Latest Articles
When On-Page SEO Doesn’t Matter
January 18, 2011 By korbodo
Gerry McGovern’s article “How Google fails at SEO, and why it doesn’t matter” contrasts the on-page SEO of Google’s homepage to that of Yahoo’s, and makes the good point that Google’s success is not just about on-page SEO. Providing value to the searcher and answering their questions is more likely to help you attract, convert and retain a loyal following. But it got us thinking of some of the other factors we look at in SEO, and how Google stacks up to Yahoo and Bing on those fronts.
Google vs. Yahoo vs. Bing: Inbound Links
One measure is counting the number of roads that lead to Rome, or the inbound links. Using a few measures such as Yahoo’s Site Explorer, SeoMoz’s Open Site Explorer and Blekko’s /seo slashtag, we can see that Google completely crushes the competition.
| Google.com | Yahoo.com | Bing.com | |
| Yahoo’s Site Explorer | 2,043,383,285 | 1,449,256,115 | 50,423,427 |
| Google’s “link:” operator | 18,700 | 4,670 | 4,800 |
| SeoMoz’s Open Site Explorer | 45,741,998 | 9,620,352 | 1,421,268 |
| Blekko’s /seo slashtag | 47,844,678 | 3,964,300 | 2,336,509 |
Rankings for Search Engine Keywords
Another measure is to see how these sites rank for keyword phrases that people might use to find them. Using WebPosition Reporter, we created a keyword ranking report (use “rank#1″ as the password to view the details) that shows how the major search engines perform. Here is a summary:
| Google.com | Yahoo.com | Bing.com | |
| search engine | 4 | 10 | 2 |
| best search engine | 19 | not in top 50 | not in top 50 |
| top search engine | not in top 50 | not in top 50 | not in top 50 |
| search the web | 9 | 2 | 7 |
Now, low ranks for “top search engine” could be because the searcher is looking for an article or review and not an actual engine, and that article would most likely link to the engines, but it’s interesting nonetheless. We’ll run this report again to see if the results change, and let us know if there are other keyword phrases you’d like us to add in when we do!
Top 5 Link Building Myths
October 26, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team
Link building is essential to any successful SEO strategy because it’s a proven, reliable method of drawing targeted web traffic. But there are some misconceptions about what makes it effective. So, let’s clear the air and debunk some of the most common link building myths.
Myth #1: Link Building is a Quick Fix
Brace yourself – link building alone cannot boost your site’s search ranking. To truly be effective, especially in the long term, link building must be part of a comprehensive SEO strategy that includes giving others a good reason to link to your site in the first place.
Myth #2: It Takes X Number of Links to Get a Top Ranking
Numerous factors including link quality, page score, competition for keywords and so on determine your search engine ranking. Your site’s number of links is only part of the equation, and there is no magical number that will earn it a spot in the top search results. Focus more on quality, not just quantity.
Myth #3: Reciprocal Links Will Always be Penalized
Not if they’re spontaneous and done above board. For example, if another site links to yours and you decide that it’s a good-quality site with relevant content, linking back to that site can actually be more valuable than a one-way link.
Myth #4: High Page Rank is Everything
Including high PR sites in your link building plan is a good idea, but a link from one of their obscure, low-traffic, archived pages may be less valuable than you think. And, a diverse mix of links that includes medium and low PR sites contributes to a healthy natural link profile, which could be rewarded.
Myth #5: There’s a Finish Line
Like the rest of your SEO efforts, effective link building is an ongoing process. Links become broken, pages move and websites close, which makes their links worthless and offers your site’s ranking no benefits. Keeping an eye out for new websites and pages means more opportunity to generate links.
Do your research and incorporate link building as part of a well thought-out SEO strategy. It’s a time-tested method that’s proven itself successful when done correctly.
Social Media Spam: The Dark Side of Networking
September 9, 2010 By Sue Spiker
It’s so easy to go overboard implementing the social media part of your link building strategy. Yes, actively participating is essential for growing web traffic, but too much of the wrong kind of participation can result in you being blocked by users and banned by search engines. All for one simple reason.
No one likes a spammer. And no one wants to be a spammer, but in your zeal to expand your online presence, you can easily cross over to the Dark Side and not even know it. You can, however, help yourself stay on the straight and narrow if you remember two key basics.
It’s still person-to-person. At the other of end blogs, posts, comments and tweets are living, breathing people. And when you respond, you’re engaging in a dialogue with them just as if you were talking over coffee. But if you respond solely to generate links, people will resent your blatant self-promotion, especially on their sites. And it doesn’t take long before that “Block User” button starts looking really good.
You gain a more faithful following and well-respected online presence by posting on-topic, helpful responses that offer value.
Search engines have rules. And not paying attention to their clearly defined lists of specific activities such as link exchanges and cloaking can earn you a PageRank penalty, reduce your search engine ranking or get you banned altogether. They also offer contact information so that people can report spam – yet another reason to engage people in a genuine, respectable manner.
So before your next post, tweet, comment or status update, ask yourself, “Does this add value to the conversation or is it just another advertisement?” If the Twitter bird looks at you with judgment in its eyes, it may be time to rethink your social media strategies or shift some energy towards other aspects of your SEO efforts.
Seed Sites are One of SEO’s Best Kept Secrets
August 20, 2010 By Sue Spiker
Part of a search engine’s secret formula is what domains it chooses to use as seed sites, the entry points through which it deploys its web crawlers to explore and index the Internet. Knowing exactly what domains it chooses as seed sites could tell us exactly where to make sure our websites are listed and where to focus our linking strategies.
Helpful information for those of us on an eternal quest for a higher page rank.
No such comprehensive list is publicly available, for two reasons. First, search providers use a multitude of seed sites, and they’re not committed to using the same sites each time. Domains such as Yahoo Directory and DMOZ are likely candidates, but using a variety of domains increases the chances of discovering new URLs and finding out which URLs have expired, which helps keep its search index up-to-date. Therefore, that list would constantly be in flux and not entirely accurate at any given date.
Second, search providers are historically (and understandably) protective of their trade secrets and are not expected to volunteer such key information any time soon. Basically, they could tell us, but then they’d have to…well…you know.
And we can’t really blame them. Imagine what would happen if such information fell into unscrupulous hands. Spammers and hackers the world over would start gaming the system before we could say “Let me look that up online.”
So give your website the best exposure you can by submitting it to as many appropriate directories and niche portals as possible. While you’re at it, use social media to get your site out there. Search engines will find your website if you just keep spreading the word by practicing solid, white hat SEO techniques. And when they do, make sure that you’ve done a thorough job of optimizing your content, coding and structure, including creating a sitemap.xml file to tell their web crawlers exactly where to go next.
To Click or Not to Click: What Was the Question?
August 2, 2010 By Sue Spiker
How much information do you retain after reading online content? Not as much as you may think. Take a brief moment to read through each of these articles.
- When Linking Gets Out of Control (Version 1)
- When Linking Gets Out of Control (Version 2)
Done? Okay. Now let’s chat. How many of you clicked on the links in the second version AS you were reading? That didn’t happen with the first version, did it? That’s because Version 2 has hyperlinks within the body content while Version 1 doesn’t. And hyperlinks within body content are a leading reason for users not retaining as much information as they would if they were reading a continuous, flow of unlinked text.
Let’s be honest, we don’t ‘read’ so much as we ‘scan’ online content. Nor do we think twice about clicking link after link to go from page to page. And it’s hard to retain information when elements within the content are specifically designed to encourage navigation somewhere else. In fact, we quickly forget much of what we’ve just read the moment we move on.
As users, we’re hardwired to instantly evaluate the value of clicking a link versus the value of staying where we are. How much focus can you actually maintain as you move from page to page reading up on SEO, Information Architecture, the World Wide Web and the Twinkies 80th Anniversary Celebration? (Incidentally, Twinkies have a shelf life of 26 days – I looked.)
Yes, including links within the body content may be good for SEO, but too many links can be data overload for users.
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Good SEO practitioners know that their efforts should not interfere with the user experience. |
Understanding how your current approach impacts user behavior can help you create a stronger, more effective linking strategy. Balancing the number and placement of links with the user experience can actually strengthen your linking strategy AND help readers retain the information that you’re offering.
Improving Link Popularity
May 27, 2010 By Webposition SEO Team
The stronger a webpage’s link popularity, the higher its page score and the higher it will rank in search results. Link popularity is the total number of links that a search engine finds for a webpage, and it’s the quality of these links that determines the page’s overall link popularity. But not all links are equally valuable.
Search engines can tell the difference between reciprocal links and one-way links, and one-way links are stronger when it comes to boosting link popularity. And when search engines index your website and the sites that your pages link to, they also take into account Rank, Relevancy and Authority.
Think about it – between CNN.com and a single-page hobby site, which has a higher page rank? How about content that’s relevant to yours? Which would search engines consider a more authoritative, established site? Create quality outbound links by pointing your visitors to sites with a respectable search ranking and content that complements your own.
True, you can’t always control who links to your pages, but a good way to attract quality inbound links is to give visitors a reason to bookmark your page and keep coming back. The better your content is and the more your overall website has to offer, the more likely other sites are to link to yours.
Check out our SEO 101 tutorial Building an Effective Linking Strategy to learn more about managing inbound and outbound link building. Make creating quality links part of your marketing plan, and it can ultimately make a difference in your webpage’s search rankings.
Depressed Server, Great 404 Link Bait / Viral Marketing Example
April 8, 2009 By Webposition SEO Team
By Scott Goodyear
If you’ve read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or if you’ve seen the movie, you know that Marvin The Paranoid Android is funny in it’s own depressing way. What if your web server had the same dejected outlook? Check out this 404 error page. This is a great example of something that can go “viral” and add new visitors, links, and attention to a site.
Every time some one hits the wrong URL or mistypes when visiting the Wikimaniacs site, they come across a great 404 page. While it is probably a rare occurrence to hit this page, if the site lasts a few years, it wouldn’t surprise me to see their 404 page submitted to the various social bookmark sites over and over again as visitors re-”discover” this 404 page. This is one of the ways in which viral marketing works best… The reason why I found this page? It hit the front page of a social bookmark site called “Reddit“.
It could be that some one associated with Wikimaniacs submitted the page to Reddit, or that with their recent brush with popularity via social bookmark site Digg, a new visitor came across this error page, loved it, and subsequently decided to submit an error URL to Reddit (and perhaps other places as well). Either way, it helps them to gain more visibility and potentially improve their rankings. As I mentioned a few months ago, a 360 degree take on visitor experience and attention to little details like 404 pages can be quite positive toward marketing a site.
(Photo by Prince Heathen)
Update: Wikimaniacs is no longer available – check out these fun 404 error pages instead:
Best 404 Error Pages EVER: 17 Awesome ‘Page Not Found’ Messages
WDL – 404 error pages for your viewing pleasure
Viral Marketing With No Place To Go… A Quick Tip.
January 8, 2009 By Webposition SEO Team
By Scott Goodyear
Reading through social bookmarking site Reddit, I found this great graphic that describes the “browser wars”. The graphic represents a great piece of viral marketing as well. There are a lot of tech, SEO, and others that will likely bookmark, blog about, or otherwise promote the site or graphic. However there is nothing else really on the site, it has no place to go…
As you consider adding some viral marketing on your site, such as some info graphics – like the “browser wars”, a small consideration to make…
Put your graphic on a specific web page and strategically link to other pages on your site. Submit the web page to social bookmarking sites, not the graphic. You do want to leverage any “Page Rank” gains on your viral page gains so that it can help uplift other pages on your site. When you submit only a graphic, your page rank starts and ends with that graphic. There is not “site rank”.
