SMX Advanced 2009 Seattle – SEO Track – SEO Ranking Factors In 2009 Rand Fishkin

Post from Search Engine Optimizician.
How much does the “H1″ tag really matter, versus the number of links pointing at a domain?
Do “authority” sites always have an advantage over other sites with less reputation?
Is brand recognition now a bigger issue?

On and off-the-page factors that influence web search, what remains useful and what new signals are growing in importance. Part 1 of 3

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

Search Ranking Factors Survey
Answered by 70 Top SEOs Worldwide

Keyword Usage

• Keyword use anywhere in the title tag
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Keyword as the first word or words of the title tag
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Keyword in the Root Domain
  (very strong to moderate impact)
• Keyword in subdomain
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page folder
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page name
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page’s query
  (weak impact)
• Keyword in page’s extension
  (not used)
• Keyword in description tag
  (weak impact)
• Keyword in meta keywords
  (not used)
• Keyword anywhere in the “H1″ tag
  (significant to moderate impact)
• Keyword as first words in the “H1″ tag
  (significant to weak impact)
• Keyword in other “H” tags [H2-6]
  (moderate impact)

H1 Tags (Low Correlation w/ Rankings).
Alt Text (Higher Correlation w/ Rankings).
Keyword in URL (Very High Correlation).
Keyword Location (Data Says Closer is Much Better).

While I agree with most of the statements above I would question the “H1 Tags (Low Correlation w/ Rankings)”. Just because they aren’t used properly doesn’t mean that if they were used correctly they wouldn’t have more of a correlation.

Non-Link Factors

• Freshness and recentcy of page creation
  (significant impact)
• Historical content changes
  (significant to weak impact)
• Advertising on the page
  (not used)
• Google AdSence on the page
  (not used)
• Meta description tag
  (moderate to not used)
• Query parameters in the URL vs. static URL format
  (moderate to weak impact)
• Substantive, unique content on the page
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Links pointing to other URLs on the domain
  (significant to weak impact)
• External-pointing links on page
  (weak impact)
• HTML validation to W3C standards
  (weak impact)
• Ratio of code to text in HTML
  (weak impact)
• Use of Flash elements or other plug-in content
  (not used)

Substantive, Unique Content is Very Important.
W3C Validation Not Very Important.
Code to Text Ratio Not Very Important.
Static URLs Somewhat Better Than Dynamic.

Once again I will have to disagree with W3C Validation as not being “Very Important”. I will agree while it is not as important as some of the other on-page factors I feel it is of value. See the Matt Cutts video clip.

Importance of Link Metrics

• Global link popularity of the domain
  (very strong impact)
• Trustworthiness of domain
  (very strong impact)
• Link diversity of the domain
  (very strong impact)
• Links form hubs or authorities in a topic specific neighborhood
  (very strong impact)

PageRank may be important, but TBPR not a great predictor.
Domain Authority may be important, but metrics need work.
TrustRank concepts may be important, but metrics need work.
Domain Diversity may be more important than experts think.

Interesting, I think I am in agreement with all of these statements.

Subdomains vs. Root Domains
Subdomains likely DO NOT inherit all of the ranking benefits of the Root Domain, but neither are they completely separate entities.

Google’s Algorithm
Links, as they pertain to the domain and the individual page, are vastly superior in importance to the page’s content.

Geographic Ranking Factors For Country-Specific Targeting

• ccTLD of the root domain
  (very strong impact)
• Geographic location of the host IP
  (significant impact)
• Links from other domains targeted to the country or region
  (significant impact)
• Registration of the site with Google Local
  (moderate impact)
• Address associated with the registration of the domain
  (weak impact)
• Address in on-page text content
  (moderate impact)
• Geographical location of visitors to the site
  (weak impact)
• Geo-Targeting preference set inside Google Webmaster Tools
  (moderate impact)
• Geo-Tagging of pages via meta data
  (moderate impact)
• Content language used on site
  (significant impact)
• Manual review/targeting by Google
  (very strong impact)

Country TLD
Language
Links
Host IP Address
Manual Review
GG WM Tools Geographic Target Settings
Registration with Google Local

Links will decline in importance, but remain powerful, as newer signals rise from usage data, social graph data and other sources to replace them.

So there you have it. My notes and views on Rand’s presentation at SMX Advanced in Seattle June 2009.
Parts 2 and 3 featuring the presentations from Laura Lippay and Marty Weintraub are in the hopper.

Late,
Gary Pool

Improve Search Engine Rankings – SEO Ranking Factors is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Sculpt your google PageRank with the “nofollow” tag

Google PageRank sculpting has began gaining a lot of momentum lately. It is also the topic of many debates, The question is whether it really works or is just a time consuming futile attempt to control the search engine’s valuation of your website’s internal page values. To understand you will have to have a handle on google PageRank

PageRank

PageRank was developed by Larry Page, google founder, and is one of the multitude of factors that determine your sites position in the google SERPs (search engine results pages). Google assigns a numeric value of 0 to 10 (10 being considered the most authoritative) to each page on the web, this value is used to help in determining the amount of link juice each page will pass on through it’s out going links.

PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.

Mathematical PageRanks (out of 100) for a simple network (PageRanks reported by Google are rescaled logarithmically). Page C has a higher PageRank than Page E, even though it has fewer links to it: the link it has is much higher valued. A web surfer who chooses a random link on every page (but with 15% likelihood jumps to a random page on the whole web) is going to be on Page E for 8.1% of the time. (The 15% likelihood of jumping to an arbitrary page corresponds to a damping factor of 85%.) Without damping, all web surfers would eventually end up on Pages A, B, or C, and all other pages would have PageRank zero. Page A is assumed to link to all pages in the web, because it has no outgoing links.

PageRank Sculpting – Siloing

PageRank sculpting is act of using “nofollow” tags on internal site links to focus page or link value to the pages and anchor text that the site owner wants in a search engine. PageRank sculpting is accomplished by done by adding the rel=”nofollow” attribute value to a (a href)(/a) link tag. Other tools that can be added to your PR sculpting arsenal are the robots.txt file, META noindex tags and even javascript. The concept for the specification of the attribute value “nofollow” tag was designed by Google’s head of webspam team Matt Cutts and Jason Shellen from Blogger.com in 2005.

Matt Cutts in response to a Rand Fishkin question:

The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt’ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There’s no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links…

The “nofollow” tag is currently recognized by all three major search engines, google, Yahoo, and Live (MSN). Just because you are using the “nofollow” tags on your links you shouldn’t assume that the search engines won’t follow the links or even index the pages at the end of the links. The “nofollow” tag is not intended for blocking access to content or preventing content to be indexed by search engines. It is used to curtail the passing of link juice or page value from one page to another. Regardless you should always have both HTML and XML sitemaps to make it easy for the search engines to find your pages. It is best to make sure that you have a “nofollow” tag on all links pointing to your HTML sitemap.

5 PageRank Sculpting Tips

Michael Gray at SMX Advanced 2008:

1. Make Good Use of Your Time – PageRank sculpting, if done correctly, takes time and planning. Make sure to have a game plan.
2. Sculpt from the Beginning – Sculpting should take place while a site is being built it is easier, and has a more immediate impact. The earlier you sculpt, the better.
3. Pay Attention to Detail – Sculpting isn’t something you can do casually. You need to have complete and undivided attention to do it properly.
4. Use More than 1 Tool to Sculpt – Don’t rely on just the “nofollow” tags use the robots.txt file, META noindex tags and javascript to shape your sculpting efforts.
5. Sculpt the Entire Site – PageRank comes in from manhy sources and directions. Don’t assume that sculpting the flow from your homepage is all you need to do.

Even with all the stuff mentioned above Google PageRank sculpting still remains an art. As an art the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there are no set rules as to what should be nofollowed and what should not it is done on a case by case instance. The sitemap.html and user login pages would be a good place to start though.

The following are NOT reasons to use PageRank Sculpting.

• A way to cut corners in your SEO – You will still need a well thought out SEO strategy. PageRank sculpting should be considered from the beginning.
• A replacement for bad internal linking structure – PageRank sculpting is not a Band-Aid for a poorly designed linking structure
• A link building substitute – It is the incoming links that you are sculpting for, not the other way around.

Late,
Gary Pool

Website | Goolgle | SEO | PageRank | Matt Cutts is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

As promised here is a list of the top SEO things you should DO!

There is still a canyon between understanding SEO and actually doing it. I have tried to bridge that gap by building a bridge. Here is the “to do” list that will help you whether you are actually planning on doing the SEO your self or are going to hire a SEO company.

1. If you are going to hire a SEO Company check them out with some of their clients. Ask for their opinions. Ask the SEO company to show you some case studies of previous clients. Ask for phone numbers of current clients for references.
2. Implement your SEO strategy when you are in the planning stages of your site. Research keywords for your field using one of the free research tools or for $1 you can get a 2 week account with, in my opinion, one of the best services available NicheBot2. Your site is already up! It is never too late to implement a good keyword strategy.
3. Submit your site to directories not search engines. There are plenty of good directories out there and a lot of them are free. DMOZ should be your number one priority. The DMOZ isn’t easy to get in to but it is free and it’s The Place to be listed. Always look for directories that are relevant to your site. Don’t know how to find relevant directories? You can search for "your field" submit URL or "your field" add site.
4. Make your site easy for the search engines to crawl. Use a robots.text file and a sitemap.xml file. Following the W3C standards for your code won’t hurt either. If it is easy for the search engines to crawl your site they will reward you by indexing more of your site.
5. Use keywords that are relevant to each page on that page. Use them sparingly and in groups that have coherent meaning. Use your keywords like fine polish, only where you need them and to make your content shine. Make sure your keywords are words that people search on, not jargon specific to only an elite few in your field.
6. Choose your page titles carefully and make them unique to each page and short. Use your limited keywords and/or phrases in your titles and your page description meta tags. Don’t over look the importance of your description meta tags. Some search engines use your description tag as the text under your title in their search results. Make them compelling. Remember you are trying to entice the reader to click on your link.
7. Make your site usable and navigable. You can have 1,000,000 visitors per day and if they can’t find what they want or how to get to what they want they will leave. Easter eggs are fun, but they have no role in your website, providing your site isn’t a gaming site or something similar where this is the content of your site.
8. Build your site for your users with the search engines in mind. Provide compelling unique content for your visitors and you will be well on your way to getting traffic to your website. If you trick your visitors into coming to your site and your content isn’t what they are looking for, poof they are gone.
9. Use your analytics and explore what your visitors are doing on and with your site. There are plenty of free site analytics available (Google Analytics to mention one) if your host doesn’t provide them.
10. Continue your SEO campaign on a daily or weekly basis. Remember SEO isn’t a do it once and you’re done process. Always keep track of your competition. Check your SERPs?

Well, there’s my top 10 list of SEO DOs. I hope you enjoy them. You can download a pdf version of this list. I am still offering a free 1 hour consultation, for a while anyway. Call me and set an appointment 503-616-4SEO (503-616-4736).

Check out our really cool White Rose Productions gear.

Late,
Gary Pool

Top 10 List of SEO Things To DO! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Most businesses are often hard-pressed for time and money. If you are a small business, a home based business, or even a medium size business, this statement is even more applicable. There has been a growing interest in search marketing and understanding the benefits of SEO. But there is still a big gap between understanding SEO and actually doing SEO. I have assembled this list to help you whether you are actually doing the SEO your self or are planning to hire a SEO company.

Here is my top 10 list of the most important SEO Don’ts.

1. Don’t reply to the spam you get in your e-mail promising SEO
   Submitting to 1,200 search engines or 800 directories is ridiculous and will get you nowhere. You can’t buy 2,000 quality links for $50. No reputable SEO can or will guarantee a number one ranking on any search engine for keywords that matter. You don’t want a SEO company that sends out spam
2. Don’t wait too long to implement your SEO strategy
   Whether you’re launching a new Web site or upgrading your current site, SEO considerations should be part of the discussion from day one.
3. Don’t waste your time submitting your URL to search engines
   Today’s crawler-based search engines will find your site more quickly as soon as you get a link from another web site already being crawled. Search engine submission died many years ago.
4. Don’t make your web site uncrawlable
   This can can be attributed to an incorrect robots.txt file, having session IDs or too many variables in your URLs, using a complicated navigation menu that spiders can’t (or won’t) follow, or developing an all Flash, all graphic, or all database driven site.
5. Don’t target overly general keywords
   A lawyer and/or law firm in Gresham has no chance at ranking for the word "lawyer," a real estate broker and/or agency in Sherwood has no chance at ranking for the phrase "real estate." Optimize for relevant, specific keywords and phrases that will bring targeted traffic to your site.
6. Don’t stuff keywords in your meta tags, image alt tags…
   This used to work in the dinosaur days of the search engines. Today, it is considered keyword spam and can loose you search engine juice.
7. Don’t use the same title on every page
   Variety is said to be the spice of life and it is on your website too. When combined with relevance, it is extremely important and will help in avoiding duplicate content issues and Google’s supplemental hell.
8. Don’t ignore usability
   Proper site structure, logical navigation, descriptive link text, and so on, are good for both users and search engine spiders. If your potential customers and/or clients have trouble with your site how long do you think they will stick around?
9. Don’t give up on creating great content
   No matter what business arena you’re in, you can add great (link bait) content to your web site. Use a glossary it is an easy way to create a page of great, keyword-rich content. Some more considerations might be, a frequently asked questions page, a testimonials page, how to articles, just use your imagination.
10. Don’t use the same exact anchor text on all links to your site
    The search engines will see this is an obvious sign of unnatural link building. Your link building should look natural, and using varied anchor text will help.

You can download a pdf version of this list.
Stay tuned for my next top 10 list, Top 10 SEO Do’s!

I offer a free 1 hour consultation call 503-616-4SEO.

Late,
Gary Pool

SEO Top 10 List of Things Not to DO! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I was surfing the net and watching some older Matt Cutts videos looking for some tidbits. They are all very informative and well worth watching. Here is a list with links.

• Crawl dates in Google cache
  4 min – Sep 6, 2006
  Matt talks about how Googlebot crawls the web, and what "crawl date" is shown on cached pages. In this video: – Red candy is a 404 page – Purple candy is a 200 (OK) page – Green candy is a 304 status code (page has not changed)
• Qualities of a good site
  6 min – Jul 30, 2006
  Matt Cutts answers Google questions: – Does Sitemaps depend on pageviews? – What are the top things to do in SEO? – How does Google decide to use a DMOZ snippet versus the description from a meta tag? – Should I use bold or strong tags?
• Optimize for Search Engines or Users?
  4 min – Jul 30, 2006
  Matt discusses SEO VS. User Opitmization, Site Spam, and Code Validation and the W3C.
• Recap of SES San Jose 2006
  9 min – Aug 28, 2006
  A short review of news from SES San Jose, and some educational or funny moments.
  Some of the changes happening to people or companies recently – Fun moments
• Matt Cutts Warns Against Buying Links
  51 sec – Jun 15, 2007
  Matt explains that link buying IS against the practice of link buying and warns those who are participating in such schemes may face tough times ahead as Google works harder to remove them.

During my Google searching of various SEO topics I ran across a series of videos with the keyword "Algorithm" using the related topics link. Curiosity got the best of me, so I watched some of the videos on youtube. These are great. I even uploaded one of the videos to myspace. It’s called the Algorithm March check it out.

This is a clip from a japanese kids show called "Pythagoras Switch" or "Pitagora Suicchi".

One last tidbit. Searching this morning I found a Google result for a Matt Cutts blog post that wasn’t uploaded yet… Uhmm.

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
I also got Matt-jacked into a dark room by Rand for the “SMX Diaries” video interviews. And WebProNews had some snippets of me from the Q&A session. …
www.mattcutts.com/blog/ – Jun 19, 2007

The latest post on his blog is or was:

Terry Semel stepping down
June 18, 2007 @ 1:45 pm · Filed under Web/Net

Well thats the story of Matt Cutts MySpace, SEO, Youtube, and the Algorithm March.

Late,
Gary Pool

The Story of Matt Cutts, MySpace, SEO, Youtube, and the Algorithm March is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

If you can get to Portland and have a website or work on a website this is a must attend event.

Search Engine Marketing Seminar Portland Oregon – SearchFest 07

SEMpdx SearchFest 07

Event Overview

SEMpdx brings you SearchFest 2007, a full-day search engine marketing conference featuring multiple learning tracks, workshops and expert panels to help you leverage search engine marketing (SEM) in your organization. Whether you are an SEM professional, work in an Advertising Agency or part of an in-house marketing department, SearchFest 2007 will connect you with the leading thinkers and practitioners in SEM today.

See you there,
Gary

Search Engine Marketing Seminar Portland Oregon – SearchFest 07 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Best Practices for Title Tags
Have you ever wondered about your title tag and if it has any relationship to your search engine position? Here is a great article on how to make sure it does. Whether you are brand new to SEO or a seasoned pro in the field, this is a worth while read.

How to Make the Best Title Tag Possible:

1. Brand your traffic
2. Limit length to 65 characters (including spaces) or less
3. Incorporate keyword phrases
4. Target longer phrases if they’re relevant
5. Use a divider
6. Focus on click through & conversion rates
7. Target searcher intent
8. Be consistent
9. Repeat in the headline

Thank you SEOmoz.org!

Late,
Gary

Best Practices for Title Tags is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Due to a cracked tooth I have to postpone the seminar until January 20, 2007
How to get your site listed higher on Google
I will be presenting a 4.5 hour seminar Saturday January 20th 2007 at the PMUG Office, Galleria Building, 921 SW Morrison, Suite 315, Portland, Oregon.
We will be covering search engine optimization basics, what to do, what not to do, and covering some tools that will make the task easier.
Just follow this LINK for more information and/or to register for the seminar.
late,
Gary

Change in date – How to get your site listed higher on Google is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Due to a cracked tooth I have to postpone the seminar until January 20, 2007,br>
How to get your site listed higher on Google
I will be presenting a 4.5 hour seminar Saturday November 18th at the PMUG Office, Galleria Building, 921 SW Morrison, Suite 315, Portland, Oregon.
We will be covering search engine optimization basics, what to do, what not to do, and covering some tools that will make the task easier.
Just follow this LINK for more information and/or to register for the seminar.
late,
Gary

Change in date – How to get your site listed higher on Google is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

OK, it is time that I got down to business and started discussing something other than coffee. I am writing this from Sacred Grounds drinking a great cup of coffee. My coffee at Sacred Grounds consists of four shots of espresso and topped off with the house coffee.

Meta tags aren’t as important as they used to be but, this dosen’t mean they are to be over looked. They are still an important part of your SEO strategy.

The description, title, and keywords are just three of the tags are called meta tags. The title tag should contain one or more keywords. The title tag is the title that is displayed on the top of the browser window. The description tag is the words that most search engines use when the search results are displayed. The description tag should contain as many keywords as possible. If you use too many words in your whole description will not be displayed. The keywords are the words and/or phrases that most people will use in the search engine to find your site. These keywords should be chosen carefully. The kewords and keyword phrases must also be contained in the body of your web page. The body of the web page is the part between the tags (). The body of the web page is the part that actually shows up in your browser.

Be careful not to use the exact meta tags on any of your pages in your website. The meta tags should be customized for each page in which they are used. If you just copy and paste the same meta tags in the heading of all your pages you could get penalized by the search engines.

Until next time,
Gary

Meta Tags is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician