Google…. WTF?

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Posted on 22nd November 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

Yesterday I set about an SEO task for one of my clients.  The first port of call was Webmaster Tools to check out the keywords, impressions and clickthroughs.  Whilst looking at this page I noticed a number of ‘explicit’ keywords that weren’t in the campaign.  Suspicion promptly set in and I visited the clients site – where all looked to be in order.

However, on closer inspection (I viewed the page source) I noticed that there was a list of a couple of hundred links to adult web sites, where there was a heavy weighting of explicit phrases.  All this sat below the </html> tag on the page.

So… bottom line is their 3rd party CMS has been breached and I promptly alerted them about this.

However, more concerning is why Google is giving value to content NOT visible on the web page.   This breach has put a huge dent in their SEO campaign, and I imagine that the developer of their CMS needs to be held accountable for this, however I am dissapointed that Google has given significant value to content that is hidden on the page (i.e not visible to the user).

I have had issues with CMS driven sites in the past where the developer has shown no intuition towards SEO, but this is a serious matter on two fronts and quite frankly I feel let down by both Google and the 3rd party developer.  It means our efforts for the last 6 months could have been wasted unless we can find a very quick solution!

Update : After doing some more research on this problem I have found that it was actually a hosting company issue, and a breach of security that has meant that the .htaccess file was modified.  Now, Google has dumped my clients site out of the listings for what looks like an overwhelming revision of keywords on the ‘page’.  I have suggested to my client that they seek damages for the costs of the last six months SEO that have gone from very promising last month, to none existant this month. 

The hosting company by the way…. Media Temple

Is Google Page Rank still a valid metric?

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Posted on 15th November 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

Google Page rank has acted as a metric for the popularity of a web page for some time now.  It is measured by the number of quality back links that point at the particular page in question.  It has been a metric that search engine optimisation experts have been measuring for years.

I’ve found, that over the last few months, Google’s Page Rank algorythm seems to be counting less and less as a factor for search engine rankings.  Why have I come to this conclusion?

Well, take one of my clients sites for example and one of his keywords – Radio Hire.

His site is now appearing 3rd in the Google rankings and he has a Page Rank of 4.  Above him are two other sites that have been around for some time.  Both sites above him have a Page Rank of 2.

See my reason for questioning the current relevance of Page Rank?

SEO, Alt Text and the Title attribute

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Posted on 6th October 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

I’ve just been posting over on the Iniquitous SEO Forum and the question was raised about the Title attribute in HTML and how it is important to SEO.

Here was my (short) response:

The ALT attribute (and it is an attribute, not a tag) is an alternative text description for images that often displays before the image is loaded (if it’s loaded at all). Or if the image fails to load the ALT text is shwon. ALT is a W3C required element for images and can only be used for image tags because its specific purpose is to describe images.

You can use the TITLE attribute for most page elements, but, unlike the ALT attribute, it isn’t required. As far as SEO goes you should use it to describe links. They’re more versatile than the ALT attribute and many search engine ranking algorithms read the text in TITLE attributes as regular page content.

Here is an example :

<a href=”http://www.online-digital.co.uk” title=”Search Engine Optimisation”>Search Engine Company</a>

If you are looking for a UK SEO Agency, or just want some advice on Search Engine Optimisation why not get in touch?

Worldwide Twittering up 19%

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Posted on 4th October 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

Twitter has recently increased its traffic around the world from 37.3 million users to 44.5 million.

This growth is impressive, but even more so, if you go back 12 months you’ll find the increase in unique users has been a staggering 1,460% from a user base of just 2.9m.

So why has Twitter grown so fast?  With the help of exposure from celebrities no doubt, and with a little bit of forward thinking many businesses have used Twitter to help them grow their customer base and sales.  However, the social networking site war goes on and Twitter is still lagging behind the networking giant, Facebook which has around 307m users worldwide.

Getting businesses to buy into Twitter has sometimes been a bit of a challenge due to the stigma surrounding social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, so it might suprise you to know that more adults are using Twitter than teenagers.   Companies such as Dell have led the way in showing how powerful social networking can be for your business.

For more help or information on using Twitter as part of your online marketing campaign, or for information on Search Engine Optimisation services contact Online Digital today.

What sort of an SEO are you?

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Posted on 26th September 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

It seems that there are many different types of SEO professionals on the market.  Some do just enough to get web pages up the rankings where as others go the extra mile and focus on enquiries and conversion rates.  So what is being an SEO really all about and what should you offer as a service?

I think that its fair to say that in the current SEO climate, the role of Search Engine Optimisation goes beyond the technical boundaries of optimising web sites.  It forms a part of the overall marketing strategy of a web site from the coding right through to the analysis and conversion rates.

Here is a list of 10 things that I believe every SEO should be able to do and offer to their clients as part of a search engine optimisation campaign.

  1. Provide keyword analysis to enable optimisation for appropriate keywords
  2. Implement proven and white hat techniques to optimise web page content
  3. Have knowledge of URL architecture and web site layouts with a view to improving for SEO
  4. Implement and understand analytics and metrication of an SEO campaign
  5. Understand and have the ability to measure the effects of SEO on conversion
  6. Make appropriate use of social networking sites – and not just to provide links!
  7. Research and react to new search marketing techniques
  8. Understand the internal strategy of any business that the SEO is working for.
  9. Have the ability to communicate with sales, marketeers and technical professionals in a language that they understand.
  10. Be able to work with and understand the mix of CRM, PPC, Organic Search and Email marketing to help optimise your campaigns.

 If you are looking for an SEO professional who can tick all the boxes above, why not get in touch with Ian Sheldon from UK SEO Company, eSoftware Solutions.  We have solutions available for most budgets and have enjoyed success with both localised and national SEO campaigns in the UK and USA.

Google dismiss duplicate content penalty

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Posted on 18th September 2009 by iansheldon in Daily SEO

SEO’s, myself included, have always beleived that duplicate content can harm your Search Engine Optimisation campaign.  Now, Greg Grothaus of Google’s Search Quality team as dismissed that by addressing the large number of duplicate content / sites that web site owners and SEO’s face when trying to rank well in Google.

Greg begins by telling us that Google does NOT penalise for sites having duplicate content.   Of course, this doesnt mean that duplicate content will have a negative effect on your campaign, but Google won’t penalise you for it.

So how did the myth get started?

Basically Greg tells us in the Video.  When you do a Google search for any term you may have seen the following message.

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 20 you already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Basically, Greg thinks that this message created the myth that the content being omitted from the results is “duplication”. Greg stresses that duplicate content is not an ongoing process and is most often just a factor on a case by case or  “by query” basis.

So what is duplicate content?

According to Greg, he gives the following examples of URLs, all with the same content:

  • example.com/
  • example.com/?
  • example.com/index.html example.com/Home.aspx
  • www.example.com/
  • www.example.com/?
  • www.example.com/index.html
  • www.example.com/Home.aspx

    • Google will not penalise your site for using more than one of the above, but there are other issues that could negatively affect website rankings.  The most damaging is the dilution of link juice.  If you have back links that point to several different URLs, from the same content, it makes it difficult to accumulate link juice to help increase popularity and page rank.

    Canonical URLs

    To stay away from the above issues, Greg suggest using a cononical version of your URL.  What does this mean?  It means the simplest and most significant form. He suggests picking one for each page and use it consistently for internal links.  He suggests adding 301 redirects (permanent redirect) to all non-canonical URLs

    Multiple Domains

    Greg also discussed the issue of  multiple domains.   People often have different domains to target different audiences in another country and/or language.   The main concern for SEO’s  is how your reputation can be distributed across multiple Web sites.  Simple, Google will only show what its algorithm assumes to be the best page for a specific search query.  This can be based on the location of the search user at the origin of the search.  As Greg puts it – Google thinks multiple domains are “great”!

    The information in the video and this blog post  is based on Greg’s presentation from the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, California.

    10 Top Social Bookmarking Sites

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    Posted on 17th September 2009 by iansheldon in Daily SEO

    As an SEO Professional you will understand the importance of Social Bookmarking sites in your SEO campaign.

    Typically we have a list of around 200 social bookmarking sites that we use for our clients, however here are our top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites :

    1. twitter

    2. digg.com

    3. Yahoo! Buzz

    4. StumbleUpon.com

    5. reddit.com

    6. tweetmeme.com

    7. Technorati.com

    8. del.icio.us

    9. kaboodle.com

    10. mixx.com

    If you would like assistance with your SEO Campaign then why not get in touch?  We can manage all or part of your directory, article and social book marking submissions aswell as best practice recommendations for your on-site optimisation.  Call eSoftware Solutions, a UK SEO Company, on 0845 838 8588 or mail hello@esoftware-solutions.com

    Twitter to release premium accounts for business?

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    Posted on 13th September 2009 by iansheldon in News

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    There is a rumour on the rounds that Twitter will be releasing premium ‘paid for’ accounts for businesses before the end of 2009.  The primary intention for these accounts would be marketing, promotions, customer relations, advertising etc.   The benefit over standard Twitter accounts is that you would be able to view statistics and analytics on your tweets.

    However, word on the street is that there wont be a great amount of interests in these accounts, especially for smaller businesses.  Some smaller businesses on Twitter benefit from the word of mouth and personal touch that a standard Twitter account offers as a marketing tool.

    So, when the Premium accounts are made public, would you register for one?  If you do, make sure that, with any paid marketing or Search Engine Optimisation stategy that you have clearly defined goals in place so that you know what you want to achieve from your investment.

    Understanding Google Penalties

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    Posted on 10th September 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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    Search Engine Optimisation techniques vary, from white hat techniques such as Link Building, Content Copy Writing and Blogging to black hat techniques bordering on SPAMMING.   Googles main aim is to provide a trust worthy search service, presenting search users with a list of useful web sites based on their search criteria.

    Some, although not all, of the known black hat techniques can quickly get you to the top of the Google rankings for your chosen keyword.  In the short term you can yield some excellent results, enquiries and conversions, but you will find that eventually your site will drop like a stone or in the worst case scenario dissapear completely.

    Why does this happen?  You have been penalised by Google for using black hat techniques to promote your site.

    This is one of the most frustrating things to happen for any SEO, or web site owner.

    Depending on how serious your violations are (against the Google Webmaster Guidelines) depends on how serious your penalty is.  In some cases you may only be blacklisted for a few weeks and you can correct your penalty by dropping your black hat techniques and working towards Googles Webmaster Guidelines.  In the most serious cases web sites have been known to dissapear completely from the rankings forever.

    There are two major levels of penalty that have been reported, the -30 and the -950.

    The-30 penalty basically does what it says on the tin.  It drops your web site ranking by 30 places.  Minus 30 penalty is one that filters for handling spam in Google algorithm.  The only solution to get around this penalty is to have unique content on your site, to get links from well trusted sites and to link to high quality sites.

    The -950 penalty is a different beast altogether.  It only affects precise URLs for particular keywords.  However, the -950 is also the harshest penalty and web sites can be dropped to the bottom of the results for the given keywords. How can this be avoided?  The only thing you can do is to stick to the Google Webmaster Guidelines and stick to White Hat SEO tactics.

    If you have been penalised by Google then don’t take it out on the Search Engine.  You have been penalised for a reason and it’s nearly always down to the techniques that have been used in an attempt to promote your web site.

    What does SEO mean to YOU?

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    Posted on 12th August 2009 by iansheldon in Search Engine Optimisation

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    Having now worked on a number of SEO projects over the last 12-14 months it’s becoming more and more apparant that Search Engine Optimisation means different things to different people.

    To some it means being able to rank highly in the results for quality key phrases, for others it means being able to push increased volumes of visitors to their web site.

    Then we have those that get heavily involved in the metrication in terms of visitors vs enquries and enquiries vs sales.  Those that want to understand what people are actually doing on their web site – what pages they visit and what call to actions are triggered.

    SEO being what is doesn’t have an actual defintiation and there is a fine line between SEO and Internet Marketing (if there is a line at all). 

    So why today’s blog post?  If you are looking to employ the services of an SEO professional then think carefully about what you are looking to achieve from the project.  Some SEO’s may offer more than others and its important that you team up with the right one in order to achieve the desired results.

    Bye for now!

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