July 2, 2008

SEW Experts: Avoid Getting Coding Problems Flagged by Search Engines

Some common SEO and Web development practices can be used quite legitimately, yet still could look like spam to search engines. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "Coding Problems: How to Avoid Getting Flagged by Search Engines," Eric Enge explains that the key is to use these techniques for legitimate reasons, use them in moderation, and in ways commonly found on the Web.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 3, 2008

SEW Experts: When Top Keywords Suddenly Vanish

If one of your top keyword phrases suddenly drops out of the SERPs, do you know what you'll do to fix it? In today's Enterprise Search Marketing column, "When Top Keywords Suddenly Vanish," Aaron Shear shows you that, while the cause may be nothing that you control, there are several things you should be looking at to make sure a change that was made somewhere in your organization didn't cause the problem.

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Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 27, 2008

SEW Experts: It Pays to Link Consistently

You have control over the internal links on your site, so be sure you're taking advantage of that when creating them. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "It Pays to Link Consistently," Mark Jackson takes a look at ways to improve your Web site's consistency in internal linking and the use of your domain name, which can make a big difference in your site's organic search engine rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

SEW Experts: Don't Hire a Butcher to do a Baker's Job - Part 2

If SEOs are bakers, then Web site designers are the butchers of the search engine world. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Don't Hire a Butcher to do a Baker's Job - Part 2," Mark Jackson offers 13 questions customers need to ask their butchers.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 18, 2008

SEW Experts: To Rewrite or Not to Rewrite...That is the Question

While URL rewriting can have SEO benefits, it can also cause more SEO problems if it's done hastily, or incorrectly. In today's Organic Search Engine Optimization column, "Dynamic URLs: To Rewrite or Not to Rewrite...That is the Question," Mark Jackson outlines the pros and cons to consider before making a change.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 12, 2008

SEW Experts: High Performance SEO Requires Fast Load Times

Many large companies assume that site speed isn't very important to the overall user experience, but they'd be wrong. In today's Big Biz column, "High Performance SEO Requires Fast Load Times," Aaron Shear explains that slow load times, compounded by other network issues, can both create a horrible user experience and impact organic search rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 22, 2008

SEW Experts: SEO Millionaire: Who Wants to Be One?

What separates the winners from the search engine losers? That's the one question you need to ask SEOs who give you the standard advice you hear again and again. In today's au Natural column, "SEO Millionaire: Who Wants to Be One?," Mark Jackson brings you an SEO quiz show. By the end, you'll understand two overlooked factors in SEO: size and depth of site.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

SEW Experts: HTML Title Tag Defines Your SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization for small business starts with a title tag. In today's Little Biz column, "HTML Title Tag Defines Your SEO Strategy," Carrie Hill explains that crafting the perfect title tag is a lot of art, and a little bit of science. She looks at three types of page titles to see what works and what doesn't.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2007

SEW Experts: How Site Architecture Influences Link Building

Site architecture determines how successful link building campaigns will be. In today's Link Love column, "How Site Architecture Influences Link Building," Justilien Gaspard takes a look at the site architecture for the Web site for the "Reservation Road" film as a case study, and makes suggestions for improvement.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2007

SEW Experts: SEO and User Experience Fusion

So, you want to build a Web site. Do you start with Web 2.0 goodies, or a "visually appealing" Web site that "meets the needs of the business?" In today's Outsourced column, "SEO and User Experience Fusion," William Flaiz answers "none of the above." He suggests the first place you should go when planning a new Web site is straight to your user experience team.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 12, 2007

SEW Experts: Surfers, Crawlers Find Bloated Pages Hard to Digest

In today's By the Numbers column, "Surfers, Crawlers Find Bloated Pages Hard to Digest," Eric Enge discusses page bloat. How fast a page loads still clinches whether a visitor stays or clicks away. Can page bloat also deter search engine crawlers and raise ranking issues?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 11, 2007

SEW Experts: Should You Worry About Site Speed?

In today's Big Biz column, "Should You Worry About Site Speed?," Aaron Shear explains that concerns about page load times are not a thing of the past. Optimizing your site and addressing site speed can make a big difference in your search rankings.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 8, 2007

SEW Experts: SEO Site Design Improves User Experience and Site Performance

In today's By the Numbers column, "SEO Site Design Improves User Experience and Site Performance," Eric Enge shows you the value of improving the user experience by implementing SEO in your site design while testing design elements with analytics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 7, 2007

SEW Experts: The Site Map: Gateway to Optimization

In today's au Natural column, "The Site Map: Gateway to Optimization," Mark Jackson reviews a vital piece of on-site optimization, for both users and spiders.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 10, 2007

SEW Experts: Hosting Issues as They Relate to SEO

In today's au Natural column, "Hosting Issues as They Relate to SEO," Mark Jackson defines the use of basic server response codes the common pitfalls as related to search engine optimization.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:02 AM | Permalink

July 3, 2007

SEW Experts: 7 Questions for Conducting an SEO Site Review

In today's au Natural column, "7 Questions for Conducting an SEO Site Review," Mark Jackson offers tips for performing a professional site review and invites you to submit your own site for a complimentary review on SEW.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:36 AM | Permalink

June 26, 2007

SEW Experts: Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 1

In today's Little Biz column, "Using WordPress to Manage Your Web Site Content – Part 1," Carrie Hill tells you how easy it can be to use WordPress to build or maintain your Web site or blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

June 12, 2007

SEW Experts: Web Site Architecture Structured for Success

In today's au Natural column, "Web Site Architecture Structured for Success," Mark Jackson reviews the benefits of creating a search engine friendly information architecture prior to Web site construction.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 29, 2007

Plan Your SEO for the Long Haul

In her latest ClickZ column, "Short- vs. Long-Term SEO," Shari Thurow proposes that most SEO firms can be divided into two camps -- depending on whether they espouse short-term or long-term strategies. Short-term "algorithm chasers" are fighting a losing battle, she says, trying to get the best results at the moment and scrapping everything when an algorithm changes.

Instead of having a reactive strategy, SEO practitioners should instead take a proactive approach, by building a keyword-focused, search-friendly, user-friendly Web site. That strategy can also help increase conversions, attract links.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:02 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2006

More European Automaker Sites Do Doorways & Should Search Engines Be Able To Enforce Spam Rules?

Dave Naylor's been doing a tour of European automotive sites and finding others that are doing the doorway page dance that got BMW banned from Google. Meanwhile, there's some concern in the blogosphere about whether people should be worried about Google's spam rules in general. A look at both issues, below.

Dave's found this page over at Porsche Denmark that redirects to the Porsche Denmark home page. Disable JavaScript (use this handy tool for Firefox), and you can see the underlying textual content that's being cloaked.

It's hard to know what exactly is going on, as I don't read Danish. Since you can't get to this page from the Porsche Denmark home page -- and since it redirects to that home page -- it seems designed mainly to capture searchers looking for a particular topic and route them into Porsche. In other words, a classic doorway page operation.

Here's a better example. Look for klassiske porscher on Google, then you get this page, which redirects to the home page. Disable JavaScript, and the redirection stops, showing you the hidden content. A user never sees that. Porsche has no intention for them to see it. They only want Google to see it, to rank the page well and deliver them a user to a completely different page on the site.

In the comments on Dave's post, David Thulin points to this page at Chevrolet Sweden. Use that tool I mentioned above and disable styles. Now the pretty picture of a Chevy goes away, replaced by hidden text. My Swedish is as good as my Danish -- ie, I can't read this. But it doesn't seem spammy in terms of repetition. Still, scroll to the bottom, and you'll see links to additional doorway pages. Someone clearly realizes search engines don't like the graphical pages they are feeding out, so they've created a series of doorway pages. That degree of savvyness also means they should be aware that search engines generally don't like doorways.

Of course, the entire BMW situation has sparked some interesting pushback in new quarters, people who feel like Google in particular shouldn't be pushing "orthodoxy" or their own results on site designers. Google Orwellian at Publishing 2.0 is one example (I left some comments there), Death Penalty, Investigations? Sounds like the FBI... is another and Google Delists BMW-Germany at Slashdot has some similar comments. Jeremy Zawodny has some pushback of his own on the pushback over here: Google vs. BMW, a sanity check.

I think some of the outcry is mistaken. Google is simply doing what all search engines do, enforcing its own rules on what spam is. That's not anything new or Google specific. Sure, it does warrant examination. Then again, it has also been heavily debated in the past. Not everyone agrees with spam rules, but even those who don't understand that if they do something against the rules, they risk getting tossed out. But perhaps the times are a changing...

For those looking to educate themselves on spam issues, here's a reading list:

  • A Bridge Page Too Far? - From 1998, covers one of the earliest outings of a big company using doorway pages, State Farm.  
  • What Are Doorway Pages? - Originally written as a companion to the article above, I last updated this in 2001, and it's still fairly useful. It gives you an idea of how old school some of the spam tactics the automotive makers are doing.  
  • FTC Steps In To Stop Spamming - From 1999, covers how the US government stepped in to stop one of the worst cases of search spam, when content is used to mislead people (in this case, searches for things like "kids internet games" lead to porn).  
  • Pagejacking Complaint Involves High-Profile Sites - From 2000, similar to the above, covers the issue of content being stolen from a site, cloaked and used to gain rankings. It was more useful in the days before link analysis, when on-the-page factors counted for more.  
  • Ending The Debate Over Cloaking - From 2003, a very long look at what cloaking is, why not everyone agrees it is necessarily evil despite search engine rules and how the focus probably should be on the content rather than the technical delivery structure.  
  • Spam Rules Require Effective Spam Police - From 2004, revisits how search engines have various spam rules but also how they don't disclose if someone's been yanked from an index, something that would probably help site owners.  
  • The Great Doorway Debate - From 2004, a long debate in particular on whether doorway pages (like those the automakers are using) should be considered spam.  
  • Whitehat vs. Blackhat, It Is All BS - From 2004, a long debate on our Search Engine Watch Forums about what spam is, whether there are bad tactics and so on.

  • Working With Google Scholar -- And More Approved Cloaking - From 2004, covers how cloaking isn't so bad if Google decides it helps users.  
  • What, Exactly, is Search Engine Spam? - From 2005, short, to-the-point rundown on some of the things search engines frown upon.  
  • Comment Spam? How About An Ignore Tag? How About An Indexing Summit! - From 2005, covers in part how designers are questioning anew why they should worry about what search engines think.  
  • Talking About Search Engine Spam - From 2005, summarizes a discussion on "white hat versus black hat" tactics and how in my view, intent rather than actual tactics may define what's spam. The summary leads to a long review of the session for Search Engine Watch members.  
  • Google Admits To Cloaking; Bans Itself - From 2005, shows that if Google's following orthodoxy, at least it's happy to ban itself for violating that.  
  • Is Cloaking Deceptive Advertising? Not Necessarily - From 2005, looks at why cloaked content doesn't necessarily spoiled the "level" playing field some believe happens in search engines.  
  • WordPress Caught Spamming After Enlisting To Fight Spam - From 2005, looks at doorway spam that was on the WordPress site and how large, important sites caught up in spamming tend not to be penalized for very long.  
  • White Hat - Gray Hat - Black Hat - From 2005, summarizes even more articles and forum discussions on what spam is, should search engines enforce rules more strongly, is going against guidelines unethical -- you name it!  
  • Worthless Shady Criminals: A Defense Of SEO - Covers why designers would be foolish to ignore the "third browser" of search engines. You might not like the rules; you might think search engines should somehow magically understand what your all image web page is about. But you could also complain that radio needs to change because it refuses to play the pictures in your television ad. Rather than trying to work around the rules, first consider if you can build a web site that pleases human and search engines at the same time. Plenty of people do -- and often end up with more usable web sites, as a result.  
  • Google Testing Notification Of Banning To Webmasters - Covers Google experimenting with warning site owners if they are doing something against the rules.

Need yet more? The SEO: Cloaking and SEO: Spamming categories of the Search Topics area available to Search Engine Watch members takes you back for years with articles on these topics. Plus, becoming a member helps support the site and the creation of content like you're reading right now.

Want to comment or discuss? Please visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Google Removes BMW Germany For Spamming.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:32 AM | Permalink

January 17, 2006

Designers Should Love SEO, Plus Making Flash Friendly To Search Engines

Can't We All Just Get Along? - The Battle Between SEOs and Web Designers has David Wallace at Search Engine Guide inspired by the Do Designers Hate SEO? discussion at our Search Engine Watch Forums. In that thread, many feel designers should embrace lots of what SEO has to offer, especially since it is NOT all about blog spamming nor necessarily dumbing down design. David touches on this and dives deeper into issues with Flash and how Flash designers, with some thought, can have Flash and search engine friendliness combined. Our Revisting How Search Engines Deal With Flash thread at the SEW Forums goes into even more depth here, with lots of great advice for those of you grappling with the Flash "problem" for search engines.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:27 AM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

Don't Blindside Disabled Users with Snarky SEO

If you're using even seemingly harmless search engine optimization techniques, your pages may be perceived as spam or even worse by users relying on assistive technologies to view the web, writes Matt Bailey in today's SearchDay article, Don't Disable Your Site for Handicapped Users. Search engines may not penalize you, but you'll almost certainly lose disabled users if you haven't tested your site using assistive technologies. In fact, you may be doing the online equivalent of parking in a handicapped space—and may not even realize you're being a jerk for doing so.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:08 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2005

Writing for Search Engines... and Users

Time and again we see people obsessing over web page copy, attempting to achieve some sort of magical "keyword density" or other elusive goal that will somehow cause a search engine to assign a top ranking to a page. Too often, this focus on writing for a search engine obscures the true purpose of a web page: to appeal to the human being who ultimately reads the page.

Today's SearchDay article, Search Engines and King Content, features coverage of a recent Search Engine Strategies session where the emphasis was on content that appeals to both search engines and users. By following the suggestions offered by the panelists, you'll have a much better chance at overall success than by fussing endlessly with arcane search optimization methods that may end up leaving your web site visitors cold.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 7:40 AM | Permalink

May 9, 2005

So You've Attracted Searchers - Now What?

All too often it seems that search marketers have a sole objective of getting top-ten rankings in search results. While that's a noble goal, it's wasted effort if searchers click through to your web site and then don't do something—buy a product, sign up for your newsfeed, register for your conference—whatever your unique conversion opportunity happens to be.

A new book from ClickZ columnists Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg extends the concept of search marketing to a much more thorough, holistic approach to online merchandising that focuses on converting searchers to buyers. It's a terrific book, packed with great ideas and eminently practical tips for improving your overall search marketing and web site development efforts. For more, see my review in today's SearchDay article, Converting Searchers to Buyers.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:30 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2005

Mom, I'm an SEO, Not a Scumbag... Really

Anyone who's spent time in the world of search marketing knows there's a wide spectrum of experience, knowledge and, frankly, ability to effectively influence search results, whether paid or organic. Unfortunately, several high-profile incidents involving unscrupulous search engine optimization "firms" have cast an unsavory light on the industry. To make matters worse, a number of marketing, design and usability experts have weighed in with wrong-headed (or simply wrong) commentary disparaging search engine marketing with an overly wide brush.

That needs to stop, writes Danny Sullivan in today's SearchDay article, Worthless Shady Criminals: A Defense Of SEO. Danny offers a great recounting of how the search marketing industry ended up cast in such a negative light, and makes a number of useful suggestions for anyone involved in online marketing to both understand and use search marketing techniques that have been proven effective, ethical and ultimately, the right thing to do for the end user.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:57 AM | Permalink

March 23, 2005

Writing Search Friendly Web Content

Last week I wrote about eye tracking studies that emphasized the importance of creating content that users respond to favorably after finding pages using search engines. One way to get people reading and interested is to write for your audience—your users— rather than simply trying to tweak your words to rank well. As obvious as this sounds, effective copywriting gets surprisingly little attention in the search optimization community, despite being one of the key elements of overall web site success.

Today's SearchDay article, Writing for Search Engines, reviews a comprehensive eBook that's focused solely on the art and craft of creating copy that's both search friendly and grabs attention, compelling web users to action. It's an excellent book, and deserves a place on every serious search pratitioner's bookshelf.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 22, 2005

If Your Site Could Talk, You'd Be Ashamed

User Experience and Search Engines: If Your Home Page Could Only Talk from Kim Krause Berg at Search Engine Guide is a very witty write-up of what a poorly designed web site would say, if you do the wrong things from a usability and search friendliness standpoint.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 15, 2005

Ouch! When Related Sites Trigger Spam Penalties

Creating a link farm, or a collection of web sites for the sole purpose of pointing to one another to boost search engine rankings, is a well-know (and widely discredited) search engine spammer trick. But some businesses have legitimate reasons for maintaining multiple sites and multiple domains. A brand-owner may want to have separate sites for individual products, for example. A merchant offering widely divergent products may want to operate different specialized storefronts. These are just a few examples of sites that can get inadvertently hit with spam penalties—not for doing something wrong, but for straying into a gray area where search engines might look askance at their tactics.

In today's SearchDay article, Avoiding Search Engine Woes with Multiple Domains and Websites, guest writer Grant Crowell covers a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that explored these issues and offered solutions to potential problems. A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members goes into more detail about situations that can inadvertently trigger spam penalties, such as inappropriate cross linking between sites, using global templates, and geo-locating blunders, along with solutions to these and other problems. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 10, 2005

Can't We All Just Get Along?

One of the most certain recipes for assuring a volatile meeting is to put web designers, usability experts and search marketing people together in the same room. Each of these camps typically has such different world-views and objectives that the others can seem like aliens or complete idiots. Reconciling the needs of each group often requires a Herculean effort in diplomacy.

It doesn't have to be that way. In today's SearchDay article, Web Standards vs. Search Friendly Sites: Can You Have Both?, guest writer Bill Hunt recounts a recent Search Engine Strategies conference panel that discussed potential compromises and approaches that align the various stakeholders much more closely without the conflict that usually arises among these very different groups.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 27, 2005

Redesign & Retain Rankings

Time to redesign your web site? Matt Bailey at Search Engine Guide offers some tips on doing that and maintain your search traffic in Planning Ahead for an Effective Redesign.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

January 11, 2005

Making Sites Search Engine Friendly

From Search Engine Guide, David Wallace looks at the key components for a site built to please search engines naturally in Ingredients of a Search Engine Friendly Site. Nothing new for those familiar with SEO, but a nice, short summary for the new.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

November 23, 2004

Site Building Blocks For SEO Success

Shari Thurow takes a look a key site architecture issues to consider if you're looking for better performance with search engines. From ClickZ: SEO and Successful Site Architecture.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

October 21, 2004

Search Friendly Site Redesign

If you've worked hard to get good search engine rankings, it's understandable if you're concerned about changing your site, even if it desperately needs a makeover.

You needn't worry if you take the appropriate steps before and during a site relaunch. In today's SearchDay article, Retaining Traffic after a Web Site Redesign, Grant Crowell covers a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on the strategies and tactics for maintaining good standings in search engines after overhauling a top ranking web site.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 28, 2004

Top SEO Design Problems To Avoid

Shari Thurow lists her Top Five SEO Design Mistakes over at ClickZ: failure to design first, SEO second; using splash pages, lack of focused content, balancing text and graphics and lack of customer focus.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 24, 2004

SE Friendly Design Can Be Good Design

Search engine friendly design doesn't mean bad design. Shari Thurow steps back to talk a bit about ensuring that good design remains part of your SEO effort. From ClickZ: The 'Design' Part of Search-Friendly Design.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack