Google’s Halloween Update
by Brian TurnerYesterday a number of webmasters and business owners got an especially bad Halloween fright from Google – their homepages tanked in the search results.
However, this morning the changes were rolled back, and the sites in question are back in position – for now.
Discussions began on Webmasterworld, and suggestions have been variously made that Google has [...]
July 27, 2008
Everything you ever needed to know about SEO
by Brian TurnerWhatever you read online relating to SEO, here are the only steps you need to take to learn about SEO:
1. Build a few websites
2. Read SEObook.com
3. Read search engine patents
4. Adjust sites accordingly
5. Observe and adjust
6. Rinse and repeat
Everything else is hubris.
SEO blogs and forums are not a place to learn about SEO:
- at best [...]
July 14, 2008
Content is SEO: Lyndon
by Brian TurnerLyndon Antcliff makes a bold statement: Content is SEO.
However, this is at the crux:
The specific age demographic who spend the most amount of money grew up with Google
In other words, if you focus on serving the Google Generation, you open up doors that swing both ways.
And a key way to do this is via [...]
July 10, 2008
Why In House link building sucks
by Brian TurnerI’ve been reading various discussions online about how good it is to get link building done in house.
I’ve got to come out and say that why I know there are some good in-house link builders, I also know there are an awful lot that suck.
I guess it’s like outsourced link building, really. :)
The problem is [...]
July 9, 2008
Different Google algos for different keywords
by Brian TurnerOne of the more interesting points to come out of the Keyword Suggestion Tool is that the numbers are not exact figures – but instead assign keywords to clear sets based on search frequency.
For example, for keyword searches claimed to have a search frequency between 100,000 and 600,000, every single keyword will have only one [...]
July 8, 2008
How to get strong links for free
by Brian TurnerI have never believed in begging for links. I think begging has no place in internet marketing.
And I don’t believe you should ever reverse engineer your competitor links and then try and get links from the same places. Isn’t it better to force your competitors to follow in your own footsteps, rather than be [...]
Links: It’s Quality not Quantity
by Brian TurnerOne of the biggest questions I see raised on business forums is how and where to get good links.
Trouble is, link value is very much a qualitative process, but it’s not just the links – it’s also the target site that determines the ranking impact.
So what you have is this:
Link Value + Domain Value = [...]
Secrets of Advanced SEO revealed
by Brian TurnerLisa Barone provides excellent detailed coverage on the “Give it up” session at SMX Advanced 2008, where various advanced SEO’s revealed their secret advanced SEO strategies – much of it blackhat.
Speakers who covered this session included Stephan Spencer, Marty Weintraub, Michael Gray, Rob Kerry, Todd Friesen, and Rand Fishkin – some of the real heavyweights [...]
July 7, 2008
SEO is dead: Aaron Wall
by Brian TurnerAaron Wall argues that traditional SEO work not only sucks, but is also doomed in the long-term and he doesn’t see it working after 5 years.
I’ve got to admit, I agree to some extent.
In one regard, I don’t think SEO is a long-term prospect – we are a generation of people who, in a couple [...]
Google UK: July update in progress?
by Brian TurnerBarry gives some great coverage of reported problems with Google UK starting in July.
We’ve barely had time to recover from some weird instabilities introduced in June, but it seems there’s more rolling out.
Key concerns are that Google is struggling with UK geotargeting, especially confusing the UK and, um, Australia.
Listen to us Google: “Strewth, mate, we’re [...]
How punctuation works in Google Search
by Brian TurnerAndy from Receptional posts a neat guide on Webmasterworld about how Google deals with punctuation in search:
Key_word – underscores not treated as a break, so searches for “key_word”
Key&word – search for “key” AND “word”
Key¦word – search for “key” OR “word”
Key”word – search for “key word”
Key*word – wildcard – anything that includes something between “key” and [...]
Google changes the cache?
by Brian TurnerWiep says he’s seeing changes to Google’s cache template, with the interesting observation that it seems language dependent.
The latter is potentially a key observation if it’s not linguistics but geotargeting that sets this off.
Especially in context with the earlier reported problems with Google UK over June, where some major category pages were disappearing in lieu [...]
June 16, 2008
Google update, reindex, or new filter in progress?
by Brian TurnerBarry Schwartz gave a heads-up earlier in the week of a discussion in Webmasterworld suggesting a lot of sites suddenly losing traffic.
The discussion seems to centre on two main possibilities:
1. Google rebuilding its index
2. Google update for fresher content
Rebuilding its index is something I’ve seen Google do many times – where main link sources tend [...]
May 22, 2008
Avoid over optimisation: users first, search engines second
by Brian TurnerWhenever people first start to learn about SEO, the big temptation is to “over-optimise” a site.
Symptoms of over-optimisation are obvious – and terrible:
1. Usability
The site becomes unusable and badly presented – there’s so much focus on delivering keywords and internal links, that the webmaster completely forgets about the actual visitor experience.
So when the users visit [...]
May 12, 2008
Cheap SEO: it’s about quality, not price
by Brian TurnerThe big problem with SEO as a service is that there is no standard like with PPC.
It’s not at all a case of different companies offering the same service simply at different prices – SEO is a service covering many specialities.
This means that SEO cannot be bought and sold on price points alone – [...]
May 7, 2008
How the future of SEO looks to be developing
by Brian TurnerJennifer Osborne at SearchEnginePeople provides a very interesting post predicting the life cycle of search as an industry: SEO is about to grow up.
The graph illustrating changes probably works best:
A couple of pointers really strike out as on the ball, as it’s clear that there’s already a trend in this direction:
Shortage of experienced SEO talent [...]
Why Link Building = risk management
by Brian TurnerI’ve commented before that when agencies look to take up link building it can be dangerous – and a recent discussion suggests clients doing it directly.
The problem is that link building isn’t simply about building links – it’s about managing a site’s entire link profile, and especially managing the risk built into developing links.
We already [...]
April 29, 2008
Google Universal sees wider roll out?
by Brian TurnerJacob Wolfsheimer makes a startling observation – of Google Universal results being more integrated into certain targeted keyword searches.
You can see thumbnails of his observations below:
The keyword searches used to trigger these were “Madonna” and “Clay Aiken”
This harks too quickly to my post last week – Google was a links driven search engine – not [...]
April 21, 2008
Google was a links-driven search engine
by Brian TurnerGoogle was a links-driven search engine.
That’s a fundamental truth that needs underlining.
I have to underline it because a lot of people still don’t believe that, including a lot of “SEO experts”, who even occupy positions of authority on various internet communities – blogs and forums.
And while the shape of Google has certainly changed over the [...]
April 20, 2008
SEO: a service covering many specialities
by Brian TurnerUnderstanding what SEO is can be confusing at the best of times for businesses who are not very conversant with the internet.
The biggest mistake any business can make is to presume that SEO is a generic service, available as the same from SEO companies, but the only difference being one of price points.
SEO is a [...]