Central Perk

luni, 4 aprilie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Posted: 03 Apr 2011 02:31 PM PDT

It's been a year, one calendar year since I joined Distilled. My first task was to write a post for SEOmoz as the rest of the Distilled office (all in London then) was going to be out on holiday (the Brits and their bank holidays ... geez). So I geared up to write my first blog post on SEOmoz, as my others were always YOUmoz posts.

In light of the fact that I have the honor of posting one year later, I wanted to review what has changed in SEO. We always talk back and forth about how things change so much and yet stay the same. The basics are still the basics, good architecture, content and links are the name of the game. Some take that as the industry never really changes -- maybe we all make it up how things "change", but I disagree. And this has been a rather tumultuous year for SEO.

Now most of what I mention will be Google based. We do have a tendency to be very Google focused in SEO as most sites see a majority of their search traffic come from Google. If you know of any other changes in SEO I might have missed, please let me know in the comments and I'll credit you.

Please note that these are in no particular order ... not by date, not by importance, just my rambling.

Panda/Farmer/Scraper

The most recent of the Google updates, there has been much written on this on Distilled, SEOmoz, Search Engine Land, SERoundtable and many more. I am not going to babble on, but in short this update went after low quality sites using major advertising and little original content. We called it the Farmer update, Google called it the Panda Update, and soon after came the Scraper update ... targeting scraper sites.

Mayday

The Mayday update was the first after I started, it was the beginning of this wonderful mess (I said wonderful ... ) of an SEO year. If you think back, this update is very similar to the most recent update (Panda) in that it went for thin content sites ... only this time it went after those that were ranking for long tail terms. This sent many sites into panic and reset so many marketing campaigns and site designs. The spotlight was shifted to not only creating good content, but creating the right amount of content at the highest quality that will gain links.

Caffeine

Around the same time as Mayday, Google released the Caffeine Index. This provided Google a way of offering fresher content, faster. The update helped get content found and indexed faster and lead to the future of SERPs pages that included social and integrated local results (which we will discuss later).

Google Instant

Google Instant is an area of pride for Distilled. Rob Ousbey first posted about it before Google announced it (sorry guys!) and then just this last week, Justin Briggs noted the addition of the term "scam" to the blacklist of Instant results. We know that pornographic terms and many others do not show Google Instant results, but now scam doesn't either.

(But "scams" does *shrugs*)

Site Speed

Those were the major changes to the algorithm and updates, but one other thing that has occurred in the last 12 months was the announcement that site speed was a factor in ranking. A minor factor, but something that Google wanted us to pay attention to.

Loss of US Market Share for Google

All Google, all the time. I know what you all are thinking right now. But this year did bring a bit of bad news to the Googlers in California. We have seen smaller drops over the last few years, but we have really started to see Google lose market share over the last year. The next 12 months should be interesting with Bing's push to close that gap.

Bing/Yahoo Final Change

Speaking of Bing, one major change was of course the completion of the Yahoo/Bing merger ... well search merging. All the paid accounts completed their merges and Yahoo's results became Bing's results. Sad day, but it's not like Yahoo was always its own search engine anyway. *kicks dirt*

Multi-lingual Site Changes

2010 was the year for many companies to start thinking about taking their online strategy global. International SEO is one of the more advanced topics and something I personally have talked much about this year. But there was one big change to how ~~international~~ multi-lingual sites might operate. We all know that translating content is necessary to target certain users, but the same content just translated can pose problems for ranking and indexing. Google is trying to help with the rel alternate tag allowing sites to denote the same content in a different languages. This is not however the saviour to all of your international issues. This just helps with templetized content being translated on the same site ... getting into targeting different countries, now that is still somewhat challenging.

SERPs Changes

Once Caffeine took effect, it swung open the doors for a wide variety of changes to what content was shown on SERPs pages and how ... on Google that is. We have gone from 10 blue links and descriptions to Products, Maps, Integrated Local, Brand Refinements, Faceted Search, and user input. The most recent user input is of course the +1 button, in addition to the ability to flag and hide sites from your search results.

But the biggest change has been in preferred results from your social circle. This has been tested in many forms the "posts from your friends" at the end of results to avatars showing below search results noting which of your friends recommended the page. Things are getting real and it's getting harder to game results that are totally dependent on a user's actions and social circle.

Others of Note

There have been many other changes including those from players in the SEO world, many movers and shakers, and much news from the other sides of online marketing like social and paid. But I would be talking forever if I included all of those.

However, there were a few more that impact SEO directly and I thought they were worth mentioning.

Keyword Tool Change - Google updated their Keyword Tool, making it more relevant (or less in other's eyes) by numbers but still not fully accurate.
New Analytics Interface - Brand new and still in beta (sign up here), but will definitely impact how SEOs do some of their work.
Weighted Sort - A personal favorite, but there was the release of weighted sort within Google Analytics. Just awesome.

Year in Review Takeaways

This wasn't an earth shattering post for most, and I hate to leave you just reminiscing about what happened in the last year. We are all about teaching and learning at Distilled/SEOmoz (I'm sure some of you will school me with big things I missed on this list), so here is what I think we can all learn and take back to projects after this last year.

Put Users First - plain and simple, if you keep them in focus you won't go wrong by Google or Bing.
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - Small changes in ranking, site speed, or any future algo changes should be taken with a grain of salt. Follow the first lesson and these changes should have little effect on you.
Keep Your Ear to the Ground - But after that last note, I do recommend always knowing what is going on in the industry and with your own site. You should know at all times how your site is performing so that when the boss comes calling about not ranking for a keyword (personalized results FTW!), you can back things up with hard data and related industry trends.
Create Good Sites, Good Content, and Get People Talking - Marketing. It's all about marketing. Do it right the first time and don't cut corners. Integrate your whole marketing plan and you will have many opportunities to get "real estate" on a SERPs page.

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Green Fleet Initiative: A Bold Step Forward

Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, April 4, 2011

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama inspects an AT&T all-electric vehicle on display during a tour of the UPS facility in Landover, Md., April 1, 2011. (Office White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog.

President Obama's Green Fleet Initiative A Bold Step Forward in U.S. Energy Use
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood outlines the positive steps that President Obama's Green Fleet Initiative will make toward reducing America's dependence on foreign oil.

Documenting America's Natural Beauty
In celebration of Earth Day, the EPA is seeking out the best photos of America's great outdoors.

Investing in Reform: Strong Partnerships for Successful Students
Programs like Head Start are important investments in America's children, and our economic future.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

9:30 AM: The President receives the Presidential Daily Briefing

11:45 AM: The Vice President speaks on youth domestic violence

12:00 PM: Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney

1:30 PM: The Vice President attends an event with supporters of Organizing for America.

3:15 PM: The President meets with Secretary of Defense Gates

4:00 PM: The President meets with Secretary of State Clinton

Indicates events that will be live streamed on White House.com/Live.

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Seth's Blog : Moving beyond teachers and bosses

Moving beyond teachers and bosses

We train kids to deal with teachers in a certain way: Find out what they want, and do that, just barely, because there are other things to work on. Figure out how to say back exactly what they want to hear, with the least amount of effort, and you are a 'good student.'

We train employees to deal with bosses in a certain way: Find out what they want, and do that, just barely, because there are other things to do. Figure out how to do exactly what they want, with the least amount of effort, and the last risk of failure and you are a 'good worker.'

The attitude of minimize is a matter of self-preservation. Raise the bar, the thinking goes, and the boss will work you harder and harder. Take initiative and you might fail, leading to a reprimand or termination (think about that word for a second... pretty frightening).

The linchpin, of course, can't abide the attitude of minimize. It leaves no room for real growth and certainly doesn't permit an individual to become irreplaceable.

If your boss is seen as a librarian, she becomes a resource, not a limit. If you view the people you work with as coaches, and your job as a platform, it can transform what you do each day, starting right now. "My boss won't let me," doesn't deserve to be in your vocabulary. Instead, it can become, "I don't want to do that because it's not worth the time/resources." (Or better, it can become, "go!")

The opportunity of our age is to get out of this boss as teacher as taskmaster as limiter mindset. We need more from you than that.

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duminică, 3 aprilie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Ireland Caves in to Trichet; Backs of Irish Taxpayers Will be Broken
Government Shutdown Battle to Be Followed by Bigger Fight; GOP wants $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Next Decade; Is that Enough?
Avatar Support Comparison: Facebook, Gmail, OpenID, Yahoo!, AOL, Linked In
Ron Paul on Legal Tender Laws, Coin Shortages, Interest Rates, Municipal Bonds, the Gold Standard

Ireland Caves in to Trichet; Backs of Irish Taxpayers Will be Broken

Posted: 03 Apr 2011 07:29 PM PDT

Costs to bail out bondholders of Irish banks has now soared to $142 billion. Worse yet, the new Irish government completely caved in to the EU and ECB and will attempt to balance the entire amount on the backs of taxpayers.

Please consider Ireland Bows to Trichet on Bondholders as Bank Rescue Reaches $142 Billion

Ireland yielded to the European Central Bank to protect bondholders even as its bailout bill for the region's worst banking crisis moved to as much as 100 billion euros ($142 billion) after stress tests.

The ECB in Frankfurt was "solidly opposed" to imposing losses on investors in senior bank debt, Finance Minister Michael Noonan told broadcaster RTE today. The ECB agreed to provide "ongoing" funding for the banks, he said.

Ireland agreed yesterday to inject as much as 24 billion euros into four banks, while leaving bondholders untouched. The government already funneled 46.3 billion euros into the financial system and set up an agency that paid more than 30 billion euros to assume risky property loans. The total equates to about two-thirds the size of the Irish economy.

During an election campaign last month, Eamon Gilmore, now deputy prime minister, dismissed ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet as a "civil servant" who would answer to politicians. As recently as March 28, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said the government planned to impose losses on senior bondholders in the banks to cut the costs of its bailout.

"Taking all of the losses of the banking system and putting them on the balance sheet of the government doesn't make sense," Nouriel Roubini, co-founder of Roubini Global Economics LLC, said today in an interview from Cernobbio, Italy, with Maryam Nemazee on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse." "Eventually, the back of the government will be broken."

"Rather than go after over 20 billion euros in unguaranteed bonds, the government is making ordinary citizens bear the burden of this debt," Gerry Adams, leader of nationalist party Sinn Fein, said in statement today. "Rather than act in the interests of the Irish people they are acting in the interest of the banks."

Backs of Irish Taxpayers Will be Broken

What is the point of throwing the bums out in a massive repudiation of government policy if the new bums have the identical policies as those they replace?

The Euro reacted positively to this turn of events and also to expected interest rate hikes by Trichet. Those hikes with further exacerbate the problems of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.

I am sticking to my long-held position "what can't be paid back, won't." The timing is uncertain, and Roubini phrased it well: "Eventually, the back of the government will be broken."

I might add, so will the backs of taxpayers. The pertinent question is how long the taxpayers put up with another set of politicians who cave in bankers.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Government Shutdown Battle to Be Followed by Bigger Fight; GOP wants $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Next Decade; Is that Enough?

Posted: 03 Apr 2011 12:57 PM PDT

When it comes to budget battles, you haven't seen anything yet. Given the cat fight over $30 billion, less than 1% of the budget, it will be interesting to watch the spectacle of GOP attempts to get agreement over proposed $4 trillion in cuts.

Let's pick this story up with a column from yesterday's New York Times: Budget Battle to Be Followed by an Even Bigger Fight

Even as the two parties struggled over the weekend to reach a deal on federal spending for the next six months and avert a government shutdown at the end of the week, House Republicans were completing a budget proposal for next year and beyond. It is likely to spur an ideological showdown over the size of government and the role of entitlement programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

The plan, which is scheduled to be unveiled Tuesday, will be the most ambitious Republican effort since the November elections to put a conservative stamp on economic and domestic policy. It involves far greater stakes for Congress and for President Obama — substantively and politically — than the current fight over spending cuts.

The longer-term budget proposal has been led by Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who is the party's leading voice on budget matters, and will go beyond numbers to provide policy prescriptions.

It will call for deep spending cuts again in 2012, chart a path to reducing the deficit and slowing the growth of the accumulating national debt, and grapple with the politically volatile issue of reining in the cost of entitlement programs, starting with Medicaid, which provides health coverage for the poor.

"We want to get spending and debt under control, and we want to get the economy growing, and we want to address the big drivers of our debt, and that is the entitlement programs," Mr. Ryan, chairman of the Budget Committee, said in an interview. "We have a moral obligation to the country to do this."

The efforts of Mr. Ryan, backed by Mr. Boehner and other Republican leaders, are certain to meet serious resistance from the Democratic-led Senate and from Mr. Obama. In many respects, the nasty fight over financing the government for the next six months has been a warm-up for the longer-term budget battle, which could be further inflamed by a debate over raising the federal debt limit.

"You are going to see major reforms in Medicare and Medicaid; you are going to see a change in the deficit trajectory that is pretty dramatic," said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican who is on the Budget Committee.

"Ryan isn't touching the third rail," Mr. Cole said, employing the expression used to suggest that messing with Social Security and Medicare can be politically fatal. "He is wrapping both hands around it."

While Mr. Ryan and top Republican aides would not discuss specifics, there are strong indications that the proposal will draw on deficit reduction plans that Mr. Ryan laid out in his 2010 "roadmap plan" and a second proposal he wrote with Alice M. Rivlin, a director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration.

In that plan, Ms. Rivlin and Mr. Ryan proposed that Medicaid financing be converted into a block grant program, with states given a set allotment of money and new discretion to shape health coverage programs for the poor. Their Medicare proposal would allow those nearing eligibility to remain with the current system, and it would create a program that would provide payments to Medicare enrollees to buy private health insurance.

Republican leaders have not previously embraced Mr. Ryan's proposals on Medicare and Social Security, but Mr. Boehner said he had tired of watching Congress avoid difficult decisions on entitlement programs.

"You can't continue to whistle past the graveyard," he said. "We are imprisoning the future for our kids and our grandkids if we do not act, and it's time to act."

Mr. Ryan promised that his blueprint would be a significant departure from the budget issued this year by Mr. Obama, which made no major recommendations on how to address the big entitlement programs. "The president is not leading; we need to," Mr. Ryan said. "Otherwise the country has no vision and no option for getting out of this debt crisis that we are going into."

Obama Not Leading

I did no comment on the story yesterday because there are no specific proposals or specific amounts. However, one thing is for sure, and that is Obama is not leading any budget efforts.

For more on leadership, please see Global Crisis in Leadership Nearly Everywhere You Look

Today we still have no specifics, but we do have an amount.

GOP Plans $4 Trillion in Budget Cuts

Yahoo! News reports GOP 2012 budget to make $4 trillion-plus in cuts

The House Republican chairman who's writing a 2012 budget says the GOP will propose cutting more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

The head of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan, says President Barack Obama is "punting on the budget and not doing a thing to prevent a debt crisis."

Ryan tells "Fox News Sunday" that GOP budget-writers are looking at cutting $4 trillion-plus in spending over the next decade. That's more than even what the president's deficit commission recommended.

Ryan is talking about spending caps and long-term belt-tightening for the Medicare and Medicaid health programs. He wants older people who are wealthy to pay more out of pocket for their health care.

The GOP plan for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 is coming out Tuesday.

$4 Trillion is Not Enough

$4 Trillion sounds like a hell of a lot of money. However, spread out over 10 years, the amount is $400 billion per year. The current budget deficit is $1.6 trillion. Thus the GOP proposal only covers one-fourth of what it takes to balance the budget.

Moreover, until the budget is balanced the national debt grows as does interest on the national debt.

Interest on the National Debt Exceeds $400 Billion

Inquiring minds are interested in Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding as provided by Treasury Direct.

For 2010, interest on the national debt was $413.954 billion. Bear in mind interest rates on treasuries are historically very low, and rising.

I do not know what Ryan figures into his analysis, but I bet the GOP is way too optimistic. Moreover, given the GOP is only addressing one-fourth the amount needed to balance the budget, the rest must come from increased taxes or increased revenues via growth.

Tax Revenue Collection Analysis

Making the rather safe assumption that the GOP will not propose $1.2 trillion per year in tax hikes, I am willing to go out on a very sturdy limb that says tax revenues will not rise enough to cover the difference (not even counting the issue of interest on the national debt).

Thus, as significant as $4 trillion in cuts sounds, it is nowhere close to what needs to happen to balance the budget.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Avatar Support Comparison: Facebook, Gmail, OpenID, Yahoo!, AOL, Linked In

Posted: 03 Apr 2011 11:46 AM PDT

Many people have had trouble getting avatars to display when commenting on this blog. Some may have noticed similar problem on other sites.

The issue is not within Echo or (JS-Kit) per se, but rather what information is provided through a widely used login interface called Janrain. Echo uses that interface.

From my Web guy ....

Hello Mish

I went back and reviewed the provider configuration choices for the different mainstream providers used to manage the Janrain backplane. From that review, here's what's available for Echo to pull over from the provider at login.

It should be no surprise, that Facebook by far makes the most data available. For some, photo (avatar) data is not available at all.

MyOpenID -- only email and formatted name are returned for "Basic" mode -- no photo
is available even with "Extended Profile"
Google -- only family name, given name, and verified email are returned for "Basic" mode; no photo provided even for Plus, Pro or Enterprise
Yahoo! -- lots of info returned: Address, Birthday, Display Name Formatted, Name, Gender, Homepage, Preferred Username, Profile Photo, Time Zone, Verified Email
Facebook -- lots of stuff returned in Basic mode: Address, Birthday, Verified Email, Display Name, Family Name, Formatted Name, Gender, Given Name, Homepage, Preferred Username, Profile Photo, Time Zone
LinkedIn -- lots of stuff returned with Basic mode: Address, Birthday, Display Name, Family Name, Formatted Name, Given Name, Homepage, Phone Number, Preferred Username, Profile Photo
AOL -- a few things are returned but no photo option: Birthday, Email, Gender, Preferred Username

The inconsistency is no doubt due in part to different perceptions of security concerns of both the providers and their customers. For example, Facebook and LinkedIn are **by definition** oriented towards sharing information -- that's why you have an account with those providers in the first place.

For those more focused on email services or potentially anonymous blogging, their APIs aren't as "open" to exposing customized data as the others.

Given this difference in downstream identity provider business goals, this may be an area where Echo may want to consider "smoothing over" those differences by allowing avatar / profile photo stuff to be uploaded / housed within Echo. Otherwise, the visual impact of an Echo-enabled comment page with half of the users showing generic icons instead of normal "avatars" or actual profile photos may appear odd to end-users.

If the community as a whole doesn't produce a solution for this, the alternative would be to simply not render the profile / avatar objects at all by masking their display via CSS.

Other than blocking some login IDs for violations of policy (racial or ethnic slurs, repeated disruptions, etc) , the only information I am interested in is a display name and an Avatar. I do not pass out or even capture other data and would not do so unless required by law for some legitimate reason such as personal threats.

The goals are to ensure that someone is not masquerading as someone else and to be able to lock out those I do not want in.

Some may be concerned to learn what data may be freely made available to third parties, but that issue is one of trust. Don't login to any site you don't trust.

I had to go through some hoops to get access to the Janrain interface, proving I really am "Mike Shedlock" with credit card and phone callback procedures.

With anonymous commenting or "home grown" login procedures, anyone can (and they have), pretend to be me or you or anyone else. Janrain verifies the identity.

Notice that Google does not return a photo or a preferred nickname. I will send this post to the Google team as Gmail (or Blogger) has to be one of the more widely used sign-ins.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Ron Paul on Legal Tender Laws, Coin Shortages, Interest Rates, Municipal Bonds, the Gold Standard

Posted: 03 Apr 2011 12:44 AM PDT

Commodity Online News has an interesting article regarding a new bill introduced by Ron Paul to repeal legal tender laws, an investigation of the coin shortage, and Paul's positions on interest rates and a return to the gold standard.

Please consider Ron Paul to probe US Mint Coin shortage

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has one question for the U.S. Mint: why is there a coin shortage? He is aiming to get to the bottom of this during a scheduled April 7 hearing of his U.S. House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy to examine the bullion programs at the U.S. Mint.

"We are going to try and find out what the Mint has done so they can give us a better answer as to why there is a shortage. Why can't they keep the supply of coins up?" said the congressman in an exclusive interview with Kitco News.

Part of the problem lies in manufacturing the blanks, said Paul. The blank planchets are not made at the Mint, which hasn't had the production capacity for this stage of the minting process since the budget cuts of 1981.

"Looks like we don't even get (all) blank coins made in the U.S. – there is a contract with a foreign company, which makes no sense at all," said the congressman.

Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011

In March, Paul introduced H.R. 1098, the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011, which would repeal legal tender laws in order to prohibit taxation on gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium bullion. The bill has been referred to the House Committees on Financial Services, Ways and Means, and Judiciary.

A staunch critic of the Federal Reserve, Paul said that instead of arguing his case for the Fed to close down tomorrow, he's arguing the fact it should not hold a monopoly. "They have a monopoly on a type of money that isn't even constitutional," he said.

"We would use no force, nobody has to use gold and silver coins," said Paul. Rather, he said the Fed does use force. "They are a cartel and they make us use Federal Reserve notes," he said.

Gold Standard

A common assumption is that Paul is calling for a return to a gold standard. He clarified, saying he is not so inflexible. "I wouldn't be overly rigid and say, 'you must have a gold standard, you must go back to what we had.' Our gold standard was imperfect, even though it worked better than the paper standard," he said.

Lawmakers in several states, including Tennessee, Virginia, New Hampshire and South Carolina, have introduced bills to look into minting their own currencies in the event of a complete breakdown of the U.S. Federal Reserve. In Georgia, a bill to make the state only use gold and silver is in committee.

Utah has received the most media attention on this subject as the House and Senate have passed HB317, which would recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender and exempt them from certain state tax liability.

"Governments over the many, many centuries have always demanded monopoly control over money. Even when gold and silver were principally used in the economies, they still wanted monopolies," Paul said.

Hence, he is not confident that any Utah law would be allowed to stand. "Well, they are going to fight it tooth and nail. They are not going to go along with this even though we have the law and Constitution on our side and it should appeal to all Americans to have competition."

Interest Rate Hikes and Municipal Bond Defaults

Regarding U.S. interest rate hikes, Paul said they are going to be gradual and steady but they are indeed coming. "The next big shoe to fall will be interest rates going up on municipal bonds -- that means a lot of these bonds will start defaulting," he said.

There is more in the article including a discussion on another run for president. I hope he does run even though he has little chance of winning.

His issues are important ones and they merit adoption. The first step, however, is more awareness, and his running for president would do just that.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Tips for Buying Old Sites Graywolf's SEO Blog

Tips for Buying Old Sites

Posted: 02 Apr 2011 07:05 AM PDT

Today’s post is a question from Max Capener, who wants to know what’s the best way to handle old sites that you buy?

Ok so that’s a question that has a lot of different aspects, and I’ll try to go over a few of them. First, let’s talk about why you bought the website. Was it the competition? Were you looking to re-purpose/redirect some link equity? Or is it just a good domain name? If it’s the competition, you have few options you can leave it in place and try and secure two spots in the SERP’s. If that’s your plan I’d try and keep as much the same as possible: hosting, design, architecture, whois, etc. I’d only change each piece one at a time and very slowly. Changing a lot of things at once is never a good SEO strategy, even if you aren’t buying a new website. Another option is to target a different segment of the market (higher end or lower end). Again, change as little as possible at a time–and do it slowly.

Let’s say you want to re-purpose/redirect the link equity. In that case, you want to do a one to one 301 redirect for each of the URL’s. Try to redirect to individual pages. Don’t send everything to the home page or a single page; it’s important to keep the users’ goals in mind. I wouldn’t let anything 404 if possible, because it just flushes link equity right down the toilet.

If it’s a good domain name (better than the one you currently have) you could move all of your content to the newly purchased domain and redirect your old domain. This is a bit tricky: you have to do it all at once and it violates the advice I gave above for changing as little as possible and doing it slowly over time. But you don’t want the search engines to see the same content in two spots any longer than necessary. Sometimes the right answer depends on the situation.

I will warn you not to buy domains to re-purpose the link equity if they aren’t related to your website. Buying car websites and then pointing them to your dance websites is a practice Google frowns upon. The further you go, and the more it looks like you are trying to trick Google, the worse the penalty may be. If you buy lots of charity domains and repoint them at your commercial domains, you may find yourself the proud owner of a page rank zero website.

Buying Links to Third Party Websites Last week I was having a discussion on Twitter about...
It’s Not About Buying You’re Way to The Top When I try to combat the Google paid linking FUD...
You’re All Wrong! Paid Links From Offtopic Sites Do Count “Paid links from off topic sites get devalued and flagged.”...
CSS Zen Garden and Commerce Sites If you’ve ever had a discussion with me you know...
Re Inclusion Requests Only For Verified Sites I’ve submitted more than one reinclusion request over the years, ...

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Tips for Buying Old Sites

Seth's Blog : The worst voice of the brand is the brand

The worst voice of the brand is the brand

We either ignore your brand or we judge it, usually with too little information. And when we judge it, we judge it based on the actions of the loudest, meanest, most selfish member of your tribe.

When a zealot advocates violence, outsiders see all members of his tribe as advocates of violence.

When a doctor rips off Medicare, all doctors are seen as less trustworthy.

When a fundamentalist advocates destruction of outsiders, all members of that organization are seen as intolerant.

When a soldier commits freelance violence, all citizens of his nation are seen as violent.

When a car rental franchise rips off a customer, all outlets of the franchise suffer.

Seems obvious, no? I wonder, then, why loyal and earnest members of the tribe hesitate to discipline, ostracize or expel the negative outliers.

"You're hurting us, this is wrong, we are expelling you."

What do you stand for?

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luni, 4 aprilie 2011

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Panda/Farmer/Scraper

Mayday

Caffeine

Google Instant

Site Speed

Loss of US Market Share for Google

Bing/Yahoo Final Change

Multi-lingual Site Changes

SERPs Changes

Others of Note

Year in Review Takeaways

Green Fleet Initiative: A Bold Step Forward

Seth's Blog : Moving beyond teachers and bosses

Moving beyond teachers and bosses

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