Web Moves Blog

All this discussion about “Negaitve SEO” reminded me about a blog post that I wrote in 2008 on the same topic:

I have been reading and studying the term negative search engine optimization (SEO). I find it quite funny how people at Google in particular (Matt Cutts) says Google Bombing or negative SEO is difficult or nearly impossible without high jacking someone’s website. This is totally wrong, but then again he is the same guy saying you need links to get your site to rank, but don’t buy them… (If I hear that loaded answer one more time!).

Google is very smart. What they do is rely on a human being’s general perception that if something is deemed wrong or is generally unacceptable, that most will avoid it. They have been pounding down everyone’s throat that paid links are bad, if you buy links your a bad person or evil webmaster. They talk about penalties and banning websites. In the past penalties were very rare, but recently I have seen several link buyers penalized.

As soon as I see a client penalized, I see the clear path to negative SEO. Each and every time I see or hear about a website penalized for off site SEO work, I create a log of what transpired and what the effects were. Does Google think SEO’s or people involved in search engine optimization are dumb? Well we are not. I have a list of places where links are penalized, I have a list of the types and quantities of links that have been penalized, I know how long it takes and how to avoid it or how to cause it.

I am not talking about buying links for Viagra for a number one ranked website for the search term homes. But you know if the site that ranked #1for homes, ranked between 4-6 for home sales, sell homes, buy homes etc., and that these are the keywords that a top quality website can be penalized for, then you simply build just a few too many really good links. Do not be obvious, do 100% legit SEO (buying links is OK in my book) work for the target site, just do a little too much, a little to quick, and guess what they will be given a -30 or a -45, for several of the over optimized keywords. They will not be penalized for their primary keyword which would require a 100% hand removal from Google or a Hand Penalty from Google, but it is not difficult to get them hammered for their 2nd tier search words.

Needless to say, I can present Google with multiple instances of proof that this is a fact, and I can certainly repeat the results if required.

Google is crossing its fingers that the general SEO community will frown on the part of negative SEO, because of the bad Karma, but in reality what is the difference between getting your site to rank higher (therefore lowering your competitors site) or simply lowering your competitors site so your site ranks higher?

Google is really beginning to upset me with these link threats, and link penalties. If they continue this barrage on SEO companies, everyone will just do very low profile SEO for their client’s sites, and over optimize 3-4 of their competitor’s websites. When multiple SEO companies adopt this theory, Google is really screwed. They will lose nearly all control, and be left unable to properly address which sites should be rewarded and which should be penalized.

For now Google is OK, because of the bad Karma factors and the “it’s wrong to do this”, but it will only take Google penalizing 2-3 top clients before SEO companies will all decided it is so much easier, and more profitable to negative SEO their competitors.

I will say that it is NOT hard, it is NOT difficult. If a group of top SEO and link builders got together, they could probably get nearly any site penalized.”

If it’s your first time hearing about rich snippets you may want to read up at microformats.org first. In general though, rich snippets allow webmasters to influence the display of their website’s listings in search engines.

Like this:

Rich snippets have been around since 2009, but up until recently only a few websites could actually benefit from them. Previously, Google required webmasters to submit rich snippet request forms through its webmaster tools before anything would display differently in search results. Recently though Google has removed the manual approval process for hReview and other rich snippet code. This opens up many new exciting opportunities for both webmasters and SEO professionals.

hReview is arguably the most important rich snippet because it can pull reviews from your website and display them as stars under your search listings. Richard Baxter from SEO Gadget noticed a 5% CTR increase to his website after implementing hReview and obtaining stars in search results. 5% is an attractive number considering it takes all of five minutes to install the code.

To get the code for your website you can try the hReview Creator tool at microformats.org or simply use a template (I didn’t have much luck with the hReview Creator tool personally). Here is an example code template I drew up for my company, Evolve Creative Group.

<div class=”hreview”>

<span>

<span>Evolve Creative Group </span>

</span>

Reviewed by <span class=”reviewer”>Susie Smith </span> on

<span>

Jan 31<span class=”value-title” title=”2012-01-31″></span>

</span>.

<span>Thank you for being a great partner and delivering a world-class website.</span>

<span>After an extensive web agency search, we selected Evolve Creative Group and couldn’t have been happier with our choice. Todd Bertsch and his team demonstrated a passion and commitment to our project from the very first phone call.</span>

Rating:

<span class=”rating”>5.0</span>

</div>

This code can be placed anywhere within the body section of your source code. Make sure to use Google’s rich snippet testing tool to ensure that everything is set-up correctly.

Review stars will undoubtedly make your website more prominent in search results, but you need to be careful with how you use them or you risk getting your website penalized (unlikely) or having the snippet disappear altogether. Google’s guidelines for the hReview rich snippet state:

• The main topic of the page needs to be about a specific product or service. For example, using review markup on a page containing multiple products is not supported.
• Review of adult-related products or services are not supported.
• If the markup contains a single review, the reviewer’s name needs to be a valid name (person or Organization). For example, “50% off until Saturday” is not a valid name for a reviewer.

Google also has a rich snippet spam report form that states, “a rich snippet promoting a travel package as an event or displaying fabricated reviews would be considered spam.”

Google’s first guideline is the most confusing for many because it’s open to so much interpretation. My company could argue that our homepage is about a specific service (web design), but would Google see it the same way? Denmonlaw.com from the example above has simply moved a review from their testimonial page onto their homepage and incorporated hReview.

Assuming the review is legitimate I don’t see any issues with this practice. Only time will tell the future of this new open-ended system, but for now, we should all be taking advantage of this incredible opportunity while it’s still available. What do you think about moving a few testimonials to the homepage to benefit from hReview?

Stay calm it’s still working …

This from Phil Leahy

I noticed last night that Google’s visible page rank had disappeared for several tools I use. I looked around a little bit but could not find any tool that was working. I think the SEO community has been looking towards this for quite some time, as people have put far too much emphasis on Google’s visible page rank to the point where an entire economy (Text Link Industry) has been developed around a websites Page Rank and the associated value you can extract from selling links.

I think the guys from Majestic SEO and SEOMoz are both quite pleased to see this change, as they both have built into their link spider the ability to score the link value of a website based upon somewhat similar characteristics to that of Google’s Page rank.

I guess we will see how this all plays out over the coming days, weeks, months or years. I think the removal of visible page rank has been long over due.

Facebook has done us a favor today and changed the security settings in all of our accounts. Take a look at the Facebook URL (web browser URL window)  you will see http://www.facebook.com (non-secure webpage) instead of https://www.facebook.com (secure webpage) you are no longer on an encrypted secure page. I am not exactly sure why Facebook likes to make these changes, and not tell anyone? People will figure it out and then it appears as if they are being sneaky!  I think they would be better off going public and telling people it will provide a better user experience, which is what everyone else does.

How to fix this? Go to Account-Account Settings – Click Security on the left top corner – click Edit next to Secure Browsing, Check box, click Save. Facebook has the default setting to a non-secure setting; needless to say this non-secure setting provides benefits to Facebook, not to its users.

Pretty Nice Bonus to Brands within natural search results today, the sitelinks are now going VERY wide across many valuable pages within your domain.

Check this out:

I think this is a GREAT move by Google, as in most cases it will eliminate people from marketing themselves around someone else’s brand. Clearly will help provide someone looking for a particular brand a better user experience.

OK just got back from a world tour of Australia where we spoke at an internet conference. Our visit to Australia included visits with everyone one of our Australian Clients, we only had to go to Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne (kidding we were all over the country).

We also included a holiday in Bali Indonesia which was a lovely choice of our Sales Director Phil Leahy. We had a great time. Upon arrival at a very popular restaurant/bar called Ku De Ta we discovered a painting.

Google Knows

So even in third world countries like Indonesia, everyone knows that Google knows what you did last summer. I really thought man, even in Bali, Indonesia I cannot get away from Google!

Amazing Google went nearly 5 months without updating it’s visual page rank. Then they did a release on June 27th 2011, then updated that update around July 20th 2011 to take corrective actions as they apparently messed up and provided twitter with a PR0 and this caused all worldwide page rank to be off. Now August 4th 2011 I am seeing another Page Rank Update.

It would be really interesting if Google started providing Page Rank Updates monthly?

I think generally people have become somewhat disenchanted with Google Page Rank, and there are so many more reliable ways to determine the overall value of a website these days, but many people hang their hat on what their Page Rank is….

Well lets see what the BIG G has in store for all of us.

Good Morning Everyone, just a little note to let everyone know that Google Updated its Google Toolbar Page rank this morning. I hope everyone has increased their domain authority.

You can check your page rank using our Page Rank Tool.

Google’s +1 (pronounced: plus one) button has the potential to add another billion to the coffers of Google. Google is notorious for failures but when they hit the ball it’s like Babe Ruth déjà vu. The +1 button is very similar in concept to Facebook’s “Like” button. However, there are many subtle differences that make the +1 something to pay attention to.

Facebook’s Like button encourages user’s to interact and share something with a group of selected “friends.” The power of the Like button is that people are more likely to act upon recommendations from people that they know vs. strangers. Like has also become popular as a quick and easy public rating system for websites, blogs and everything else on the web. The more likes and tweets your page has, the greater likelihood you have of going viral. While viral is nice, these spurts of publicity have a tendency to burn out pretty quickly just like the Flu. The Achilles heal of the Like button is that the Like carries with it only a limited duration of exposure either on a viewer’s wall or on a user’s News Feeds. Very quickly, the valuable personalized Likes are buried and whatever positive affects the Likes generated, dies.

Google’s +1 has the potential to overtake the Like button because of two positive advantages it has over Facebook’s little thumb. The first advantage is duration and the second is market penetration.

Google’s +1 doesn’t rely on a display platform like Facebook to be socially relevant to a user. Rather, +1s are displayed and integrated into Google search. Anytime a Google user is logged in and using Google search he/she is able to see the +1s from their friends along with their search results. Moreover, this feature extends to paid ads as well. Due to the contextual difference, +1s have the potential to become very powerful. For example, let’s say a friend of yours +1s a hundred restaurants all over the world and you really trust his taste. The next time you are in Chicago and want pizza your “Chicago Pizza” search will include his +1 pizza recommendation at the top of your search. Think about it, where are you going to go for pizza in Chicago?

Some reviewers have seen the “logged into Google requirement” as a limitation of the +1 button. However, this is irrelevant on smart phones and other mobile platforms. Moreover, having the ability to turn the +1 off during searches by logging out of Google may be important in some situations.

The second serious advantage Google’s +1 has over the Like button is the sheer size and diversity of Google’s businesses. Google is the most popular search engine, controls most of the advertising dollars on the Internet and owns high traffic sites such as Youtube, Blogspot and Google Maps. In addition, they are firmly entrenched in the mobile device market, have recently developed their own browser and a hundred other things. The +1 button will work seamlessly across all things Google and this dramatically enhances its usefulness to both users and advertising professionals.

Social media buzz from sites such as Facebook and Twitter is already incorporated into organic SEO rankings. The addition of Google’s own +1 will give Google more information and will likely be disproportionately weighted in their algorithms in the future. This fact alone will increase +1’s market penetration.

Moreover, +1s will increase click through rates. Physiologically people always want what they think other people want. Internet ranking systems are immensely popular and have fueled the growth of many websites. +1s inclusion in Adwords and because will influence click though rates and it’s likely that +1 will dramatically impact Adwords.

Another fascinating angle to +1 and Google’s development of social layers is that +1 should enhance search in general and diminish the pervasiveness of content farms and search junk. +1 at the moment is source agnostic but the entire reason social media tags work, (including Like and +1) comes back to the fact that a user will place a higher valuation on information based upon his/her perception of the source’s legitimacy, expertise and knowledge. Some recommendations are just more valuable than others and these are subjective distinctions. Source ranking is something search has never managed effectively.

As the Internet develops and grows the ways in which it can be used is constantly expanding and diversifying. It is difficult for any Internet marketer or web master to keep on top of all the new developments and it is tempting to just wait until a tool like the +1 is established before investing time and money into it. However, this is a Google product and a remarkably good idea. Moreover, the +1 tantalizingly lends itself to the possible introduction of a 100-point rating scale in the future and this would finally create a useful rating system for the Internet. Robert Parker made his name and radically changed the Wine Industry with his introduction of a 100-point scale for wine and Google could easily do the same in the future with +1.