For different reasons, I can’t go exactly into what I did but it’s a blog that is just focused on content as an ‘affiliate’ site. The blog, started about 3 months ago or so has about 200-400 visits a day and brings in about over $1,500.00 in sales to the site it points to. Not much…but growing…

Us SEOs and online marketers spend so much time on finding strategy, etc. Sometimes, you can overlook the simplicity of what the internet is, how it works, and what it can do without much if you find the right thing. TEST TEST TEST. The blog is growing 100% organically. No SEO or any sort of link building. Of course, every post has its keywords and I do put emphasis on meta data as that has always been the basic rule of SEO and still applies as importantly today as ever.

Thinking back to an older post I wrote in 2008, I blogged about a very similar subject. Really the same. Read the story: Achieving #1 Google Results Without a Link

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If you haven’t read or heard about Googles latest algorithm change, see the post titled, “Googles New Algorithm Change: More Domain Authority.”

So, now that we know what this change will bring about, how will users and people who are involved in the SEO community feel about this change? Is this a smart change for Google to implement? Is it really bringing about a change that will ultimately help users while searching for certain queries that are strong on domain matches?

I was pretty surprised at what some readers of the official Google webmaster blog had to input regarding this change (comments taken from blog post announcing change):

> “I dont think its very useful. it will eat up my time by having to click on subsequent pages, for if i wanted more results from a single site, i could always do “more from site” command.”

> “I don’t think it’s very practical. Users don’t want to check the same site over and over again.
One page results with ONLY 10 results is not a good place to put 7 from the same site…”

> “…these changes seem too intense. They have the potential to take out relevant information a searcher might not have know existed, for instance. Today the links under the main listing (for those that are strongly related to the search) are or should be enough. The site and homepage should be structured and designed friendly enough to let me find what I’m looking for on the site. Lastly, I can’t help but to imagine the SERPs being populated by pages unintentionally optimized for the search term….then again, these are all first impressions. I hope I’m wrong. But I can see lots of people not liking this.”

>”Agreed with the people who said this could get to be a problem in a hurry. I know how to navigate around a website. I don’t need a page of results from the very same site. I want to know what else is out there – and this change makes me have to work harder to find the best information.”

>”This is a horrible feature.. Major retailers that sell “branded” products will be pushed off the page, giving users fewer options. ”

As you see, feedback from the get go from certain users points to a negative view on this change. Then again, when anything changes towards the algo, that creates a whole new problem for seos but may also result in some very positive results for certain websites.

We’ll see what feedback will result once it begins to really take place and be noticed.

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What does this new algorithm change and do? (according to Google Webmaster Blog)

“Today we’ve launched a change to our ranking algorithm that will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site. For queries that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain…”

If you ask yourself what benefits there is to this change for website owners? Well if you think about it, go do a search of your domain. How many other sites are ranking that can mean less visitors to your website? Not only that, but also this can be a blessing for many who try to outrank other sites for certain issues with online reputation management.

Google goes on to explain, “Prior to today’s change, only two results from www.amnh.org would have appeared for this query. Now, we determine that the user is likely interested in the Museum of Natural History’s website, so seven results from the amnh.org domain appear. Since the user is looking for exhibitions at the museum, it’s far more likely that they’ll find what they’re looking for, faster. The last few results for this query are from other sites, preserving some diversity in the results.

We’re always reassessing our ranking and user interface, making hundreds of changes each year. We expect today’s improvement will help users find deeper results from a single site, while still providing diversity on the results page.”

Have you seen any changes in search related to this new algorithm change?

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“Search engine optimization professionals started using the nofollow attribute to control the flow of PageRank within a website, but Google since corrected this error, and any link with nofollow attribute decreases the PR that the page can pass on. This practice is known as “PageRank sculpting”. This is an entirely different use than it was intended originally. nofollow was designed to control the flow of PageRank from one website to another. However, some SEOs have suggested that a nofollow used for an internal link should work just like nofollow used for external links.” states the no-follow wiki page.

From what I’ve personally seen in the past months (almost a year now) I think pagerank sculpting is dead and even more, I think there may be possible penalization. Please note these are just my opinions and I can’t guarantee facts, only from what I see myself. What do you think?

Matt Cutts, as stated above for those who don’t know if one of Googles main, if not, THE main search engineer to the SEO community, has talked about pagerank sculpting before. Let’s look at two videos from 2009 and one very recent from 2010.

I guess when we’re discussing pagerank sculpting, we’re really talking about placing the rel=nofollow tag on certain links on your website to keep the link juice all condensed in one place. I have seen it boost rankings in the past, not so much anymore at all.

Great Reads on

PageRank Sculpting

:
- Matt Cutts: PageRank sculpting

- PageRank sculpting – Siloing and more

- PageRank Sculpting: Parsing the Value and Potential Benefits of Sculpting PR with Nofollow

- The Art of Google PageRank Sculpting & Five Sculpting Tips

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For those of you who are new to SEO, you will notice that algorithms in search engines change constantly and the landscape overall of search engines change as well. Remember 10 years ago when the web was just results from pages? Well now you have results ranging from music mp3s, to video clips, etc. Universal search has come to life in a big way about 4/5 years ago.

As the landscape for SEO changes, so does the way we strategize to optimize our websites and what needs to be done. Ok…a little word association here. Ready? SEO=? LINK BUILDING. Without a solid link building strategy and link portfolio, it’ll be tough these days to rank ahead of competitors. Have you been an SEO forum lately? You’ll find people suggesting the same link building tactics as always which are article submissions, social media links, forum signatures, do-follow blog links and the list will go on.

OK- SO- the engines algorithm (mostly talking about Google here) analyzes link data from every site and from what I see, has devalued some of the links that maybe tagged as an article submission website, etc. I’m reading more and more, and will make sense that the direction of search engine optimization will have a lot to do with branding. Why? It’s is already being talked about that Google gives brands preferences on ranking keywords over less known websites which may have less traffic, etc.

As SEO may be going in this branding ranking direction, you need to start developing a branding campaign if you don’t have one in place yet. BESIDES doing any branding for SEO, it is so important to brand your business. I’m a firm believer and I always say any fool can build a website, but very few can build a brand. Hence the title tag in my blog as I truly believe it and I stand by it.

How can you start branding your website and can go hand-in-hand with Search Engine Optimization? I would make sure to drive as much traffic as possible which Google may analyze traffic data if they don’t already. Make sure you are on the largest social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter and getting more agressive with social media marketing. The ‘LIKE’ button can distribute content through Facebook very quick.

I’ll talk more about branding in the near future and how it will connect directly with SEO.

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SEOmoz has a great video on what Google ‘May Day’ means for us online marketers and webmasters and how it affected web rankings web-wide:

Eric Enge talks about this today in his post on SearchEngineWatch. He list the following as methods of over optimization:

1) Pages that have identical page titles and H1 headings.

3) Having pages with great visual experiences above the fold, and not finding text until well below the fold.

So, how do you know if you’re over-optimizing your website? Well, there isn’t a way to be 100% sure but as the Google model goes, it just has to be natural. If you have 100 keywords in your meta-tag, that will not be looked good upon to the bot.

Make your on-site optimization as natural and clear as possible. Don’t cloak and fill it with a bunch of crap that will eventually lead nowhere. Good optimization will be the result of:

1) Good clean on-site optimization.

4) Solid inbound links

You also may be interested in reading Aaron Walls take at: Filters vs Penalties & Optimization vs Over-Optimization

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The release of this post and report card by Google tells us they do SEO as an important element and there is some sort of guidance Google wants to give SEOs out there, specially those who just start. Google did do a great job with the SEOs Beginners Guide which really outlines the basics and important elements of a website key…elements…for better optimization.

This SEO report card goes into search result presentation, URLs and redirects, on-page optimization. The way they did this is they went into 100 of Google products and based their report on that. If you want to see the report, check out Googles SEO report card.

This report can help you guide yourself through a checklist if you will and see if you can follow their report on your own website/s or that of your clients.

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You can read and see the post at SEOMOZ.org —–> 5 Things You’re Not Doing (But Should Be.)

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1. Address the real intent of your target audience. “Ask yourself, ‘What purpose does someone have for using a certain search term?’ We see a lot of businesses push brand names and industry buzz words instead of creating web content that addresses the intent of target audience. Yes, it’s true that businesses have an agenda when they create a website but web searchers have their agenda as well. The degree to which those two overlap is where you have engagement.”

6. Influence the influencers of your target audience. “Be open to sharing, collaborating and building relationships – even with your competitors if necessary – if it means being able to creatively engage the audience.

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“Whether or not to use topic pages–and how to use them effectively–is a topic of some debate in the SEO world. Well, who better to ask about it than the guy in charge of SEO strategy for the NYT and About.com, two of the topic page-iest sites on the web?

If you’re using a topic page strategy, or you’ve considered it, watch this week’s Whiteboard Friday. Marshall breaks down how and when they can be effective, pros and cons, as well as expenses and advantages to the strategy.”

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As he states:

From a marketing perspective this makes sense for the following reasons:

– This is a non-typical email so it will capture the attention of the recipient.
– There is a fun element to it (hunting for a discount).
– Time based limit creates sense of urgency.
– There is a clear 5% off benefit.

MY argument with this method as I joined the Get Elastic conversation is the following:

I actually think while it may make sense that CTR plays a role in ranking with Google, it probably plays a small role and only within the top 10 results if that.

NOW- when you’re talking about positions 1-10, it can and most likely does play a role in the algo ranking. What could be causing the rise in position with this method suggested, is googles personalized search within the top results.

>>>>>>What do you think about this tactic?<<<<<< COMMENT BELOW.

As you see in the post, the most important seo factors, a survey by top SEOs, 7% said Traffic and Click-Through Data played a big role in Googles algo.

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1. Choose a good handle

10. As always, give ‘em what they want