| LED Digest 2187: Chicken Little & the SEO Industry |
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List Moderator: Published by:
Adam Audette LED Digest
adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com
..............................................
June 21, 2006 Issue no. 2187
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.....IN THIS DIGEST.....
======= NEW =====================
--== Articles & Duplicate Content ==--
~ Mary Lee
"...Google has decided that I am a duplicate
content site of some kind and penalized me."
==== CONTINUING =================
--== How Important are H1 Header Tags? ==--
~ Dave Mead
"Search engines just look at the HTML tag and
it's content for matching keywords and relevancy."
--== Social Bookmarking [was: Ranking Tips] ==--
~ Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian
"...social bookmarking and networking is extremely
powerful - and future-proof."
--== Tips for High Rankings ==--
~ Donald Nelson
"[Article marketing] is not as effective as it
once was..."
~ Dirk Johnson
"It is next to impossible for alternative voices to
be heard at the largest SEO conferences..."
~ Michael Martinez
"Just about any new domain will now get indexed
quickly while doing nothing other than posting content."
--== The Sandbox Myth ==--
~ Tracy Coyle
"...if you don't provide information people want, you
are roadkill on the information superhighway."
~ Mo Douglas
"I'm not gonna draw any conclusions and only
tell you about my new site."
==== BILLBOARD ===================
--== Postcard Viruses ==--
~ Shari Thurow
--== Revisiting 'Net Neutrality ==--
~ John Brumage
=========== NEW ==================================
From: Mary Lee
Subject: Publishing Articles - Duplicate Content?
I have an article posting problem that I am hoping you can shed some
light on.
I wrote 2 articles, posted them on my site with a link from the
front page. A week later I submitted them to quite a few article
sites where they were posted.
It has now been about 2 months since then, my site has dropped
drastically and any search terms which should bring up my article on
my site, instead bring up copies from other sites that posted my
article!
I am having the same problem with affiliates. My game pages do not
show up for search terms, but my affiliates pages talking about my
games show up.
After 5 years online it appears that Google has decided that I am a
duplicate content site of some kind and penalized me.
Mary Lee
Dinner and a Murder
======== CONTINUING ===============================
From: Dave Mead
Subject: H1 headers
> Are the H1, H2... headers really important for the
> search engines? Does anyone know for sure?
- Tim Rosser, LED 2185
Search engines just look at the HTML tag and it's content for
matching keywords and relevancy. All of your styling, preferably be
in an external CSS file, would be ignored by the search engines.
I have heard that some will look at CSS, but that's only if the site
has rung some alarm bells already by placing keyword spam off the
visible page using CSS etc.
Dave Mead
DMWebsites.com
Website Design | SEO | Consulting
Affordable, quality driven, standards-based
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian
Subject: Social Bookmarking - Here to Stay! [was: Ranking tips]
> Can you explain a little more [about
> social bookmarking sites]?
- Rob Bishop, LED 2181
I posted this note to my blog about social bookmarking, and thought
it was relevant to this thread.
[LEDer's interested in the entire article can find it here:
Social Bookmarking - The Concept:
Mary is surfing the Net and runs across an awesome collection of
recipes. She bookmarks the page on her computer for future
reference. That night, she's at her friend Jane's house and they
talk about cooking. Mary mentions the cool website she found.
"What's the web address?" asks Jane, eagerly.
Mary can't tell her. "I don't remember, but let me get home and
I'll email you the link!"
Enter: 'Social Bookmarking' services. Here's how this system works.
Mary surfs the Net and finds an amazing recipe website. She logs
into her favorite social bookmarking service and records the details
there. She can include the web address, a title, short description,
and even keywords ('tags') to help her identify the site and locate
it again later.
Then, wherever she is - say, at Jane's place for dinner - she can
get on the Internet, login to her account, and access her bookmarks
from anywhere. What's more, if Jane also has an account at the same
social bookmarking service, they can share their bookmarks easily.
That, now, becomes the kernel for our next discussion about 'Social
Networks' - and gives you a brief glimpse into why social
bookmarking and networking is extremely powerful - and future-proof.
As long as there are people, and for as long as they surf the
Internet, social bookmarking will exist - growing better, more
valuable, and maybe soon, indispensible to everyone using the Web.
What does this mean?
Let's say my list of bookmarks on 'social bookmarking' is extensive
- and you find it useful. You'll add these resources to your list
of bookmarks too. Assume 200 of my readers do the same. Then, each
resource in my bookmarks list will also be on 200 other lists...
getting its popularity to shoot up high.
Now if someone who has never read my blog arrives at a social
bookmark service and types 'social bookmarking' into the search box,
chances are high that the site we've all listed in our accounts will
show up high - prompting the visitor to check it out.
The visitor has enjoyed the result of powerful peer reviews - and
the social network has correctly guided another one of its members.
Potential for abuse of social networks
Like any powerful system, there is potential for abuse. Email is
powerful. Email is abused. So it isn't strange to 'expect' social
networks and bookmarking to follow the same route.
Yet email is still useful, valuable, helpful. And social
bookmarking and networks will also weather the storm and sail
through.
If you're trying to manipulate 'tag and ping' or 'social
bookmarking' unethically, or for short term benefits, you're
probably going to miss out on the big time benefit that's sure to
follow in the years ahead. It's just like spammers made a quick
buck - but ethical, responsible email marketers continue to thrive
in the changed marketplace of 2006.
Dr. Mani
Content Profit Secrets
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: Donald Nelson
Subject: Ranking tips
It is good to see a discussion on ranking tips, and I thank Steve
Pronger for his words on the matter [issue 2180]. All methods of
Internet promotion will depend on changes in the industry, so
Michael Martinez's comments about article marketing (LED 2184)
should be considered. However, the absolutist tone of his post puts
me off and is not conducive to a civil discussion. Steve offered his
tips in good faith and doesn't deserve to be slammed just because
someone else has a different opinion.
My opinion? I have benefited a lot from article marketing over the
past four years and I still think it is a good means of site
promotion. It is not as effective as it once was, due to the sheer
volume of articles that are being submitted but it is still a great
way to generate extra traffic, build up your reputation and provide
people with useful information.
Sincerely,
Donald Nelson
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Dirk Johnson
Subject: Ranking Tips
> It's a shame that people continue to pass around
> such outdated, bad advice despite months of debunking
> these kinds of SEO myths by many well-informed
> people in the industry.
- Michael Martinez, LED 2184
Actually, what is a shame is that many people who are considered to
be "well-informed people in the industry" are actually quite
misguided, and they hopelessly spend their time conceptualizing
complex new theories and tactics that have no basis in fact.
In my many years of working in this industry, I have seen a constant
and growing parade of "big name" SEO specialists make statements
that fail to hold any water whatsoever, especially as it relates to
linking. Each Google update seems to cause more of them to jump off
the deep end into the abyss of confusion, grasping for answers that
should be right before them, in the form of actual analysis of real
search results.
Instead, they hold onto their theories like a lifeline, in spite of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They try to prosecute these
theories on the various SEO discussion forums and in their articles.
Complexity, scare tactics, obfuscation and outright denial becomes
their stock in trade. Good SEO practice, on a static HTML site, is
not complex at all. It's very straightforward.
The list of people that have made ridiculous, unfounded statements
about linking reads like a who's who of the SEO speakers bureau.
Many of these people are enablers for each other. It has become a
"club" of like-minded individuals.
It is next to impossible for alternative voices to be heard at the
largest SEO conferences these days. It's the same parade of people,
spouting the same unfounded theories, again and again. The
management at these conferences appear to refuse to allow
alternative voices. The truth suffers badly.
There are SEO specialists who avoid such histrionics, and they take
a straightforward approach that has worked well for years and years.
With a couple of notable exceptions, these are not the SEO "experts"
that get the big speaking gigs, run big forums, and sell the books
and seminars. They are the working SEOs who must deliver results at
reasonable cost, for ordinary commercial websites of all stripes.
Doing that requires that they take a very basic and straightforward
approach. Puffery and posturing and scare tactics sell books and
sounds good on a podium, but it does not get good results at
affordable cost.
As I have said before, the way to tell them apart is this... the
more complex and confusing their strategy, the more scare tactics
they use, and the more they try to parse the Google algorithm for
various nuances, the more off-track their advice. That kind of
over-analysis is not how sites that have gone to the top and stayed
at the top got there. It is remarkable how "unsophisticated" the
approach has been for hundreds of successful sites that we monitor
here.
People need to choose their "guru", and follow their advice. Real
analysis, in the form of verifiable reports, is non-existent.
Everyone in this business is using some kind of empirical analysis
to arrive at their strategy and tactics. That analysis might be
based on a very skewed, narrow sampling. Or worse, they are making
it up and simply spewing words, just trying to make a name for
themselves, by guessing at what Google does or might do, based on
nothing more than hunches. Again, it's fascinating to ponder such
concepts. It's next to impossible to verify them.
Chicken Little would have loved the SEO industry.
Just be aware that those who have the high profile names in SEO may
not be grounded in reality at all. From what I see, most of the
biggest names are completely confused when it comes to linking
analysis. Maybe they spend too much time talking, and not enough
time working and analyzing. I don't know. But I do know that much of
what is put forward about the subject of linking is nothing more
than total bunk, by comparing what is said against what I see with
my own eyes, on a daily basis.
The SEO industry is a mess, in my opinion. Fundamentally bad advice
is running rampant, and most of it comes directly from the top, the
so-called "well-informed people in the industry". Alternative voices
are drowned out by conference managers and various web marketing
newsletter publishers, who rely on the same voices repeatedly. The
only consolation is that, for those who ignore this noise, and just
manage the fundamentals correctly, they tend to do quite well in
SERPs.
Best regards,
Dirk Johnson, Partner - Operations
DomainDrivers LLC
-------- new post - same topic --------
From: Michael Martinez
Subject: Ranking tips
> Most of the free article directories are being filtered
> out by Google, in terms of building up backlinkage.
- Michael Martinez, LED 2184
> Exactly which directories are being "filtered"
> and which are not? And please provide us
> with proof rather than hearsay.
- Steve Pronger, LED 2186
The delistings of many spam directories last year were widely
documented. I'm not going to chase ghosts for you.
> Using my "to do" list I usually manage to
> get new sites indexed fairly quickly.
Just about any new domain will now get indexed quickly while doing
nothing other than posting content. Google and other search engines
have been crawling newly created domains for months. When I
launched Tolkien-Studies.com last August, I had to put up a
robots.txt file to keep the crawlers out because they came looking
for content that hadn't been posted yet.
So, you don't have to "do" anything to get indexed any longer. If
you build it, they will crawl. It's the ranking part that people
are still having trouble with.
> The 250-500 words relates to the recommended
> length of articles submitted to ezinearticles.com.
> Longer articles tend to not get syndicated as frequently.
"For us, an ideal article is 250-700 words."
It's a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule. Of the several articles
I have submitted there, I have not looked at word counts. I doubt
any of them are less than 700 words long, but maybe I was brief by
accident one day. You never know.
For the record, I don't use ezinearticles.com to build links. But I
do find that many sites pick up my articles.
However, while I could recommend that people use a few quality sites
like ezinearticles.com to increase their visibility, it's not a
preferable method for building linkage.
Any link footprint should include a diverse selection of Web sites.
The better links are the ones that are not simply free for the
asking.
Michael Martinez
"Cuando Maria canta, canta para mí"
-------- new post - new topic --------
From: Tracy Coyle
Subject: Sandbox myth
> 2. Evidence for or against: Does anyone who has
> * launched a brand new site * (or three) have any
> evidence to either support or deny this assertion?
- Micheal Motherwell, LED 2186
In the last several months I have built and launched two sites:
Within 48 hrs of making each site live, both were available for
their names (NOT THE URL) Based on my visitor logs, No To
Incumbents consistently appears in page one of their Google
searches. Daily Blog News articles often do also, but that is
incidental to anything I do.
Neither have any Page Rank associated with them. My primary site,
as many here know is http://www.cazelaw.com/, it has a PR of 4 and
consistently appears on page 1 of any search for the terms I am
aiming for. (NOTE: None of the three sites had google ads until
last week.) Both were announced in my Blogger site, but neither
were linked to from Cazel Law. As a matter of fact, I do not cross
link my own sites except on my Blogger site.
I have launched seven sites in the last couple of years. Some I have
let die, others I have continued to work on. In the 11 years I have
had a commercial site online (and as a member of LED
since...Adam?...at least 1999 - first entry in my archive) I have
learned the one and most important lesson: no matter how well
designed, no matter how perfect the set-up, no matter how great the
SEO, if you don't provide information people want, you are roadkill
on the information superhighway.
Tracy Coyle
[I searched through the archives I have (which only go back to late
1999) and found your first post in LED 0747, January '00. -ed.]
-------- new post - same topic ---------
From: Mo Douglas
Subject: Sandbox myth
Hi,
Michael Motherwell was asking for evidence for or against with
regards to Google's Sandbox.
Now, I do not claim to have much of a clue about this, still very
much a newbie when it comes to SEO so I'm not gonna draw any
conclusions and only tell you about my new site.
We, a friend and I, launched ThailandStories.com in February (site
has been online since December) and if I now search for the keywords
'thailand stories' our site comes up first in both Yahoo! and MSN.
Trying the same keyword search in Google does not show our site in
the first 100 results.
So, not really sure what that means, but I do think it is kinda odd.
Mo Douglas
PS I just checked Yahoo! again and cannot find us in the results
anymore. Odd as we were first for several weeks.
==== BILLBOARD ===================================
From: Shari Thurow
Subject: Postcard spam
Hi Adam-
I've been getting a lot of virus attachments posed as "You have
received and epostcard from a friend." Or a family member. Along
that line.
Of course, they are not postcards. They are viruses.
I just hope that you and other LEDers will circulate this
information to the general public. I always write letters to my
local newspapers so that less Internet-savvy folks get a hold of
this information.
Sincerely,
Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director
Grantastic Designs, Inc.
-------- new post - new topic ---------
From: John "Zeke" Brumage
Subject: Net neutrality
> It's all a scam to get more money for the same bandwidth.
> We are already paying for the bandwidth on both ends of
> the line (both at the ISP end and the web host end).
- Scott Stolz, LED 2186
Just another example of corporate greed.
Yes, the telcos want a "per minute" model.
Just as someone will make a fortune adding "NO CORN SYRUP" labels to
their products, ISP's can add "NET NEUTRAL" to their advertising.
The consumer will percieve non-neutrality as poor service. The big
problem becomes one of finding an alternative ISP, the big guys are
swallowing up the little guys so fast there may not be any choice
for the user to move to.
John Brumage
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