Archive for the 'Other Search Engines' Category
I received a private message at a forum I have been a member of for many years and it was from a relatively senior member that was promoting some discounted listings reviews in his network of web directories. The directories themselves look pretty nice, good templates and category structure but I took a quick look through the backlink profile of one of them and I was quite shocked!
I found backlinks from porn, coming soon sites and even from a page that was simply 10k+ links jammed full of porn, gambling and rx - I was going to post a screenshot of the page but it crashed my browser twice so I figured I better not push my luck.
Most good SEO’s always check backlink profiles before building links but there are many ‘cut-rate’ services out there that won’t spend the extra time doing this type of due diligence. So be very careful or your website might just become part of a ‘bad neighborhood’.
John Dvorak over at pcmag.com wrote an article yesterday where he complained quite mightily about how SEO is ruining Google search results by:
“tricking Google or Bing or Yahoo into ranking your particular Web site higher than the competition by reverse-engineering the tricks used by Google, et al to rank sites in the first place.”
and
“It’s killing the Internet if it hasn’t already.”
and his proof of this is:
“Try and find the best cell phone deal on the Internet. Do it by using a search engine. Every hit is some commercial site trying to sell you something.”
So basically he typed in ‘best cell phone deal’ and he was upset that they results that came up were various websites that wanted to ‘actually’ sell him a cell phone. Ummm, ya….if you type in cell phone deals or some hybrid of that query you are likely in the market to ‘actually’ buy a cell phone, ergo the results that come up will be sites trying to do just that.
The real truth is that Google and other search engines encourage SEO as a way of putting your websites best foot forward and they don’t have any problem with this as long as you represent your website and its content in an honest way. In fact here is a link to Googles SEO starter guide - which by-the-way is available in 40 languages due to its popularity.
After making the above wildly unresearched statements John continues to hoot-and-haw about how everyone is out to trick him but then he gives SEO a little free promo by stating:
“My advice to Web site managers, when you see this sort of result, is to contact THAT site and hire the consultant doing SEO for it. This sort of thing is no accident.”
Maybe he was just spouting off to attract readers but some of these comments, obviously made by search engine marketing folk got pretty nasty:
“I wonder if you have any understanding of business and marketing if you think commercial sites coming up when you are actually looking for a deal is a bad thing. That really made me laugh.”
“You’re right John, if I type in “best cell phone deal” I definitely don’t want to see sites offering me the ability to get good deals on cell phones. What I’m REALLY looking for would be a wikipedia article talking about the future of cell phones followed by a bunch of sites featuring cell phone news and tips on using cell phones to order pizza.”
“Congratulations!! You have created the worst article that I have ever found on the internet.”
“John…seriously???? you just lost all credibility.”
“What a pity to read your post! What a pity for pcmag to let you write about SEO! I do recommend reading some basics SEO before you put up another post.”
“Which is worse? SEO, which you woefully misdescribe, or linking keywords in your article to adverts so that they pop up without warning in a really intrusive way?”
“John, a long long time ago, I respected your intelligence. Today, that’s completely gone.”
Ouch, I hope John does not take all this criticism too hard but I do agree - this article did seem quite ‘light’ on research.
It seems SEO’s are fairing well these-days, even in a bad economic environment - salaries for SEM/SEO related positions were up in 2008 and that just shows that decision makers are continuing to see the relative value we bring to the table.
2009 yearly salaries for an individual contributor with 1-3 years relevant experience range from $40,000 to $80,000; senior manager salaries range $70,000 to $120,000; and vice presidents with responsibilities for large SEM campaigns or a team of specialists earn from $160,000 to $250,000.
While the salary range for those with 1- years experience is quite wide I think that the majority of those getting the low range, $40k - $50k are in the 1-2 year experience range. Once you have 3 years plus under your belt I don’t think you would even consider a position for under $60k.
It seems the spending on SEM will continue into the distant future and that is sweet music to anyone that is involved in this industry!
The LA Times is reporting that the judge in the MySpace Mom’s suicide killing case has overturned his decision about the ‘criminality’ of breaking the Terms of Service of a website. And that is really good news for all those SEO’s out there that have ever purchased a link.
I know a few SEO’s that were considering leaving the country because a few of their paid directory submissions were in the ‘gray’ area. Now they can remain in the USA and Canada and live out their lives not fearing the long jail term that should be associated with breaking the ToS of companies like Google.
In 2008 it is interesting to see that paid search efforts outspent organic optimization 10-1, my thoughts are that this will drastically change over the course of the next 5 years because many competitive industries are hitting extremely high costs on a pay-per-click basis and even though SEO can be harder to measure and can take a longer time to show results. Those results are so impressive that they can mean the difference between ‘making-or-breaking’ a business.
I was recently involved in doing SEO for a company that had a cost per acquisition of $47 through traditional style advertising and that cost went down to $3.85 for those aquired though search engine optimization.
I find the biggest problem with SEO continuing to grow at the pace it deserves is twofold, first there is a lot of resistance from traditional marketing folks because SEO is a much different animal. With SEO you are spending considerable resources on something your company ultimately has no control over, the search engines. And to make matters even more complicated the search engines keep their algorithms and methods of ranking a secret. Secondly, most business owners and traditional type marketing managers don’t really understand SEO and that makes it very difficult for them to justify the expense and risks involved in switching over their traffic acquisition methods to organic vs. paid.
But there is hope and I do see a pattern starting with the largest and most progressive companies as they give SEO a try. It has even reached a point where many of these companies are bringing SEO in-house where they can learn, track and enjoy these advantages up close and personal.
-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?
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)
Affordable SEO - 1 WEEK TO THE TOP of major search engines. Stop wasting money on pay per click . Being ranked PR9 will halp you grow your sales at the fraction of the cost you spend now. Contact for more information and prove that we ca do it . Free consultaion and proven results
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 just found another “SEO company” (and I use that phrase with plenty of sarcasm) offering Guaranteed Page One Listing Results on Google and to make it even better - your credit card is not charged until they email you the screenshot showing this achievment.
But don’t forget to read the fine print:
What type of keywords will my website show up on page 1 under? Your keywords tend to come directly from your website text so your keywords are going to have to do with the product or service your website is promoting. Your keywords will have to do with whatever product or services your website is promoting.
and make sure to read the pièce de résistance:
Where on page 1 will my website show up? You can show up anywhere on page 1. You can be listed in a non sponsored area, a sponsored area or both.
Well you know the saying, there is a sucker born every mintue and two to take ‘em. It looks like this site is paying good PPC with adwords since I found them in the #1 sponsored position that goes for around $1.50 a click.
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/
