Google’s Latest SERP Update: Caffeine – Where Will You Rank?

Posted by JR in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

As my friend Matt @ Sacramento Weddings commented in the last post, and something that I have suspected was coming for the last couple of months, Google has announced their latest algo update called Caffeine, which is still being finalized and which inevitably will affect SERPS across the board.

The test run is at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and an offer from Google to give your feedback, which is at the bottom of each SERP page.

I suggest you go over and search your keywords to look for any changes in SERP positions for your sites and to see how they may be affected when Google finally rolls out this update. I suspect that there have been some significant changes in the algorithm as far as link values go and that many sites may suffer.

What I have noticed for some competitive keywords I watch is a more content driven SERP results with Google favoring very aged sites that have a diverse link profile. Another change I noticed is fewer home pages on Page 1 and a lot more inner related pages.

I think this update will not be as heavy as the Big Daddy update was, but I do think that link values have changed somewhat, though it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact change.

Within content links on semantically related websites and pages are still the greatest in link value.

Matt Cutts Said:

“We’ve been shooting to get them [the results] pretty close [to "old" Google], so most people won’t notice a difference.” – Matt Cutts video interview

Google Caffeine Brings:

Results reflect a more real time indexing of pages, which of course will lead to more frequent updates.
Much larger index than Google had before.
Real time information from social media sites seems to be ranking higher, which is indicative of Google wanting to provide searchers with the most relevant and recent information from sites like Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed.

I have seen a lot of buzz going on about Caffeine, but overall I have not seen a huge change from existing SERPS.

What do you guys see in the SERP update? Any analysis of how your websites were affected, if at all and your analysis? This will help all of us, so please leave a comment!

26 Comments

More Fun With Google PR and SERPS!

Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

While browsing the SERPS the other day, I noticed this blog showed a PR0 in the toolbar, out of nowhere! It has been a PR3 for at least 10 months and I am not sure what is up!

Spoke with some other webmasters who also had loses of PR in the last few days. I do not think this is a general PR update, but either a glitch or they are penalizing me for something, like selling links, which is funny because I have never sold a link in my life!

I really could care less about PR since the site still ranks Page 1 for it’s main keywords and for many inner pages and that is all that really matters, as it should be since I think I provide enough useful content and therefore have been lucky enough to get lots of natural links to this blog. But it is curious.

The SERPS are still wacked as I discussed in May-June SERPS shakeups and some of my sites are bouncing around page 5-7 on an almost hourly basis.

There is definitely an update or some tweaking going on with Google, that will hopefully end this month. Though veteran webmasters that I have talked with say that they have seen similar activity in the past and it could last thru the summer.

Interesting SERP Observations from other Webmasters:

Many are reporting being hit for specific search terms and not sitewide. So while inner pages maintain ranking, home pages are being hit with a -50 in SERPS for certain keywords. And this is what I see as well.
Lots of spam sites
Irrelevant pages
Previously penalized sites returning from penalties
Many are using Bing, because Google’s results have been wacked

For the keywords I watch:

Very few home pages on page 1, mostly inner pages
ONLY aged sites, 3+ years and most 5+ years old
The big guns are there (sometimes)
Some domains that were bought aged and then crappy links added to them
Old stale articles from Buzzle for buy keywords (which is lame)
Page 1-3 results in keyword searches that are NOT in the title of the website

Time Will Tell

I personally think that links are being devalued and especially older links that are of low quality.

But, no one ever really knows what is going on with Google, as intended, all we could do is ensure that we have good content and quality links, everything else is a crap shoot and we’ll have to wait and see.

nerds1

I can picture some geek engineers at Google sitting at THE BUTTON in some office and laughing their asses off reading posts like this as they send our sites to Google hell — hey you gotta laugh at times like these!

Anybody else having issues with SERPS or notice any PR changes in the toolbar?

42 Comments

June 2009 Google Page Rank Update Underway

Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Another PR update so soon…

Okay well it seems that a June Google Page Rank update is underway right now, which is weird since the last one was just last month, but all my newer PRO sites went to PR1 or PR2, and 2 PR2 sites went to PR3 and other bloggers are posting the same updates on their sites.

And, this explains the shake up in the SERPS that I talked about the other day.

I do not think the update is done, because a couple of my sites went to PR2 which they surely did not deserve due to very few links, I’m not complaining but I think that it will go down.

Again for the newbies to this business, the toolbar PR is mainly useful for our own egos

and link building.

the real PR (the one that matters) is updated daily behind the scenes of the Google Algorithm.

The SERPS, traffic and sales is what really matters, but it’s always fun when the update comes around.

SERP Update:
Just checked the SERPS and they are still all over the place with odd page 1 results and several of my sites, though given an increased PR falling radically, so most likely they are not stable yet.

Do you guys see PR updates on your sites as well?

54 Comments

May-June 2009 SERP Shakeups – Here We Go Again

Posted by JR in Google, Search Engine Optimization

Have you guys checked your SERP positions lately? There are definitely some shake ups going on with Google and their algo.

A couple of my good aged site’s home pages just plummeted in the SERPS. One site, while it still ranks for other keywords, was pushed back to the black hole for a keyword that it has ranked for for over 1 1/2 years and the keyword is very low competition and now there is a whole lot of junk sitting on page 1 for that keyword.

And the same with other SERP results that are also showing a lot of crappy and spammy sites, as well as irrelevant sites.

Now in doing some reading around the web this seems to be an on going issue for many in the last couple of weeks with even aged authority sites losing major rank and sites dropping several pages in the SERPS. Coincidentally a very similar thing happened in June of 2008.

There also seems to be a pattern with index pages (home pages) losing rank while inner pages remain solid across the SERPS.

Now, while there will always be fluctuations in the SERPS , this seems to be something bigger and on a larger scale and similar shifts happen several times throughout the year.

Some guess that Google is trying out a new filter to catch paid links, and others think that the filter is negating blog comment links. I doubt the latter because my sites that lost rank have very few blog comments as backlinks.

Google just announced that they added external resource loading capabilities capabilities for Flash and indexing of flash, this may also be a part of this, learn more at Google Webmasters Blog post on this.

Really it could be anything. As that famous saying from The Godfather goes, “this is the business we’ve chosen” and dealing with Google SEO is always a roller coaster rider

I am not sure how major this one is, but I, as well as others do not think (at least I hope not) that this will last, most likely things will calm down and the SERPS will return to normalcy.

The most important thing to remember: DO NOT PANIC!

One of the biggest mistakes that webmasters make when their sites see a significant drop in SERP rank is to start making drastic changes on their sites.

1. This is often a mistake because it can trigger alarms and filters such that when the SERPS do return to some normalcy your changes may have adverse effects for your original rank positions.

2. The traffic is all that really matters. Another factor to consider is look at your traffic patterns, usually losing SERP positions for a couple of pages or even the home page will not affect traffic that much because most sites come up for lots of keyword searches, especially the long tails from inner pages.

This is where Google Analytics really comes in handy for analyzing those SERP patterns affects on your sites.

3. Remember to have faith in your work and if you are not doing anything extreme or super black hat then do not worry, just keep on working as usual, add some content to your sites, that is always a solid and safe route to take.

4. And also remember that this is probably not personal but a web wide change.

…Best thing to do in these types of situations is to wait it out.

If you go over to this thread in Webmaster World you will see a very interesting discussion on this topic with lots of webmasters sharing their experiences with this shift.

Have you guys noticed the SERP changes? Anyone lost major rankings?

39 Comments

Internet Marketing – The Money and Traffic Is In The Images

Posted by JR in Blog Promotion, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Traffic, Webmaster/Website Optimization

For most Internet marketing endeavors there are two main subjects of great interest, SEO and traffic and images are powerful tools for both of those goals.

1. They are really good for the look of the site design, look and enhance the visitor experience, especially with product guides and tutorials of any kind.

2. They are great for on-site SEO because they add keyword relevancy via image alt tags and this includes any header graphics for site-wide keyword relevancy.

3. They can also bring you lots of website traffic and money.

Search engines cannot read images you must use alt tags for descriptions, which should be keyword relevant to the page. By the way, it is blackhat to give inaccurate descriptions for the purpose of SEO trickery in the Alt Tags.

Image HTML Code:

Link Image to URL code:

The above code is for images that are hosted on your servers. With WordPress you can upload images directly from your computer via the Browser Uploader and the Title area in the Image dashboard is the Alt Tag.

The Traffic Connection via Images

The best benefit of images is traffic. Google often shows image results when people search particular keywords.

Lately I think they must really be doing more of this than before because I have 3 new sites that have been getting a lot of traffic from Google Images and its converting to sales.

To make sure my images show up in correct keyword search results I name the image file in detail, for example:

SonyEricsonMobilePhone.jpg
SonyEricson350.jpg

And, I also make sure the Alt Tag is there with the correct descriptive words.

I launched a new site last week and within 4 days I had something like 2,000 visitors all coming via Google Images and 6 sales and that is pretty good for a new site. I think this is especially good for shopping sites that use product images.

What I like to do is place at least 2-3 images on my content pages that are related to the topic of that page. They really make the content pages look better and more professional, especially with guide type pages.

I also make sure to have several images on my home pages like around the welcome message, that is a great place to provide keyword relevace for the sitewide keywords.

30 Comments

May 2009 Google Page Rank Update

Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

I am happy to report that I won a nice fat jackpot in Vegas, $1400 from one spin on the slot machine with my last $20! Was planning to just take that $20 home and then my son said just play it, what the heck you got to lose, and bam, hit 4 wilds on the Wizard of Oz slots! And for those of you who remember my last trip to Vegas you know that dang machine owed me, plus it was my birthday trip so I guess my luck was good – Happy Birthday To Me!!

And then when I got back home last night I noticed there has been another Google Page Rank update, which was another nice surprise as several of my sites went up from PR2 to PR3 and they are all money sites. This blog stays a PR3 because I have not been doing any manual link building, been busy focusing on my money sites.

One of my sites went from PR1 to PR0, have no idea why, have to do some checking.

Remember that PR is all about link building and there is about 2-3 months till the next update to get those backlinks up and running.

Congrats to Matt for getting his PR4 back on Sacramento Weddings!

How did you guys do on the PR update?

42 Comments

About Using Trademarks and Brand Names in the URL

Posted by JR in Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Keywords and Niches, Search Engine Optimization, Webmaster/Website Optimization

Time and again I see little niche sites using trademark brand names in their url’s. This is a truly reckless and a very stupid thing to do.

Here you are spending valuable time, working hard on your site designing, promoting, link building and your site has high search engine rankings and making you money and then the brand name company notices you and it’s over. At the very least your site will have to come down and at worst the brand name will sue you for copyright infringement.

It is illegal to use any copyrighted brand name trademark within the url or as the name of a site, many people do not even think of this fact and find great keywords that include brand names and use them.

Most of the big companies have a long page of legal terms that list all their trademark names and their variations and they clearly state how they can be used.

When doing keyword research for Internet marketing we inevitably come across tons of great keywords that use trademark names and especially within the electronics and computer niches, Apple ipods, Dell laptops, Sony, Acer laptops, the list is endless and it is really tempting to use them in the url because the ranking power increases greatly when using keywords in the url, but for the long term this is way too risky.

I was reading a blog post the other day, I didn’t save it or I would link to it, but the marketer made the mistake of using Dell in his url and Dell had contacted him and demanded he take his site down. Of course, the site was ranking on page 1 for the keyword, which is how Dell noticed him, and making money and now that’s all over.

Did he have regrets? Of Course! It’s just not worth it.

Can You Rank Without Using Keywords in the URL?

Yes, but it will usually take more keyword anchor text backlinks, how many depends on the competition for those keywords.

So there are two choices:

1. Choose similar non-trademark keywords for the url and do all the on-site optimization for the trademark kw, such as h1 tags, keyword density, title tags etc… and focus your link building to get lots of anchor text links with the trademark keywords.

This is the best option when you come across really highly searched for trademark keywords that have low competition, well worth the effort.

2. Choose completely different keywords within that niche that do not have trademark names.

45 Comments

How To Rank for High Competition Keywords

Posted by JR in Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Sorry I have been remiss in updating too much, I have been redesigning this blog and it is taking a lot of time as I am not a blog or web designer, and right now I REALLY HATE CODE! By the way I finally figured out how to redesign a blog behind the scenes so stay tuned for that tutorial!

Anyway, here is my take on how to rank for high competition keywords, sort of a follow up to higher search engine ranks with proper keyword research, but on a positive note.

Ultimately the best keywords are those that have lots of competition, often in the millions, because those are the ones that are searched for the most, cause and effect people! It is very difficult to rank for those keywords, but there is a way.

When doing keyword research there are always long tail keywords. A long tail keyword is simply a phrase with the main keyword in it.

Example:

Main keyword: Computers

Long Tail: Buy Cheap Computers

Now, if you look at the competition for most any popular main keywords it is usually very high, keywords like, money, credit cards, loans, mortgage, insurance, health, cell phones, computers, laptops, cars, the list can go on and on. Ranking for these keywords is going to be a long hard road. So, what you need to do is target the long tails for them and rank for those.

Let’s say I want to rank for cell phones, which has 2,700,000 competing sites with allintitle search query. So, I will find a couple of good long tails that still have a good amount of searches and much less competition, for example, cheap cell phones (15,000 competing sites) and buy cell phones (8,910 competing sites).

Now I build my links with those phrases in the anchor text and over time my site will rank for those long tails, but because the main keyword cell phones is in those longtails I will inadvertently begin to climb in the SERPS for cell phones, and depending on the link building efforts and the quality of the backlinks will get there sooner or later. Make sense?

You can do this over and over again with any keywords, but again I always check Page 1 of the results, because there are some keywords that are just not worth it because too many big guns sit on Page 1, all though nothing is impossible , just takes more effort, experience and time.

Time is always key here, as for some of those main keywords it could take a while to rank, but, that is okay because the long tails I pick will get me decent traffic, sales, Adsense revenue and whatever else I am targeting in the meantime, and once I get to Page 1 for the main keywords, which usually have gizzillions of daily searches then it’s all golden and I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

45 Comments

March 2009 Google Page Rank Update Underway

Posted by JR in Google, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Looks like Google has done another toolbar Page Rank update, so check your sites.

This blog remains a PR3, I honestly have not done much with link building in the last three months as it all ready ranks on Page of 1.

A few of my other sites went from PR0 to PR2 and PR1 to PR2. A couple of others went from PRo to PR1, a nice surprise since they are very new and I was not expecting a Page Rank increase this time around. Just goes to show what backlinks can do!

Little PR Test

A little test I did between two site shows the power of article marketing. With one new site, Site A, I built links with the usual techniques of reciprocals, social sites, some one-ways, directories, do-follow blog comments and articles. Site B got the same links as Site A, except without articles. Both sites are about a month old. Site A went from PR0 to PR1 and Site B stayed a PR0.

Once again, this proves the value of article marketing to link building, and if you can swing it, I strongly recommend using Article Marketer submission service, they are still the best deal around with the most article sites submitted to and overall the lowest price as compared to other article services and what they provide. Makes article submission much easier and the results speak for themselves.

Remember that internal pages of your sites and blogs get PR updates as well, so check those too.

3 Ways to Check Inner Page PR

1. You can check each one manually, this is a pain!

2. Google your site with these search terms: site: http://yourdomain.com with the SEOQuake toolbar activated to see all your pages displayed and SEO Quake showing the PR under each listing.

3. CleverStat has a free tool, ParaMeter, that checks your inner page PR.

If you are new to link building, there are plenty of backlink building resources and guides on this blog, browse the Categories: Link Building, Search Engine Optimization and Lists.

Again, while the PR update is exciting and we all wait to see how we did, it is NOT the end all. In reality it’s all about SERP positions and many times lower PR sites will outrank higher PR sites, it’s really about the numbers and quality of backlinks.

How did you guys do with this update?

25 Comments

No Follow vs. Do Follow Links – And Why You Need Both

Posted by JR in Internet Marketing, Link Building, Search Engine Optimization

One of my readers, Caleb, asked about the benefits and differences of nofollow and dofollow links for Internet marketing.

Overal, dofollow is obviously the best type of backlink because it passes link juice from one site to another and counts the anchor text for keyword relevance, but, do not discount the nofollow completely!

The original meaning of the nofollow attribute as created by Google means:

Not follow through to that page to crawl its content
Not count the link in calculating Page Rank.
Not count the anchor text in determining what keywords the page being linked to is relevant for.

Now, this basically means that the nofollow tag in backlinks will not pass any link juice to your website or blog, will not help to index your site, nor will the content of the page you are linking to be crawled, as a result of being found on that page where the nofollow link is, nor will any relevancy be given to your website for the keywords used in the anchor.

Do all the search engines treat nofollow the same way?

Google emphatically states, as the creator of the nofollow tag that, the nofollow attribute complies will all the characteristics stated above. No crawl of content, no link juice passed, no keyword relevancy and no index as a result of that backlink. Google simply does not follow the link at all!

Yahoo says, that “If we find a link we make it available to our algorithms to find new content, whether it has a ‘no follow’ attribute or not. However, if the ‘no follow’ attribute is present, it means that no attribution is given to the target from the source of the link.”

This means Yahoo will crawl and will index the content, but will not pass link juice.

MSN Live stated they are on board with all the parameters of the nofollow attribute as stated above.

Ask.com, completely ignores the nofollow

Is what they say truth or fiction? Well, if you do some research around the blogosphere, (with the exception of Ask) you will find conflicting results, as some have tested and found results that contradict these statements by Yahoo and Google. In fact, many believe that Google sometimes does follow the nofollow links, and that Yahoo ignores the nofollow all together. Is this true, possibly, but it in reality it doesn’t matter! Do I care? No! Will I spend my valuable time doing this research? No! Because I’d rather spend it building links.

In essence you want to have both types of links because:

1. Only getting do-follow links will look un-natural and could cause alarms to go off. When building links you want to look as natural as possible and get a variety of links from all types of sources.

2. Getting a high Page Rank nofollow link is better than no link at all.

3. All types of links can bring traffic, not the best buying kind, but good for subscibers, as from compelling comments on related blogs. Just as Caroline Middlebrook, she built a lot of her 4,000 + subscribers with a sound blog comment strategy.

4. If you focus all your time on researching where to get do-follow, you lose the valuable time to just build links, all kinds, all types.

5. Yahoo, though they say will not pass link juice or keyword relevance, still crawls and indexes websites from a nofollow link. And, ASK ignores it completely.

6. The SE’s can possibly lie, what a shocker

7. Many nofollow links are delivered with Google Alerts all the time, this is not earth shattering, but it tells me that Google is aware of those links. With some authority sites, like the socials, I can add a link and literally 1 hour later I get a Google Alert.

I have lots of nofollow links, some natural and some manual. But I never spend more than 5 minutes getting those manually. For example, a site offers me to build a mini site with my content and I can link back to my sites and the links are nofollow, I will pass because the time investment to build a mini site full of content is way more energy than I wish to spend for nofollow links. But, with Squidoo and Hub pages for example, the links are do-follow so the time is definitely worth it.

For article marketing, nofollow links have benefits as well, as some article sites are nofollow, but they are high PR, and other webmasters go there to get content to republish on their sites and this leads to getting more dofollow links from that article going viral.

So the lesson here people is just get links