SEO SPAM techniques are practices and tactics, which are banned and strictly prohibited by search engines, you may find few websites applying these SPAM techniques and having good positions, it doesn’t mean that search engines have allowed those websites, it may be because those sites are not yet caught, I would like to mention one thing here that I’m writing about these techniques to create awareness in Young SEOs so that they can avoid using them, I would highly recommend everybody to avoid using these SPAM techniques.
List of the SEO SPAM Techniques
- Hidden Text
- Doorway Page
- Hidden Tags
- Useless Meta Tags
- Search Engine Specific Pages
- Redirection
- Keyword Stuffing
- Duplicate Content
- Cloaking / IP Delivery
- Link farming / Un-natural Linking
- Over Optimization
- Mini-Site network
- Blog / Forum Abuse
- Link Exchange / Reciprocal Links
- Excessive CSS Playing
1. Hidden Text
There are two types of hidden text, the first type of hidden text is invisible text to human visitors by keeping text color same as background, the second type of hidden text is text that is hidden behind images or under document layers.
2. Doorway Page
Doorway is one of the oldest SEO SPAM techniques, in this technique web pages are developed keeping search engines in mind, they point to website but they are not linked with website that’s why they are called doorway through which website will be accessed.
3. Hidden Tags
There are plenty of tags used by webmasters to perform variety of functions such as “comment, style, noframe and http-equiv tags”. Unethical SEOs use these tags by inserting keywords to them.
4. Useless Meta Tags
There is a huge list of meta tags but search engine spiders don’t read all, using all meta tags probably won’t make your website penalized but it could badly hurt your website ranking, since all those useless meta tags will occupy initial characters of your web pages and search engines gives lot of importance to initially used web content.
5. Search Engine Specific Pages
Search engine specific pages are multiple but similar documents, specially designed to focus the requirements of various search engines algorithms. This SPAM technique is no longer applicable, today search engines are more intelligent and enough efficient to catch this technique.
6. Redirection
Redirection is a technique in which one page redirects the visitors / search engine spiders to another page or domain, redirection is a SPAM technique and it is usually done through JavaScript or meta refresh tag.
7. Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is 100% SPAM technique, in this technique bunch of keywords are kept at webpage it may be in anchor link, alt tag or at bottom of the webpage.
8. Duplicate Content
There were days, when you can copy content from other website and keep it to yours and even bring good results in search engines, but search engine are getting smarter everyday. It’s even hard to have duplicate content on similar domain these days, search engines are extremely intelligent to recognize either the content is original or copied.
9. Cloaking / IP Delivery
Cloaking is a SPAM technique, in which one set of information is served to search engine spiders and another set of information is served to visitors, it’s mostly done by IP tracking that’s why it’s also called IP Delivery, search engines don’t like webmaster to treat them different than visitors.
10. Link farming / Un-natural Linking
Link farming or un-natural linking is a technique in which webmaster try to have more incoming links pointing to their domain unethically by FFA or link buying. Search engines are very smart these days, they can easily recognize un-natural linking by link monitoring.
11. Over Optimization
After Google’s Florida update, there is a new term called “Over Optimization” introduced to SEO industry, in that update, those websites got penalized which have excessive optimization. There is no criteria to measure search engine optimization efforts either they are balanced or over, but one thing is for sure and that is excessive optimization or implementation of SEO techniques comparatively than your competitors.
12. Mini-Site network
Google gives huge importance to qualified incoming links to any domain that encourages Black-Hat SEOs to create multiple relevant websites pointing back to a central sales website. The primary purpose of those multiple relevant websites is to win Google Trust and get good PR because they can control everything on all these domains, since they belong to same company and behave as mini-site network.
13. Blog / Forum Abuse
Blog / forum abuse is another SPAM technique, in this technique unethical SEOs try to get link back to their domains by posting their links to blogs and forums, it may be through their signature or through their own promotion.
14. Link Exchange / Reciprocal Links
Link exchange is Black-hat technique in which two or more websites exchange their links to influence Google, these links can be two ways and three ways, and this technique is also called reciprocal linking.
15. Excessive CSS Playing
Excessive CSS playing is very hot technique these days, in which webmaster controls website formatting through CSS. Actually search engine likes heading, bold, italic, paragraph, hyperlink, anchor link tags but sometimes utilizing all these tags can spoil the look of the website, that’s why webmaster control formatting through CSS.
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Google is great! We all know that and except it by all means, whatever Google produces it’s 100% successful tool / product, “adwords keyword tool” is one of the tools that Google has launched, there are some confusions related to this tool, how reliable this tool is? Is this tool for organic searches too? I’ll elaborate them and explain my personal experience with it.
What is Google Keyword Tool?
After the successful launch of Google adwords in 2000, Google realizes the need of a keyword tool that will help PPC advertisers to build or refine their keyword lists and review keywords popularities and performances information in advance before going live, that’s why Google has launched its “Google Keyword Tool”
Keyword Tool Features like “Site related keywords, Keywords Performance Statistics, Synonyms, Cost and Estimated Ad Positions” are available in Google keyword tool.
Why Google Shows Junk Keywords by its Keyword Tool?
Google will be in a better position to answer this question, as far as my little knowledge is concern, Google has global audience and when it comes to serve everybody you have all types of inputs, same thing happens with Google, it welcomes everybody and is prepared to serve in its style, there is nothing bad in it, but Google makes this kind of information available through Google Keyword Tool, as a result we get to see some rubbish or junk keywords.
Google Never says Keyword Tool is for Organic Search
Google never gives any statement related to reliability of its keyword tool and using Google keyword tool for organic is not a good idea, since we’ve practical experience of plenty of keywords, which bring thousands of visitors to our website from Google but Google gives no hint related to those keywords, in fact when we searched those keywords, few have no suggestions, and few have very less volume of searches.
Why Google Doesn’t Show Great Keyword? Is Google Cheating?
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Is Google ready to share its own information with world? That’s really one of the concerning point for all of us, what’s hurting Google to show its information? Is Google afraid of Yahoo or Msn?
Google must be having very useful and exact information related to keywords, keywords search frequency, quality, audience type, behavior and keywords effectiveness, since Google is biggest search engine in the world, and it shares more than 57% of overall search engine visitors. We get to have very useful information from our small sites, you can have an idea of the information Google has related to world.
Google is Unable to Share its Real Information
Even though Google is not afraid of Yahoo, Msn and Ask but somehow they are healthy competitors, as smart player Google will never let its competitor know what kind of traffic is there at Google? What are the most searched keywords? Which keywords are costly? This type of information is very critical and if Yahoo or Msn has this information, with no time they can give Google a very tough time. We all know Microsoft has been trying very hard to get close to Google and Microsoft has the capability to do that.
Google privacy is its success! I don’t say that Google is cheating us, it’s not giving rubbish data at all, but Google mixes the rubbish with quality data together and it never shows its most searched keywords.
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Website domain can play very important role in your SEO campaign, search engines take very valuable information through your domain name. You can be credible, authentic, more reliable, and more valuable for search engines. You’ll come to know how effectively you can take benefit from your domain name.
Why to have Keywords Specific Domain Name
Keywords specific domains, or keywords in domain names are highly valuable to search engines, such as www.d4dating.net where “Dating” is a keywords, but I would always recommend to have brand specific “easy to remember” domains, you can’t have a single keyword or phrase for a website, can you? Then why to have a keyword specific domain name? You can always keep keywords specific files or directories to support your SEO work and be flexible with domain name, since domain name is going to be your online identity and your direct traffic will heavily depend on your domain.
Is Your Website Domain Easy to Remember?
Website domain name is as important as the identity for any brand. There are more than 100 million registered website domains in the world, how many website domains one can remember? Selection of most appropriate domain name for your website is one of the very important aspects of building your image on internet. Why I say most appropriate domain name is just because finding best domain name will be one of the most difficult tasks.
Strategy to Select Best Domain for Your Website
There are three ways through which you can select most appropriate domain name.
- Company Name Based: Example www.hostingheap.com where “Hosting Heap” is company’s name
- Catchy Title Based: Example www.alwaysidea.com where “Always Idea” is title
- Keywords Based: Example www.d4dating.net where “Dating” is a keyword phrase.
Whenever you will select domain, keep these elements in mind and try to select a domain which can help you in search engine positioning and also in online branding.
Google takes Old Domains as Gold!
Google gives more importance to older domains comparatively than newly registered domains, the older the domain better the chances of getting good rankings in Google. Here one thing should be kept in mind that the domain registration details should not be refreshed or updated frequently, if you update or change domain registration information, then there is a chance that Google will consider your domain as new, since there are people who have made it very profitable business, they registered domains and sell them.
Avoid Being Suspect, Get Credibility by Your Domain Name!
Search engine have become very smart, they can track server statistics, domain whois info and compare these information with the available contact information at your website, if information doesn’t match they can give you poor rank or no rank. That’s why it is always advisable that you have same information at website and at domain registration, don’t try to update server information too often or else search engine can take that modification as a change in ownership and your domain becomes fresh once again.
One Year Domain Registration vs Multiple Years Domain Registration
Normally people register their domains for one year even though there is a possibility of registering domains on monthly basis by domain registration companies. Recently the trend has changed now smart businessmen are registering their domains for multiple years, why this change occurred? Why people are investing more money on domain registration?
Newly registered domains are just like infant babies to Google, they have almost zero reliability, credibility factor from their domain registration, there is only one way for those infant babies is that they get themselves registered for multiple years, if they want to be credible and reliable to Google eyes. Google has been always a logical company and there is a logic behind this credibility factor, those websites which are registered for one year or few months can adopt black hat SEO techniques or they can be involved in any short term activity to bring quick ranking, it’s just because they have invested very less amount of money
How Search Engines Treat Sub Domains
Search engines give equal importance to sub domains as they give to domains but there are website which are excessively using sub domains for their promotion. This indicates that very soon search engines will have strict policy related to sub domains.
Domain Name Tips
- Try to select “easy to remember” domain name, after all we all need to increase direct traffic rather hoping from search engines
- If you’ve already taken domain, try to have keywords specific files or directories
- Register your domain name for multiple years (five or ten years)
- Mention your contact details clearly at your website
- Keep the same contact information at website and at domain registrant
- Don’t mess with sub domains but it’s always good to have few relevant sub domains
- Take care of Canonical URLs
- Avoid geographical/country specific domain, unless your target market is specific
- .com is still the most popular domains in search engines and in people
- Don’t modify domain information, it can refresh your domain’s age according to search engine
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There is a misconception related to dynamic websites that dynamic websites are not search engine friendly or they can’t have good positions in major search engines. This is absolutely wrong, dynamic websites can have better and more controlled positions in search engines comparatively than static websites.
What is a dynamic website?
A dynamic website is database driven website in which parts of the content are generated by Server Side Programs/ Middle Tier.
Dynamic webpage doesn’t physically exist as a file/document on (hosting) server, unless the request comes for a webpage. The request contains parameters, user identities, date & time, context etc.
Problems with Dynamic Websites according to Search Engines
This is true that search engines are not good at reading dynamic web pages, but there is always a solution for any problem, first you need to understand that why search engines are unable to read dynamically generated websites? What hurts them not to read dynamic web pages?
- Dynamic webpage doesn’t physically exit on server
- Dynamic website has complex URLs such as “ http://www.wahidqazi.com?name=value&blabla%blabla@session_id@2226897&blabla=77
- Search engine bots/crawlers usually have difficulty in reading these characters “?”, “=”, “@”, “%”, “$”, “*”, “&”, “!” in URLs
- Search engine usually considers dynamic website as group of never ending links
- Search engine bots/crawlers might get stuck in an infinite loop, specially if the dynamic webpage has session id
Tips to Optimize Dynamic Websites
Now you know what hurts search engine bots/crawlers to index your website? What you need to know is that how you can keep your valuable website indexed by search engines, the more your web pages are indexed the better your website will impress search engines
- Create an HTML sitemap with 100 text links or less. If you have more than 100 links, break the sitemap into more than one web pages
- Google Sitemap will also be an advantage, specially if your website is big and dynamic
- Get inbound links deep into your website from other relevant websites such as directories, classified directories, vertical industrial portals
- Convert dynamic web pages into static web pages with the help of URL re-writing techniques
- You can use some plug-in applications that will change your existing dynamic URLs into static ones, specially for shopping carts there are plenty of applications available
- Avoid using session IDs in the URL, specially when user has not logged in
- If you do need to include parameters, limit it to two and limit the number of characters per parameter to ten or less
- If you do have small dynamic website and enough time you can apply this technique. Just right click on page by page of you website, copy the source code and create new static page with .htm or .html extensions
URL Rewriting Techniques and Tools
A rewrite engine is a piece of web server software application that is used to modify URLs before fetching the requested items for a variety of purposes.
Rewrite Engine for Apache HTTP server:
Apache HTTP server has a rewrite engine called mod_rewrite, which has been described as “the Swiss Army knife of URL manipulation”
Rewrite engines for Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS):
- IISRewrite from Qwerksoft
- ISAPI_Rewrite from isapirewrite.com
- URL Replacer from Motobit
- Ionic’s ISAPI Rewrite Filter (IIRF) (open source) from Ionic Shade
Rewrite HttpModule for Microsoft ASP.NET:
- URLRewriting.NET
Rewrite engine for Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Servlet container servers:
- Apache Tomcat, Resin, Orion etc)
- HttpRedirectFilter (open source)
- UrlRewriteFilter (open source) – allows you to rewrite URLs before they get to your Servlets, JSP’s, Struts etc
- URL Rewriter (open source – LGPL) – URL Rewriter is a tool for rewriting URLs in Java Servlets. It is similar to mod_rewrite
Conclusion:
Dynamic websites are not impossible to optimize, it’s just a small fine tune that you need to keep in mind when developing a dynamic website, if you can understand the problems search engine bots/ crawlers have to face when crawling your website, you can better prepare your website, so that search engine bots/crawlers can easily index your valuable website.
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Title tag is the most important part of your web page, which is normally neglected by most webmasters and designers, in fact there are few SEOs who think optimizing “Title Tag” is worthless. Title tag plays very important role in page optimization and in this article you’ll learn how to optimize it.
What Is The Title Tag?
It’s an HTML tag use as a title or heading of the web page, it shows input text on the blue bar at the web page, it is declared at the beginning of the webpage under head tag.
Example: <title>Your Home Page Title</title>
Why Is The Title Tag Important?
Title tag is the most important tag, almost all search engines evaluate webpage with title tag and check the relevancy with other elements of the page as well, and search engines also present results of a search by displaying webpage titles as links in the first line of each query result.
Tips To Write Effective Page Title:
- Try to place your most important keyword phrase at the beginning of the tag
- Use your primary keyword phrase in the title tag at least once
- Avoid using the same words multiple times
- Use plural form of keyword phrase, specially which includes complete singular word in it (Example: manufacturers)
- Use sentence case for keyword phrase but keep preposition in lower case
- Keep your title tag’s limit under 70 to 90 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
- Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
- Avoid using stopping words such as or, and , with, for, by, etc
- Use unique title tag for each page, since each page has unique content
- Make your title interesting and “compelling” to the reader to convince them why they should click there
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Description tag is another useful meta tag which takes prominent place at your web site’s header. There are SEOs who think that there is no worth using this meta tag, but majority of them still agree that this meta tag helps in optimizing websites for Yahoo and Msn, in this article you’ll learn how to effectively utilize it.
What Is The Meta Description Tag?
It’s an HTML tag use to feed description to search engines, it gives description of webpage to search engines, it is declared after title tag of the webpage under head tag.
Example: <meta name=”description” content=“Your Home Page Description”>
Why Is The Description Tag Important?
Description tag is the very important tag, search engines take webpage description through this tag, though search engines don’t give any importance to this tag in their ranking algorithms but this tag can lead searchers to motivate and visit your website.
Tips To Write Effective Page Description Tag:
- Describe your complete webpage in one single line or in a small paragraph
- Forget about keywords, focus on “call to action” words with respect to page relevancy
- Avoid covering complete website in one paragraph, try to focus on page
- Use unique description tag for each page, since each page has unique content
- Keep your description tag’s limit under 160 to 250 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
- Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
- Avoid all capital letter, try to use sentence case
- Use motivational lines so that your listing will be clicked comparatively better than your competitors
- Don’t misguide search engine visitors, write what is available there at the page
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Meta keywords tags are not very effective for major search engines, it is always suggested to have them instead of avoiding, a website should be optimized for all search engines not just for the BIG Three. This particular tag doesn’t require thinking process, one needs to put pre-selected keywords in it, keeping few given guidelines in mind.
What Is The Meta Keywords Tag?
It’s an HTML tag use to feed keywords to search engines, it helps search engines to identity the webpage relevance with respect to supplied keywords, it is declared after description tag of the webpage under head tag.
Example: <meta name=”keywords” content=“Your Keyword1, Your Keyword2”>
Is The Keywords Tag Still Important?
Not exactly, keywords tag has lost its value, search engines get smarter these days, they have set their own criteria to identify web pages with their relevancies, they take each word as “keyword OR phrase” present at webpage and they keep those words in priorities with their densities. There is no harm in utilizing this tag for better results.
How to Hide Keywords from Your Competitors?
If you use this tag, then obviously your competitors are going to know where you are focusing and what are your primary keywords? You should use KEYWORDS in BITS, distribute PHRASES into SINGLE KEYWORD, remove DUPLICATE keywords, keep all keywords UNIQUE.
Old Technique: “seo services, seo trainer, seo training, seo consultant, seo outsourcing, outsourcing services, seo consultancy”
BITS Technique: “seo, trainer, services, training, consultant, outsourcing, consultancy”
Tips To Write Effective Page Description Tag:
- Optimize for relevant keywords
- Use group of relevant keywords on a particular webpage
- Put only those keywords which are focused on webpage
- Don’t put all keywords in this tag
- Don’t repeat keywords in this tag
- Don’t use misspell keywords
- Use keywords with small case letter
- Use BITS technique to write keywords
- Each individual page should be optimize for less than 10 keywords
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Creating a blog is easy but managing a successful blog is something every Blogger wants, a Blogger’s success depends on the amount of audience that Blogger is known to and repeated traffic is the most valuable asset for a Blogger. In this article you’ll get to know ten (10) tips to effectively and successfully manage your blogs and brining your audience back to you.
What is Blog?
Blog is a short word representing “Weblog” and weblog is an online eDiary that is used to display chronological order of postings by one or multiple individuals. It’s an online journal that is regularly updated and accessible publicly to everyone, people can post their comments openly on blogs. It’s basically an interactive media to share thoughts, where author and readers can interact each other on single platform.
Blogger is a person who writes Weblogs, it has become a successful and dynamic profession internally, there are industries OR topic specific bloggers who are equally popular as start.
Tips for Effective and Successful Blogging
There are some very effective blogging tips through which you will be able to entertain your audience and they will keep coming back to your blog, it’s the LOYAL AUDIENCE who is the difference b/w a normal blog and a successful blog.
- Purpose of the Blog
- Who Your Target Audience Is
- Think Big
- Keep It Simple Principle
- Short And Brief
- Informal And Friendly Attitude
- Truth And Honesty
- Frequency Of Post
- Quick Reply To Comments
- Don’t Treat Blog Like An Advertisement Or Marketing Campaign
1. Purpose of the Blog
You should be clearly know the purpose of the blog, either you want to make it professional, topic or industry specific, want to project it as story or want to use it for PR of certain company or product. The best think is to write something you are crazy about.
2. Who Your Target Audience Is
Once you know your targeted audience, their interests and their likeness, you can easily facilitate your audience and can reach to comfort zone or your audience.
3. Think Big
You can create a blog easily, it’s free and quick but it requires your valuable time and continuous input. You just can’t have blog for anything. You have to have something new to your readers, so that they keep coming back to your blog and frequency of their visits depends on your input.
4. Keep It Simple Principle
There is no alternate to simplicity, keep your content simple and easy to understand, so that it will have wide range of audience. Find out simple alternate to difficult words, if somehow you have to use technical word, you should explain it.
5. Short And Brief
You should always write short and brief, people normally don’t like to read too much content. You should be very specific and to the point while posting your blog, if you try to irritate your audience they will never come back to your blog.
6. Informal And Friendly Attitude
Your blog should have informal and friendly attitude of writing, so that you can get quick interaction with your audience who will read your blog, you have to have immediate friendship with your audience through your expression of words and tone.
7. Truth And Honesty
You should always blog with honesty and truth, people like to read your original thoughts rather a point of view of someone else, this way you get closer to your audience and your audience tries to communicate with you.
8. Frequency Of Post
You have to have something new to your blog that will get your audience stick to it, if you are able to post thrice or twice a week that will be good frequency to get your audience back to your blog.
9. Quick Reply To Comments
Your audiences want quick reply to their comments, you should ideally reply back same day. You can set email alert on your blog, so that whenever someone post comments, you get an alert in your email and this way you can keep your blog up to day.
10. Don’t Treat Blog Like An Advertisement Or Marketing Campaign
Your blog is not one way communication, it’s a two way communication where your readers will have equal rights to share their comments openly, if you treat your blog like an advertisement, there are chances that you will have negative feedback or your blog will have less attraction to your readers. Today’s readers are smart enough to understand the purpose of the blog, if you want to use your blog for PR, then you have to keep the balance and be true to your audience.
I hope that above mentioned points will help you manage your blog more effectively, and if you still don’t have a blog, I would highly recommend you to create it today and feel free to ask if you have any question or query.
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How I despise those awful, cheesy pages promoting the “secrets” of search engine optimization. How I loathe the slick salesman pictured in fuzzy, 1980’s-style photography promising you “the hidden tactics SEOs don’t wan’t you to know.” When most search folks think of the “ultimate secret” in SEO,” they probably think about one of these:
- Keywords in the Title Tag
- Spiderable Links & Content
- Anchor Text in Links
- Links from Quality Websites
Those are all good pieces of advice, and important to high rankings, but even the last one (links from quality websites) doesn’t convey the most important part of successful ranking campaigns. If there is one key to high search engine rankings, a single piece of advice that unlocks the door to the top of Google & Yahoo! it’s this: Your website must appeal to a link-savvy audience.
Simple? Sadly, no. The truth is that the very best website in the world that sells your product, offers your content or promotes your cause may not be good enough to make it to the top of the engines. Why? Because the world of search has an inherent bias to those sites with more links. It’s not enough to build links now through manual link requests or link buying, nor is it enough to bolster these link acquisitions with a flawlessly “optimized” website filled with keyword-targeted pages. These strategies, while effective in the short term, won’t guarantee you success in the long run. To have a shot at keeping the top positions for years to come, you need a strategy that naturally drives links to your site again and again. The “secret” is that the audience most sites appeal to is NOT the same audience that provides links, yet this group (the Linkerati) has the power to make or break a site’s rankings.
Let’s walk through a brief history of search engines to see how this happened:
No, Hotbot Monster, back in the early days, you really weren’t. Measuring repetition of keywords and keyword placement and density led to some pretty bad results and a lot of cloaking and spamming.
With the arrival of Google’s PageRank and Apostolos Gerasoulis’ Teoma (now called ExpertRank), the search engines got smarter, mapping the link patterns of the web and giving higher ranks to those sites & pages with more inbound links.
Over the last 8 years, the engines have been refining the way they measure links, taking into account context, relevance, trust and other metrics to help indicate which links are worth counting towards a particular ranking.
All of this algorithmic evolution means that sites wishing to rank at the top of the engines must have high quality, naturally given, topically relevant links. Since search rankings are so valuable, massive amounts of time and money pour into campaigns for the most competitive queries, making the struggle for placement increasingly difficult. This brings us to the fundamental issue that site creators struggle against – segmenting visitors accurately and appealing to the “Linkerati.”
Above are three groups of visitors, applicable to nearly every commercial or goal-oriented website in existence. While most sites do a reasonable job identifying and targeting the 2nd group (in blue) from the first (in green), this isn’t the case with the 3rd group (in red). Those red Llinkerati are essential to your site’s rankings – they are the great “secret” of long-term SEO success. In order to leverage their power, you must create compelling content that appeals to their desires. This really is no “secret” at all. In every interview and on every stage, you’ll hear representatives from Google, Yahoo!, MSN & Ask repeat this same mantra (albeit without the benefit of colorful diagrams). As an example:
“…the sort of people who have been doing “new” SEO, or whatever you want to call it, that’s social media optimization, link bait, things that are interesting to people and attract word of mouth and buzz, those sorts of sites naturally attract visitors, attract repeat visitors, attract back links, attract lots of discussion, those sorts of sites are going to benefit as the world goes forward.” – Matt Cutts in an interview with Gord Hotchkiss
Why are these Linkerati so powerful? What makes their opinions and influence so important to average website owners? Easy – the power to control the web’s link structure.
The web’s content may still be overwhelmingly commercial and organizational in scope, controlled by exceutives at companies, museum curators, government taxonomists, etc. But, the link landscape of the web, particularly those links that point externally from sites, are dominated by the Linkerati. If your competitors or even organizations like Wikipedia, About.com, niche bloggers or industry news publications become more popular with the Linkerati than you, how can you ever expect to compete for search engine rankings?
This is the great “secret” of SEO – that (at least) some content on your website must be targeted to the Linkerati – fulfilling their unquenchable thirst for new material to link to and share and spread virally. Although they may be a vastly different population than your customers, you need their respect and approval in order to continue to draw in targeted leads from the engines.
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Oftentimes, when I describe the concept of linkbait to clients, it’s critical to also describe those folks who are the targets of linkbait – I’ll call them the “Linkerati“. Let’s explore the culture of these most valued of web-dwelling souls:
- Bloggers – probably the most targetable and directly influenced folks, bloggers are an excellent source of traffic, links and the spread of your content’s idea virus.
- Forum posters - although the links these folks put up don’t often result in great search engine value, the traffic can be positive and the possibility that other likely linkers will come through to visit is also high.
- Web News Writers – a rare species, but exceptionally valuable, these folks control the news outlets on the web, including places like C|Net, Wired News, Yahoo! & MSN’s online news portals, etc.
- Content Creators – These folks are building or beefing up websites and are seeking valuable resources to link out to. Most frequently, you’ll find them linking to the sites they find valuable in the top 5-10 results at the search engines (another reason why “the rich get richer”)
- Resource Editors – Another rare breed, these folks work at government institutions, no-profit organizations and educational establishments and are looking to add content to their pages or directories.
- Social Taggers – These folks don’t provide direct links, but if they and their friends at Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit & Furl love you, you’re in for a real treat – thousands of visitors and the opportunity to be in front of hundreds of link-hungry bloggers.
- Viral Connectors – The viral crowd doesn’t directly link to you, but by sending out a blast e-mail, posting to an IRC channel or telling their friends about your site over dinner, they’re spreading the word. Some of them can be very powerful, and they’re not demographically distinct – a well-connected grandmother may know people in the media, executives of businesses and other highly placed and valuable minds.
- Journalists - Online or offline creators of “news” content, these influencers are among the most valuable of all the linkerati. A reporter for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or the Seattle Weekly all have reach and ability to create links to your site, although it’s often in a second-hand fashion (as some sites don’t directly link out, but many bloggers “pick up” news items and do).
Any others I’m forgetting about?
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