hidden links, spam? -
April 3,
2003
I am doing work for a client of mine on
his website to rate highly for the
search related to "ann arbor realtor"
(or real estate, etc.) I should clarify
that I do mostly computer help and
repair, not SEO/webpage building.
While searching the sites that are
already ranking highly, I found one I
thought was interesting:
http://www.google.com/search?source...ilbert%2Ecom%2F
This was a backwards link search of the
3rd rnaking site for the above search
term. The site that comes up with all
these backwards links, seems to be
hiding the urls - they don't appear on
the visual page, but if you look in the
code, they are there.
I'm assuming this is a very bad thing in
Google's eyes? If so, is it bad for the
site those links link to or the site
hosting those links?
Google and H1 Tags -
April 3,
2003
Does google allow the use of
reformatting this tag with stylesheets
to make a word more important in your
page but show it as a normal word, and
is there any way of stopping it from
leaving the two line breaks so you can
include the word in the middle of a
sentence?
Hidden links in plain site? -
March 24, 2003
On my directory some of the clients want
me to track their visits from my site
for them. Of course, they also want the
benefit of the link with the search
engines. I'm thinking I can put two
links to the exact same page from my
page. The one (very obvious to the
viewer) link would be a trackable js
type thingy that passes on no pr.
Additionally, there would be a standard
html link in the content of the page but
this link would be hidden (made to look
like regular text) in order to keep
people from clicking on it.
I doubt anyone would report this but if
it happened would it stand up to human
review?
Google referrals down due to war
-
March 24, 2003
I am noticing a huge decrease in Google
referrals since the start of the war
coverage. (Also other referrals seem to
be similarly affected.) Are any other of
you with non-news sites seeing this?
A PR8 site selling pagerank? -
March 24, 2003
Looking at the FoxNews website, I noticed peculiar
looking links on the front page under the
"advertising links."
Many of these are direct links to business sites.
One
can look at them two ways. Fox is selling Page Rank
or they are, in fact, just selling small text link
ads.
My
gut tells me more is going on here than just selling
text ads. For one thing, there's one link there that
says - "Buy This Link"
The
wording on that raises eyebrows.
Link Text: Developing a Strategy that Works
March 17, 2003
There seems to be a recent surge in
importance of link text. I'm somewhat
curious if there is a large difference in
weight between links that are on my site vs.
links that are from other sites.
For example, if own Big Red Tires, then most
people are going to link to me with the link
text of "Big Red Tires". But did you realize
Big Red is the largest seller of "Designer
Wheels" and "Gold Valve Stems" in the World?
Chances are I won't be able to easily
convince other websites to use link text
other than "Big Red Tires". It seems my only
choice will be to use my own (internal)
links. I expect the best way to do this is
to build a navigational footer with the
important terms and add it to every page.
...
Googlebot: Deepbot and Freshbot FAQ
and Information -
FAQ and general information regarding
Google and it's
spiders
Adwords Click Wars Heating Up
-
I'm currently working in a country in
the Med. where the
business world is a little strange.
After speaking to
some potential clients who all advertise
on Google, I
found out that nearly all of them spend
at least one hour in the morning
clicking on their competitors adwords so
their competitors will pay for each
click! I understand that some of these
folks are paying $8 per click! Is there
some system in place by Google to
prevent such abuse?!
Moving AdWords to the Premium Spot
-
Previous WebmasterWorld threads have
reported a consensus that the
circumstances that need to come together
for an Adword to be automatically "sent
north" to the premium spot are a
combination of CTR, bid amount, and
keyword impression volume. Googleguy
said going north was controlled by a
automatic algorithm, not human decision.
I wanted to know what I had to do to get
my Adwords up there, so I experimented.
Here's what I found:
Google Ditches IMG Alt Text
-Jan
31, 2003
During January, the Fresh listings
weren't matching words in alt text or
showing them in snippets, unless they
were in a link. Since the update, it
seems to be the same for the main
listings.
IMG alt text has been used for stuffing
hidden text for as long as I can
remember. Still, it's a shame to loose
this key element of allowing robot
accessibility for image heavy pages,
just as business and even government
bodies are starting to take Web
accessibility seriously.
Why buy Google ads?
-Jan
31, 2003
I notice everyone says buy ads on
Google. I truly don't get it. My eyes
automatically go to the first entry in
the regular list - i don't even see any
of the paid ads. Why? Because my mind
knows where the ads are and i don't care
to see them.
Since
some of the user testing i have done shows this, why
would i want to waste my advertising budget on
something people overlook?
Minimum Adwords bid dropped.
- Jan
22, 2003
|
We have been trying for a year to
get Google to drop the minimum bid
on our main search term for the
USA from 43¢ to something more
reasonable. After many e-mails
pointing out that this was an
unreasonable amount for this term
given it's search frequency and
the comparable bids at Overture
they always sent a nice e-mail
back that "thank you for your
interest but no...".
Two days ago I checked and lo and
behold the minimum bid has been
removed completely.
Many thanks Google. In the first
day we had 4 times more click-thrus
then before.
Has anyone else noticed other
terms that have been reduced or
was it only this one?
|
Is There An Ongoing
Effort To Discredit Google?
-Jan
17, 2003
The reason
I ask is because of all the negative
posts all over in many online
forums. I want to open this up for
discussion. I want to know the why.
I want to know all the reasons for
this.
Please feel free to post any reasons
you can think of. There will be zero
editing of any posts. As you know, I
don't edit many things anyway so
post away!
I just want to know why the biggest
search engine who visitors flock to
daily is getting bashed right and
left by many SEO's and many others
who are simply falling on the
bandwagon.
The many articles floating around
right now also support this bashing. |
Keyword lists at bottom of page? -
Jan 13, 2003
|
In an effort to push up through
the SERPs I made a list of the key
words I would like users to find
us using, and placed them at the
bottom of my page. Not hidden,
black bold font on a light blue
cell background.
The results were really quite
good, although it looks a bit
ugly. We moved up on all the
phrases that I listed.
Does Google allow this or will I
eventually be penalized? |
Site Under Construction - Serp #1 -
PR6
-
Jan 13, 2003
|
For a competitive shopping
search term that comes up with
1,200,000 results on Google, the
#1 listing is a page that says
"This site under
construction....".
It has a PR6 and 6 back links,
one of which is the Google
directory and 2 from DMOZ.
Can someone shed some light on
this?
|
Why is Yahoo suddenly doing better than
Google? -
Jan 10, 2003
Since I started
last July, Google has consistently
brought in more traffic than
Yahoo. Generally from 2:1 to 3:2
more.
I started noticing a month or two
ago that Yahoo was doing better in
the mornings but that Google was
back ahead by noon. |
Google
premium listings dancing
the fine line
-
Jan 10, 2003
|
I'm increasingly feeling that
people will mistake paid listings
for real listings. The disclaimer
that they are sponsored is way
over on the right where people
rarely look, especially when they
have been trained to look at the
results on the left! |
Searchking sells answers -
Jan 08, 2003
|
I just noticed, that SearcKing
has received an answer from Google
and now there are selling password
to see the documents for $20 each.
Are they crazy? What do you think
about that? |
Title on EVERY page? Google.
-
Jan 08, 2003
