Toronto SEO Firm
Search Engine Optimization Marketing Services

-We had a quick page rank update a couple of days ago and it pretty much surprised everyone. Even though page rank does not seem to mean a heck of a lot these days every update still seems to get the webmaster and SEO community up and jump’in! Personally I am wondering if my weird news site will ever see some green juice again but the PR0 does not seem to be hindering the steady flow of traffic - this week it was extra busy averaging around 1,100 visits a day.

-Finally the ‘SEO’s are criminals’ buzz is calming down. After Matt came out and said that SEO’s will be held to higher standards and Google is tracking them there was a long and painful cry of foul across the entire industry. Myself I don’t really think it is such a big deal and the SEO playing-field has never been level anyways.

-As far as the ‘page rank sculpting’ episode I will simply say I feel sorry for the SEO firms that sold this to their biggest clients and now have to figure out a way to get their foot out of their mouths.

What will next months buzz bring….no idea, maybe a new conspiracy theory about Google and Yahoo! planning to buyout MSN to stop BING from conquering the world?

Came across an interesting little site today that brings up a Google and Bing search side-by-side for easy analysis.  I used my obvious number one raking term, “toronto SEO firm” and the results from the two engines are quite similar.  But I have to say that I really like the fact that Bing brought up my ‘About Us’ page in the first page of results.

I should temper this celebration by mentioning that I have no idea where I rank in MSN normally…I do know that I don’t see much search traffic from them though.  But when I search for the ever popular term ‘toronto seo’ on Bing Preview I was on page one, spot nine!!

Craigslist seems to be a potpourri of bad SEO’s - take a gander at this advertisement:

Affordable SEO - 1 WEEK TO THE TOP (Toronto and area)

I have been wondering how SEO’s that don’t speak or write English are able to do a proper job optimizing for it?  I know you can pretty much learn most SEO skills in any language but since much of SEO is reading, writing and optimizing for the English language I just don’t see it being worthwhile regardless of how cheap the service is.  Here is an example of an obvious non-native English speaking SEO advertising on DigitalPoint:

Im offer offsite optimization service for only $120

What includes on the package?
-Article writing + submission
-press release writing + submission
-directory submission
-rss submission
-forum post backlinks
-blog commenting

I have posted a reply asking who will be writing all this content, and I seriously doubt he has a native English speaker/writer on staff.  This same service might be two or three times as expensive from an English speaking/writing SEO but the value your website recieves from it will be tenfold or more.  I just don’t see the value in hiring an SEO that does not speak/write the langauge your site is developed in.

I will briefly touch on one of the most important things to look for when hiring an SEO company.  Look for a company that includes a portfolio or case study section on their site.  It is important to have at least a glimpse into the type of work the firm has done in the past.

Here is a perfect example of a company that is probably a complete waste of money.  Besides their obviously poor English skills and the fact that they offer search engine submission as part of their service.   The portfolio page, http://www.bluedelightconsultant.com/portfolio.html is just a collection of barely recognizable images with no live links and no mention of what terms they achieved ranking for.

This fad started a few years back and it seems there is no end in sight.  As long as ‘pretend’ SEO’s and newbie webmaster chase the ole might ‘green bar’ I guess the business of buying dropped domains with page rank will continue.  Here is one of my favorites that I just found on DP with links for sale, it is a health site btw…..http://ColumbiaWomensLacrosse.org/

This question has been floating around the web for years and the myth still looms quite large.  Does a high page rank help me get a high search engine ranking?

The simple answer is a big, fat NO!  But it gets much more complicated.  A high page rank could be representative of many other high quality backlinks or it could just be one not-so-good high page rank backlink.

Here was a post on DigitalPoint which hammers home this point.

Tried everything to improve google ranking but didn’t work

I have heard of online rep management but have not really had a reason to experience it first-hand until now.  I Googled my name “Jay Granofsky” and found a couple of first page results that I did not particularly like.

First off (in the number 9 position):

I started this G rated site about 6 years ago, it had a quiz on it where you had to guess who’s famous butt was in the picture (fully clothed of course).  I have not owned this site in about 4 years so I have no idea why this old info is still floating around.  In the meanwhile I contacted Alexa and told them that I am no longer the owner and would like my name deleted from the owners information.

Next up (in position 10) is someone that I reported on in my SEO scam section, I caught him selling search engine submissions as part of his ‘SEO’ services.  He apparently did not like the fact that I outed him so he went on some relevant blog and made a horribly phrased retort.  Now most people reading his comment will realize this person is just a vengeful scammer but it still does not look that great on the first page of results for my name.

I also replied to him but the comment is waiting approval, maybe the owner of the blog will realize that both comments are way off-topic and delete them?  On second thought I will contact the blog owner and make that exact request.  Furthermore I decided I would manage my reputation by creating a few blog posts about my favorite hobby, photography and build a few backlinks to each post in hopes they will outrank those bottom of first page ones and will actually represent me in a more true light.  If you are interested in following this case study I will post the results in the case studies section of this site at a later date.

Here is a quick update, 4 hours later this post and another have moved the two offending results off the front page!!  That was some speedy rep management but is probably only short-term due to the extra juice Google gives fresh news.  For the longer term solution I hope the points I touched on in the above blog come into effect.

April 23, 2009 update - Just got an email back from Alexa saying they would delete my name from the ownership of the site and I should see the search result gone in the next week or so.  Great!

April 29, 2009 - The Alexa listing has been gone for a few days and the other silly listing has now been pushed to 2nd spot on page 3 which is amazingly quick!  If I can get it to the bottom of page 3 I will be satisfied because although it is negative it is really just a bad SEO’s ’sour grapes’ about me calling him out on being flakey.

Around a year and a half ago Google unleashed its’ wrath on general web directories.  With bolts of lightning (not quite but just as painful to the directory owners) it struck down the page rank of some of the best know directories for buying links.  Let’s see how they have faired 18 months later.

http://www.ewebpages.org/ still sitting at page rank 0

http://cdhnow.com/ stuck on page rank 0

http://www.dirspace.com/ zero it is

http://www.linkforever.net/ zero page rank bar love

and it goes on and on….it seems that almost all of these directories have remained in Google’s ‘bad’ list and in addition to having their page rank stipped they also don’t rank for their domain names.

One in the list that stands out and seems to have found a way to get back into Googles graces is http://www.avivadirectory.com/ they have a page rank four and also rank for their domain name, with site links no-less.  I know from reading the webmaster boards that the owner of avivadirectory put in a ton of time trying to rectify the problems that landed them in hot water with Google and it looks like they found the magic formula (perhaps an ebook is in the works).