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SEO not free
How Competitors Are Buying Their Way Ahead
There is a dirty secret among many individuals and companies dealing with SEO online, one that they want to keep from any new competitors trying to jump into the market. It’s easy to find out what the most effective search engine optimisation techniques are for online articles, but on page optimisation isn’t nearly as important as the off page optimisation.
Google Updates 07
It has been a while since I have personally written and published something. So, for that I apologise, recent mergers and redesigns in the company have distracted me from what is important.With that out of the way lets talk about some major Google changes and how they will impact your site and business. I will split them up into 3 (three) points; canonical urls, Google energy monitoring and the Google Jagger update.
1. Lets begin with Canonical urls: Some of you may be triggered into thinking that it has something to do with redirecting your non ‘www’ url (i.e. adaid.com.au) to your entire ‘www.adaid.com.au) url. Those of you are not too far off, though this practice should still be implemented, another practice should now be put into place, and those of you without a good content management system should beware..As a consensus between the three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Live, now pages that contain duplicate content such as pages automatically generated for print friendliness, or pages containing the same content but a different url structure (such as session generated pages) will now have to implement a redirection.
So for instance, if the pages:
http://www.adaid.com.au/copyrighting.aspx and http://www.adaid.com.au/copyrighting.aspx?print=Y or http://www.adaid.com.au/sid?456.aspx and http://www.adaid.com.au/blog.aspx
contained the same or largely similar content, you would have to implement a neat little trick on the duplicate page:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=adaid_is_the_best” />
inside the <head> section of the duplicate content URLs:
This means that the search engine (and by search engine, I mean Google) war on duplicate content continues.
2. Google Eneregy monitoring: is a work in progress which I hope will come out at the same time globally, and not just in the states like some of the other Google products. I’ll let the video below describe what it is going to do, and despite the fact that I am anxious to use this software, I dont really see why a search engine would develop such a tool. I would dare to say that the smart people at Google are not just doing it for your benefit. The information gained and Google’s reach is extending. So whilst I am thrilled at it is Google doing it and not a less responsible body, I just cant help but wonder..
3. Finally lets discuss the Jagger update. Much like the rocker himself, this algo change is going mess with people’s mids a bit. So, you know that the more links you have with the anchor text ‘SEO’ pointing to your site, the more likely you will rank for that term right? Wrong..well, right and wrong, but now its mostly wrong. As it turns out, you have to not only have ‘SEO’ but ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ and ‘Internet Marketing’ etc. anchor text links to rank for the same term. Now, to me, this seems like a logical step forward, and is the technique that I use will all clients. However, this does mean that it will be more difficult to rank for those competitive keywords, you will have to spend more time and money on SEO and your site may drop or gain rankings. But I’m not complaining, and neither are the clients, because a smart linking strategy insures against failure here.
Hope you have enjoyed this post, I will be regular in my opinionated posts from now on. Until next time.
Don’t Get Caught In The Wrong Neighbourhood
Don’t Get Caught In The Wrong Neighbourhood….
It seems Matt Cutts has once again had to be the designated bearer of bad news to the SEO and website community. The latest Google algorithm changes have left SEO companies and many of their clients in deep water without a paddle. Specifically, stricter restrictions on inbound links to websites, has meant that many of the links that were previously doing your website good, could now be harming your Google ranking.
Google frequently changes its algorithm of search to prevent people figuring it out and taking advantage of it ( at least for prolonged periods of time), this allows Google to stay ahead of the competition. Yet one can not help but wonder whether these algorithm changes are really producing more relevant results or whether they are simply a backhanded way of driving traffic to Adwords and AdSense. To this keen observer, it seems that Google’s tactics are contradictory. This can particularly be seen with the ‘Found Agency’ scenario, whereby, a former leader of search results on Google Australia for keywords such as ‘Australian SEO’, and ‘search engine optimization Australia’ is now, nowhere to be found for any relevant keywords that would drive significant traffic to the website. This is all due to the fore-mentioned algorithm changes that Google has kindly implemented, making the value of inbound links depreciate.
No Flow On Paid Links Bro
When it comes to promoting a website, a blog or any web content, one of the most important actions that must be taken is link exchange. Link Exchange – easily said, not so easily accomplished. You see, since Google started up the policy about quality inbound links to web content, many savvy entrepreneurs have taken it upon themselves to provide ‘quality’ website links with high PageRanks for a sweet buck. But is this really fair to the common struggling web administrator trying to succeed within an immensely competitive industry on free link exchanges and requests?
KEYWORD DENSITY – HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH
Keyword density – how much is enough?
Most people who want to get on top of Google, know that the legal and best way to do it is to provide relevant searchable content upon your website. Yet one must also be wary to include a good number of naturally spaced keywords on the site to achieve a good SEO %. However, over-use of keywords can sometimes constitute spamming and may lead to Google punishing the website in rankings. (In my blogs I will often refer specifically to Google, and not to other search engines, as Google seems to have the harshest and most strict conditions of search).
Blog About Blogging
What is it?
A blog is an easy and mostly free way to publish content online, without having to know HTML necessarily. Blogging allows the end user to upload or type information onto the internet within minutes via a Microsoft Word like interface.
Today, blogging has turned into a world wide phenomenon that has allowed people to share thoughts, information and knowledge with each other in a dynamic manner.
The PageRank Gauge
PageRank, a simple online tool invented by Google to measure the quality of web pages and websites. However, in the past 5 years, it seems that PageRank has turned into the most valuable asset a website and URL can have. At one point, it is true, that Google even used PageRank as a large determining factor of where a website would show up in Google search results. But is this still true? If you have a good PR does it mean that you will be hitting top end search outcomes most of the time? And what can you do with your website or blog if you have a good page rank?
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