It’s Important But Not The End

PageRank is probably one of the first signs your site has landed. Established a user base, good content, and most importantly is legitimate. Unfortunately Google has done a bit of flip flopping. Page rank info has been removed from the web master tools. So why?

Well pagerank is not as important as first thought. While it’s important, it should not be the central focus when building a new site. So content > design > PR? Just another part of the battle between SEO experts and search engines as they attempt to capture more of the advertising revenue. While it still holds an important status page rank is no different.

So the bottom line is: build a good site and page rank, search ranking, and money will naturally follow. Don’t let the SEO game slow you down and remember PageRank is just a number.

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Bigger and bigger

More and more everyday Google is becoming a major corporate entity. At some point Microsoft stopped growing but Google just keeps on going. Here’s some recent activity from the big guy.

Google expands search meta data. Call it “fine tuning”. The new and improved search allows for users to pinpoint exact locations within pages that contain the information they are looking for. Instead of just arriving at a page, Google search with take you to the location on the page even the paragraph. Very helpful indeed. Can it get any better?

AT&T not happy with Google. So perhaps it was AT&T that had Google Voice the thumbs down for the app store? Hmm, this story gets more interesting all the time. AT&T complains that Google is ignoring the rules while Google says the rules don’t apply to them. Sounds like someone is just whining because they aren’t making money off long distance calls.

Yahoo makes one more attempt

Yahoo is spending $100 million to try and save their advertising business but is it already too late? This time they are taking the message directly to consumers through their tvs, online, newspapers, billboards, everywhere or until the money runs out. Yahoo’s advertising has been on a steady decline from stiff competition with Google and Microsoft and never really recovered.

Just some numbers:
Market value: Yahoo $24 billion (Google $160 billion)
Share value: Yahoo $16-17 (Google $500)

Be wary of SEO “experts”

A few things to know when going the SEO consultant route, there are many fish in the sea however, few of them are actually sharks. Be wary of who you decide to go with. Red flags should be catch phrases as “#1 ranking” and “guaranteed results”. Nobody can stand up to those claims without knowing the search battleground for the keywords your specific company is competing on. Some markets are more competitive than others. For example the arena for “viagara” is probably much more difficult to invade than say “pumpkin farm”. Yes, extreme examples but this is what I’m talking about. A true SEO consultant needs to ask some qualifying questions & do some research before giving you a proposal and projected results.

Don’t be fooled by big promises because the SEO game is constantly in flux. What works today most definitely will not work tomorrow.

Should Yahoo Just Give Up?

Google continues to dominate the search arena. Microsoft search (re-branded to Bing) made a bit of a splash with a friendlier looking page continues to toil away at the search biz. Yahoo just continues to plug along. Should Yahoo just give up already? More and more it seems that Yahoo will never recover to it’s glory days of dominating the search industry. Don’t get me wrong. Yahoo is still a valuable piece of real estate and can earn revenue from it’s other sources but the search game may already be over. Perhaps it’s time to move on and spend those dollars developing other segments of the Yahoo portal. The growing mobile search was a feature Yahoo was late to join and perhaps is only now realizing the mistake. Strategic blunders continue to plague Yahoo management and the stock is slowly slipping. At least they had their moment at the top.

Has Yahoo’s time past?

Once a giant in the search engine business Yahoo is now struggling. A failed deal with Microsoft, bungled right from the start. Declining ad revenue. Let’s face it, most advertising money is going to Google. Laying off employees. Even less resources to put towards the search biz. There is no doubt Yahoo is facing some troubles in the days going forward. Should they roll over and give up on the search business?

Perhaps they are wasting their time and resources continuing down the path of search engine relevance. Maybe it’s time to focus on the things that their many users still go to the site for. Focus on what’s working. Yahoo news, email, community. Yahoo is still a great portal for many users. Perhaps focusing on the search segment may cost them a few users who convert to Microsoft. If you’ve been paying any attention to Microsoft (other than the ranting of Steve Ballmer) they’ve been putting a major push for the MSN live network. Making it easier to connect up all of your MSN services with one user id. Perhaps Yahoo needs to focus on integrating all of their services, making the user experience even easier.

Just don’t forget what you do well, and continue to improve upon it.

Tips from Google

Google’s blog covered a few topics when dealing with SEO with regards to linking, content, site architecture. Many of the same old tips have been reinforced. Despite the same old answers coming up it is somewhat comforting to hear it from a Google engineer.

Site content is very important as well as authoritative sites linking to that content. It is unavoidable that spam sites will always link to good content however the driving factor will be the number and quality sites linking to yours. These inbound links will also affect your page rank. Although search engine results should weigh importantly over page rank (don’t worry if you’re only a PR 2).

Blogs: original and innovative stuff will be a bigger hit with your audience as well as with the search engines. Providing useful information within the community and having a great product also helps. Engaging the community is what blogs are all about.

Despite Google’s battle with link buying what they say and what actually happens are 2 different things. It’s no secret Google is waging a battle vs paid linking advertising however those with bigger wallets have still been winning the battle. Most common keyword search terms are littered with link buyers. Hopefully Google has something special up their sleeves to counter massive link buying campaigns.

EFF stands up for consent free linking

Mass linking directories and related sites can breathe a sigh of relief. Linking to a site without their permission can get you sued but the ruling might still turn out in your favor. Although the lawsuit seems frivolous it’s garnered attention from many SEO consultants worried about their directories and linking schemes. If a case like this were allowed to proceed a major precedent would change the way SEO works and even how sites are listed, searched for, advertised. Even if fundamentally the basis of the lawsuit were true no judge in their right mind would rule in favor of it. The entire Internet would collapse. Everybody would be suing everyone. Google would close up shop. The Internet would be no more. It’s a small comfort but keep on linking. Reciprocal linking seems like a safe bet for now.

“nofollow” links

Getting a link helps. Web searches are sorted by ranking those with more inlinks with higher importance. Which is why paid text links are so popular. Often times you may come across html code with the “nofollow” attribute. What gives? On the one hand the site is linking to you, on the other hand that site is not passing any rank value to you. Yes, it’s a link but search engines treat it with no value. If you’re trying to improve your rank, this is not ideal.

Within your site the nofollow code is helpful to avoid confusing the googlebot. Too much cross linking within your web page doesn’t look good. Just provide a clean site map and this will keep Google happy. A typical nofollow link will show up like this:

SEO Authority

Recognizing the right code helps. Keep getting those links and move up the ranking!