Webmaster Discussions

At the end of last month, Google rolled out a new page offering advice to those seeking a search engine optimization firm. Since being unveiled, there’s been both support and criticism of the tips and recommendations that Google has posted in various SEO forums.

From my perspective, most of what Google has posted is sensible advice and positive for the SEO community as a whole, especially compared to what was said by Google previously about SEOs, within its help area:

“Be very careful about allowing an individual consultant or company to ‘optimize’ your web site. Chances are they will engage in some of our ‘Don’ts’ and end up hurting your site.”

A brief and fairly negative statement, to say the least. The impression one comes away with is that most SEOs are likely to cause you problems, so you’re better off avoiding them. Compare that to what Google’s now saying:

“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, there are a few unethical SEOs who have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.”

So, congratulations, SEOs! Google, in my opinion, is legitimizing the majority of you and certainly the industry.

For its part, Google actually denies that there has been any significant change in its view toward SEOs. The company notes — accurately, I would add — that it has worked with the SEO community for some time, speaking at conferences, posting information within its own web site and via public forums. If the tone on its help pages now seems more positive toward SEOs, Google says it is just now wording things better.

“Maybe we are expressing it more clearly. Certainly there’s always room for a consultant that gives you good advice,” said Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google who deals with webmaster issues. “The intent is not to be negative or positive about SEOs but provide more information.”

Whatever the reason behind the change, I think it clearly gives the general public a more positive impression about SEOs from Google. However, Google says the main intent behind the page is educational. Google wants the public to understand how to choose an SEO wisely, so they are not likely to encounter problems getting listed with Google or other search engines.

“The overall goal is to give people the tools so that they can assess a decision about search engine optimization,” said Cutts.

Let’s take a closer look at some of those tips.

Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar

This tip really stood out in my mind, because there are definitely people out there selling namespace services via dubious practices. However, these pitches have nothing to do with Google. Instead, they involve Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

So why’s Google calling this out? The company says it’s just trying to educate people generally about SEO-related issues, regardless of whether they are Google-specific.

“It goes back to Google just trying to do the right thing, the same way we did with the pop-up page,” Cutts said, referring to an educational page the company posted earlier this year on pop-up ads.

To learn more about problems with namespace pitches, see my recent article, RealNames Clones Causing Confusion. I also expect to revisit the issue in the near future, because I continue to get emails from people confused by misleading pitches. If anything, it would be nice to see Microsoft itself, rather than Google, make a loud, public statement on the issue.

Nice advice, but then Google doesn’t offer any real help on how to do this. That’s OK, I’ll fill in some blanks.

Finding Search Engine Optimization Professionals is a fairly recent SearchDay article that talks about three SEO directories. Both SeoPros.org and the SEO Consultants Directory are directories that screen who is allowed in, while SEMList.com allows anyone to list themselves and information about their companies.

MarketingSherpa.com publishes a Buyers’ Guide to Search Engine Optimization Firms. My last review was of the first edition, but I’ve skimmed the second edition and still think it is well worth the money for anyone thinking about hiring an SEO firm. Along with reviews, the guide offers a lot of helpful advice.

you should ask how long a company has been in business and how many full time staffers it employs

How long a company has been in business is good, but number of staffers isn’t necessarily relevant. You could find a small firm of only one or two people that is great. They may not have more people because they don’t want to grow beyond that.

On the forums, I saw several posts questioning the wisdom of this tip, as well. For its part, Google explains that it didn’t mean to suggest that companies with big full-time staffs are better than others. Instead, Google says it is really suggesting that consumers learn more details about the company, period.

“We are not making this general statement that the number of people matters,” Cutts said. “This is more an example of doing your homework.”

Hopefully, Google will look again at the wording. A simple change to something like, “You should ask how long a company has been in business, who is employed there, how did those employees gain their experience?,” might get across Google’s point that you should learn more about a company before engaging them without the focus seeming to be on number of employees.

Ask your SEO firm if it reports every spam abuse that it findsto Google using our spam complaint form. Ethical SEO firmsreport deceptive sites that violate Google’s spam guidelines

Sorry, I completely disagree, and I’m far from alone, judging from forum posts and other comments I’ve read. You can indeed be an ethical SEO without also playing the role of Google’s volunteer spam police.

In fact, there are plenty of “ethical” SEO firms that feel that reporting spam actually can be an unethical practice. These firms feel like they should focus on doing positive work — promoting their clients, rather than getting involved in negative work of expending time reporting spam.

http://www.seoguru.biz/blog/seo-guidelines/google-offers-seo-selection-guidelines/

Link: Google Offers SEO Selection Guidelines

Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Optimizer is also known as SEO. It’s the process used regarding websites and the way the sites are ranked on the internet. To have a high ranking on the internet means the internet users will see the highest-ranking websites first.

Deciding to hire the right company for the optimization of a website is an important step to take for any website’s ranking.

Some of the services provided by these companies are reviewing the site for structure and content, technical advice on the development of the website, content development, management of online business development campaigns, keyword research, SEO training, and expertise in specific markets and geographies. The services dramatically improve the traffic to the website.

Google has this kind of service. They do not receive payment for ranking of the websites. Free resources such as Webmaster Tools and Webmaster Central blog provide additional information for optimizing the SEO results. Google only provides high quality in their services and they are used by many websites.

SEO can improve the current website. There are questions a site owner should ask when selecting a company for their sites. Ask to be shown examples of the their previous work on other sites. Ask if they follow Google Webmaster Guidelines. Ask if they offer online marketing services or advice.

Ask what kind of results are to be expected and the time for the results. Ask what their experience is in the industry of the website. Ask what their experience is in the country of the website. Ask if they have experience developing sites internationally. Ask what they consider are the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimization. Ask how long they have been in business. Ask how to communicate with them and if they are going to notify you of any changes that may be needed for the website.

Take the time to research, and find out the facts about the company who you are interested in. Avoid companies that email you information without you making an inquiry. Several internet companies that contact website owners with unsolicited services are not always ethical.

They use aggressive marketing efforts to push their services and end up manipulating the search engine results in unfair ways. This is considered an ethical practice and several honest organizations frown on this type of service.

Avoid the companies that promise high rankings for the websites. There are no guarantees with the rankings. Be careful of companies that are secretive and do not clearly explain what they intend to do to provide the rankings for your website. Be leery if the company asks you to link your site to theirs.

There are several trustworthy SEO Companies, so select wisely when using one for generating traffic to your website. It’s worth using the higher quality of SEO for many reasons, but the best one is increasing legitimate traffic to your website.

So to sum this all up in one sentence; just make sure you do your due diligence when selecting a company to perform SEO tasks on your website.

Read the rest here: What is Search Engine Optimization and What to Look For in a SEO Service

You should be. If you have never heard of Google PageRank and you have established a website, it is high time you learned about Google PageRank and what it means to you and the success of your website. Having an excellent Google PageRank can either make or break a website in terms of overall success. Let’s take a look at what Google PageRank is and why it is so important to every website owner.

First, a word about the Google Search engine: Google is one of the most popular search engines on the Internet. Not only is Google’s search engine the absolute largest of its kind, the company focuses on making web information easy to access and even easier to find. Google has designed a unique system and the search engine has yet to be surpassed in terms of the information it provides. Google has grown immensely since its early beginning in 1996 and it will continue to be a predominant force on the Internet. Furthermore, because Google offers easy access to immediate information, they own one of the top Internet search engines in the world. Thus, it would serve a webmaster well to become familiar with the Google PageRank process-the Google PageRank is an algorithm that is based on inbound links and other factors and will ultimately determine the location of listing of your website in the Google Search Engine.

What precisely is Google PageRank?

Google PageRank is a process the search engine’s uses as a way of selecting sites to answer specific queries. Basically, when an Internet user submits a query, the Google search engine will attempt to match websites to the query that has been posed. Yet, there is a bit more to this simple science than the act of submitting a query suggests. Rather, behind the scenes, Google uses specific algorithms to determine if a site specifically address a web user’s needs by analyzing the content of a site by keyword and by the number of inbound links associated with the site-every inbound link is viewed as a vote and the more votes one has, in conjunction with the more keywords one has, the higher their Google PageRank is.

Why is Your Google PageRank Significant?

What does it mean to you when your Google PageRank is increased? Does it really matter what your Google PageRank is at all? You bet it does-the higher your Google PageRank is the higher on a search engine’s listing your website will appear. Thus, if you are looking for top billing, especially in a search engine as popular as the one Google offers, you will definitely want to maximize your efforts of getting your website visible and improving your PageRank is the best way to accomplish such a task. Moreover, the higher you appear on the search engine listing offered by Google, or many other search engines, the easier your website is to find. Essentially this equates to more web traffic for your website and if you are running an online business, more web traffic ultimately means more profit for you.

Making Google PageRank Improvements

If you are looking to improve your Google PageRank you can do so by starting a link campaign. A link campaign can help you increase more inbound links to your website and in turn, more inbound links will increase your Google PageRank. How do you start a link campaign? Well, you can go the hard route by scouring the Internet to find websites similar to your own. Or, you can make your link campaign a far easier process by using the services afforded to you by PageRank Browser and locate all of the best, themed websites on the Internet with relative ease.

Of course, there are few things you must bear in mind when you begin your link campaign. Google actually rates various links and holds some links higher than others. In other words, if you link to 100 less than popular sites you may increase your Google PageRank. Conversely, if you link to 50 extremely popular sites and you get inbound links in return, you may significantly increase your Google PageRank because the most popular sites on the Internet are linking directly too you. Thus, when you begin your link campaign, keep this popularity issue in the back of your mind. Further, know that in using PageRank Browser, you will be able to locate the popular sites with ease, and thereby significantly increase your Google PageRank.

About Inbound Links

Quite frankly, some links that you will establish will be better than others. You goal will be to establish the best links possible by examining the quality of inbound links. Various webmaster tools can help you determine the quality of the reciprocal links you establish. You will want to work hard at establishing direct inbound links to your site-direct links from already popular websites. You will also need to establish links to websites that are similar to yours-remember the search engine algorithm used by Google to determine your page rank is based on relevance. You will also find that the location of inbound links is of significant importance. For example, when you establish inbound links, those links that are buried deep within a website will have less influence on the ranking of your website in Google’s search engine.

What is clear is that your Google PageRank is of significant importance. Thus, every effort should be used to improve your Google PageRank-with the use of webmaster tools and the use of sites like PageRank Browser you should have little difficulty getting your PageRank right where it should be. Therefore, you will not only improve your PageRank you will improve the web traffic you receive by leaps and bounds. Moreover, your improved PageRank will make you a force on the Internet to be reckoned with-you will have a highly recognizable website for all your efforts and you will ultimately improve your online business’ bottom line.