Naturally, as Mike and I were hanging out in the speakers room this morning, we felt that it would only be fair for folks who can't attend to ask their own questions about the search and search marketing world. SEOmoz's own Rebecca Kelley will be doing coverage of the session (as will Tiffany Doughty from WebProNews), so even if you're not here at Pubcon, you can get all the answers.
So please feel free to leave comments with any questions you've got. Topics are completely open, but potential arenas might include:
- Changing Directions & Business Models in the Industry
- The Impact of the SEO Blogosphere
- Changes or Updates to Search Engine Guidelines
- Hot Techniques or Tactics
- Blog Monetization Strategies
- Industry Insider Issues
- Marketing/Search Tactics for Blogs vs. Non-Blog Sites
p.s. Quick side note - read this - it's awesome.
rand, i've asked you this directly before but i would like to know what everyone, professional SEOs and the search engines alike think about reciprocal linking these days.
what, if any, are the benefits? what are the drawbacks?
can a reciprocal link campaign work today? or is it just a waste of time and resources? or is it actually dangerous?
is it a good method for increasing page rank? what about anchor text? do the search engines discount reciprocal links?
are they considered "manipulative" according the Google Webmaster Guidelines? or white hat? black hat? unethical? do they penalize sites for them?...you get the idea.
[edited for too many questions. ;)]
Perfect timing on this post as I have a dilemma that I know face!
The company I work for is growing vertically. We are expanding form our original concept (lets say blue widgets) into other markets (some similar like red widgets and some not so similar like cardboard folders).
But the issue now is that our original blue widgets can no longer be the main destination! As the home page will now need to be a portal where visitors can select which direction they wish to go be it red widgets, blue widgets or cardboard folders.
We currently rank #1 for the top 2 search terms and #2 on the 3rd highest search term (in the blue widget category), how can I move the home page to a sub category/folder without loosing rankings? Is it possible?
I have 2 theories at the moment:
1. 301 redirect our current home page to the new sub director/folder www.derek.com/bluewidgets for a period of 2/3 months and then after 3 month remove the 301 redirect and replace the home page with the portal page.
2. Set up new domains with each category listed in the domain e.g www.derekbluewidgets.com and www.derekredwidget.com and www.derekcardboardfolders.com 301 redirect www.derek.com to www.derekbluewidget.com for a couple of months until www.derekbluewidget.com replaces www.derek.com on keywords “blue widgets” then remove the 301 and set www.derek.com as a portal to all the other URL’s (like what www.virgin.com is doing it is a portal for viginmoney.com and virginflights.com etc..)
Any advice on this would be GREATLY appreciated as I fear this is going to impact our search rankings A LOT!
Derek, 301's even when dome right are a bit dangerous, unless you have tons of love Juice being pumped in on all domains...
My advise is to create widget subfolders on the main domain while having the original blue widget on home page!
Link to the sub folder widgets from home page!
Once the sub folder widgets have been indexed permenantly which may take a few months for the glue to bound, create a blue widget subfolder and redirect the blue widgets there...
Following this technique you will alway have Love Juice flowing from the Root to the branches, to the leafs...during the Operation!
i think i understand! So I set up www.derek.com/widgets which is linked to from the home page then when that starts to rank set up www.derek.com/bluewidgets and redirect the home page to www.derek.com/bluewidgets?
The problem we have now is that if people go to www.derek.com they will still get bluewidgets as the home page, the management won't go for it :/ they want www.derek.com to be the portal which you are suggesting to be www.derek.com/widget
Is there any other way?
2 Questions from the intern:
First, What quality or qualities does Facebook possess that enable it to make full scale blunders without real repercussions. The blogosphere and the mainstream media certainly do react but its actual userbase only join protest groups and continue using the service as usual while continuing to grow in number exponentially.
Second, It is already difficult to find a good domain name and it is only going to get more difficult in the future. What steps do you think are necessary for Network Solutions to take to resolve this potential problem?
Thanks
I'd love to hear general opinions and thoughts as to corporate blogging. If the company is open to letting a group of employee's blog openly about a number of topics that are not directly related to the company or its products (besides events or insightful articles) do you see room for success?
Do you see this as a good way to allow readers to understand more about individuals and life behind the corporate scene – that we all aren’t mindless drones? Or could this be bad, giving readers the impression the company isn't serious, and that consumers shouldn't do business with such an organization?
In my opinion success is fun, and items behind the scenes should be brought into the open, but I'd love to hear some insight from others.
Uh,
I just now read this post and thus just now read the part where Rand said I'd cover the session (which was 2 1/2 hours ago). I missed the panel, so there's no coverage on my end. Sorry everyone! I'm sure that Tiffany has some great coverage of the session.
Rand, next time email or call me and ask me to cover the session! You know how infrequent email checking/blog reading is at conferences! Grrr...
I, for one, am thoroughly disappointed. I'm going to cancel my premium membership first thing tomorrow.
Kidding! No worries - I hope you enjoyed yourself in Vegas!
Aw crap, your cancellation is coming right out of my paycheck. :P
That's funny - it's going right back into mine!
Today Paul Bruemmer briefly discussed semantics in his presentation. He said something to the effect of... "Whenever you are theming your site and passing links from one silo to another silo that you should link up the chain. So if you have a sports website with football and baseball categories and within those categories you have pages for ‘San Diego Chargers’ and ‘San Diego Padres’ you shouldn’t pass links between those pages. Instead link the Chargers page to the baseball page.”
To me this system makes sense if you are worried about funneling your Google juice to your most important pages and allowing that to trickle down to the target pages. Still, I think it makes more semantic sense, and usability sense to link from the Chargers page to the Padres page rather than from the Chargers page to the baseball page.
After the session I asked Paul about this and he basically said semantics is important but only on huge sites. It is much more important for small sites to have external links to build the juice and to push most of that to your more important pages. He also said this was a general rule of thumb and if you think it makes more semantic sense to break this rule then go for it.
What is your take on this?
External iteration has more voting power than internal.
Search Reporters,
Do you see the bar of entry for SEO firms and individuals as much higher than it was a year ago? Do you think that creating a content-rich site is no longer enough to gain visibility for a new SEO firm? Where do you think new guys on the block can start to gain visibility in a market filled with people who specialize in, well, gaining visibility?
Thanks,
Mike Tekula
Id like to know if after getting hit by a green bar display penalty one has to ask for reinclusion or something?
A subject that has been doing the rounds but still leaves some of us baffled.
My own business wesite, guilty of not adding no follow tags to 2 or 3 links only that we apparently sold on our site, is still not displaying any rank even tho it was a pr5 till reenty.
Altho we do concur with the notion that that it is only a display penalty as oppose to lower rankings etc we still find it disconcerting and inevitably will look less of a trusted resource for many visitors that may take notice of the actual page rank displayed.
I do see the ´perhaps naive´ logic from Google in doing this: to make the proposition less attractive to the link purchasers;but many of us feel a bit hard done by when all we were doing was monetising our sites a little, (as we do with adwords in exactly the same way).
We wernt the ones trying to manipulate anything and as importantly we didnt see our relevant outbound links as trying to manipulate anything either.
GTPR is a lag adjustment to reflect the Google Internel PR, it is not a penatly or a downgrade, so no bases for a reconsideration request.
Thanks Igor.. I wasnt really thinking that I should. Just wondered if we are supposed to wait and sit on our hands. No rules, no communication, no idea.
Well there are rules GQG and there is communication.
You just have to go to the right sources for the proper issue.
But I totally understand our frustration and I sympathize with you.
Google needs to be a bit more open and available for customer support. I think this issue is currently being addressed by Google.
I recommend if you have an issue with a Google service, to start here https://www.google.com/support use the search boox to locate information about your particular needs.
If you do not find exactly what you are looking for go to a place that may be something of relevency and ask for help. You will find people who are willing to direct you to the right area.
You can look back at mom and pop video stores and car dealerships, as two examples of industries that were highly fragmented and regionalized in their infancy. Eventually, they went through some dramatic consolidation. (i.e. Blockbuster and AutoNation respectively).
As the "Search Marketing" services industry matures, do you envision the possibility of a similar level or type of consolidation?
I would be interested in your thoughts on how the recent crack down by Google will work to clean up the image of SEO and whether it is a good thing for the industry as a whole.
Is there a best practice on measuring success/failure of link-building campaigns? Any way to gather metrics on link-building campaigns?
Since social netowrks are pretty hot, what are you feelings on user generated content being the future (or a least a big part) most of the new content develoepd online going forward??
Rand you as White Hat SEO advocator why do you have your domains pointing to Spammy content?
www.randfishkin.com
www.randfishkin.net
www.randfishkin.org
https://www.phsdl.net/forensics/randfishkin-japanese.jpg
https://www.phsdl.net/forensics/randfishkin-english.jpg
Thank you,
Igor Berger
PHSDL
Administrator
www.phsdl.net
Igor,
These domains are just parked I believe. I've seen this precise page before on parked domains.
I'd be surprised to learn Google actively penalizes parked domains. I could be wrong, but so many registrants use similar domain parking services. Google would have to penalize a lot of webmasters for this if they were going to go down that road.
However, I personally can't stand these auto-park pages that registrar's use. They're obviously just trying to make money off of their customers through shady link ads.
-Mike
I also think there's nothing wrong with that, Igor, parking domains and showing such content while deciding upon one.
Another vital point when parking domains is to check their "search engine friendliness." As I found out, the Nemeas software (www.nemeas.com) helped me a lot here to save both time and nerves. ;)