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As an SEO – What Secure Search means to you

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Yes, i’m awake at 3:36am EST doing some research on “Not Provided” and now writing this post, not because i’m worried or scared, but because I have clients depending on me to keep their Search Rankings on page 1 for their terms.

As an SEO – What does secure search mean to you?

Here’s the secret – don’t go telling everybody now – it’s been in your HANDS all along !

Content!

Content is king and has been king for the past few years, you really shouldn’t stress yourself about the fact that you don’t have keyword data anymore, you should of stopped focusing on Keyword SEO years ago!

Focus your efforts on CONTENT SEO, write quality content for your Customers/Clients/Shoppers/who ever your writing the content for and stop trying to stuff keywords and depend on the small stuff.

My clients know I stay on top of any and all breaking news and I understand what’s going on in the search landscape and while this may be a setback for a lot of SEO’s, I’m calm as a TURTLE, just chugging along.

Really a “TURTLE” … I couldn’t come up with a better word !

Ok, I really need to get some sleep now … i’m using the word TURTLE to describe stuff … I’ll keep you posted, however stop stressing about “Not Provided” and start stressing to your clients about “CONTENT”

Trust me, it will keep you in BUSINESS!

I think French Montana said it best – Ain’t Worried About Nothing !

Darin

Google Penguin Update

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Have you noticed lately that your rankings mysteriously vanished once Google released its new Penguin update? Well, you’re not the only one frustrated with disappearing search results. Since the Google Penguin update, Google has changed the game yet again in the SEO industry and has generated a huge buzz among SEOs and bloggers.

The central purpose of the Penguin update, which was launched in late April, is to put a deep freeze on web spam in Google’s search results. The Penguin update is proposed to fight web spammers who use shady techniques to rank websites. However, research shows how useless and horribly designed the update actually is. Countless amounts of Google users have declared that Google Penguin by all measures “is the worse Google update that has happened yet.” Lately, many have discovered that it seems like while Google is targeting “black hat” SEOs, the “white hat” SEOs are being affected as well.

According to Glenn Gave at G-Squared Interactive, the Penguin update “lacks natural links.” The Google Penguin update has 5 types of link issues harming some affected websites, including paid text links using exact match anchor text, comment spam, guest posts on questionable sites, articles marketing sites, and links from dangerous sites. So where do you go from here? How do you avoid the being targeted by Google? Here are some helpful tips to move forward and dodge the twists and turns that Google is doing in the SEO industry:

• Stop building exact match anchor links- Google is going to eventually catch on to what you’re doing and penalize you for exact match anchor links. Your links should never be an exact match to the anchor text. Instead, focus on links that mention your brand.
• Make link building constantly unpredictable- you want to make your link count grow by a different number each month. If you link count is growing by the same number each month, Google will notice this consistent pattern.
• Differentiate the quality of the sites you are buying links from- Your target should be for pages that are big, small, popular, unpopular, no page rank, high range rank, etc.
• Purchase blogs- the blog will then be yours and you won’t run into the result of being punished for buying paid links.
• Search for broken links- you will be surprised with how many broken links out there are free.

Don’t always rely on Google. It may be a very powerful search engine, but there are ways to optimize outside of Google to keep your website looking fresh. Explore the SEO life beyond Google to gain more online visibility:

1. Post helpful, shareable content through social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. You want to create and publish content that viewers can socialize over.
2. Blog more often. Connect with businesses and contribute your ideas and opinions by posting blog posts.
3. Interact daily on relevant businesses Facebook pages.
4. Purchase social ads on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln so that you can grab the attention of your targeted demographic.
5. YouTube serves as an excellent source that brings in traffic. Create videos often to educate viewers. Videos will create one-on-one engagement with you audience.

Always keep in mind that not all your SEO eggs should be placed in Google’s basket.

This article was written by Jennifer Rodino – New Memeber to My Search Marketing Team !!!

How to: Escape Google’s Supplemental Index

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Unfortunately, the Google Sandbox now has two levels. Yes, you still need a lot of trust to get your pages ranking. But before you start worrying about that, you need to worry about getting your pages indexed in the first place.

Because, of course, you’re not really indexed if most of your pages have gone supplemental!

What happened? Well apparently the Google Indexer got tired of her nickname “Loose Louise”, she’s born again and now very choosy thankyouverymuch about who she lets enter. Rumor has it she’s only interested in trusted sites that are after a whitehat, long term commitment.

“What exactly is that supplemental index again?”

I won’t parrot the quasi-official Google answer here. (In fact, I can promise that I will never give you the “official Google answer” on SEO.) Take your pick:

The Google Supplemental index is the Siberian work camp for web pages.

The Google Supplemental index is to the normal index, as Scoreboard Media is to SEO.

The Google Supplemental index is where they put web pages with little trust.

The Google Supplemental index is where they put web pages that aren’t going to rank for anything important.

Got it? Cool.
Now, assuming your site is supplemental, here are five tips to get it out of Supplemental Hell.

1. Give each page a unique title. This is so basic it kills me but sometimes people still aren’t doing it. There is absolutely no reason not to do this, as a unique title also helps SEO-wise, it helps accessibility-wise, gets higher clickthroughs in the SERPs, etc.

2. Give each page a unique META DESCRIPTION. Remember when we all thought META tags were dead? Well, Google’s gotten funny about that. Let’s not waste time wondering why. Just give every page a unique META DESCRIPTION, even if it just matches the title tag.

3. Make sure each page has a good amount of unique content. This problem can rear its ugly head in a few different ways. Most commonly, a particular piece of content is being served at multiple URLs. This is usually a CMS or shopping cart issue, and the fix will be unique to whatever system you use. Also pretty common is the existence of very thin pages (a lot of large, hollow/empty web directories have this problem). My rule of thumb (and it’s not authoritative, just what I go by), is that a page should have at least 100 words of unique content at a minimum.

4. Get some more trusted links. Link building is all about trust these days. A few links from older, already-ranking domains will do wonders towards convincing Google a newer site deserves to be trusted. I also like to get a few higher-PageRank links in there (sitewide? even better). Yes, I know that tip is going to bring out the haters (insert “PageRank is dead!” comment here). But it appears that “overall link weight” seems to matter again in Google, if not in terms of rankings, at least in terms of indexing.

5. Get some links to internal pages. This is all about convincing Google your site doesn’t have “hollow shell syndrome”–when a site has, say, 20 pages, and a few dozen backlinks, but 100% of those backlinks are pointing to the homepage. Most often, the homepage of the site is in the normal index but all of the internal pages have gone supplemental. I usually go “brute force” at one internal page and get 3 or 4 links to it (giving this one internal page so much link weight that Google pretty much has to index it); normally, GoogleBot revisits the entire site and re-crawls and indexes the other internal pages, too (up to a point: if the site has hundreds or thousands of pages, you’ll need to rinse+repeat this a few times).

That about covers it.

Darin Carter

SEO – What’s an SEO?

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Search Engine Optimizers

SEO is an abbreviation for “search engine optimizer.” Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, a few unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.

While Google doesn’t have relationships with any SEOs and doesn’t offer recommendations, we do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether.

Be wary of SEO firms that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

“Dear darin.cc,

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or through the Google Sitemaps (Beta) program, and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.

Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do. Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or “throwaway” domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it’s best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to “help” you.

You should never have to link to an SEO. Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines — at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar. Most such proposals require users to install extra software, and very few users do so. Evaluate such proposals with extreme care and be skeptical about the self-reported number of users who have downloaded the required applications.

Choose wisely. While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm…zbriefs12.html. While Google doesn’t comment on specific companies, we’ve encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.

Be sure to understand where the money goes. While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they “control” other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn’t work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you’re considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.

Talk to many SEOs, and ask other SEOs if they’d recommend the firm you’re considering. References are a good start, but they don’t tell the whole story. You should ask how long a company has been in business and how many full time individuals it employs. If you feel pressured or uneasy, go with your gut feeling and play it safe: hold off until you find a firm that you can trust. Ask your SEO firm if it reports every spam abuse that it finds to Google using our spam complaint form at

http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html.

Ethical SEO firms report deceptive sites that violate Google’s spam guidelines.

Make sure you’re protected legally. For your own safety, you should insist on a full and unconditional money-back guarantee. Don’t be afraid to request a refund if you’re unsatisfied for any reason, or if your SEO’s actions cause your domain to be removed from a search engine’s index. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing. The contract should also require the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.

What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?

One common scam is the creation of “shadow” domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client’s behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor’s domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.

Another illicit practice is to place “doorway” pages loaded with keywords on the client’s site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO’s other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content. What are some other things to look out for?

There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It’s far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:

owns shadow domains

puts links to their other clients on doorway pages

offers to sell keywords in the address bar

doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear in search results

guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway

operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info

gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware

has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google

If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices.

To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on “File a Complaint Online,” call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:

Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580

If your complaint is against a company in another country, please file it at http://www.econsumer.gov/.