Mathew Browne

Being busy and having lots of work to do for clients has obvious benefits, but what are the drawbacks? In my line of work, there’s one big drawback…

You see, I’ve been so busy over the last 6 months that I have left myself no time to work on my own websites. No fresh content and few new incoming links has meant I’ve slipped a few places for various key phrases on Google. At this point in time, it’s a blessing in disguise - between the house move and several high-value contracts on the table I’m not in a great position to take any more on. However, if I wasn’t so busy I’d have cause for concern and this is something I’m now setting aside time to work on each week. Slipping from page 1 to page 2 for the phrase “web design” on Google.com led to a 70% reduction in traffic coming from Google.com for that phrase.

The lesson to be learnt here is that SEO is ongoing, and that resting on your laurels once you’ve achieved your target is a policy that will cause you problems in the medium to long-term.

I’m receiving an ever-increasing influx of emails asking me to link to Site X in exchange for a link from some crappy subpage of Site Y - a twist on the old reciprocal linking model. I must get about 50 of these every day. Today, however, I’m in a bad mood (and a little bored) so I replied to one of them inline. Enjoy.

Hi,

I came across your website and was wondering if you would consider a link exchange with me. In return I am willing to place a link to your site on our PR7 site here: http://www.scienceonstage.net/top-hits.html (I can put your link in the perfect category match for your site)

YAY another generic directory. Doesn’t look like spam at all - sign me up!

I understand that you probably get 100’s of spam emails everyday asking the same thing, but I am a real person and not a spam bot.

“I understand that you probably get 100’s of spam emails everyday asking the same thing. Here’s another.” <- fixed.

If this is of interest to you simply reply to this email and I will put your link live first. (Please send me your link details along with a short description of your site)

Title: SEO Services

URL: http://www.doneseo.com

Description: DONE! SEO Services is a leading Search Engine Optimization Company based in California, USA. Call us at 1-888-372-8335. Founded by Internet Entrepreneur Ben Padnos.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Kind regards

You have got to be joking.

Firstly, your “Science on Stage” site is a dropped domain you’ve picked up. Smart move - toolbar PR still shows 7 and you still have backlinks from CERN and the European Organisation for Astronomical Research from back in the days when it was a legit, useful website and not another piece-of-shit spam directory.

Secondly, you expect me to provide link to your SEO company and in return I get a link from some crap linkdump, sharing a page with about 200 others? No deal.

Thirdly, thanks for the personal touch - addressing your enquiry to root@ rather than the email@ address I have posted on my site. Now I know you’re not a bot, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Keep wearing the ever-darkening grey hat.

Mathew

Irritating as this approach is and however questionable the ethics, it’s probable that - at least for now - this stuff passes under Google’s radar. Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, no recriprocal link, everyone’s happy. It’s not an obvious paid link for Google to investigate either, which is how many of us fear Google is investing it’s time.

I’m really interested to know if Google have anything in the works to combat this sort of spammy approach. I’m looking at you, Matt.

Google have been frustrating SEO watchers for a couple of months now by putting off updating toolbar PR for most sites, although they’ve annoyed a lot of pro bloggers by downgrading PR en masse for a whole heap of blogging sites.

Presuming you weren’t one of these unlucky few, I’ve found a way to check your current Pagerank, as long as your site is in the Google Directory. As most people realise, Google gets their data from Dmoz, so if you’re in one directory, you’re almost certainly in the other one. The difference between the two is that Google Directory sorts it’s directory listings by PR.

My web design business, MB Web Design, currently displays PR4 in the toolbar (and has done for months and months). However, check my listing in Google Directory and it shows PR6. I’ve seen a couple of other sites with different toolbar PRs versus their PR in Google Directory. So, go and have a look. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I think that Google’s sudden demotion of PR value for leading blogs is a way to deter such sites from selling links purely for the link juice. Some evidence supporting this theory follows:

• Autoblog’s toolbar PR dropped from 6 to 4. Interesting that in Google directory it’s a 7.
• Engadget’s toolbar dropped from 7 to 5. In Google directory it’s still 7.
• Andy Beard dropped from 5 to 3. Nope, in Directory he’s still 5.
• Search Engine Journal dropped from 7 to 4 and… you guessed it.

Interestingly however, ProBlogger went from Pr6 to PR4, but according to Google Directory, has no PR at all…

Feel free to contibute any other discrepancies between Google Directory PR and toolbar PR.

My web design business, MB Web Design, recently moved from position #3 to #2 on Google.co.uk for the term “web design”. Since then I’ve been inundated with enquiries and click-through traffic from Google has nearly doubled. Doubled! All because I’m one position higher, it’s really quite remarkable. How long I’ll stay at #2 is anybody’s guess - the top few contenders maintain constant and aggressive online marketing and link-building campaigns. For now, at least, it’s nice to feel like Mr. Popular.

A lot of search engine watchers have been getting twitchy because Google’s anticipated Pagerank update hasn’t surfaced. In turn, this has prompted many to speculate that Google are doing away with publicly available Pagerank data altogether.

I believe that it’s in Google’s interest to kill Pagerank, and here’s why: Google hates paid links, unless they come from Google themselves. Matt Cutts has been making a lot of noise about Google discounting the paid links they detect. (Paid links are fine of course, but only if they come from one of Google’s own programmes.)

Website owners typically pay for links for one of two reasons.

Paid links for PR. A large portion of the paid link market comprises website owners paying for high PR links in the hope that the PR will filter through to them. By killing Pagerank, the metric by which these links are bought and sold evaporates instantly, and the market with it.

Paid links for traffic. If website owners aren’t buying links for PR, then they’re buying links for traffic. Google already has this part of the market covered, under the guise of Adsense.

Call me cynical, but by neglecting their PR updates could they be scaring people away from Pay-for-PR link buying and into Adsense campaigns?

In any case, none of this matters because anyone who knows their onions realises that Pagerank is just one of many, many factors in determining one’s position in the SERPs. There’s certainly a positive correlation between PR and SERP placement but there are many exceptions to the rule. I wish website owners (and amateur SEOs) would worry about generating quality content rather than putting green pixels in a grey bar. But that’s another issue for another day.

My attention was recently drawn to an interesting Easter Egg that Google included with their online calculator. If you input “number of horns on a unicorn” into Google, Google Calculator gives you the answer: 1.

Try some more:

Answer to life the universe and everything

10 feet in smoots

Google Earth has uncovered the World’s Largest Post-It Note, which lives in Thailand - Link