The true value of a Digg link
March 19, 2008
With all the chatter of Google punishing PageRank for Digg stories, I thought it's worth looking at the true value of links acquired from Digg or any social news site that uses dofollow.
To do this, let's consider the three types of links that Digg can help you get:
1. Primary links - direct links from Digg readers to your site.
2. Secondary links - indirect links from Digg readers who link via Digg.
3. Dud Links - links that result in neither primary and/or secondary links.
These are links that are solely from Digg and receive a negligible amount of PageRank.
The aim is to scoop up as many primaries and also secondaries as you can, with primary ones being the most desirable.
Typically you have little control as to the proportion of primary or secondary links that you get. If there is a good bit of banter within the Digg comments, there is a fair chance you will get a bigger dosage of secondary links.
So how do you know if you are getting primary, secondary or dud links I hear you ask?
Well that's where Yahoo Site Explorer comes in handy:
To illustrate this, let's look at the recent Digg/PageRank debate over at Sphinn. We are using Sphinn (digg clone) as the ‘Digg’ example.
http://sphinn.com/story/35232 - Sphinn page.
http://startupearth.com/2008/03/07/google-to-punish-pagerank-for-digg-stories/ - Orginal post.
Now go over to Yahoo Site Explorer and enter the above urls, making sure you click on the Inlinks link and show Inlinks "Except this domain".
Primary links
Secondary links
You will see that the primary links account for 13 links and the secondary links for for 8. There is one more step and that is to remove the secondary links from the above primary count. That sounds more confusing than it is, although it just means subtracting Sphinn links from from the primary ones.
Depending on how many primary links there are you may want to do this manually or export the TSV list provided by Yahoo. For this example, there are currently three Sphinn links, leaving 10 primary links as of writing. As I am linking to both, I suspect these numbers will change fairly soon.
Patrick Altoft gave me the idea of for this post in a post of his own and I agree and disagree with his last comment.
Remember that the aim of Digg isn't to get links from Digg, it's to get links from Digg readers websites.
I think Patrick’s wording is not quite right and using my analogy above I would say that the aim is to get both primary and secondary links via Digg.
I maybe wrong, but I suspect Google's algo already covers the whole Digg/PageRank spectacle. After all it’s only PageRank that we are talking about.
And this leads to the question, why would Google team up with an external party to sort out its own PageRank issues? It just doesn’t add up to me.
19 March 2008, the day Google’s homepage broke!
March 19, 2008
Well maybe not entirely broken, but with only one image to get right you’d think they could manage that! Anyone else seeing this at the moment?
Here are the stats of the missing image:
Location: /www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif
Width: 276px
Height: 110px
Size of File: 0 kB (0 bytes)
Alternate text: Google
Has Google put a slash at the start of the location path that shouldn’t be there?
Google Website Reconsider Request, it only takes 3 days!
March 14, 2008
Well that's my recent experience of a big site that is well known worldwide. It may be just as speedy for smaller sights too and I've got to take my hat off to Google for being so quick off the mark. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe reconsider requests were running low for March in Google, either way I think you need a genuine reason and here is how Google dealt with mine and a bit of a background overview:
- Big authority site gets redirected (301) from established keyword rich domain to newly bought exact match brand domain (three weeks ago).
- Organic traffic pretty consistent for a week whilst old site is still fairly well indexed. Organic traffic & rankings nose-dive at the start of the second week. Site can't rank in the top 50 in Google for its own brand with an exact match brand domain name and an established 301 redirected domain with the exact content that has heaps and heaps of backlinks pointing to it.
- Wait two further weeks with no further developments. Then put in a Google reconsider request explaining that the new domain has only recently been purchased and that the previous domain history/owner is unknown and due to extremely poor rankings over previous couple of weeks it is suspected that the site might have a penalty associated to it or maybe a duplicate content filter as the new domain had been significantly indexed before the 301 redirect was put in place {not my fault :)}.
- And as if by magic, 3 days later the site is ranking for its brand and many of the previous highly competitive keyphrases and pretty much back to where it was before the site migration.
- Paessler Site Inspector - a downloadable programme that is great for web devlopers and SEOs in examining a web page.
- HTTrack Website Copier - allowing you to download a website onto your local machine. Great for on-page optimsation on long train journeys with no internet access.
- SPAM detector - this tool attempts to detect keyword stuffing, doorway farms and hidden text.
- Do you use 'ctr+u' in firefox and take the old fashioned approach of checking out the code?
- Do you put on your xray specs to see key elements?
- My current favourite is the 'inspect’ option using firebug.
- Another option is to use the web developer extension and there is little doubt that its the best all rounder. Use the 'Outline block level elements' and 'Show elements names when outlining' to view HTML elements.
- You can now associate website content by the country per-domain, per-subdomain, or per-directory level "“ very useful indeed. It will be interesting to see how useful this really is.
- View and block potential Google sitelinks. I have experience of this taking two weeks, very useful if you have out-of-date sitelinks
- You may like to submit multiple sitemaps to Google's Web Master Central, now you can.
- Broad
- Phrase
- Exact
- Negative (can be broad, phrase or exact)
- Other words are included in the query
- Terms in the query are not written in the same sequence as your keyword
- The query is similar to your keyword. This includes plurals and synonyms.
- All the terms must be present
- "It’s an on-demand AdWords tool that provides personalized campaign ideas in just minutes"
- "Since Campaign Optimizer is an automated tool, we suggest that it be the first step — not the last – in optimizing your account."
- Change daily budget. Budget adjustments can affect your ad visibility and bring you more traffic.
- Add new keywords. Campaign Optimizer proposes targeted keywords that relate to your landing page.
- Change keyword matching options. The right matching option can help you reach customers more effectively.
- Adjust keyword maximum cost-per-click bid. Your maximum CPC bid (in addition to your ad quality) affects your ad position.
- Change ad text. Your ad text affects your click-through rate.
I would have taken a month of organic downtime traffic at the start, but I was suspicious of the inability to rank for sites own brand name and after a courtesy of three weeks and reading Matt's reconsider request I thought it was time I should do something about it.
As Matt Cutts points out, it is no longer called a reinclusion request:
not every spam penalty results in removal from Google's index, so "reconsideration" is more accurate than "reinclusion”.
Needless to say I was very pleased and could wipe the sweat of my brow one last time when someone asked me why the site no longer ranked for its own brand name.
Coincidently, it appears that you can now get penalty notifications from Google Webmaster Central for future domain owners which may shine more light in these types of circumstances.
The reconsider request is there to help out when sites really do need it most and I hope it is used with the consideration it deserves as I'd hate for it to be removed due to “every man and his dog” whacking in a silly nilly request. If such a request is used inappropriately, this is probably a pretty good way to piss Google off. So here's a big cry out to 'all men with dogs', this is not the golden ticket for eternal Google love and you may do more bad than good!
{Sorry I have neglected the blog for so long, I will try to be much better in the future:) }
Miss SEO 2008
December 30, 2007
We have a new Miss SEO 2008 - Kylie Johnston. Some you may not have heard of her in the wider SEO cummunity, but she is certainly up and coming in the Southern-Eastern Ohio region!
Here is what Kylie Johnston had to say for herself:
"I want to promote conservation, especially to youth in schools," she said. "I also want to promote the performing arts. They're such an important part of the community."
And here is a translation of what she probably meant to say 
"I want to promote social media, especially to the linkarati on Digg. I also want to promote all performing PPC ads. They're such an important part of the our online community."
3 SEM tools you should have in your SEO arsenal!
December 10, 2007
Here’s 3 free SEM tools that you may have not used, but should! They are relatively new to my collection:
And here is a bonus tool that you probably have used, but if not - you should!
SEO Book Backlink Analyzer. Does what it says on the tin!
How do you view the source code?
November 7, 2007
Viewing the source of a website is always a good starting point when doing an SEO health check. Let’s look at a few ways:
Do you have a another handy way?
What’s new at Web Master Central?
November 3, 2007
Quite a lot as it happens:
Firefox more popular than I.E. 6
November 3, 2007
Slightly misleading as Internet Explorer is still the most popular browser, but Firefox is more commonly used than Internet Explorer 6, just!
Firefox is growing at by roughly 5% of the market share per year. This implies that 2010 could be the year that the fox out muscles Microsoft for the biggest market share of Internet users "“ go fox, go!
| 2007 |
IE7 |
IE6 |
IE5 |
Fx |
Moz |
S |
O |
|
September |
20.8% |
34.9% |
1.5% |
35.4% |
1.2% |
1.6% |
1.5% |
|
August |
20.5% |
35.7% |
1.5% |
34.9% |
1.3% |
1.5% |
1.7% |
|
July |
20.1% |
36.9% |
1.5% |
34.5% |
1.4% |
1.5% |
1.9% |
|
June |
19.7% |
37.3% |
1.5% |
34.0% |
1.4% |
1.5% |
1.8% |
|
May |
19.2% |
38.1% |
1.6% |
33.7% |
1.3% |
1.5% |
1.7% |
|
April |
19.1% |
38.4% |
1.7% |
32.9% |
1.3% |
1.5% |
1.6% |
|
March |
18.0% |
38.7% |
2.0% |
31.8% |
1.3% |
1.6% |
1.6% |
|
February |
16.4% |
39.8% |
2.5% |
31.2% |
1.4% |
1.7% |
1.5% |
|
January |
13.3% |
42.3% |
3.0% |
31.0% |
1.5% |
1.7% |
1.5% |
New AdWords matching option discovered – ‘the bogus broad match type’
October 21, 2007
Most PPC enthusiasts will be aware of the four common AdWords matching types:
Here is a quick overview of what keyword matching is all about, for the non PPC folks:
Keyword matching allows you to control how precise a user’s search must be to trigger your ad on Google search pages. Defining how broadly or narrowly your keywords are targeted helps you reach the audience you want. Source AdWords Learning Center
However based on AdWords definition of match types, I think I have found a new one and I am naming it the 'bogus broad match'.
So what is the bogus broad match type?
Good question, it seems to be a hybrid of the broad match type and the ability to bid on partially related keywords. How and when it evolved I am uncertain, although I am pretty sure of its existence.
Let's look at the characteristics of a broad match first:
The bogus broad match takes all the above characteristics except for the last one "“ not all the terms have to be present.
By this I have had an experience of bidding on a two worded keyphrase and the ad showing for only a one worded search term.
An example of this would be to bid on the keyword phrase 'bank holiday' on broad match and for your ad to be shown for the search term 'holiday'. This would result in unqualified paid traffic landing on your site, eeek!
You may wander how I discovered what the actual search term was "“ this was not through a third-party analytics package, it was though AdWords very own Search Query Report.
This is difficult to prove without providing login details, and I am curious to see if anyone else has experienced a sighting of the bogus broad match type.
How to overcome the bogus broad match type?
If you believe in that the bb match type existing there is a way to overcome it and it involves the lesser known negative embedded match type. This did the trick for me, but seems a little unnecessary:
e.g.
Bank holiday
"“[holiday]
You may have to include embedded negative plurals and synonyms "“ although I have not had a problem with this.
It is always good practice to run search query report every now and then as part of campaign optimisation and if you do, you may encounter the bogus broad match - be warned! Of course, it could be a blip in the search query reporting or perhaps even a blip in my reporting - although I would like to say the latter is unlikely to be true as I have experienced it several times in the last couple of months. Anyone else seen the same?
AdWords Campaign Optimizer – Optimization or Google Monetization?
October 9, 2007
I'LL LET YOU BE THE JUDGE!
Last week I spent sometime checking out the AdWords Campaign Optimizer and was left a little ruffled as to whether it was a useful optimisation tool or another way for Google to monetize on advertisers spend. It's been around for a couple of months, so let's have a quick look at what it does:
Google blurb:
And here's what Google says it can be used for:
Google covers itself several times by stating that it's an automated tool and should only be used as the first steps of optimisation.
There are hints of useful optimisation tips for the novice AdWords user, although Google seems to have a very clear and loud optimized call to action of its own - "spend more money" and perhaps Campaign Monetizer would be a more fitting name? Not sure why I think this? Re-read the above bulleting points!
Unfortunately the monetization is geared towards Google's ever expanding pockets, rather than the average and often lonely AdWords advertiser. Those that have an understanding for AdWords are unlikely to find the basic suggestions of any use and those that don't are encouraged to spend more money with a lack of any real PPC optimization.
To justify the tools name it would have been nice to see it better integrated with the existing AdWords' conversion tracking. Albeit Google does state that the Campain Monitizer Campaign Optimizer should be the first and not last step in optimization, and although it does indeed make sense, I am still left questioning who will find the tool useful or benefit from it? The AdWords newbie, the intermediate PPC chappy, the seasoned veteran or perhaps Google itself? Me thinks the latter!
Am I being a too cynical? Are Google finally feeling the pinch and responding with subtle money spinners for a quick win? I will let you be the judge of this, although you may want to checkout the AdWords Top Ad Placement formulae post over at PPC Blog if you are still insure :)!
RSS
