Welcome to My Two Bits a personal blog. This blog will be primarily dealing with strategies, tips, rants and raves related to web marketing. But now and then I’m sure other things will creep in.
Hope you enjoy it and feel free to post your comments.
Hmmm. It’s no secret that the most important means to a consistent high position in engines such a Google and Yahoo it to acquire many theme-relevant inbound links. The $69,000 question is how to acquire those links…
It seemed to me that by writing useful little software components and posting them on popular free download forums might be the way to go. Why not a Firefox extension, seeing as how that browser software is now taking the world by storm? This could provide the author’s site with a valuable link from a high-ranked site and a lot of publicity for the developer’s web site.
This was confirmed when looking up the page rank of all the popular extension tools. Page Ranks of 5 and higher were not uncommon.
Next step: How to write a Firefox extension. Brian Duff gives a great introductory tutorial , which should get you started.
Missing from Brian’s tutorial is how to code the file itself, and in what language. Probably because a good tutorial already exists on the Firefox home site title
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/tutorials/tinderstatus/
The language is in Javascript combined with Mozilla’s own “XUL” specifications, which are XML based tags that instruct Mozilla/Firefox how to render a page and perform operations. This sample tutorial walks you through how to get or post data from another web site or xml service, parse the results, then cause Mozilla to change its interface to display the contents.
With that you should be off and running…
Well, we all know that Google is to the web what God is to the universe… know all, see all, judge all…
So if you want to get a direct link to the internet Bible going, you may want to check out the link I’ve added on the right, which takes you to mattcutts.com. Can’t hurt to hear what one of Google’s top traffic cops has to say…
How does Google rank web pages? We know this is the #1 criteria for determining a page’s position in the Google search engine, but how do they come up with their rank for a given web page?
The following article, based on a student publication of the original creator’s of the Google search engine, explains the main concept behind the Google algorithm. This algorithm has obviously evolved since its early days, but the main idea behind it has not.
For those of you delving in the arcane world of Google analysis, Jagger is the nickname given to Google’s latest round of algorithm manipulations. Once or twice a year, it seems, Google changes the rules of its search criteria, and with those changes, the fates of countless businesses prosper or plummet.
The following is the best theory I’ve seen of the the new rules guiding Google’s search engine ranking positions.
Post it right up there on your wall, perhaps next to the Ten Commandments.
Unlike the Ten Commandments, as soon as you’ve just about figured out how to conform your behavior to them, the rules will change…
OK, we’ve had two weeks of frantic posts and comments on the forums and plenty of time to analyse what we all think is the significant changes in Google’s ‘jagger’ update.
Let’s now try to draw up a definitive list of what appears to have made differences. Although the only comment everyone seems to agree on is; ‘what and see, it usually settles down after a month’, now is a good time to identify the important changes while they are still so stark and obvious. Later we can perhaps revise these once Google has tweaked the filters and turned down the emphasises.
The following are my observations based on analysing my field (travel guides/information for a specific popular location, which has a handful of competing SEO sites, but is mostly a lesser competitive keyword lexical set.) We ranked middle to top of page 1 for about 50 keywords and are now down to page three, the site is a year old. I’ve deliberately not give the url or ‘keyword’ to discourage people analysing my case or doing their own tests but rather giving their observations based on their own situations.
1. Age of site: the olders sites (certainly pre 2003) have remained solid and it appears that the older your site the higher you are likely to rank provided you continue adding some fresh content each month and have some links. The site ranked #1 is five years older than mine but has about 25% less ibls than me (as recognised by Google). It is certainly very difficult for a new site to now rank well in Google until it’s several years old and will perhaps be forever catching up with the others, no matter how good the content is and how many people link organically to it. This would be a severe disadvantage to Google users, especially given the dynmic nature of the web.
2. Age of links/which links actually count: this has been a key issue for more than a year but I’m perplexed by the weird changes in the ‘Google ibl’ count of my competitors, some sites’ ‘counts’ have shot up unrealistically but have been unaffected in the SERPs, many of the sites ranking well above me have a lower count. One competitor’s sub domain made a rapid rise over the past 6 months due to aggressive link strategy and has tanked. Some pages are ranking on page one despite having less than 10 ibls! No doubt about it, links mature and gain weight in the algo with time. This is perhaps Google’s most surefire way of discouraging spamming.
3. Size of site: I can also see that pages supported by massive sites rank well despite having low ibls counts and content which is clearly insignificant. For example the respective page on the Lonely Planet site ranks top five with only 2 ibls! There are plenty of other sites out there with more than 100 pages dedicated to the specific keyword, with better PR and a much more focused internal link structure. So, the algo may be recognising the sheer weight of pages behind the ranking page, even if none of them point to it, the PR perculation is low and the ibls to that specific page negligeable. Could it be that the weight of ibls into the index page of the site count quite significantly.
4. Freshness of content: although our site has something new on it three times a week, the sites that have news or magazine content that expands at a rate of about 20 news pages once a month seem to do well in SERPs. this means that when searching for travel guide info on a place like, say, Cancun, you are more likely to find the local newspaper ranking top than the tourist associations site.
5. More weight on ibls, less on content relevance. I’m now seeing high PR index pages (with lots of ibls) ranking for all sorts of keywords that get only a cursory mention on them, rather than a page that is keyword rich, and has a matching h1. this means that we are reverting to an older model where people can stuff their homepage with all the various keywords and catch SERPS without the effort of producing specific pages full of relevant content on that particular keyword.
6. OBLs now count alot more: several people have commented on the rise of directory listings in the SERPs and big directories with a sub-directory on the specific keyword (but no ibls) rank well. They are full of content from the listings and links out to the other sites on that topic (many ranking well because the directory has been targeted by the SEOs). I have seen this too, for examples ‘bars in [name of tourist town]’ returns a #1 ranking for a directory that simply has listings and tells you nothing about them. This site is dominating all the results related to tourism for the entire country. I’m convinced (as many have been for some time now) that Google is now giving more weight to pages that list a few other resources on the topic (with link), but it’s favouring directories. This may also relate to point 3.
7. Change in importance of anchor text: after the last update (something to do with ‘hilltop algo’) we - like most link builders - placed emphasis on quality anchor text that was similar to the h1 of the targeted deep-page, but were very careful to mix up and randomise the anchor text for an organic appearance. We’ve also strived for limited quality links from keyword relevant pages or text. The results on the minor keywords was very good and we were able to achieve top 5 on many with just a few quality ibls, this now seems to be irrelevant and almost all have sunk to page 3. I’m inclined to think Google has reverted to emphasis on general ibls and the weight of PR from the index page, or to place more importance on age of link rather than quality of link.
So, in short Jagger may be targeting the following for changes:
1. Age of site - older is better
2. Age of links/ or the way it measures links - older is better, less emphasis on new but quality links
3. Overall size of site - pages from larger sites get an advantage in the serps
4. Freshness of content - sites that have continually significant expansion are favoured, regardless of quality
5. more emphasis on ibls, less on content relevance - more index pages are ranking for specific keyphrases that they bear little relevance to
6. More weight on obls - sub directory pages from large directories are now appearing alot more in the serps, possible due to relevant obls
7. Quality of link and anchor text no longer carries as much advantage - old links and quantity favoured.* When speaking of ‘Google ibl count’ I am referring to the results as per the Marketleap tool.
Hopefully, we can start to build on this list, adding points which the majority agree are significant changes and removing the points that most don’t support.
Cheers
Andrew
www.virtualtravelguides.com
cheap content specialists
For more on the topic go to the webproworld thread.
If you are developing a commercial website and have invested heavily in search engine optimization, it is critical that you understand the Google “Sandbox”. If you have built a world class site and it just does not get ranked by Google despite your best efforts to follow all their rules and suggestions, this may well be why:
http://www.seomoz.org/articles/google-sandbox-analysis.php
When it comes to launching a new business, nothing beats a good affiliate marketing campaign. Check out this recent series of article from Forbes and Business 2.0, that highlights the advantages to a marketer:
The Internet phone service business is fiercely competitive, with players like Vonage, eBay-Skype, Yahoo! and Microsoft. So, how can upstart company SunRocket stand out? With an affiliate marketing campaign. Within one year of starting its campaign, SunRocket is the second-fastest-growing independent provider of residential Internet phone service in the United States, behind Vonage.
The following article in
Business 1.0 gives you an insight into the affiliate’s mindset, who may decide to join your affiliate marketing program.
Frankly, I think the author of this article exaggerates the ease with which an affiliate can make money. But he does nail the typical user’s motivations, so it’s still worth reading.
Here I am just trying to improve my position in the search engines, when what I should really be concerned about is the future of mankind. Hmmm… Just 25 years until computer intelligence over takes human intelligence.
Read a fascinating discussion about what has been baptized the Singularity.
RayKurzweil: I think that once a nonbiological intelligence (i.e., a machine) reaches human intelligence in its diverse dimensions, it will necessarily soar past it because (i) computational and communication power will continue to grow exponentially, (ii) machines can master information with far greater capacity and accuracy already and most importantly, machines can share their knowledge. We don’t have quick downloading ports on our neurotransmitter concentration patterns, or interneuronal connection patterns. Machines will.
Joing the animated and very articulate discussion group at :
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0476.html?m%3D1
I’m fascinated by the science involved here, although I readily admit this one is a few notches above my rudimentary high-school knowledge of chemistry and physics.
To my less that omniscient eyes, I think these guys may have hit pay dirt. Follow this link to a series of very enlightening - couldn’t resist that pun - articles and theories on a novel chemical process of causing the latent energy stored in the hydrogen atom to be released as a new primary energy source.
In brief, the process allows the negatively charged electron that is otherwise in a stable orbit to move closer to the naturally attracting, positively charged nucleus. The consequence: a tremendous release of power as heat, light, and plasma (an energetic state of matter comprising a hot, glowing, ionized gas).
For more on this visit the flash based simulation of the process on the site of the company developing this process: Blacklight Power.
Can Google really “organize the world’s information” as their corporate goal states? And what will that mean for businesses like Comcast, Microsoft, the press barons and the entertainment industry? Wired magazine recently wrote an article that neatly summarizes Google’s most recent forays into new business areas, and how that threatens some other large players, under the heading “Who’s Afraid of Google? Everyone”.