Beware of "common sense" search engine optimization!
June 27, 2007
When it comes to search engine optimization, there are a lot of myths and rumors floating around about what does and does not work. A lot of this "knowledge" appears valid, because it sounds like it should be true, but beware!
Much of the information floating around about the right way to optimize for the search engines (especially Google) is very, very wrong. A lot of it is based on assumptions: "Google must be smart enough to consider [erroneous conclusion here]…" or "I BELIEVE Google [additional erroneous information here] …"
Some of it is based on old truths. For example, search engines used to have a harder time indexing script-based sites (i.e. PHP instead of plain HTML), and so those sites didn't do as well in the index. But that was a long, long time ago (in web years anyway). The engines have long since been ranking script-based sites in among plain HTML with no problems — but the rumor is still heard even today.
Be careful what you believe about SEO. If you're reading an article or forum post about a particular method or technique, make sure it's backed up with actual data, evidence, and examples before running out and starting to apply it to your site. What you'll find in most cases is that the supposed "facts" aren't actually being demonstrated or backed up with proof and examples.
Let me give you two BIG myths as examples, and show you actual proof that they are, in fact, bogus (at least right now).
1. The Themed-Link Myth
This is one of my favorite myths. Everyone assumes that Google simply must be smart enough to know whether your links are coming from sites that have the same (or related) theme, and therefore links from sites with the same theme are the only way to rank for your keywords.
Pure myth.
Google may, in fact, know whether or not the links are coming from websites of a similar theme. It may, in fact, add more weight to these links. But to claim that you must get links from similarly-themed sites in order to rank is pure mythology. Here are some examples that disprove the claim:
Site: submitexpress.com
Keywords: search engine optimization
Rank: #3 in Google
The phrase "search engine optimization" is probably one of the most difficult phrases to rank for. After all, all of the best search engine marketers want to hold the top positions for those keywords in order to sell their services. Submitexpress.com is doing very well in this regard, ranking #3 for the phrase (as of this writing). Number one is held by Wikipedia, and number two by Google itself.
If you go to Google and take a look at the backlinks pointing to submitexpress.com (using the link: command), you'll notice that very, very few of those links have anything to do with search engine optimization or marketing at all. The exception are links shown from the domain itself, and that's almost it. So if it's such a fact that you have to have links from similarly-themed sites in order to rank for your keywords, how does this site manage to pull off such a huge feat?
Simple: you don't have to have links from sites of the same theme — you just need a lot of links with your keywords in them!
Site: www.younevercall.com
Keywords: free cell phone
Rank: #1 in Google
Yes, this site ranks #1 in Google for the very competitive phrase "free cell phone". But almost none of its backlinks come from sites or pages having anything to do with cell phones, or phones, or communications in general (go to Google and see for yourself–but be warned, some of the links are from adult sites).
So again, another site ranking for a competitive set of keywords that somehow manages to do it without "themed links". How is this possible if you can only rank well with themed links?
And again, it's simple: you don't have to have links from sites of the same theme — you just need a lot of links with your keywords in them!
Here are a couple more examples that rank very well for difficult keywords despite almost all of their links coming from off-theme sites, in case you want to explore further (but I won't go into detail about these):
Site: www.hoodia-dietpills.com
Keywords: hoodia
Rank: #3 in Google
Site: www.affiliatescout.com
Keywords: affiliate programs
Rank: #1 in Google
Does this mean that Google won't put more emphasis on theme-related links in the future? No, it doesn't. They might, they might not. But whether they aren't quite as "smart" as people think they are, or they've just chosen not to do it (for whatever reason), it is still quite possible to rank for very difficult keywords with all of your links coming from off-theme sites.
One point that has proven to make a real difference: Google is discounting reciprocal links more than it used to. They still matter, just not nearly as much. One-way links appear to be the way to go.
2. The Themed-Content Myth
Another "common sense" notion about Google is that all of the content on your site should revolve around the same theme, otherwise it won't rank well for the keywords you want to because your theme will get "too diluted".
Pure mythology.
The number one biggest proof against this notion is Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia.org covers almost 2 million very diverse topics (as of this writing), and yet ranks incredibly well for a huge array of keywords. In fact, there are few informational searches you can do on Google these days that Wikipedia doesn't rank well for.
As one example, take "internet marketing", for which Wikipedia ranks #1 in Google. There are a few related pages around the subject (about 426 as of now), but Google has 3,220,000 pages indexed for Wikipedia — of which the vast majority have nothing to do with internet marketing.
How is this possible if everything on the site has to be theme-related in order to rank well for the keywords?
Simple: the notion that all content on a site must be of the same theme is a myth.
But Wikipedia is seen as a kind of deity among websites. Are there any "lesser" examples? Yes. Here are a few of them:
Site: www.bandddesigns.com/energy/
Keywords: energy drinks
Rank: #2 in Google
The "energy" subfolder of bandddesigns.com has a few hundred pages devoted to energy drinks, for sure, but if you do a site:bandddesigns.com command at Google, you'll see that the site has 4,320 pages indexed on a very diverse set of subject matter that has nothing to do with energy drinks (or health in general). Despite this, it ranks #2 in Google (just under Wikipedia, which again, is not all about energy drinks).
So do you have to have 100% related content on a site? The facts say no.
Well, then, how is this site ranking for "energy drinks"? Check its backlinks (especially at Yahoo) and you'll see that the site has a lot of backlinks. That's what's getting it the ranking — not how "on theme" it is.
Even now, with all of Google's "smarts", it's all about the links.
Site: www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/
Keywords: baby names
Rank: #3 in Google
Do you find it hard to believe that a government site ranks #3 in Google for such a competitive term like "baby names"? It sure does, though, despite the fact that Google says that only 33 pages of the 24,900 page site are related to the topic "baby names".
Can sites rank well even with diverse themes existing on the same domain? The facts say yes. How do you do it? You need links.
Site: creativebits.org/cool_business_card_designs
Keywords: business cards
Rank: #8 in Google
According to Google, creativebits.org has 3,460 pages related to "business cards". That's about 20% of its 16,300 indexed pages. So, is this site about business? Or maybe finance or investment or small businesses or something that's related to "business cards" in some way? Nope.
What is the main site about? The site's title tag says of itself:
"creativebits | Apple oriented design community"
It's a blog about Mac-based graphics design software. So how does a site about Mac-oriented graphics software rank for the phrase "business cards"?
Links, of course! Take a look at the backlinks in Yahoo and you'll see it has thousands of them. And, incidentally, if you do take a look at those backlinks — they come from pages having nothing to do with business cards (or business in general).
So if a page of content devoted to a highly competitive phrase on a site whose theme is completely unrelated to the phrase itself ranks for that very competitive phrase, can it really be said that Google requires a site to be all about one theme?
Nope.
One thing that does seem to hold true, though, is that if you're going to have diverse themes on your site, you need
to separate them into their own subdomains or subfolders. That seems to help Google know that the "theme" of that
folder or subdomain is different, and to treat it independently.
Myths are Dangerous
All of these myths are dangerous, because they get people focusing on techniques and methods that simply aren't really effective.
That said, is it a bad thing to make sure that all of your links come from sites with similar themes? Or is it a bad thing to make sure the content on your site stays on theme? No, it's not bad. Going forward, Google may in fact take those things into account more.
But don't be surprised when you are out-ranked by sites whose content is not devoted to the theme, and whose links come from all over the map!
I've found that most of these kinds of SEO myths are propagated by people who are failing in their optimization attempts. They make blanket statements, backed up by vapor, out of frustration for their own failed attempts. "Google must require themed-backlinks because my sites isn't ranking well and I have a lot of links!" That kind of logic is faulty.
It makes much more sense to listen to the facts, facts like the ones I've presented here. Which sites are actually ranking well now, and what are they doing to achieve those rankings? Focus on what's working, not on the myths spread by people who can't seem to make it work.
So what's working? Getting a lot of one-way links pointed at your site containing your keywords. That's the short of it. There are some other things to keep in mind, like making sure the links grow slowly over time and don't all just suddenly appear on hundreds of sites, and making sure that you vary your link text so that it looks "natural". But the bottom line is, at least for the present, you need a lot of links.
Comments
62 Responses to “Beware of "common sense" search engine optimization!”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. He is the creator of a suite of popular software tools, including: Jonathan L Leger 
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Thank you so much for these clear words Jonathan.
These myths are really just crazy and i see so many so called "seo experts" fooling around with their customers.
well, its a big market…
Great Post!
I find that for some reason, people would rather hold onto myths than do some real research. I had a script written to look at ranking correlations among a million search engine results from tens of thousands of searches. This data is very revealing and contrary to some myths, but people by and large just don't want it.
First of all let me thank you for putting the time into gathering this information. Quality post with quality information.
Bottom-line, quality content gets links andl inks make the world go 'round!
Thanks
Greg
Thank you for this useful information. I also been taught by 'guru' about those myth. What you gave us here is data and case study that really proven against
what many markerter used to belive.
sherly ndari
As ever, a well argued case.
But the myth and magic argument finds itself happening in everyday life outside the web, too.
It seems to be a human failing that we take on trust a lot of what we're told without ever questioning it, or analyzing it.
People are likely to continue doing that for a long time to come, I think.
Jon,
This is a very high quality post! You spent some serious time gathering all that data. I sincerely appreciate someone like yourself who does true market research - rather than basing your decision on your and other's assumptions.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify this for us.
Ken
very good analysis, and truly insightful
I kinda agree with what you wrote, but have my 2 cents as well.
In your 1st example http://www.submitexpress.com
Lets expand link command to yahoo results, shall we?
It brings back over 800K back links. Just on the first page I can see nice - PR7 from sempo.com very, very related to SEO.
I don't have a time to go over the rest of the 800K+ BL , but I bet 10% will be seo related. That's about 80,000 back links from search engine optimization related websites.
Now, If you check #11 for that phrase http://www.submitawebsite.com/ it has a total of 82,000 BL( by yahoo). Do you see the deference in value here?
So yes, having a gazillion BL is the key. But also chances are that if even only 10% comes from related websites it does carry a substantial weight on to the SERP's.
If I am to look for ceramic tile and end up at such website, wouldn't make sense that there will be links pointing to other websites that are related ? I sure would like that, won't you? Therefore if the websites are for people, why don't they ( related links) add more value in your opinion?
That is a valid point about submitexpress.com. However, I'm sure you'll find by going through the list that the lesser ranked sites have fewer backlinks — regardless of how related they are.
And I didn't say that I don't think they add more value. What I said was:
Hi Jon,
Thanks a million for clearing the myth with your solid case study. You must have invested a lot of time in doing all these analysis, it certainly helps us in applying our SEO Linking strategy.
It is not always wise to believe in those SEO Experts' advice. Figures and facts tell the truth.
I really appreciate people like you who truly share your valuable experience with your readers.
Best regards,
Keith
Common Sense SEO or Myth?
I just read an excellent email/post by Jonathan Leger, he discusses some current myths about google and seo. Specifically discusses website themes and linking, some very interesting myths debunked regarding linking.
Jonathan Leger is one internet marke…
A very insightful analysis.
We certainly have less to worry about going crazy over theme-based links, and that is good.
However, at the end of the day, I believe it should be the visitor experience that counts when he/she visits my site.
Nice examples. A mixture of links is the way to go!
What a fantastic post Jon.
I should learn to analyze things like you do too.
OK - I'm convinced by a rational argument plus relevant anecdotal data.
That's not to say that somebody else couldn't come up with a different sample and a different conclusion, but Jon's argument (including caveats) is impeccable .
Whilst instinctually and aesthetically, I prefer to cosset user experience with tight theme discipline, I do understand that there won't be any users to do the experiencing without links to pull the traffic!
So until a site is popular and pulling links graviationally by its own merits and momentum, we simply cannot afford the luxury of purist posturing on the subject of theme integrity.
It's like the position of an "honest" (!) politician who must make unwelcome compromises to get elected. Until they are in power they can't implement their policy agenda. So they do what it takes to get elected, in the hope the greater good is so served.
Having accetped the facts of life (thanks Jon) - I've set a personal policy to accept life in the minor leagues rather than accept link juice from the devil (which for me includes porn, gambling and bigotry in all its forms).
The compromises acceptable will remain a personal choice for each of us. A mechanism for link exclusion will clearly be needed by those with "non-standard" scruples.
Steve
Thank you for this extremely valuable information. It is refreshing to get such well thought out information. After seeing your examples I can completely see where you are coming from, and I am ashamed I didn't notice that before. Thanks.
More Myths
Myth #1. All SEO groups are fighting for the opportunity to expose every technique and method they use to gain a #1 spot on Google.
Ummm…no.
Any experienced SEO knows to keep his mouth shut and keep as low a profile as he can get away with and never flaunt a Big #1 ranking like Brad Fallon does.
His wedding favors site is WAY gone from #1 due to his boasting. Actually he learned his lesson and gets most of his traffic from sources other than Google Natural search.
Myth#2
If you can show a good ranking that ignores one of the ranking factors for a good showing site, then you've proved that it was a stupid myth.
Ummm…no.
On page account for 40%, Off Page for 40% and URL for 20%.
Believe it or not……you can completely ignore one or two of those three groups and still rank #1.
So you can't prove "Myths" just by showing examples
of sites that rank well even though they ignore or go against some of the ranking factors. It doesn't work that way. The other factors can compensate.
A site that is 100% on theme will blow a competitor out of the water, all OTHER factors being equal.
Notice the complete lack of examples, data or proof in the previous comment. This is precisely what I was talking about in this blog post.
PS. A good way to "prove" a point is to do 250,000 searches on a spectrum of keywords. Take the top 10 results from each of those searches and drop them in a database. Now you know what a search engine "likes" from 1-10. Then query the database and ask it questions such as….
Q. Does having a keyword count of 6 for the page affect ranking?
A. Yes; It decreases ranking.
Data/100 : (-53) 7 12 11 13 10 14 12 17
So we find that 700 sites rank #1 with the keyword 6 times on the page, but 1700 landed at #10.
That's a correlation of -53. Nope, I'm shooting for #1.
Next question….
Q. Does having a keyword count of more than 50 for the page affect ranking?
A. Yes; It increases ranking.
Data/100: (+92) 123 100 95 95 93 81 81 77
So, EVEN though 7700 sites ranked #10, 12300 sites ranked #1. Sounds good to me.
Jon
Your blog score is 951….which is not bad.
2000 is the best I've managed on any page.
But these are just the on-page 40%.
[please put all of this in a page and link to it]
Jonathan is 100% correct in that very little SEO advice is based on researched data. And as I mentioned, such people keep a low profile. Just my observation….I have no data to back these statements up.
Thank you John for substantial information. I have a belief in the usefulness (still) of getting backlinks from writing free articles for reprint. I mainly use http://www.ezinearticles.com but have created an article portal for my own language Danish as one of the first of its kind in Denmark ( I can recommend that you check a non-English language, too). As an author and website owner I find it a very decent way of doing your marketing with article writing about fishing or what is else your area.
But the whole value of free for reprint articles is depending on that users keep the links in the material they get from me and other authors, And unfortunately there are all too many scam people out their.
My question to you John is, will these huge portals (build by scam people, but also by decent people) with very little value for visitors hurt your site, when such inbound links are coming to your decent site about fishing or what you have else set up?
I read somewhere that military people tend to do better at SEO. This is likely because they only believe what they have tried and what works.
So yes, I would agree that a lot of people don't do research into seo directly, but go to forums, and read blogs for their research listening to SEO gurus. (Got that jon?)
I would like to postulate this idea:
1. The best form of link is a one way link from a similar theme site with good anchor text.
2. The second best form of link is a one way link with good anchor text - as long as you have plenty of links from other relevant sites.
3. The third best form of link is a recipirocal link from a relevant site with good anchor text.
4. the fourth best kind of link is a recipirocal link from any kind of site.
Any comments on that?
I also have a comment on this article.
It is wrong to lump together all the search engines when they have different ways of ranking sites, so although this article is mainly about Google it may or may not be relevant.
As a final point. I am in the UK. on a worldwide search for "search engine optimization" (Notice american spelling) the results are as follows:
1. Wikipedia
2. justsearching.co.uk
3. Google
4. submitexpress.com
Now, this was an international, not a local search, but just searching came up top.
Doing a backlink check, Justsearching cam eup with 302 links, submitexpress came up with 3,990.
How does that work?
Jon you said:
One point that has proven to make a real difference: Google is discounting reciprocal links more than it used to. They still matter, just not nearly as much. One-way links appear to be the way to go.
Evidence please?
One thing that does seem to hold true, though, is that if you're going to have diverse themes on your site, you need to separate them into their own subdomains or subfolders. That seems to help Google know that the "theme" of that folder or subdomain is different, and to treat it independently.
Evidence please?
I'd like to ask if you guys have an opinion of Directory links. Does Google give equal weight to say a PR7 or 8 Directory "category" link compared to a PR7 or 8 one-way link from a similar themed site with similar anchor text, etc.?
As I'm sure you are aware these are nearly impossible to acquire on a free basis to a relatively new PR2 or 3 site, and the purchased link prices can be astronomical!
After only 5 months after launch I have about 3 dozen Top 10-20 keyword results pages on Google with only 3 "Google Backlinks" and those are totally unrelated and low PR, have no idea where Google found those!! So, I tend to agree with Jonathan on this unrelated idea.
Yahoo shows about 200 incoming links, some related, most aren't, some are reciprical. One-way links are obviously the thing to get……but how without spending a fortune?!
Mr. Masterson would you mind sharing how you acquire all that info and explaining some of the terms, section length?? Thanks
Ooops, forgot in the last post….
I have been under the belief that Top 10 rankings in a hyper-competitive market were near impossible until Google considers the site an "authority" site. And the only way that happens is through quality links. Right?
I'm becoming more and more confused about what is happening to my own site!
Jonathan this is not a plug but a plea for advice!
Please guys take a look at :
www.lasvegas-discount.com try to tell me what is Big G. doing to me?
Hi Jonatan
Great stuff.
Demythyfying Google SEO is the way to go.
Much crap is written on SEO methodologies on Net.
So, get down to facts that-
- many very well optimized sites DON'T land on #1 slot.
ALSO:
- since -both optimizing and not optimizing land page/s on nr 1 -
something different than optimizing plays more important role in engine's rankings.
ALSO:
-NOT ONLY optimized sites compete and one of them wins top spot.
ALSO:
-large number of backlinks matter
ALSO:
- age of domain matters
Should you get busy optimizing pages anyway?
Yes and knowing that nobody except of Google knows
the correct way. This is not exactly blind date with Google digital spectrum.
The lack of predictability of results is the greatest fun of all (nothing worse than knowing the outcome up front - for this frustrate the creative levels))
The creativity is what is making Internet so
attractive.
Thank you for the insight and clarity 'without a pitch' in a period where everyone only seems to have something to say if they can tie it to a product sale. Truly refreshing.
Alan Marks:
justsearching.co.uk probably has more links with the "optimisation" spelling in the anchor text than submitexpress.com.
Nathan:
My evidence for reciprocal links being discounted is that all of my sites which ranked very well in the past, but relied only on reciprocals, stopped ranking so well, whereas my sites that relied on one-way links remained in their positions. Reports from other people who experienced the same thing indicates that to be the case.
As for separating your themes into subdomains or subfolders, the examples I gave in the post of sites which ranked well despite diverse themes all have those themes split up into subfolders. I haven't been able to find a well ranked site with diverse themes — so far — that doesn't have the information separated out. I could be wrong, of course, but from what I've seen so far that seems to be the case.
Jon,
Really great info you presented. I do have to ask one question. How fast is fast for getting the links to your site.
How many links should one get a day because I remember you mentioned in the past that the search engines do not find all your links at the same time.
Is it ok to get 500 links a day as long as you get them (500) consistently.
Excellent article on links, link building and Myth busting.
I'd just like to add that link building is not just for the search engines. It is also a way to attract visitors from other sites over to your site at no cost.
After all, isn't that what Google, Yahoo and MSN are doing with Adwords within content pages? Although those don't count as links back to your site, they do attract that web site visitor over to your site.
Wouldn't it be cool if you (being a programmer and all) created a "content backlink generator" that displays text links like Google ads on whomever wants to display them? All participants would add and ad and the system would display the appropriate ad according to the web site's content and key phrase. Each linking to the ever growing community of sites. The larger the community, the more legitimate links to the sites.
Just a thought.
Edison Guzman
meka:
How many links to get per day?
That's an excellent question, and one that, honestly, I don't have the answer to. I'm not even completely convinced that it's true.
As I've said before, when big events happen they get hundreds or thousands of links to the sites very, very fast — and yet rank very well in Google. So is it really necessary to slow it down?
I'm undecided, truth be told. But, for safety, if you limit the links to around 10 a day, then every 30 days you'll have 300 more links, and by the end of a year you'll have 3600.
If you're in the position to get more than that — congrats! — it will take some experimenting.
That's an excellent idea Edison, thanks!
Since you're a very action-oriented individual, please let me know when you have this script ready, and I'll be the first to help you test it.
Edison
Thank you for the email. Timing is everything and the email hit my box as I was compiling a list of SEO myths.
I attended a local Chamber of Commerce meeting yesterday and the presentation was on marketing in the 21st centurt and delivered by a local Advertising Agency. I was impressed with the presentation until she got to the Internet.
This is what she told the audience:
No one needs SEO it is a waste of money and if anyone tries to sell you these services call me first. I have never paid for SEO and if you type in my company name in Google I am number 1 … Well we should give her an award for that … I think my dog could do that!
Oh my god! I can't believe she is telling people this. She didn't mention that she is not in Google for any of her products or services even if you add in the city and state!
HTML emails are one of the best ways to get your site ranked high in the Search Engines … Say What?
Spend money on pay per click instead of hiring an SEO firm. Well that is fine and dandy if you have no desire to show up in the Organic Search Results.
I can now see why the Tampa Bay Florida area is lagging so far behind other metropolitan areas.
Very, Very, Sad … That was one meeting I wonder what other brilliant things are being told to business owners!
Deirdre
Ouch Deirdre! That's just sad…
I almost fell out of my chair as I listened to this woman speak. Not only the false information but she was telling everyone not to hire us! The chamber is supposed to help your business grow!
I love the part about the HTML emails making your site rank high on the search engines. That was definitely a "new" one for me!
What the lady was trying to say is that SEO does not have to be that hard.
She is completely correct.
You can create an authority site by adding pages of relevant content that is all "On-Topic" from the point of view of visitors. Ask them to contribute to the site. People love this. Search engines love this. Do a good job of these two steps and guess what the result is. Look up "Facebook" for an example. Links will naturally and automatically build up with NO effort from you.
Your site will be a raging success with only those to steps. Your site can be an AMAZING success with only step #1. Absolutely no "SEO services" or knolwdge needed.
On the other hand….you have a 10 page site and you want to reach #1 position for your keyword.
Then you need help.
Opps…..I didn't mean to say that HTML e-mails are a good idea. Jonathan uses the best strategy…..keep content on your own site and invite people to come read it there and comment and avoid the spam-filter problem.
If that email was directed at me … "What the lady was trying to say is that SEO does not have to be that hard."
She thought that by coming up on Google for her full business name was the only thing you need to do. Her Web site doesn't rank for anything except her company name. She said that "SEO" was only used for national companies and "local" companies never need it. Whether you hire someone or do it yourself every site needs optimized. By that I mean, if your title tag says "Page 1" it isn't going to do that great.
I consider a good Title Tag and Description part of SEO.
OK the myth is that backlinks do not have to be theme related but a lot with your keyword. So in my case my theme is gifts and collectibles. My links are from lawyers to celebrities and all in between. So shouldn't I lean more to the theme? I mean hoodia pills has no gift or collectible keyword in it so how is non related links beneficial?
Thanks though for your insight,
Buzz
Nobody has any comments on Directory Links???
Please look at (16 posts up) today June 28, 07
Buzz:
I'm not saying don't lean toward theme links. I figure, if you can get theme links, by all means, get them!
What I am saying is that Google is still ranking sites who do not have a lot of themed links. Going forward, they might start devaluing off-theme links, but who knows? For now, they are still ranking them.
Bottom line: get themed links if you can't, but don't ignore a link possibility just because it's not on theme.
Dennis:
I, personally, have not found the typical directory links to be very beneficial, since most directories bury you many levels deep into their page structure, and since they almost always require a reciprocal (which, it seems, will cause Google to devalue the link–based on my experience with recips recently).
Get them if you can get them (every little bit helps), but I wouldn't spend a lot of time on directory links unless the positioning was good and no recip was required.
All links have value unless Google completely throws then out. Check the Google backlinks. What does it say when MSN list 2064 backlinks and Google shows 14. What it means is that Google employs more ph.D's than any other company out there and they can figure out the difference between a link from DMOZ and a link from "Stinky Links Link Farm Directory"
Jonathan says "Don't sweat it".
He's right, DON't sweat it. Take links from any place who will give you links…..but…bear in mind….."Stinky Links Link Farm and [snip] Emporium" will not last forever. Maybe Google will dump them off the face of the earth next week, maybe never.
Focus your efforts on getting links from places where it makes sense to you. Set you personal priorities and follow them. This advice came from Eric Ward
http://ericward.com/
who has been buddies with Matt Cutts since college…before he was hired at Google. If you don't like what I'm telling you, take it up with "Link Moses" himself. Or pay him for a linking consult like I did.
[The snipped word was to keep stop words off of my site. Sorry for the modification, but if I ever go back to AdSense I don't want adult words on the pages. :)]
Right on target. I've been busy acquiring links for my site for a while, slowly as I can. For Google it is obvious to me inbound links are king. For MSN and Yahoo it is a little more complicated.
Recent Google example I read about was the term "click here" . Adobe comes up number 1. Why links.
Would like to hear more on MSN & Yahoo.
Re: The Themed-Content Myth
If your keyword not located on your page you can still rank #1 in natural search for that term
Yes, but Google doesn't >preferfactor
I just want to thank Jon for verifying a few things I've discovered by happenstance. I am still "inside" the learning curve, and am getting quite frustrated with all of the contradictory advice I've read. So much for most of the "gurus" (boy, I've seen so many of them *not* follow their own advice, I have to wonder about their true motives).
Jon, when will the 3-way linking service be available? Unfortunately, I missed the beta-test emails because of my wife's gall bladder surgery last week :(. (She's doing well)
Also, the suggestion made by Edison, I believe, for context-generated linking is an interesting one, Please let us know if you are going to pursue it.
That requested DATA is just not showing very well today.
Out of 270,000 monthly searches…..
Q. Does mentioning googlesyndication for the page affect ranking?
Yes; It decreases ranking.
Data: -35 28 31 31 28 30 29 43 36
So this shows a mild negative ranking factor for having Adsense on the website. Not a "Deal Breaker", but a negative influence on ranking for Google.
But MSN, and Yahoo have some differences…and these change a little from month to month.
Thanks for the info. I have been wondering about links lately.
I do link to unrelated sites on both my site, however what gets me is those who fill out my links program form and want the 3 way links, so we end up with a one way link from each page. However, they put my site on a something that is nothing but a link farm.
Then I will get more requests from different sites for the 3 way link and they use the same reciprocal URL that someone else had submitted before, to the link farm. I finally got wise to that when I was managing the links and seen the same reciprocal URL for many sites.
These tactics are annoying and wastes a lot of my time pruning them out, so I no longer do the 3 way linking. I now only accept reciprocal links where the reciprocal url is somewhere on the same site as the one submitted.
Do you run into that problem too?
Great to see that you did some research - always nice to get facts instead of just guesswork
Well, yeah… a link is always a link. But I think it depends on what people want to focus their time on - quality or quantity.
If we stop thinking just about search engines and consider the people that will be seeing your links all over the internet - I think it would better to get more targeted visitors. That is, getting clicks from people that are visiting sites that are related to the market you're in. Those people will probably be more interested in your product/service (higher conversion) rather than some random visitor from a totally unrelated site.
Sue,
To make your work load even easier, you can end your reciprocal linking efforts too because Google has been steadily reducing the role that plays in rankings.
I accidentally tested the Themed Content Myth by eliminating a bunch of "Garbage" text that I had thrown together for a clients website. It was all on topic but was just the "raw results" from a bunch of different articles.
Keyword Today / Position On 2007-06-28
military resume 8 / 9 —- Up 1
military resumes 6 / 6 —- Up 0
federal resume 61 / 45 —- Down16
federal resumes 60 / 41 —- Down19
I forgot to compensate for the last two keywords and my client just about birthed a cow seeing the rank drop this morning.
Jon, pure truth.
But then, I wouldn't want to spend too much of my time vexing over links. Of any kind. I think it's enough to focus on relevant, quality, fresh content, do the SEO basics, put in whatever appropriate links, and let things take care of themselves. You may not get to be on Page 1, but you won't do too badly either.
After all, there are only 10 search results on each page. And with hundreds of sites being added every day, your chances of getting on Page 1 get slimmer by the hour. Never mind about getting to #1.
As you've observed, Google keeps changing their system. We'd have to constantly monitor and keep track of our search rankings - not a prospect to look forward to.
Notice that most of the top ranking sites are very large with hundreds or thousands of pages - with relevant, quality content.
Not long ago, there were programs which generated thousands of interlinking pages for a site, which supposedly boosted search rankings. Unfortunately, the pages were all basically empty or contained links to or from trashy (high-traffic) sites. Of course, Google caught on soon enough, and overnight, those rankings were gone.
Same for the MFA (Made For Adsense) sites. Hundreds of links in the page but no content.
I think reciprocal links still work. However, we need to see what kind of reciprocal links they are. Link-exchange links can be defined as reciprocal, but those other sites may not be related to one's own site's content. If those reciprocal links are from related sites with good content, I don't see why Google wouldn't look on them favourably. Though, granted, I don't have the studies to back that up.
As everyone knows by now, relevant content is the new king and, I'm sure, will be for quite some time.
Another thing is the type of traffic we want. Do we want traffic coming from natural search results, or do we want targeted traffic from paid search results? They are 2 different things and need to be dealt with differently. Traffic from paid search results do not require much SEO, whereas to get ranked in the natural search results, you do need SEO.
Then, too, different kinds of sites need different strategies. Some need SEO, some don't. Some do very well with contextual ads, others don't. Some need mailing lists, others don't. Some can make huge amounts of money solely with Ebay, while others can't.
It's important to see SEO or linking as tools of internet marketing, as means toward an end, and not as the end in and of itself.
As always, Jon, you have given very pertinent and eye-opening data.
Wow. I only read this email today and boy it really woke me up.
It was about 2 years ago when Brad Fallon said on his Stomping course, in his bored sounding voice:
"basically its just links".
Since then I've heard about themeing, LSI, silos, over optimization penalties, over linking penalties, and other fear fear fear.
And I've not heard SEO convincingly simplified since that day (until now).
Thanks Jon. I appreciate this.
Luke
Deirdre,
I am having a hard time to talk to people about links, PPC and such.
The business community is to busy with running their show and listen to a lot of hocus pocus on seminars instead doing research them selfs.
I am getting, questions like "what is a click" or "how can you advertise on Google, That is a search engine, isn't it?"
Enough said to this?
Nandor
very helpful article for newbie like me. Thanks for such a useful stuff.now i understand exactly how links are playing vital role in seo ranking.
Thanks once again.
Jon, what is your opinion on what Jerry West had to say on this topic? He is a very well respected in the SEO community with the over 500 websites he tests with. His article is at:
[snipped–no external links please]
I think he was arguing a point I wasn't making. I never said that you couldn't do better with themed links. What I said is that they weren't necessary. And all of my continued efforts since then, and my top rankings that I'm getting on my sites, continues to prove my point: it's not necessary.
If you have the ability to get themed links, great! Do it. But if not, don't pass up links just because they're not themed.
I'm just about ready to launch a new site (my third)in a very competitive market. It's basically a step-by-step guide to starting a Work at Home business (surprisingly Google Search doesn't bring up even one similar site), so I won't be selling any products,software or anything directly. Only income from about a dozen "affiliate" products I've carefullly researched, good ones, not just high income softwares. Plus, Adsense which is very high for this niche.Sorry this is so long-winded.
Been very successful with my first two sites linking program, some recip., directories, articles, some one-ways etc. Dozens of top 20 keyword rank results in tough markets. But this new one is somewhat different in that there is no specific product for linking,anchor text etc.
THE QUESTION: Starting from scratch…do have a ny recommendations for a linking program to an affiliate type site? Or, the same ole' methods?
What about 3-ways? Before reading this, I had planned on trying it, now I'm not sure,
Ideas?
[…] examined some of the more common myths about SEO (search engine optimization). In the post called "Beware of "common sense" search engine optimization!" Jonathan presents concrete examples to debunk what he calls the "The Themed-Link Myth". […]