StepForth SEO News Blog - by Ross Dunn and Scott Van Achte

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Thursday, April 09, 2009

Link Building Tips with Loren Baker - from SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 5:19 PM

This week's SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM featured Search Engine Journal owner Loren Baker as our guest to discuss the ins-and-outs of Link Building.

Above is a recording of the show courtesy of WebmasterRadio.FM and these are just a few tease takeaways from this excellent episode:

Loren Baker: Links should be built "with the mindset these links are going to bring in targeted traffic" not getting a top ranking.
Question: Say a person has a blog and they want to build links but they don't have a lot of time. How would they do that?
Loren Baker: Search for authority blog directories like Best of the Web and Bloggeries, and get your blog added to the category most relevant to your service.
Question: If a person doesn't have a blog where should they go to find links for their website?
Loren Baker: Best of the Web and the Yahoo Directory are great starting points because they give a little juice AND they provide relevance. Also don't forget the Open Directory Project at DMOZ.org. Look for targeted directories for your vertical. You don't have to have a blog to get a listing that applies great relevance to your site and can potentially offer traffic. You can often find directories by searching in Google or Yahoo for the phrase "submit url" or "add URL".
Question: With so many directories out there how can they all really help and how can you figure out which ones are worth paying for?
Loren Baker: There are 100's of thousands of directories but probably only .005% have enough value to warrant a link. So find the directories that have the most appeal by looking at their backlinks. Also check the quality of the sites listed in your target category and see if they are of a high enough quality. If they seem spammy forget the directory because it is highly unlikely to pass on any worthwhile relevance.

Here is an example of the other link building-related topics Loren Baker tackled over the rest of this extended show:

If not directories, where else can people get links?
What problems do people run into getting links?
Learn about Loren's famous "trickle-down link-o-nomics"
How to manage the workload of link building.
And much more.

A big thanks to Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal for being on the show. And a further congrats to Eric Lander of EricLander.com who did a wonderful job on his first episode of SEO 101; Eric is the new co-host on SEO 101 and is sure to add a great deal of value into the future.

Next week we plan on featuring keyword-guru Dan Thies to discuss the process of finding the best keywords to target online.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
"Step Forth and increase your bottom line, online"

Labels: Interviews, Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO 101

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 5:19 PM.

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View this Article Only: Link Building Tips with Loren Baker - from SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM

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Sunday, August 31, 2008

3 Methods to Build Links with a Blog - An Interview with Ross Dunn

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 9:05 AM

Dr. Ralph F. Wilson is editor of Web Marketing Today and is widely recognized as an authority on Internet marketing

I met up with Ralph Wilson at the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference a couple of weeks ago and had a great time as always doing interviews. Ralph Wilson's Web Marketing Today is one of the oldest (since 1995) most respected web marketing resources in the world and as one of Ralph's hand-picked writers for SEO I feel very privileged to work with him.

In the following interview, Ralph and I discuss the advantages of blogging for building valuable links and reputation online.

Note: we had some trouble with the recording device so you might notice Ralph looking sternly at his camera occasionally... that was to make sure it was still recording :-) We had to re-record parts of this interview about 4 times.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Labels: Blogs, Interviews, Link Building, Ralph Wilson, Ross Dunn, SES San Jose 2008, sessj08, Video, Web Marketing Tips, Web Marketing Today

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 9:05 AM.

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Building Links with Directory Submissions

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 1:27 PM

A few months ago I wrote an article about 13 ways a webmaster can go about building links to their site. One of these ways was through the use of directory submissions.

There are many reasons why you may consider a directory submission. You could be trying to build your brand, focused on links for organic rankings, or simply want to drive traffic to your site. Below we will focus on the link building and organic ranking aspect of directory submissions.

There are countless directories out there these days, some are free, some are paid, and many are garbage. If you decide to build links to your site using online directories, there are some things you will want to consider before spending your hard earned money.

Page Rank
Check the Google Page Rank. The visible page rank is only a very slight indication of a page's strength, but a PR 6 still represents a site of more value than a PR 2. Do not discount a site solely based on PR, but know that a higher PR site, if relevant, will give you more value.

Outbound Links
Check the number of outbound links on the category page you would submit to. If the page has more than 100 outbound links, then chances are it will help you very little but there are of course some exceptions to the rule. Let’s say that the page in question has a few sites listed that are organically ranking in the top 10. The page also has a Google PR of 6/10, and the page is highly relevant to your industry. In this situation, even if there were as many as 150 or 200 outbound links, you would probably still want to get your site listed.

The same holds true for DMOZ. We know that DMOZ is a great place to get your site listed, and while listing your site on a page with the fewest links will give you the most value. In the case of DMOZ, even if the relevant category for your listing exceeded 100 outbound links, I would not hesitate to continue with a listing submission.

Category Pages
Check the number of pages per category. If your main category has 10 pages of listings, you may want to forget it as the deeper you dive into these pages, the less value they will hold - they also add the risk of the directory being downgraded due to spam etc. If you still want to be listed, what page will your listing appear on? If you can’t get the first page, you will probably want to walk away.

Are listings alphabetical? Are new listings added to the top or the bottom of the list? If they are added to the top, you should know that in time, as more people submit, your site will get bumped down to the subsequent pages, reducing its value with every new bump.

Success of Other Listings
Take a look at other listings in the directory. Are any of these sites ranking for related top phrases? Try to assess if other sites in your category are benefiting from a link at this directory, especially if it’s a paid directory.

Anchor Text
Does the particular directory allow you to determine the anchor text used, or does it simply link you URL. If you can choose the anchor text, the link will be far more valuable as it will allow more value to be passed on due to the relevance of the anchor text and the target phrase for your site.

Indexed in Google?
Are the directory and your preferred category sub page both indexed in Google and the other major engines? If it is a paid directory and they are not indexed, don’t waste your money. If the directory is well indexed including your preferred category, and has a fairly recent last cache date, then it is worth considering.

Price
Prices for directory listings can range from free to hundreds of dollars, so you have to ask yourself "is it worth it". If you find that the directory is in good standing, other competing sites in your industry are ranking organically and listed here, and the page has a decent visible PR, this may warrant paying a higher premium to be listed. Be sure to consider if the billing is a one time or recurring expense.

If you have only a $300 annual budget the $299 a year for Yahoo may make sense, however if you break that up into 10 listings in other top directories for $30 a year each, this may be a better investment – it all depends on what is available for your industry, how high its quality is, and at what price.

Can Google See the Link?
If your focus is on search engine rankings, then you definitely want to ensure that both your link, and the page your link resides on, are both fully spiderable by Google. Ensure that the rel=nofollow attribute is not used on your link, or on the pages that link to the directory page; also ensure that the page is not being blocked by a robots Meta tag or within the robots.txt file. The best indication that a page is seen by Google is if there is a recent cache of it within the Google index. If this page is also noted as a back link for others sites listed, it’s a pretty safe bet that yours will be seen also.

SPAM
Ensure that the directory you are submitting to is totally on the up and up. If you find that they are doing anything shady turn the other way. This could be in the form of hidden text or links, or abusive pop-ups, etc. If they are promoting some software or anything that may include adware or malware, you definitely do not want to be associated with this site.

If the site is free and without an approval process, you may as well forget it. It will (if not already) end up littered to no end with irrelevant links which will drastically downgrade the value of the link to as low as zero. While Free-for-All sites can be a quick source for links, the links will actually be useless, so avoid them.

There are many ways to build links for a site, and directory submissions are just one of them. By having your site listed in a number of relevant directories you can help your sites overall link reputation to grow. It is important to remember though, that directory links are usually not enough on their own, they are just one piece of the big picture.

By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO

Labels: Link Building, Scott Van Achte

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This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 1:27 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
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Friday, July 04, 2008

A Bakers Dozen: Ways to Increase Link Density

Written by Scott Van Achte and published at 9:59 AM

In today’s race to the top of the Google SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages), there are a number of factors that can help you achieve those coveted spots. While certain techniques may weigh better than others based on your industry and level of competition, there is no questioning the power of links.

There are several methods, some common and some yet to be discovered, you can try out to help boost your link density and search rankings. While it would be near impossible to go into great detail on all methods (that would require a book) below I have outlined some of the more common techniques a web site owner can use to increase their site’s popularity.

1. Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links used to be a huge asset and played a significant role. Today, fewer sites are employing this technique as it is thought by many to have no role in the eyes of Google. This is simply not true. While the overall value of reciprocal links has declined over the years, they can and will still help your rankings if done correctly.

The key with reciprocal links is very simple - relevance. If you trade links only with highly relevant sites, you will get value from this. There are some things to watch out for: ensure that the links returning to you are spider friendly, that they reside on pages with as few links as possible, and are contextualized, meaning the content on the page, and preferably the site as a whole, is related to the content of your link and site.

If you contact a relevant site to request a link exchange, keep the email personal to help grab the attention of the webmaster. Most link exchange emails are spammy automated submissions and are deleted without being read. Write the subject and entire email in such a way as to entice the user to read on, but keep it short. Offer to put their link up first, or even better yet, put it up before you contact them.

2. Purchasing Links
Google has been devaluing links, and in extreme cases, even penalizing sites for selling links, but there is no denying that this technique still works as many sites have skyrocketed to the top of the SERP’s through the art of buying links.

Many high profile sites such as major and local newspaper publications sell text links, yet nobody seems to be penalized for it as the publications rank well with high PR and the site they link to ranks well as a result.

If you choose to take the gamble and purchase links back to your site, check out how they are linking back, how relevant they are, and try to get a sense of how their site is treated by Google. If you see other sites that appear to have purchased links from them, check their back links and see if the linking site appears (although it may not be displayed as Google displays very little of this information to the public these days).

It is thought that if penalties will arise from the sale of links, that only the selling site will be penalized. Even if this is the case, Google’s policy could change at any moment, so be warned that this could potentially come back to bite you.

3. Industry Contacts
Get in touch with your industry contacts and ask them if they will link to your site. You just never know, and the worst they can say is no. This is usually best requested in person or by phone if it is someone you have a good relationship with. It may include manufacturers or retailers of your products, or various business partners and companies you have a relationship with.

4. Good Old Fashion Content
Believe it or not it works. If your site is loaded with original, valuable content, you will get some people linking to your site on their own. While you can not base your entire linking strategy around this concept, as it could take forever to get enough links, rest assured knowing that if you build it, some will link.

5. Build a Blog
Everyone and their dog seem to have a blog these days, and for good reason - they work. Blogs help you create a never ending stream of content, and if updated regularly, written well, and interesting, you will find people will link to it. Not only that, others may pick up your blog through your RSS feed - this can result in an increase in both links and site traffic. Be sure to utilize your Digg and other social media accounts within your blog to help gain a little extra attention.

6. Social Media
Promote your site and your blog using various social media tools. When someone "Diggs" or "Stumbles" your article you can not only get a link back to your site from the media platform, but you can also see traffic generated by this. The more people that flag your article, the more traffic you can get, and the higher the value of the link.

Creating company profile pages on platforms such as Squidoo, Facebook, MySpace, and even uploading photos and videos to Flickr and YouTube, can all count as back links to your site, so be sure to utilize these platforms to the fullest extent. Do not use these networks to spam them full of links, but rather to inform. Build unique relevant content and become a member of the community, and you will find your links will work much harder for you.

7. Article Syndication
When you write worthwhile articles, submit them to any known article aggregation websites in your industry or great general portals such as ezinearticles.com. When submitted to the right places you can drive traffic and increase your links. Again, be sure to include a link or two within your article that links back to your site when possible.

8. Press Releases
Press releases are still doing wonders. When your business hits a milestone, releases a new product, or has anything worthy of a press release, issue one through the services of PRWeb. You will get a link back to your site, and you may also get some targeted traffic from those interested when reading your release.

If your press release is of significant news, you may also find bloggers and other writers referencing it and linking to it from their articles, providing even more value. Ensure that with any press release you include deep links back into your site. Links from within the bio are helpful, but those integrated into paragraphs of the release are worth much more.

9. Comments
I know I am going to get a hard time for this one, but if used wisely, it can help. When reading relevant blog posts, if you have something useful, constructive, and worthwhile to say, leave a comment and include your link if they provide the option. A comment like: "nice post" is inappropriate, but if you have something to add or contribute that others will find of interest then go for it. These links can add up, and they do add some value. Don’t stuff your comment or name with keywords, keep it natural, and use your real name.

10. Forum Posts and Signatures
This is an area where you may be able to grab a few links, but it is also one you need to be careful about as it can backfire. I do NOT recommend going out and wildly posting in random forums and including your link.

Where this area can be useful is if you establish yourself as a solid contributor to a particular forum directly related to your industry. Once you are established, and people know and trust your name, and understand that you are not there as a spammer, then you can consider adding your link to your signature file, and including the odd link in your forum posts when it is fully in context. This will allow you to get the odd relevant, inbound link. Check with the terms of the specific forum though before you start. Some do not allow links of any kind.

11. Testimonials
You see them on many sites offering products or services, and quite often they include a link back to the submitter’s website. If you have used a product or service, don’t be afraid to write a testimonial for the company. In many cases online businesses will post your testimonial along with a link. The testimonial helps that business instill confidence in their customers, and you get the valuable link back.

12. Directory Submissions
Yes, do still submit your site to the major directories. While DMOZ can be very difficult to get into, once you are there, it is like gold and will play a part in your top rankings. Yahoo directory has a high price $299US, but can also provide you with a valuable inbound link. Consider submitting to the major directories, as well as any industry specific directories. These links add up and will contribute to your site’s well being.

13. Link Bait
We have heard this phrase thrown around for a while now, but the technique has worked long before the phrase "link bait" was coined. Why all the hype? Because it works.

Take a look at your web site, your business and your industry. See if you can think of some way to attract people to link to your site. Perhaps sponsor a contest, add an elaborate and unique tool, write a controversial article, provide something useful for free - whatever you do, do it well, and promote the heck out of it, and people will naturally link to you.

A Few General Rules:
Before you actively seek out a link from a specific site do some investigating to ensure that the site is not spamming or using any black hat techniques. If they are, run.

If the link you are seeking is merely for you to try and boost your link density, then also check out how they are linking to other third party sites.

Does the site use the rel=nofollow attribute? Are the pages your link would reside on blocked by the search engines, or do they use the robots Meta nofollow? Are they using other techniques that would not allow a spider to follow them (such as JavaScript, Flash, or frames)? If so you may want to move on.

And a note on Google PR (Page Rank) - the PR you see on your toolbar is outdated. While it can give you some insight, just because it says 0, doesn’t mean it is. Also what has a 0 or 1 today, could be a 4 or 5 tomorrow. Don’t use PR as your sole means of deciding if you should obtain a link or not.

Summary
Using any or all of these linking methods will help you to increase your link density. There is power in diversification. Use variations on anchor text and descriptions, use inline text links within articles, and gain links in as many different venues as possible. By being diverse your site will stand the best chance of being around well into the future.

Today, blogs are huge and can be a strong asset, but what would happen if tomorrow Google decided to ban blogs? Highly unlikely, but it could happen, and if it did, would your site survive? By being diverse, your site has the best chance to survive change.

Labels: Link Building, Scott Van Achte, Tutorials

Email this News Post: 11 Comments for this Post
This SEO News was posted by Scott Van Achte @ 9:59 AM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Link Building and Publicity with PRWeb

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 4:20 PM

On the 6th of December at Pubcon Las Vegas I was fortunate enough to speak with Karla and Lacy of PRWeb.com; two wonderful ladies who were running PRWeb's exhibit booth. After a short discussion I decided it was time to put Karla and Lacy in the spotlight. You see I have used PRWeb many times in the past and I have always been impressed by its excellent press release promotion network. PRWeb is the perfect vehicle to get the word out on your new products/services and the circulation of your press release can provide valuable incoming links to your website.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Celebrating 10 Years of Web Marketing Excellence

Labels: Interviews, Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO Tips, Video

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 4:20 PM.

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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Want PageRank? New Link Building Service Launched

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 4:15 PM

The Fantomaster blogged about a rather interesting new service called SubmitLinks.com that has launched despite the war Google formally started on paid links.

The service uniquely provides users with the ability to buy one way text links for a one time fee (guaranteed for 6 months). Here is a quote from the home page:

SubmitLinks.com offers permanent one way text links for a one time fee. The text links we provide have a Google PageRank between 1 and 5 and are placed on a wide variety of different web sites. In addition, links are placed on web pages relevant to your web site subject.

There is a minimum purchase of $300. Text Link pricing: (one time fee)

Page Rank 1 Links: $8.50
Page Rank 2 Links: $13.50
Page Rank 3 Links: $20.00
Page Rank 4 Links: $25.00
Page Rank 5 Links: $36.00

It should be interesting to see how this pans out. In my opinion this company has a good chance of doing well but this is certainly not a market segment I would be interested in jumping into right now.

All-in-all it merits mentioning that buying text links is playing with fire these days. That said, if you do it carefully your rankings are very likely to improve.

Labels: Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 4:15 PM.

Copyright ©2006-2012, The SEO News Blog, StepForth SEO Services
View this Article Only: Want PageRank? New Link Building Service Launched

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Friday, June 15, 2007

Google Cracks Down on Link Buying

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 11:18 AM

This week the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog announced an addition to Google's spam reporting form for people to report sites that appear to be buying paid links in order to influence search engine rankings. This addition ties in with Matt Cutt's none-too-subtle warning at a recent SMX Advanced interview with Danny Sullivan. Matt essentially reinforced to the audience that buying links is against Google's guidelines and that those who are buying links may feel the heat soon as Google tries to patch this chink in its armor (see the video below).

Does this Mean Buying Links Has Become Too Dangerous?
I expect Google will follow through on its threats to take a more forceful approach against buying links but at the same time I am betting that buying links won't be gone anytime soon. After all, buying links is not JUST used by companies to garner link popularity. The fact is that some buy paid links for the clickthrough traffic and Google must be careful not to penalize anyone for that. Google's point of view on legitimate link buying is that such links should have a nofollow attribute on them or the landing page should be blocked from robots.

What Might Google Do?
I am no mind reader but I see two approaches that Google can take here:

Shock the Community - The Strong Arm Approach: Google could tweak its algorithm to penalize any website with purchased links that clearly don't conform to guidelines (i.e. no 'nofollow' tag). In this scenario Google would have to find some way to identify paid links as accurately as possible before checking them for guideline conformity. One manner would be to look for links found alone within tables or cells that specify "Sponsored Links" (or other phrases with the same connotation). The resulting Internet-wide impact would shake up the community enough that paid links would get some seriously negative press and many who profit from this field would feel the hit. The end result of this action would be an immense Floridian backlash on Google - but the Google Guidelines for paid links would be more likely to get some respect in the short term.
Be SMART and Just Negate Links: If Google wanted to soft-slap paid link abusers they would simply negate the benefit of the links. For example, they could start by identifying the most obvious paid links and literally ignore their weight. The resulting drop in rankings for sites that have depended entirely on paid links would be practically equivalent to removing them from the index; their rankings would plummet.

All in all I can only hope that Google chooses #2 but knowing the ego that is Google they will combine the two approaches and make an example out of a few companies. Sad yes, but it rings true to me. I would certainly not want to be investing in any link brokerage company startups any time soon.

How to Minimize Paid Link Risk
If you have to buy links then be sure that your links are not all using the exact same link and descriptive text. In fact, I highly recommend working with your paid link vendor to implement a rotation script that switches the content of your paid link(s) on every page reload. In addition it would be best if the link vendor did not blatantly identify your link as paid by placing it in a "Sponsored" table or cell within the layout.

If you want to be completely safe then I recommend requesting a nofollow tag be added to your backlinks ASAP. After all, following Google's guidelines is always the safest approach. On the bright side, if paid links become devalued then many people will be pushed toward making better content that naturally generates backlinks which is never a bad thing.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth SEO Services
Celebrating 10 Years of SEO Excellence

Labels: Google, Link Building, Ross Dunn, Video

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 11:18 AM.

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Thursday, May 10, 2007

Reclaim the Link Popularity You Have Already Earned

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 10:42 AM

Many sites are not taking advantage of link popularity they have already earned. How is this possible? When some sites link to yours they do so without using the "www" in the URL. To search engines this can appear to be a link to a separate website since "stepforth.com" versus "www.stepforth.com" is technically a different domain. The search engines are getting a bit smarter about this but there is no point in waiting for them to catch up. This common situation can be remedied quickly and quite simply.

Start by reading the article I exclusively wrote for WilsonWeb titled "How to Get Credit for All Your Inbound Links: Consolidate WWW and non-WWW Links" which will lead you or your webmaster nicely into the tutorial "How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URLs". The tutorial will explain the implementation for various servers; don't let the title scare you off.

Is this Fix Really Worth It? Definitely!
As a result of implementing this fix on StepForth.com I noticed our Google ranking for "search engine placement" stabilize dramatically from a fluctuating spot (between #4 and #10) to a stable #4 ranking. Since little other marketing efforts were taking place at StepForth at that time it is reasonable to connect the dots and apply the credit to this change.

Mark my words; it is the little stuff that makes the most dramatic differences - especially when a website has been online for a long time. It is amazing just how many sites linked to us without using the "www" in our domain and by consolidating all of the split link popularity we really felt the love. Read and apply the tutorial and let your site benefit from the hard-earned popularity you already have.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth SEO Services
Celebrating 10 Years of SEO Excellence

Labels: Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO Tips, Tutorials

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 10:42 AM.

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View this Article Only: Reclaim the Link Popularity You Have Already Earned

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Google Finally Provides Decent Backlink Data

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 5:33 PM

Ever since Google stopped showing accurate backlink (aka incoming link) counts to websites webmasters and SEOs have been forced to turn to other, more accurate tools like Yahoo. This hasn't really been all that bad in my opinion but it is refreshing to hear that Google has finally launched a new backlinks analysis tool within Google Webmaster Central.

I have to say, it rocks! The system allows you to navigate a Google-generated sitemap of your website where at the right side of each page a number appears which denotes the number of backlinks to that page. Then, if you want more information on those backlinks you have only to click on it and a comprehensive list appears; very slick indeed. The list is even downloadable in .csv format.

For more information here is Google's blog post regarding this update. I hope you enjoy this tool as much as I will. Just keep in mind that Matt Cutts noted the tool is not quite 100% accurate.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

Labels: Google, Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO News, SEO Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 5:33 PM.

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Most Common Reason for Dropped Rankings: Duplication

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 4:26 PM

Repeatedly my sales and consulting staff find themselves explaining that using duplicate content can and will negatively affect search engine rankings and it is heartbreaking to see clients having to rebuild rankings due to such a simple mistake. As a result, I felt it was time to write this article and hopefully dispel many misled website owners.

Why write an entire article on something as simple as duplicate content? Well probably because it is not as simple as it sounds and many website owners find themselves in the grey area of duplication; where they don’t know for sure whether they are risking rankings or not.

The following is a sectional breakdown of the most common duplicate content issues we see defined from the standpoint of a question – hopefully making this article a little easier to read. After all, I have no illusions that reading up on duplicate content rules is exciting.

Duplicate Websites

Definition: a duplicate website is a website that has many if not all of the same pages as another live website.
Note: the following questions are based on a person who owns two websites that are duplicates.

Q: “Why is a duplicate website such a bad idea?”

A: The major search engines are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search engine results in an effort to provide the best quality content for users. When duplicate content is indexed by search engine spiders, valuable time and processing power is wasted. As a result, search engines have blocked sites that used duplicate content from their database, ultimately favouring the site that either had the content first, or I believe, the one site that has the greater online history. In addition, the major search engines have a bad taste after dealing with so much duplicate content created by spammers over the past several years. As a result, posting a duplicate website is an offense that can quite literally blacklist a domain; there are few things the search engine properties dislike more than being gamed by spammers.

Q: “What should I do with my duplicate website then? Just delete it?”

A: Deleting the site is the only option unless you want to create an entire new website with unique content and a unique purpose. That said, by deleting the website you can still ensure the effort you put into promoting the old site does not go to waste by pointing the domain to your new website’s domain using a 301 redirect. A 301 is a term used to describe a server protocol which Google and other search engines will ‘see’ when they visit the old site. The protocol essentially says that your content from the old site can be found on the new site and that this is a permanent forwarding of all traffic. 301 redirects are by far the best way to minimize your losses from shutting down a website that just might have traffic or inbound links.

Q: “Which website should I shut down? Is there anything I should consider first?”

A: Yes, it is very important that you keep the website that has the most backlinks and has been online the longest. The reason I say this is that Google tends to favour entrenched websites; they have been around a while, are well backlinked and overall appear to have a positive history.

Whatever your decision is, it is vital you understand switching a website to a new domain is a dangerous step. This is because of Google’s famed ‘sandbox’. The ‘sandbox’ is really only an overused turn of phrase that represents a portion of the Google algorithm which considers the age of the domain as a signifier of trust. Generally, new websites will require 6 months to a year before substantial rankings are evident; this is kind of a right of passage that Google appears to be enforcing on the average website. Sites that are obviously popular and quickly gain a load of legitimate link popularity will easily avoid the sandbox (because Google can not afford to miss a ‘great’ website) but this is not the common scenario.

Q: “Will using a 301 redirect pass on the benefit of the deleted site’s link popularity?”

A: Link popularity is passed onto the other website when a 301 is used but how much this pass-over will benefit the website seems to fluctuate on a case-by-case basis. Usually the fluctuation is only present when popularity from one domain is passed to another with differing content/topic. In this case, since the link popularity is being redirected to an identical website I expect the benefit to be virtually lossless.

Duplicate Content

Definition: content appearing within a website that is duplicated elsewhere on the same website or elsewhere on the Internet.

Q: “I need content for my website; can I just copy content from industry journals and benefit from that quality content?”

A: No, aside from the copyright concerns of using content that is not yours, your rankings (if they exist) would suffer because it is highly likely the major search engines would detect the duplicate content. As a result, the page that you create may get flagged as duplicated and it would be ignored at the very least. The page could even devalue your site’s overall credibility. Credibility is a critical component of Google’s algorithm so sites with less credibility tend to have a harder time staying (‘sticking’ if you will) in a particular ranking.

Q: “I use a content management system to manage my site and it uses a particular set of templates. These templates have some duplicate content within them and they are spread all throughout my website. Should I be worried?”

A: No, in most cases the amount of duplicate content used within a template in a content management system (CMS) is negligible. If, however, you have a large number of pages created using a page where 90% of the text is duplicated and only 10% is unique you do have a reason to make some changes. In my opinion it is crucial that every page within a website be composed mostly of unique content with the exception of catalogues and shopping carts where text simply has to be reused over and over.

Whatever your situation make certain that your site contains a large number of pages composed of unique content that has been well optimized by yourself or your search engine optimizer (SEO).

Q: “How much of my page should be unique? Is there a standard ratio or percentage you can share?”

A: There is no industry standard formula but if I had to state a percentage I would say a minimum of 70% of the page should be completely unique to thwart any concerns of duplication. You may be able to get away with less than 70% unique content but I would suggest this is playing with fire. Either way, this statistic is moot since every page you create needs to be created with the intention to provide a powerful resource; after all search engines are only a small part of the plan – you do need visitors to like what they see and buy your product or service!

Q: “My blog currently has many different ways to find content and depending on the route a visitor may find the page is actually shown on a different URL (i.e. archives, search by label, etc.). In this scenario am I not in danger of a duplicate content penalty?”

A: Yes and no. Yes that this is duplicated content but no you are not likely to be penalized by this simply because a majority of blogs offer these additional methods of finding content so it would be detrimental if search engines penalized this application right now. That said, search engines do have to have some way to handle this duplicate content. I expect when Google (picking the most advanced search engine) finds duplicate blog postings on a website its algorithm chooses the most popular posting as the primary page to provide in its ranking results. In other words, the posting URL that has the most number of inbound links or was spidered first will be the page that attains rankings.

For those unfamiliar with blogs, the following is an example how a blog can easily have 3 duplications of a single article. In this scenario, I recently posted an article on our SEO Blog called “SEO Answers #12”. Upon posting this article was immediately posted in 3 places: once on the home page (because it is the latest article), second on its own page for permanent linking purposes, and third within the label “Local Search” a topic related to this posting.

1) SEO blog home URL: http://news.stepforth.com
2) Permalink URL: http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2007/01/
seo-answers-12-my-couk-domain-lost.php
3)"Local Search” label URL:
http://news.stepforth.com/blog/labels/Local%20Search.php

In the future I expect blog systems will offer an option to specifically add a NO INDEX tag to the top of posts located within the labelled search section. After all, every additional label I added to this article created a duplicate version which is something that I expect search engines will soon either ignore or require a NO INDEX tag.

Conclusion

I am sure I didn’t cover every question regarding duplicate content but I am fairly certain I touched on the most common questions we see at StepForth. If you would like to submit a duplicate content question or any other SEO question please go to our submission page and I will endeavour to respond as soon as possible; likely in an article format or SEO blog posting.

by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

Labels: Google, Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO News, SEO Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 4:26 PM.

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Monday, January 15, 2007

SEO Answers #10: "Do backlinks help just the linked page or the whole site?"

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 12:27 AM

QUESTION: When a high PR page within a 3rd party website links to a page within my website where is the benefit placed… on my home page or my page that was linked to? – Jose U.

ANSWER: The home page and the linked page benefit from the link… but to different degrees. The majority of the weight is applied to the linked page because it is the page that effectively deserved the vote of confidence but it also counts positively towards the integrity and credibility of your whole website; which in essence is represented by your home page.

Please note, this answer is totally dependent upon the quality of the backlink you received. For example, links from websites that are unrelated or have poor credibility will offer little or no benefit. For more information on what constitutes a ‘good’ backlink see my answer to a recent question from a reader: “What exactly are good backlinks?”.

This SEO tip by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

Labels: Algo, Google, Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO Answers, SEO Tips

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This SEO News was posted by Ross Dunn @ 12:27 AM.

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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

SEO Answers #9: Domain Stop Words, Duplicate Web Sites, & Increasing Article Backlinks

Written by Ross Dunn and published at 2:40 PM

Three SEO questions are answered in this Q&A article:

Do search engines ignore stop words in domain names?
I created a duplicate website to target my services to a different state. My intention is not to dupe Google but I don't know what else to do. How would you approach this?
What can I do to increase the number of backlinks I am getting from articles?

Question 1) " I know search engines ignore stop words in meta tags and title tags. Do search engines ignore stop or common words in domain names? Example www.therealestate.com or www.arealestate.com " - Corey M.

Answer: Yes, to the degree in which the keywords have any effect the more common words within a domain name would be ignored. It is, however, important to keep in mind that search engines only place a limited amount of weight on keywords in a domain name. In my opinion the only time where a site keyword within a domain name wins a ranking war is when all other elements are equal between you and near-ranked competitor.

Additional Info: I like to do my due diligence before answering any question because frankly I need to be sure the rules have not changed overnight. Here are a couple links to pages that relate to this question:

WebmasterWorld Posting (membership required)
What are stop words? By Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch.

Question 2) “ Hi Ross - I just finished reading your blog... "SEO Answers #7: " What Determines Duplicate Content SPAM? "and I have a question for you. Allow me to give you a little background: One of my clients has expanded their business into another state with a different name, but it is ultimately the same business. In order to develop a Web presence for this new, duplicate company in a new area, we created a second Website that has its own unique design, etc, but is ultimately a take off on the original site, using the same content, just minor differences to allow for the new name, geographic area, etc. The original site is optimized and of course contains the original content. The duplicate site is not optimized. In no way is our intention to "dupe" anything, but will this cause problems with the engines? We are not trying to get mileage off of the content by duplicating it... this is simply a second company that offers the same services, just in a different state. Each site is in its own domain and has its own URL. Your input? Your suggestions for a different solution? Thanks for your time."

Answer: Simply put if you are truly not looking to get any mileage out of the content then you do not want rankings for it which implies that the site should be blocked to the search engines. I would recommend using your robots.txt file to block the spiders entirely to that website so you do not negatively affect your rankings on the original site. The fact is that duplicate content, good intentions or not, is frowned upon by the search engines and you are gambling by having the site available for spidering.

If, however, you do want the search engines to spider the content then you must rewrite it to avoid duplicate content penalties.

As a final note I would like to pose a question; did your client absolutely have to create a secondary website? In many cases I find that a client need not have created a second site; they just needed to add a new section to their site to manage the new target marketplace. The other option, which may have been appropriate in this case, is to add a subdomain to enjoy the benefits of a secondary home page on a pre-branded domain and fresh marketable URL; nearly the same benefits of having a secondary domain without the headache of marketing an entirely new website. Even in this case, however, you would not be able to use duplicate content so you would be faced with the same issues; either rewrite the content or block it from spiders.

Question 3) "Ross, in an attempt to improve my ranking in the search engines, I have been writing articles for article directories in the hopes of receiving quality backlinks. Recently I came across a site mypagerank.net, which I decided to check on my link popularity. The result indicated that I only had 18 backlinks. What can I do to increase the number of backlinks I am getting? I would have expected more as I have written many more articles and submitted my URL to many directories. Thanks, enjoy reading your articles" - Peter

Answer: First, good work making the effort to write articles, they are an excellent medium for promotion and I commend you for dedicating the time to writing. I certainly understand the significant commitment to time and research required to write usable content. Fortunately, there are a few techniques that may help you squeeze some extra benefits from your hard work:

Be Clear - Request Credit
Are you being very clear to those republishing your content that you expect a linked credit for the copy? Simply stating that you allow syndication but request credit laid out in a particular linked format will do wonders. At StepForth we clearly request credit and we occasionally troll Google looking for those who have republished our content without credit; it is usually a simple matter to have the content removed or the appropriate link added. Hence, if you see this article does not give credit and provide a link to StepForth.com then please drop me a note, ross@stepforth.com :-)
Pick a Powerful, Timely Topic
Have you noticed a topic coming up regularly in forums? Perhaps a question that appears to be asked regularly? This is usually a good indication that an article discussing the topic would do well. Remember that many of the syndication networks online are looking for topics that will get readers and ultimately provide impressions for their advertisers. As a result, picking a hot topic will make a world of difference in how widely your article will get picked up.
Optimize the Title
The title of your article needs to clearly relay the topic and should engage readers and editors alike. The title can make or break a story if it is too vague or boring.
Refer to Your Own Content
It helps to provide inline links from your article to relevant previous articles or pages on your website. With practice and once you have built up a healthy reservoir of linkable articles it will soon be second nature to refer to links in a manner that is crucial to the article; so that editors note that the backlinks are relevant and play a legitimate role in the purpose of the article. Legitimacy of backlinks is crucial to make the ‘cut' because editors are more likely to remove a link than keep one if it appears merely promotional.
Give Praise Where it is Due
Within an article don't be afraid to link to other sources where you have noted particularly good information, particularly other small business blogs. The fact is that some bloggers take a real shine to those who syndicate or give credit to their content and may just link back to you in thanks.
Put RSS On Your Side
If you have not already done so ensure that your articles are syndicated on your website in RSS format as well. This can be easily accomplished by using a blog to publish your articles because most blog systems include automated feed creation. Many of the article syndication networks use articles solely through RSS. So as soon as you get a RSS feed you should go out and tell the world about it. Try using Google and search for "submit feed" or " add blog " and you are certain to find some great sites to submit your syndication feed.

There is a lot more information on this topic so I will provide some links that should help you further:

Article Writing Tips - excellent resource I stumbled across
Related forum thread in SEO Chat
Related forum thread on Digital Point

After all this work is done, keep in mind not every proper (credited) use of your article will deliver the benefits of a backlink. The search engines are frankly too smart to give credit to every article link because of the obvious duplication and the unfortunate proliferation of article scraping sites (sites that republish articles to try and make their sites appear authoritative). That said, the links acquired from truly authoritative sites would pay off as backlinks and hopefully with the more important benefit - direct traffic.

As a final note remember that articles are meant for human consumption so be sure to proofread your work and ensure that the topic is either timely or originally written enough to be useful. I am not saying this applies to you, however, it is important that the quality of the content is high enough to merit wide spread syndication.

by Ross Dunn - CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Permalink to this Article: SEO Questions #9

Labels: Google, Link Building, Ross Dunn, SEO Answers, SEO Tips

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