Im glad to see the clustering is being looked into, there is nothing worse than searching for something and seeing 15 links in a row from the same domain ( like tripadvisor or other large content heavy sites).
What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
21–30 of 96 posts
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand it's all algorithmic and there will be some truly innocent collateral damage involved but Google wouldn't be pushing this out if they didn't feel the overall quality of search would increase. Most of the collateral damage is going to be people straddling the grey hat line and rightly so in my own opinion.
I don't disagree, but look at it from the perspective of the small business owner that gets 80% of their revenue from Google traffic. Even if they were one of the few unlucky ones, their livelihood is lost.
Look at it from the perspective of the small business owner who currently has next to no revenue from Google traffic, because their genuinely useful or relevant site is drowned out by spam.
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#23Im glad to see the clustering is being looked into, there is nothing worse than searching for something and seeing 15 links in a row from the same domain ( like tripadvisor or other large content heavy sites).
Google knows about this and supposedly fixed that. But clustering reduces choices, increasing ad clicks and forcing companies to advertise (because they are not receiving that traffic.)
(Downvote if you will but I doubt Google's intentions these days and their earnings are through the roof, even as PPC goes down.)
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#24Black hatters these days don't really even care about long-term rankings, they're more about exploiting the inadequacies in the algorithm in the first month or so of a site's live. Build it, rank it, bank cash, and burn it out. That's the modus operandi right now...I don't see this update changing much of that. It's going to be great for those of us building out quality sites though!
Exactly. If you really want to know what black-hatters do and how they get around Google's filters, here it is: 1. Buy a ton of domains 2. Put up picture-based landing pages on those domains. The user only really sees pictures. 3. Put up or spin content with relevant keywords, put it underneath the images. Google only sees a couple pictures (it doesn't know what they are) and a bunch of really relevant content. 4. Bu…
While I appreciate you sharing this, I'm shocked that you would do it from your real account. Don't you feel any shame for your actions?
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Penguin opened the world to scalable negative SEO. This is now a common tactic in competitive markets. If you rank well it is worth worrying about.
I can't deny negative SEO is a worry and yes whilst Google opened up the doors for it they also recognised it and have started providing ways to hopefully protect yourself. (Disavowing links etc) If your in a competitive market where you have to worry about negative SEO so much so that it is making an impact on your SERPs then I'm sure the web spam team would be more than interested in hearing from you
You are naive, even if disavow works, Google runs this update every six months are so. Do you realize what a traffic drop does to a business with payroll to meet?
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. If you really want to know what black-hatters do and how they get around Google's filters, here it is: 1. Buy a ton of domains 2. Put up picture-based landing pages on those domains. The user only really sees pictures. 3. Put up or spin content with relevant keywords, put it underneath the images. Google only sees a couple pictures (it doesn't know what they are) and a bunch of really relevant content. 4. Bu…
While I appreciate you sharing this, I'm shocked that you would do it from your real account. Don't you feel any shame for your actions?
Eh, a little bit. I'm not in the black-hat world anymore, and I'm pretty sick of people pretending like they're magicians or rocket scientists because they can rank something. Google has a system, you beat the system, that's it.
In my mind it's really difficult to differentiate between what most people call "white-hat" SEO and what I used to do ("black-hat"). White hat SEO (which is basically posting links in forums, blog comments, etc.) is trying to manipulate Google's search engine manually, black-hat is automating it and doing it at scale.
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#27I think the biggest problem that Google can't fix is that they treat links as a voting mechanism, and that voting mechanism has value. So, there is a big economic incentive to "buy votes" by buying links.
As long as there is a financial incentive to ranking well in google and that the mechanism to rank better is to get links, people with money will buy links in the same way they buy influence in the media, politics, etc.
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right? Not enough keywords and you just don't rank, too many bold keywords and you're hit. Nowadays you get a penalty far before you do anything black hat (Though Penguin should not be about onpage).
Keyword stuff is abusive, bolding all your keywords should rightly get you penalised. It's not far off the old days of stuffing the defunct meta keywords tag. First point on googles webmaster guidelines says it all. Your chasing google, build a site for your users first, google will follow because it's in there interest to provide the most relevant content. Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A g…
What is abusive? With 1 keyword on the page you will not rank. You at least need it in the body, text, url and h1. Is this abusive?
Google tells you to design for the user. This assumes that Google is just as clever as people - what they love to tell you - but which it isn't. That's the main reason people put text blurbs everywhere, create landing pages, put synonyms and different keywords on their pages, because Google is not clever enough.
And your competition just ranks. If you design your pages for users you don't rank from my experience - e.g. people do not care about URLs, do not care about H1 tags on ecommerce pages, don't care about bold, don't care about explanations on ecommerce sites what a t-shirt is or what trousers are . But Google does.
Most of the current high ranking pages, SCREAM "I've been designed for Google!" right into your face.
see exhibit A: http://www.zalando.de/damenschuhe-pumps/
The text on the page to the bottom and to the left clearly isn't for users.
If you have examples of your SEO work where you rank for keywords and have designed your pages for users and not designed the pages for Google I'd be very interested to learn from you - as would /r/seo.
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree, but look at it from the perspective of the small business owner that gets 80% of their revenue from Google traffic. Even if they were one of the few unlucky ones, their livelihood is lost.
Look at it from the perspective of the small business owner who currently has next to no revenue from Google traffic, because their genuinely useful or relevant site is drowned out by spam.
That makes sense, if virtually every update didn't promote the likes of Amazon, eBay, and Google properties. Small businesses are toast and getting toaster by the update
Re: What to expect in SEO in the coming months [video]
#30Im glad to see the clustering is being looked into, there is nothing worse than searching for something and seeing 15 links in a row from the same domain ( like tripadvisor or other large content heavy sites).
Google knows about this and supposedly fixed that. But clustering reduces choices, increasing ad clicks and forcing companies to advertise (because they are not receiving that traffic.) (Downvote if you will but I doubt Google's intentions these days and their earnings are through the roof, even as PPC goes down.)
Google's value will always be search > PPC. Clustering reduces the diversity of the internet in general and this is a much larger negative for Google imo.