Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

Home arrow Full Issues arrow 2006 archives arrow LED Digest 2163: Think Before You Link
LED Digest 2163: Think Before You Link Print E-mail
==================================================
                 The LED Digest
             Moderated Discussion List
     "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997"

      Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom

         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
adam, led-digest.com     http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
May 18, 2006                       Issue no. 2163
..............................................



            .....IN THIS DIGEST.....


====== NEW =====================

        --== Thinking & Linking: The Big Daddy Update ==--

                ~ Michael Martinez
"...traditional SEO methods of link building now
have to be rethought..."


==== CONTINUING =================

        --== Cookies? ==--

                ~ Tom Anson
"...I can't say that I've ever had any problems..."

        --== Repeat Emails ==--

                ~ Tom Aman
"...sending a different email to the same client
every few days is an entirely different thing."


==== BILLBOARD ===================

        --== Fighting Spam - A Study ==--
                ~ Tom Aman

        --== Google Ban Checker ==--
                ~ Will Bontrager


========== NEW ===================================

From: Michael Martinez
Subject: Google To Webmasters: Think Before You Link

On Tuesday, May 16, Google Engineer Matt Cutts published a massive
post on his blog which discusses the Big Daddy update in depth and
detail.  The search engine optimization industry has been stunned by
the revelations from Google (through Matt's informal channel) about
how they are operating since January.

The actual blog post is here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline/

I am sure many people will draw varying conclusions.  Some people
who have been watching concerns about so-called Google-bowling,
where "bad" sites supposedly can hurt you with their links to your
sites, have concluded that Google now admits to being influencable
this way.  I DISAGREE with that conclusion.

While Matt does say they are looking at inbound linkage, he gave
concrete examples of sites which were LINKING OUT to sites that
Google doesn't feel are worth linking to.

There is a lot of information in the post and the comments section.
I have excerpted what I feel are Matt's most interesting and
informative remarks in  Spider-Food's forum
(http://forums.spider-food.net/index.php?showtopic=4025) and in Jill
Whalen's Highrankings forum
(http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=22570&hl=).

What I take away from Matt's comments on initial readings are:

1) Google is crawling differently now, working outward from a core
set of trusted domains.

2) A page can earn or lose trust on the basis of the ratio of how
many questionable outbound links it provides.

3) Big Daddy rebuilt the main index from scratch, and that is why so
many sites dropped out of Google.

4) Frequency of crawl is an indicator of trust.

5) Links from amateur "neutral" sites will help a LOT

A lot of people are going to seize upon individual points in Matt's
post and use them to advocate certain points of view.  My
inclination is that anyone who uses this post to argue that
"Reciprocal links are dead" or "SEO is dead" should be ignored.

Matt is NOT saying you should not reciprocate.  What he is saying is
that people have been far too indiscriminant in their link swaps.
Just running around and asking for links from pages with high PR is
not going to work any more.  He does mention "relevant links", but I
don't believe he wants people to swap links with their competitors.

Matt singled out bloggers as good sources of links.  He is not
talking about blog comments, but rather the links that bloggers
embed in their posts.  These are what Google describes as
"editorially chosen" links.

I think Matt is recommending blogs on the major services (without
being explicit) because they are (to some degree) moderated by the
services, because those services provide Google with XML feeds that
allow for near-instantaneous crawling, and because they are more
likely to provide neutral points of view.

When I say "neutral", I mean that the majority of these bloggers are
not business people trying to promote their businesses.  Nor are
they trying to make their livings off AdSense and Yahoo! Internet
Ads and Microsoft's AdCenter.  These are just people sharing their
opinions and experiences and occasionally mentioning sites they
think you should visit.

Blogs have not wholly replaced amateur Web sites.  But it's far
easier for people to create a blog through one of the major services
than to set up a Web site.  Most people don't want to learn HTML.
The blog community has exploded and has in some areas become the
heart of the natural Web community.

The most important message I take away from Matt's blog discussion
is that all the traditional SEO methods of link building now have to
be rethought.  Not necessarily thrown out, just rethought.  People
need to stop going for cheap, easy links.  They need to go for
sincere links.

Think of them exactly that way: you want sincere, editorially chosen
links.  They will be harder to get than ever before, because I am
sure the amateur sites will come to resent being made the focus of
search engine optimization strategies.  But for now, if you don't
have your own blog, go to one of the major services and start one.
Put links to your sites in the blog.  Write something every week.

Do it consistently.  Be disciplined.  You'll find it's less
time-consuming than nagging strangers for links that probably won't
help you any more anyway.

And don't panic.  I think Google is paying close attention to what
the Web community is doing and saying.  We are their bread and
butter.  They need us more than we need them, and they have taken a
huge risk with the Big Daddy rollout.

Good luck to everyone.

Michael Martinez

"Cuando Maria canta, canta para mi"
http://www.michael-martinez.com/
http://michael-martinez.blogspot.com/


======== CONTINUING ===============================

From: Tom Anson
Subject: Cookies

> Is there a drawback to cookies? and How many people actually
> turn cookies off? Is that an old fear with no validation now?
        - Tim Mullein, LED 2162

Hi Tim,

The shopping cart on my websites all require cookies.  After six
years, I can't say that I've ever had any problems because of this.
I have some abandoned carts, but it doesn't seem to be a very high
percentage, so I doubt it has anything to do with cookies.  (I lack
the expertise to give a definitive answer on this.)

How do I handle the cookie issue?

At the top of the shopping cart page on my sites, there is the
statement that the shopping cart requires cookies.  That could give
anyone with cookies turned off the option to turn them on.  But
really, I think cookies are enabled by default in most browsers, and
most people never change that setting.  (People in my age group
generally don't know what cookies are, and would only refuse them if
they were troubled about their weight.)

In my opinion, the fear here is only as old as the browsers that
people are using.  If your target market is composed of those who
are using older systems, cookies might be an issue for you.  But
most systems over the last 4-5 years only block some cookies, not
the ones generated on the site.  You can set security to a higher or
lower level, but the default settings seem to work quite well for
shopping carts that require cookies.

I'm sure some fellow LEDer can give you a better answer.

Tom Anson

Anson Aromatic Essentials
http://www.therapeutic-grade.com


-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Tom Aman
Subject: Repeat emails

> For me Spam is when you send a lot of similar
> emails at the same time. If you send the same
> email to the same client with a few days of
> interval this is advertising.
        - Fernando Bergamaschi, LED 2162

You may regard sending the *same email* to the *same client* every
few days as advertising.  I expect there is a high probability that
these clients will start to see it as SPAM and will start to ignore
the emails, filter them out or opt out of the list.

But sending a different email to the same client every few days is
an entirely different thing.  Then it is advertising.  This assumes
that the client has agreed to receive the emails from you (and know
that they have agreed, not been tricked into "opting-in")

Tom Aman


==== BILLBOARD ===================================

From: Tom Aman
Subject: Fighting Spam - Study

Some time ago, I posted my experience in ignoring the advice of the
experts and unsubscribing from SPAM.  Essentially, the experts (and
those who believe the experts) will tell you that unsubscribing will
just get you more SPAM or an unsubscribe link might lead you to a
malware site that will do bad things to your computer or any of a
dozen other scary scenarios.  But none of them ever seem to give you
real life proof.

After much thought, I felt this was bad advice.  So, without going
into details here, I started unsubscribing (first using links in the
email when possible, later by going to the linked site and looking
for unsubscribe provisions).  My experience was that, 35 days after
starting to unsubscribe, I had reduced my average daily SPAM count
from 295 to 151, a reduction of 49%.  Later, I reported that I was
down to 38, a reduction of 87%. Currently, I am running at 15 per
day, a reduction of 95% and few enough that I have no need of a SPAM
filter.

Some LEDers seemed interested, others responded with one or more of
the usual "don't unsubscribe because" or "it is dangerous to click
on links in SPAM because" or "it wouldn't work for me because"
reasons for not unsubscribing.

Later, I asked if there might be 20 or 30 LEDers who received a lot
of SPAM who would be willing to take part in a controlled study to
see if unsubscribing actually worked or if my experience was
unusual.  Apparently most LEDers either do not receive much SPAM or
believe that the "expert's" advice is right because only 2 people
replied.  A follow up post brought no further response.  I posted to
some other lists to which I belong but again, had no response.

Finally, last week I emailed the 2 LEDers who had responded to
suggest that maybe they would be willing to try the unsubscribe
route and see if it would work for them - not a real study, but at
least some indication of whether or not my experience was unusual or
(as suggested by some experts) a "special case".

I have heard back from one of these individuals yesterday (Jeff
Sandy, Dance Coordinator, Sweet Georgia Sound Big Band).  He said
that, after I had posted that I had only 2 responses, he had decided
to try my methodology anyway.  I quote from his email:

-------------------
"It's barely five weeks later, and I've gone from the 300 or so spam
messages a day to about 80.

"BTW - I'm pleased to say that I have not had one malware incident
from this experiment."
-------------------

So Jeff has achieve a 73% reduction - even better than my initial
49% for about the same length of time - by unsubscribing and has not
encountered any malware sites.

While 2 of us having similar experiences unsubscribing may not prove
anything, to me it raises serious questions about the "expert"
advice.  So I would like to throw out the challenge / request again.
 Are there 20 or 30 LEDers out there who would be willing to take
part in an "unsubscribe" experiment / study?   Please email me
( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , with a subject line of "Spam Study") if you
would be interested in taking part.

Just an after thought:  A side effect of our SPAM reduction - not
only have Jeff and I reduced our own SPAM problems, we have
contributed to reducing garbage traffic on the Internet by ~500
emails per day.  This may not sound like much but if a million
people did the same thing, the traffic reduction would be in the
order of 250 million emails per day - a number that starts to have
significance.

Tom Aman

Aman Software
http://www.cyberspyder.com
Home of CyberSpyder Link Test


-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Will Bontrager
Subject: Google checker

> Dead links are harmful to your ranking.
        - Mike Banks Valentine, LED 2162

Xenu's Link Sleuth(tm) is a good links checker, free from
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

I've used Xenu for years. Windows platform only, though.

The author has an agenda of dispensing certain information, his
banner ad is on link check result pages, and might be just a tad
eccentric. But he does have good software.

I don't mind his point of view. Others might object.

Will Bontrager

What do your site visitors think of you?
http://rate.flowto.info/


-------------------------------------------------------
The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks:
pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains

© Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

"It is easy to be brave from a distance." - Omaha
 
[ Back ]