SEO – Page Rank Fading – Back to the Future – Content

Pie Graph of Search Market Share - link juice provided for SEOmoz.com

The Static Internet was a simpler place where one could enter, search and find information. Back-Links once regarded in this simpler era, as a vote of confidence in a new an emerging internet have been exploited and abused beyond reasonable validity. Links were the way to Page Rank and too easily acquired in the link free-for-all’s all over the web. The majority of the activity was inorganic and sought out by website operators to self-induce better rankings by trading links, etc. This type of self promotion was beginning to pollute the organic results sought for by the search engines. The original back-link idea was predicated upon end users that enjoyed a particular site would vote for it with a back-link. This old idea was all but destroyed by the linked crazed site owners seeking self promotion and the black hat exploiters. The search engines met this challenge with their own methods to filter out these self generated links and the spam that threatened the user experience of the free search engines. The method Google used for tabulating the old link method was called Page Rank.

Page Rank was a system that attributed value to sites based upon the back-linking and popularity as demonstrated by incoming links vs. outbound links. A mathematical equation was used to discern the Page Rank of a given site. This worked for some time but the inorganic use of back-linking was a continuing cancer of which big search spent a lot of resources to control. Page Rank seemed to be the honest vehicle in a dishonest world by which to deliver organic results to the masses.

Big search worked at filtering the junk out of the rankings. Good, unique and fresh content was rewarded not only by the human experience of organic back-linking, but with a higher PR afforded by the search engines. The sites that were deemed “authoritative” received a higher PR. These along with the blogs and forums were positioned by PR higher than sites with less content. The educational sites and non-profits, the respective “.org” and “.edu” sites received higher PR. This was reflected in the SERPS.

A couple of things began to happen with technology and more folks logging onto broadband connections, etc. A more sophisticated end user began to demand a straight doorway to a more personal experience. Blogs were still popular seemingly to spite PR. The natural inclination of free commerce is always for profit. Big search had its eye on pay-per-click advertising and began to feel threatened by building up PR on some websites. Big search did not want anyone selling back-links to the highest bidder. So as the drive for profit rules, some websites that had gained high PR because of great content, being they forums or blog sites with ever-changing content, started selling their links to lower ranking websites. This would have undermined that natural and organic model that propelled Google to the top and made big search the doorway to the internet. Big search wanted to control this selling of links so it moved to devalue the very things it held high, fresh and changing content. Rich content sites & Blogs were downgraded in PR sometime in early ’07 for fear of link selling. Many great sites were whacked in half. I had a few websites that went from PR4 to PR2 in one swoop.

Something else took place of the old PR method however. The results in the SERPS for Google remained for my regional results, but in the national SERPS that are mixed into the results; my authoritative sites fell against some of the larger sites with less content. This had to do with PR and another type of filter or manipulation by the search engines. The end result was a balance for a while until the black hats began to dominate the Adwords and Adsense programs with spam websites and garbage infiltrated the ranks of the SERPS. For quite some time Google’s own model was threatened by the hijacking of its own money making advertising programs. It took some time for Google to get off the profit taking and clean up its act.

Finally, Google policed its results by dumping paid advertisers in order to keep the world of search organic and honest. This had to be done as real people were getting tired of the experience of searching through the SERPS for what should have appeared on top. Black hat paid advertisers were destroying organic search. Thank you Google, even if it was a little late. (I wrote about this before the dumping of advertisers with great angst.) Google’s competitors started to sound off about the actions they were taking to improve their offerings.

In the current state of Googling, PR is outranked by content. What does this say about PR? PR is just an element of the criteria that is weighed for the real ranking, that of the SERPS. PR has its place as it does rule in many areas of search, but when it comes to content and a regional element, PR is not the deciding factor in getting listed in the SERPS.

Shall we consider PR as a fading element of yesterday’s methodology? I think so. I think we are seeing the reemergence of the human element in social media. PR was built upon skewed backlink math and it is not a real measure of a site’s popularity. Social media sites are inundated with garbage and the search engines are easily filtering out the good from the spam. It seems that big search is set-up to do this in an efficient way. So called “NOFOLLOW” links on sites like Twitter are noticed by Google and position well as referred links. The Google machine sees these links and they get into the results in the SERPS. The Google machine also sees content with its artificial intelligence that above all, will reward the true purveyors of interesting information. Real people are beginning to be harnesses to “tweet,” “dig” or “bookmark” their favorites on these social sites.

Google will continue to regard these sites as very important as they represent a threat to big search. As social media continues, it will refine itself into many doorways for many end users on the internet. Big search has positioning itself to not only harness this new media, but to build its own brand of social media. The networking that is currently in place has big search shaking, but there is hope. Search has realized that because it is so big, more leaches can suck its blood (and yours) and it can fall and be hurt terribly if it does not return to the simple organic results of yesterday.

“A hunger for interactivity will prevail…”

Social Media Growing like a weed - link juice provided for wpsmallbusiness.com

Social sites will also continue to refine, but not for the same reasons big search refines. A hunger for interactivity will prevail as real people can interact with each other. This service is unique to social media while search is a more private deal. Social media has its own limits set by its users as to what is visible and what is held back from the public. This is specifically why the social attempts like Google’s own “Buzz,” where the push for one to open their own personal contacts into the open air will not work. People want to keep some areas of their internet experience private and the mix of social with email contacts will be rejected by the masses. For instance: Just about everyone that has a job would want for their personal ramblings and excesses to be kept from public view.

The mix continues and it seems that big search will either rise to the occasion with a truly human experience that attracts people organically, or a new type of social search will enter to assume some of the traffic and to act as a multi-faceted and different kind of doorway to the internet.

-Bob W

SEO – Sticky Sites

Sticky Sites:

You want a “sticky site,” and you want visitors.  One way to ensure that your website stays attractive and is designated as a sticky site not only to the search engines that crawl the web, but the human beings that frequent your site, is to update content regularly.  The concept of keeping a website alive, sticky and changing is one key to keeping the search engines coming back for more.

If your website is so fortunate as to have an affinity for the search engines, you are way ahead of the game.  You want to provide fresh content for your website and your search engine ranking will increase as you do. These websites are known as “sticky sites.”   You want your site to become a sticky site, so take time every week to think of an article you can write to add to your website in a new page, with new structure. You also want to make changes to your index page (the page that opens to the world when your URL is entered).

The main way a search engine determines if your website is sticky and interesting is by gauging the time an end user stays on your site. This website information is gathered in several ways by the search engines. Google’s logging of personal information is notorious and the big search engine machine knows if someone likes a site. For instance, if an end user clicks on a SERP link to your website, stays for a brief moment and then hits the back button, your website’s pagerank and possibly SERP position will suffer.

You have to make your website sticky with interesting content, pictures, logos and information to realize a true benefit from your internet presence. The attraction level or sticky-ness of the site is very important and a soft effort to convert your visitor should be made before the fold.

Every page of your website should be treated as a new sticky website as far as coding to a specific topic. If you follow this recipe, your website will become sticky and you will reap the rewards.   Making your site sticky may be more important than ever because backlinks are diminishing in value.

Spammers are to organic search results what rust is to iron.

Spam Has Reached the Tipping Point

“When was the last time you searched for something only to be sent to a worthless site…….”

Google is the most successful search engine in the business.  It came to its position high above the rest because it delivered what is known as organic results better than anyone else.

It is like going on a nature walk and digging up a real and tangible morsel of nature to bring home.  You visited an organic playground.  All this while your neighbor went trolling for tuna down skid row and brought home some junk from the old city dump to pollute his driveway.  You plant your organic flowers while your neighbor clangs around with his unsightly mess.  Organic vs. in-organic.  Your organic flower is smelling nice and looking good in your organic garden.  Your

neighbor, well he is a spam sniffer and the aura of his frustration is exuded from his noisy driveway.

The best way to describe organic search results is by describing what they are not.   When was the last time you searched for something only to be sent to a worthless site devoid of original content and full of links to similar sites?  The ending cyber squirrel cage of worthless junk is just what the search engines are fighting against every day.

Organic results are the most valid matches for your search query.  Search engines would strive for the best organic results possible, but for balancing of advertisements that fuel the effort.  Google has dominated search with its Adsense and Adwords programs, but the misuse of the programs has contributed to a problem that if left unchecked, would mean the demise of the giant.  This will hopefully not happen because Google will police unsavory SEO and the misuse of its products.

Organic results deliver what the end user desires with efficiency.  Google was founded on organic results.  Google’s popularity was derived from the most organic results in the industry. Organic is currently competing with manufactured results by spammers. Google is not the only player in the game, but it is the biggest and advertising is the source of the big funding behind the behemoth.  Fully automated, the programs are slow to be policed and organic results are affected immensely by fake links, Adwords schemes and worthless websites trying to cash in on the Adsense and Adwords programs.

Advertisers will turn away once they realize that something is not working.  Google is suffering from some pullback as of this writing.  Organic results have been injured by pay-per-click advertising. The search giant knows that pay-per-click can also be abused by competitors that click away on advertisers links in order to raise the costs for their enemies. The real, brick and mortar companies that watch their budgets closely will pull back from Adwords.  This will leave the tricksters trying to trick each other.

The main drive for any real SEO campaign should be for honest and lasting organic results.  This can only be achieved by delivering original content along with SEO techniques that complement the endeavors of the search engines toward organic results.  The weeding out of the leaches on the internet will continue because the very survival of search, as we know it, will depend upon organic results.

SEO tricks will fade and what will be left is real and original content that will propel search to provide a better experience for the end user.  SEO will follow with the embellishment of the real and tangible assets of each site so as to afford the search engines the ease of delivery of organic results.

Organic results will be the target for the SERPS if search is to remain free. Organic is real an non-manipulated search. The SERPS will never be 100% organic, but they have to do better than they are currently as the SERPS are miserably missing the organic results that made the internet great.