wide variety of companies since 1995. I'm tired of seeing people focus on positions rather than the user. I've seen sites with over 800 top 10 positions make no sales. I've seen sites with very few top 10 positions make millions of dollars. Without detailed site statistics software, people are making educated guesses. One of our large retailer sites gets most of its traffic from Google. However, when we really analyzed the numbers, we determined that the best conversion rates were repeat customers who used Yahoo and typed in very specific search queries. The most expensive conversions came from generic keyword phrases on Google. Now if I were only looking at positioning or toolbar data, I (and our client) wouldn't have seen the far superior target audience. There are various levels of understanding in SEO. Beginners and novices really point out what level they are when they focus on PageRank, Alexa, and WebPosition, whether they are industry standards or not. Clients are not always right. Sincerely, Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director Grantastic Designs, Inc. ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Scott Wang Subject: Microsoft > God - or someone - help us all. Now we're > going to have crashes two or three times a > day while watching tv or listening to the stereo! ;) - Michael Linehan, LED 2026 I'll agree with Tom's response [Tom Aman, LED 2029] - we don't need to wait for Microsoft for crashes. One has to admit - Microsoft did something right with Windows XP. Part of my business is computer repair and over the past 1-2 years I've noticed that when a computer has a problem with freezing up, it's usually because a) It's full of spyware or viruses, or b) It's a hardware issue. Microsoft is on the right track and they fixed a lot of garbage with XP. The other part of my business is cellular phones, and I can testify that the new cell phones with the fancy gizmos are far more prone to freezing up. It's not uncommon for a person with a brand new cell phone to have to take the battery out and restart the phone once in a while. There's a price to be paid for the latest and greatest technology... Scott Wang http://www.scottscomputing.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Aman Subject: Less spam > In the last several weeks I have noticed my junk mail has > been reduced by about 75%. I have done nothing and can > think of no other reason than Katrina & Rita! - Nancy Cardinali, LED 2029 I have not seen any change in mine (about 300 per day) and I have been keeping some detailed stats because I am testing a couple of SPAM filters for effectiveness and accuracy (will post the results in LED in another month). Has your ISP by any chance introduced a SPAM filter? Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. 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