Joe Whyte - Digital Marketer » Google

Google adds Blog Posts to end of search results

joe.whyte — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 03:28:09 +0000

Today I was doing quick post for “web hosting” just to check out how some of my optimization is settling. I was pleased to see a new google implementation for their search results page. I noticed that at the bottom of that query there was 3 entries pulled from blogsearch.google.com.

See results I found here:

So why is Googles new implementation worth posting here? Simple, this implementation has opened up an entirely new opportunity to optimize a site to get onto the home page. From an SEO firm standpoint this is a great new opportunity to sell optimization for blogsearch.google.com (if this implementation STAYS around). As an add on you could push clients to create blogs in order be listed periodically on the home page of google for a given search term.

This would give SEOs a faster way to optimize client sites onto the home page of google and since blog reading has become such an online sensation I am sure this little box will draw much attention to the novice and expert searcher.

From an independant seo/site owner, this is a great way for you to advertise your site with little to know effort which will draw more traffic and if done correctly will create higher conversions.

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Google Filters, how to get around them and exploit their loop holes

joe.whyte — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 02:18:20 +0000

I have been doing SEO for some time now and I have been witness to many a strange occurrence regarding serps. Most of these weird occurrence I would have to say are directly attributed to a Google Filter or Google penalty. So I have been inspired by a post over at webmasterworld and as far as I know there is not a current list out online that list’s all of the potential Google penalties so I have decided to put together an arbitrary list of potential Google Penalties. Please note that there is no proof i.e. press release from Google stating these exist but rather these are ideas, theories and assumptions from SEO’s experiences.

Google Sandbox: The Sandbox Filter is usually applied to brand new websites but has been seen to be applied to domains that have been around for a while. Since most websites do not make it past a year Google implemented a filter that will prevent a new site from getting decent rankings for competitive keyword terms. Usually brand new sites can still rank for non competitive keyword terms though.

How to work around the Sandbox: Google uses a system called trust rank. The idea behind trust rank is if authority sites link to your new site then you must be an authority site as well and since Google trust’s these older more respected sites it will trust your’s as well. Hence getting you out of the sandbox right away. That is not an easy thing to do so if you are not able to get these links then try expanding your content to rank for many more less competitive keywords and keyword phrases (long tail keywords).

Google -30: This Google filter is applied to site’s who use spammy seo tactics. When Google find you using doorway pages, java redirects etc then they will drop your rankings by 30 spots.

How to get around this: If you find yourself a victim of the Google -30 filter then usually just removing the spam elements on your site will get you back in. You can always fill out a request for re-inclusion is worse comes to worse. Here are some resources for the Google -30. Arelis, Threadwatch, SERoundtable.

Google Bombing: Google Bombing is a filter applied to sites who gain a large number of inbound links with the same anchor text. This raises a red flag to Google as it is extremely unnatural for an inbound linking structure to all have the exact same anchor text.

How to work around this: If your site actually has this filter applied then most likely you have been banned from the search engines and a re-inclusion request is probably your best bet. If the filter is not applied but through your monitoring you see this potential then you might want to go back and request people change your anchor text, buy some links with varying anchor text etc. Here are some resources for Google Bombing. Search Engine Watch, NYTimes, Google Blogspot.

Google Bowling: This is not really a filter as much as it is a series of black hat techniques that will get you banned. Usually people use this term in reference to competition or a page/site they want OUT of the serps. Google bowling is usually only effective to site’s that are much new with lower trust rank. Trying to do this to a large site with high trust rank is going to be virtually impossible.

How to get around this: Google says that there is nothing a competitor can do to drop YOUR rankings. Many seo’s do not believe this and if you seoblackhat sells services for something like this. Re-inclusion request is basically your only option. Here are some resources for Google Bowling. Web Pro News, ThreadWatch and SEroundtable.

Google Duplicate Content Filter: A duplicate content filter is applied to sites who take content that has already been created, cached and indexed on other sites. News sites are usually exempt from the duplicate content filter via a hand job. Usually the pages that have this applied are not ranked very well in the serps. Page Rank can be devalued and if a page does not have inbound links you could see your results being put into omitted search results and supplemental results.

How to get through this: If you find yourself in this filter then your first step can be trying to remedy the duplicate content. Contact the person stealing your content and ask them to remove it. You can contact the persons web host to see if they will take down there site and the last resort is “trying” to contact Google and alert them of what is going on. Keep on top of your content by using copyscape to check for duplicate content.

Google Supplemental Results: Google supplemental results take pages on your site that have been indexed and put them into a sub database in Google. Supplemental results do not rank well but rather Google uses its supplemental DB to populate its results when they don’t have enough results to show in a given query. This means pages on your site in Google’s supplemental DB will not help you in the serps.

How to get through this: Its pretty simple actually. Just get some inbound links to your pages. Check this post out to find out more about the Google Poo (supplemental results).

Google Domain name Age Filter: The Google domain name age filter is closely related to trust rank and the sandbox but it is possible to be out of the sandbox and have trust rank and still be in this filter. The idea behind this filter is that older sites and domain names are more likely to rank well for keyword terms then newer sites. If you are in this filter you will most likely not rank well for terms that are competitive until your site grows older.

How to work around this: Quality links from authority sites with high trust rank will help you do much better in the serps.

Google’s Omitted Results Filter: Pages within your website that are in omitted search results will not show up in a Google search unless a user specifically says to show all omitted results. Usually users do not even get to the last page to do this which makes any page of yours that is omitted completely out of a Google search result. The reason this happens is lack on inbound links, duplicate content, duplicate meta title, duplicate meta description and poor internal linking.

How to get out of this: In order to get pages are omitted out of this filter simply alter the meta tags and fix duplicate content and get some quality inbound links.

Google’s Trust Rank Filter: Like the PageRank algorithm the trust rank algorithm has many factors that determine a sites trust rank. Some of the known factors are the age of a site, the amount of quality authority links pointing to it, how many outbound links it has, the quality of its inbound linking structure, internal linking structure and overall SEO best practices on meta and url structure. All sites go through this filter and if your Trust Rank is low so will your rankings in the serps.

How to get work with this: An old site and a new site can both have high trust rank or low trust rank. It is basically determined by the amount of quality authority links pointing to it, how many outbound links it has, the quality of its inbound linking structure, internal linking structure and overall SEO best practices on meta and url structure. Optimize these and you will have quality Trust rank.

links.htm page filter: This filter penalizes a sites ranking determined by the use of a links.html page. Using reciprocal linking is a old technique that is not promoted by Google anymore. This filter effects your ranking in the serps.

How to work with this filter: Instead of using “links” as your page title and name try using something like “mynewbuddies” or “coolsites” as this will help get around this filter. Reciprocal links are old seo techniques and Google devalues reciprocal linking structures.Here is someone discussing this at SEOChat.

Reciprocal Link Filter: Google is very open about reciprocal linking and clearly states that their algorithm can detect reciprocal link campaigns. Usually sites that only participate in reciprocal linking will have a hard time ranking in the search engines but depending on what you are using your site for a reciprocal links campaign might be exactly what you need. For example if you are building an adsense site then you do not want to spend to much time building a site up and a reciprocal linking campaign will help your sites inbound links grow over time.

How to work with this filter: When it comes to building an inbound linking structure try to utilize some or all of the 15 types of links and how to get them post I did a ways back. Here are some resources about this filter. Matt Cutts here and here, Search engine guide and Webmasterworld.

Link Farming Filter: Link farms are sites/pages that have a mass amount of unrelated links grouped together arbitrarily. Link farms can also be related links but most commonly they are unrelated. IP farms and bad link neighborhoods are all part of link farming. Being a part of a link farm can get your rankings dropped in Google and possibly get you banned.

How to get around this: Currently the only way to get around this is to NOT participate in link farming. Here are some resources on link farming:

CO-citation Linking Filter: This popular filter by Google watches your inbound link structure. If your link is on a site who’s outbound links are related to casino’s and porn sites and your automotive site is an outbound link on this site then google will think your site is related to porn and casinos. Poorly constructed co-citation will damage your ranking and make it hard for you to rank well for the terms you are targeting.

How to work with this: When considering a link partner, paid link or monitoring your inbound links be sure to follow this linking quaility guidline page that was derived from Patrick Gavin over at text link ads.

To many links at once Filter: This filter is applied when to many inbound links are acquired by a site to fast. The result can lead to a ban across all search engines. How these links are obtained, how many and over what period of time are factors for this filter.

How to get around this: Simply do not participate in black hat linking schemes and link spaming and you should never have a problem with this. Here is some information concerning this filter over at Aaron Walls at SEObook.com,

To many Pages at once filter: Google is keen on natural site development. Anything that look “unnatural” is going to be flaged by the search engines. Having to many pages to fast will raise this flag/filter. Some people believe that 5000 is the max for pages in a month but this number in my opinion can fluctuate depending on other factors and filters your site might be going through at any given time. The effect of this filter can result in pages being omitted, pages in supplemental results and in the extreme case a Google ban.

How to get through this filter: If you have a system that pulls content in or are using a dynamic content generator be sure to limit it per week and I would stay under 5000 pages per month just to be on the safe side. Depending on how large or well known your site is then the limit will be adjusted.

Broken Link Filter: Broken internal links can cause pages from not being crawled, cached and indexed. If pages like your home page do not have a link back to it on all pages this can count against you in the serps and your overall quality score for things like PR. This is not just bad seo and bad site design but this is bad for your users and can cause poor traffic and poor serp ranking.

How to get through this: Make sure you have a quality footer, a sitemap that covers all of your pages in one central hub and make sure you test your site for broken links. (be sure to use full url’s in your linking via source code).

Page Load Time Filter: The page load filter is very simple. If your website takes to long to load then a spider will time out and move past your site or page. This will result in NEVER being cached and indexed. Ultimately this means your site or page will not be present in Googles SERPS.

How to work with this: Make sure your pages are optimized for load time. Make sure if you are using flash or many images you use java pre-load coding. Make sure you limit the file size of your page’s as much as possible to make sure the spiders can read the entire document and be sure to use web 2.0 and css best practices.

Over Optimization Filter: Over optimization can cause a Google ban or hardship in rankings. Over optimization could be considered keyword stuffing, to much keyword density and keyword proximity optimization, meta tag stuffing etc. Stay away from over optimization.

How to get around this: Don’t over optimize!!!!

There are some filter’s I have not mentioned but I thought I would give a smaller list of other filters that could be attributed to Google:

Keyword Stuffing Filter:
Meta Tag Stuffing Filter:
Automated Google Query Filter:
IP Class Filter:
Google Toolbar Filter:
Click through Filter in serps:
Traffic Filter:
Google -950 Filter:
I would like to hear what other SEO professionals have to say about my list as I have seen a lot of these and I have heard other’s speak of these and since Google has not come out and told all of use which filters exists and do not exists please consider this an excersize of knowledge expansion for all .

P.S. Mark Blair put together a very nice printable pdf file version of this post for your downloadable and printable pleasure . Thanks Mark!

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Google Search Suggestion for Popular Search Terms

joe.whyte — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:36:12 +0000

I was doing some searching for “web hosting” and I noticed something new in the google serps. I noticed a series of links at the bottom of this search that shows other related search’s. We have seen these types of serp changes before with real estate searches and specific refinements although this is less of a refinement and more of a suggestion by Google. I think this could be a way to help novice searches search more effectively. This could also be great information for SEO’s who are wondering what related terms to rank for or dominate .

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Wiki Search taking on Google, Yahoo! and MSN?

joe.whyte — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 17:52:31 +0000

Author: Joe Whyte

Today I was checking out some things over at wikipedia just to keep tabs on them trying to take over the world. Well to my surprise I found a page that is requesting wiki members and developers to start creating a user defined search engine. The founder of wikipedia (Jimmy Wales) is attempting to make a search engine that fixes the “broken” search industry that is alive today. From what Jimmy is saying is that he wants PEOPLE to do what any Algorithm cannot which is probably something like Social Search. Social Search is something that Google, Yahoo and MSN have already talked about and is something that is already in development. Social Search IS the future of search but when will it be realized and will it ever be a stand alone search engine with no help from an algorithms? I think not! The time it will take for all possible search results to be customized to a user’s search behavior is a life long process so there still needs to be something that can make Social or “personalized” search move quicker and smarter.

To get a general overview on social search, see this great article over at SEroundtable.com.

Here is information about Googles Social Search.
Google’s way of utilizing social search is allowing a tracking system to follow you while you search. So if you are doing a search for cooking and you click on 2 results on the first page and 4 results on the second page then when you perform that search using “personalized search” you will have all of the results you clicked at the top of YOUR search so you dont have to digg to find them. This technique makes for a personalized Search Engine Results page FULL of results that are relevant to what you are looking for.

Here is Yahoo! Getting social: I have not seen any beta for yahoo social search YET, if someone does have a sneak peak on this please let me know. I do know that Yahoo! is starting to create a social search beta program and it seems that they definitely know the power of social search and have their eyes focused on the future of search.

Here is MSN getting social: With MSN I have not found an actual beta test for their Personalized or social search engine. MSN see’s the power in social search so they are too gearing up to create a social search engine utilizing the power of the end user.

With the links above you can see the emphasis put on social search amongs all of the major search engines. Its clear that social search is going to be the future of search as it can provide much more accurate results. Social Search is definitely a much more exact way to search for the INDIVIDUAL but there are still a ton of variables that need to be considered to make this successful. Google’s current “personalized search” is a good start but still very flawed as it sends a bot to track my current movement in the serps. For a user to completely rely on Googles personalized search this BOT would need to know what the user would PROBABLY click on for any given search term. The problem with personalized search is that it will only pull relevant results on search terms you have ALREADY searched for. In conclusion, WIKIpedia’s jimmy wales is not creating something that HAS not been thought of before he is just doing it wiki style .

2006 was a big year for social search and I predict that social search will continue to be a large topic in 2007.

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Google sneaking images next to ads part II

joe.whyte — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 09:40:47 +0000

I found a forum post from Josh (SitePoint Forum Leader). It was a very GOOD post in my opinion. He took great measures to digg deeper on Googles postion regarding placing its OWN images next to ads. See original Forum post here:

Josh’s email to Google said and I quote -

Regarding your blog post “clarifying” the image placement next to ads here: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2006/12/…nt-policy.html

While it was certainly clearer, it wasn’t clear.

Statements like this are very ambiguous and confusing to publishers:

“You can definitely place Google ads on pages containing images — just make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. For example, if you run a stock photography site with a catalog of thumbnail images, don’t line the ads up with the thumbnails in a way that could be misleading. Consider using a full border around your ads or changing your ad colors, for example.”

So wait, does that mean if you use ads with a full border or different background color you can have thumbnails? If you offset the thumbnails so they don’t line up exactly with the ads is that okay? Your examples certainly don’t answer those questions, either (one implies it’s a no-no to put images related to the products sold in the ads, the other implies that it is bad to make your ads look like content links–but what if your adsense blocks are the only things with thumbnails on your site, is it then permitted?)

Do you have any better answers? This policy clarification still seems to leave things VERY subjective and ambiguous.

Also, given the number of people who are doing this, and how effective it apparently is, why don’t you guys just offer thumbnail ads to ADVERTISERS. Then they pick the thumbnail on their ads and everyone is happy. I’m sure you’ve gotten that suggestion numerous times.

I mean, it looks like you guys already break your own rules: http://www.joe-whyte.com/2006/12/18/…xt-to-its-ads/

-Josh

I love his email. Way to go JOSH!! Here is what GOOGLE HAD TO SAY!!!

Hi Josh,

Thank you for your email.

I understand that you have questions about the example we’ve provided. We’re trying to convey that users who naturally have smaller images on their sites (for instance, the stock photography site we used as an example) should still feel free to place ads on their sites, as long as they don’t try to associate the images and ads in any way. The provided suggestions were general suggestions that referred to our example, and do not apply to other sites.

Regarding your second question – if a site does not have thumbnail sized images for some other reason, then there’s really no circumstances under which images should be added and placed near Google ads.

We appreciate your suggestion for allowing advertisers to offer thumbnail images. While this feature isn’t currently available, I’m happy to pass along your comments to our engineering and product teams. Please also feel free to submit any future suggestions through our online form at http://google.com/adsense_features_email .

Sincerely,

Stephanie
The Google AdSense Team

I suggest my readers check out this forum post as there are going to be a lot of opinions going on over at sitepoint . IMO I think Google is taking the easy way out. Yes they do explain themselves and I GUESSSSS because its christmas they have a REASON to put these images next their ads but seriously how close are they pushing the line on this?????

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Google Releases it’s new patent search

Google Releases it’s new patent search

joe.whyte — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:59:49 +0000

Google has just recently released its new patent search. This is going to be great for all the tech nerd geek freeks who make our country the greatest! See Googles new patent search here. The search works very similiar to the normal Google search and gives a great display on patents including summaries and detailed patent info.

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Google Sneak’s images next to its ads

joe.whyte — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:51:30 +0000

I was over at blog.outer-court today and I could not believe my eyes when I read this. My jaw literally dropped! Something that adsense site owner’s like to do is put pictures next to adsense which helps the click through rate as people tend to identify pictures with links next to them which is a sneaky way to improve CTR that is prohibited in googles TOS. Here is an example of an adsense site owner placing ads next to images to improve ctr.

So google seems to have done something amost exactly against its OWN TOS. I guess its ok if google does it but NOT us.

This is what they have to say about their own images next to advertisers.

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Pre-production SEO and Googles Crawl Cycle

joe.whyte — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 07:04:10 +0000

When attempting to launch a site it is always a good plan to come out of the gates fast. Launching a site at the right time can mean the difference between monetizing your site now or in a couple months. To many SEO’s and Webmaster’s this might not even be an issue but for an SEO professional who has time constraints and deadlines these are must have tools. Out of the majority of major search engines Google is one of the fastest for inclusion. As expected, there are risk’s and potential concerns that we need to face regarding pre-production. Below I will be addressing how to catch the googlebot, how the Google cycle works and what this means to you.

Google “dance” cycle:

The Google update cycle is more then simple termonlogy regarding the update and shift Googles Serps go through during periodical updates but most recently google has incorporated a “Google Dance” at their conventions quite literally. Over the last few years pin pointing this dance has turned out to be more of a shot in the dark then an educated guess which is due to many algorithm updates.

The process of the google crawl is as follows:
Crawl one: Google sends out spiders or (Googlebot) out to spider the sites in its current database and to spider new websites. Sometime around 2 weeks Google will show these new results within a secondary and third level serp at www2.google.com and www3.google.com. User’s of Google will most likely see shifting in results as sometimes Google moves results from its second and third database to its primary database. Another problem I have encountered is that results can be different depending on what Google server your results are being pulled from again allowing many variations of potential search results until the smoke clears.

Crawl two: Once the new results are being shifted in the Google serps googlebot will again be sent out to start crawling new sites along with the current sites within its own index. This process continues and has been the case ever since Google has been around.
Note: It is important to watch the your PR update list as well to help you gage when Google’s PR updates are coming along with the cycling.

How to catch the Googlebot:

From what experts and user’s have found is that there is an update usually at the beginning of the month and then immediately during and after the first crawl so you will want to do your pre-production accordingly.

If you are looking to have a new site included into a certain months update then will either of these crawls get you into the database? Studies show that putting your site up at the beginning of the month might possibly NOT bring your site into the index within that months update. If your new site is crawled in the second phase then you could have a better chance of seeing your site in the revised results following the next month’s first crawl. In other circumstances you will see that Googlebot only grabs your homepage and your robots.txt which is a good indicator that your site will be revisited in the next update.

Here are some helpful tips: If your site is crawled after the first crawl then you are looking at most likely having your site included in the next update which should show new rankings within a month or a month and a half. Now to plan for the exact moment to launch your site and get a few inbound links would be best planed out rather then a random guess. You can do this by watching some of your other sites crawl and update patterns and time it accordingly. This should give you the key to increasing your update schedule for your new sites.

There is no 100% sure fire way to pinpoint these updates but you can use these steps and tools to help you make the best of your efforts.

-Obtain links from relevant sites with decent PR
-Submit your site to the add url page on google and other search engines
-Install the Google toolbar and visit your own site using the toolbar

How does this relate to your SEO Campaign

The information provided to SEO professionals can undoubtedly help with any pre production site launch and SEO campaign planning. This information can help with a tight production schedule and monetizing your site as quickly as possible.

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joe.whyte — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:20:38 +0000