Back to Basics

[mtheory]

It seems that most consider the webmaster/Google relationship to be a strictly "protagonist vs. antagonist" one.

I'd like to present a more esoteric view to consider.

Although lately Google seems to be only financially motivated, I believe they have done well to adhere to there originol philosophy, ethics, and goals for their search engine. Simply put - Provide the most accurate and relevant search results possible.

With this in mind, let's view Search Engine Optimization from their point of view. A perfectly optimized site should be easily evaluated by the bot and only provide relevant information about the site.

It seems that when webmasters deviate from this basic principle and purposely attempt to misguide the Googlebot and skew results to their favor that Google begins to take umbrage.

Google really isn't so difficult to figure out. SEO'ers should ask themselves:

Will my optimization help Google present better results?

Webmasters that work with Google and Google's strong code of ethics may be pleasantly suprised with their results.

[freehits]

Will my optimization help Google present better results?

define better, better for whom. and who decides what is good? No matter how you answer that the opinion of good is being left to a "program".

And since the opinion of good we are asked to appease is that "of a program", thusly most pages today look designed to be "seen by a program".

To fix a problem long term look the the cause of the problem, not the effect.

[RichardS]

Originally Posted by Mtheory

It seems that most consider the webmaster/Google relationship to be a strictly "protagonist vs. antagonist" one.

I'd like to present a more esoteric view to consider.

Although lately Google seems to be only financially motivated, I believe they have done well to adhere to there original philosophy, ethics, and goals for their search engine. Simply put - Provide the most accurate and relevant search results possible.

With this in mind, let's view Search Engine Optimization from their point of view. A perfectly optimized site should be easily evaluated by the bot and only provide relevant information about the site.

It seems that when webmasters deviate from this basic principle and purposely attempt to misguide the Googlebot and skew results to their favor that Google begins to take umbrage.

Google really isn't so difficult to figure out. SEO'ers should ask themselves:

Will my optimization help Google present better results?

Webmasters that work with Google and Google's strong code of ethics may be pleasantly surprised with their results.

I hate to disagree, but politely I do.
Are you satisfied with your rankings on Google?
Are you in the top ten for several of your keywords?
Is your website associated with your income?
Is Google using pertinent data to establish ranking?
Has Google lost site of their mission and focused more on stock holders and revenue?
Will Jason Tor shave off that scraggly beard?

Hoptoo you are on it as usual. Ethics, right wrong, good, bad are being determined by a program. Is the program written to give advantage for ADwords a URL purchased from Google?

I respectfully disagree. Ethics may not be at play here, only economics.



Cheers


RS

[cbp]

Will my optimization help Google present better results?

IMHO:
SEO = using ethical methods to get a site to rank higer than to naturally would.
SPAM = using unethical methods to get a site to rank higer than to naturally would.

:-)

CBP

[Jason Tor]

Originally Posted by Mtheory

Although lately Google seems to be only financially motivated, I believe they have done well to adhere to there original philosophy, ethics, and goals for their search engine. Simply put - Provide the most accurate and relevant search results possible.

With this in mind, let's view Search Engine Optimization from their point of view. A perfectly optimized site should be easily evaluated by the bot and only provide relevant information about the site.

Is it April fools day? Google is doing everything but adhering to there original philosophy, ethics, and goals for their search engine. Simply put - THEY ARE NOT Providing the most accurate and relevant search results possible. Not even close! And now this new Google Foolbar? What's next, are they going to have us all walking around like zombies chanting We Love Google, We Love Google, We Love Google.

Google is losing their mind man! Their going nuts, and their sucking you right into their game. Google is losing users everyday. Someone over their is smoking the pipe, at this point that's the only explanation I can think of! I'm completely shocked people think Google is doing just fine. Is the alarm clock going off yet?

Jason Tor

P.S. And by the way, Google puts more emphasis on links then any other search engine out there, so the whole "A perfectly optimized site should be easily evaluated by the bot and only provide relevant information about the site." is not even half the battle.

Originally Posted by RichardS

Will Jason Tor shave off that scraggly beard?

LoL The little woman loves it, she says it stays!

[janeth]

Jason can you point us to some places where the Google results are no good and for the same keywords the MSN results are so much better?

[Jason Tor]

MSN is here to stay and they are providing much more consistent results. I'm not going to get trapped into some debate about this keyword or that keyword. I'm glad your doing great in Google, you also have an optimization company. It's probably a little easier for you to get better results when you do it for a living wouldn't you say?

What about the site owner that doesn't do it for a living, I bet the inconsistent results that Google provides has kept you busy lately.

Consistency wins the race Janeth, I haven't seen any consistency in Google's results in several months and their just getting worse while MSN and Yahoo's are getting better.

Jason Tor

[janeth]

I agree that Google should not mess with the results when nothing is wrong with them and I feel that MSN will be number 1 by the end of the year.

But I see all three giving good results right now.

[Jason Tor]

I will agree, right now things seem to be better, but I've lost my confidence that it will stay that way. I guess I've lost some trust.

[mtheory]

Originally Posted by janeth

Jason can you point us to some places where the Google results are no good and for the same keywords the MSN results are so much better?

Right Janeth. I'd like to see some hard facts.

Otherwise, anyone with a real problem with Google could add this code to your pages and be done with it.

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*.html$

[greeneagle]

Interesting that someone should ask for this, since I just finished a monthly summary for a client:

2 word keyphrase: Laser Machining (no quotations)

Google - #276 out of 541,000 returns.
MSNSearch - #5 out of 235,488 returns.
Yahoo - #8 out of 545,000 returns.

Ken

[janeth]

Hi Ken,

The results are good on Google just not good for your client. lol

But that has nothing to do with rahter Google return good results.

By the way, how is your sister doing?

[greeneagle]

Janeth,

I can site examples both ways, but I think it is important to note that, that Site is W3C validated. I don't want to unnecessarily feed the rumor that MSN gives credit in the form of higher rankings for cleaner code, but they do start out their "Guidelines For Successful Indexing" in their "Site Owner Guidelines" with the statement:
"Use only well-formed HTML code in your pages..."

I believe that statement qualifies as "Back to Basics", don't you?

By the way check out my new Site when you get a chance.

Unfortunately, we lost her at the beginning of the Month.

Ken

[janeth]

Sorry to hear that Ken.

I have never checked any of my sites with W3C but they all seem to rank well in MSN including the Geeks On Steroids site which has a flash header and the last time I checked would not validate.

So I do not think validating has anything to do with the ranking.

Whats the address for your new site?

[voasi]

Originally Posted by Jason Tor

Consistency wins the race Janeth, I haven't seen any consistency in Google's results in several months and their just getting worse while MSN and Yahoo's are getting better.

I've seen plenty of consistency in the past months. Currently, there is a Goog Dance going on and since Google dances are a like a 'slow waltz', they won't be consistant for a while.

Yahoo! and MSN results can be very easily manipulated by on-page and off-page factors. Especially with MSN, you get enough anchor texted incoming links and you're #1...how is that building a better results page for MSN? It's putting more money into spammer's pockets by building such an easy to manipulate algo.

IMO, Google is using LSA/I (Latent Semantic Indexing) which will flesh out even better organic, relevant results for searchers. They are combating spam with the Google Sandbox. Google's in the search business and they're there to stay...what business is Yahoo! and MSN in?

[janeth]

I have not seen any proof that Google is using LSI do you have any?

[pacole3]

Someone wanted a specific example of bad Google results vs MSN. Here is one small (but important to me!) example:

Do a search on "Home Decor"

The first website returned is a page under construction with the only reference to home decor being the name of the website.

The 6th site is a website design company with absolutely no reference to home decor on the page.

Do the same search on MSN and there is not a n "Under Construction" page or website design company among 'em!

[janeth]

8 out of 10 are not bad. (-;

[canistotasoftware]

Originally Posted by voasi

Yahoo! and MSN results can be very easily manipulated by on-page and off-page factors. Especially with MSN, you get enough anchor texted incoming links and you're #1...how is that building a better results page for MSN? It's putting more money into spammer's pockets by building such an easy to manipulate algo.

I don't see the incoming links having very much to do at all with MSN rankings, just the opposite in fact. One of my sites ranks consistently between 1 and 5 on MSN for a keyphrase with 12+ million sites and has very few incoming links and it isn't even on the radar with Google. My personal experience leads me to believe MSN places a lot less emphasis on off page factors where as Google does. IMO on page factors are much more important when returning relative results and I believe that MSN does that much better. When I search for something I could care less how many sites link to that page, all I care about is the relevance of whats on the page to what I was searching for and right now many believe, including myself,that Google isn't doing a very good job at doing that.

[voasi]

Originally Posted by canistotasoftware

I don't see the incoming links having very much to do at all with MSN rankings, just the opposite in fact.

Like with any, "IMO remark", I am not basing this on one or two sites, but several sites I've worked with. You can not claim to understand an algo based on one or two examples. IMHO :)

Originally Posted by janeth

I have not seen any proof that Google is using LSI do you have any?

Without looking at the Google's algo for sure, everything we do in the SEO is in some degree 'theory-based'.

Google has been using LSA/I for Adsense (to serve up relevant ads) and it would be only natural for them to implement it into their natural search. I don't think they have gone "LSA" entirely, nor do I think they ever will, but I do think there are certain areas within the algo that LSA/I have been implemented.

Here is an interesting thread everyone should read and chew on: http://forums.spider-food.net/index.php?showtopic=2767

[canistotasoftware]

I never claimed to know their algo as no one other than those associated with Google honestly can. But when I see results based on what I can physically see versus what people say they "think" or "believe" I go with what I see. By the way I manage 5 sites all of which do much better in MSN than they do in Google and all but 1 have very few incoming links so it isn' based on 1 site. I used this one particular site as it was a good example of what I have seen and I base my opinion on those factors. When discussing SE algo's everything discussed is opinion or theory

[janeth]

Hi canistotasoftware,

Here is my question, if MSN is using more on site things then why when we do a search for computers the first result only has the word computer used one time and the second one none at all.

What on site changes would one need to do to get ranked for that keyword.

There are none, the only thing to do is get more links.

So MSN uses links the same as Google if not more.

[canistotasoftware]

Originally Posted by janeth

Hi canistotasoftware,

Here is my question, if MSN is using more on site things then why when we do a search for computers the first result only has the word computer used one time and the second one none at all.

What on site changes would one need to do to get ranked for that keyword.

There are none, the only thing to do is get more links.

So MSN uses links the same as Google if not more.

Janeth,

Search free game downloads on MSN. The #4 site right now is mine. Doing a link:www.mysite.com search on my site shows 29 results. Now do the link:www.theirsite.com search on the #5 site shows 1682 results. Why is my site ranking higher than theirs? It sure isn't due to the amount of incoming links.

[voasi]

Originally Posted by canistotasoftware

Why is my site ranking higher than theirs? It sure isn't due to the amount of incoming links.

And it's never about the number of links you have, but the anchor text being used. If you're using the anchor text "apple" do you think your going to get onto the first page of any search engine going for the keyword "computer"?

MSN is only showing 29, but Yahoo! and some of the other various search engines are showing 400+.

With 70+ posts on this forum (and who knows how many more forums you visit), using appropriate anchor text in your signature, you can see the value of using optimized signatures in your forum posts. :)

[janeth]

A couple things.

1. We know you have at lest 70 links just from this forum (-;

2. Someone could have 10,000 links but if only 5 have the anchor text for that keyword, only those 5 would go towards ranking for that keyword.

So they could have more links over all but less links using that anchor text.

[cbp]

Here my eg:
I worked butt of with sandboxed Google site - finally got it to 39th - got to number 1 in MSN easy. 6 weeks ago put a new site with one page holder with a few keywords and some relevant outgoing links to other sites .... ie 'under construction' - put some anchor text links to it and forgot about - will get back to it in 6 months, so no worry about sandbox. It is targeting a differnet niche as the same keyword of sandboxed site.

Quite rightly, Google do not rank this under construction page in top 700 --- to my utter amazement, MSN have it ranked 6th behind the other site for the keyword!! (I am mildly annoyed becasue of the work put in to the other site, that I can get 6th for no effort!)

Of course I like MSN for what it done to that site, but is this a crappy result or what!!!

[canistotasoftware]

Janeth, voasi, I am not going to sit here and say that you are wrong and I am right or vice versa because to be honest, unless MSN, Google and the like suddenly let us in on their algo's we are all just speculating. I didn't go through all 1600+ links of the site listed in the example to see what the anchor text is, and I know that not all of the anchor text of the links to my site are using those keywords. But one thing is for certain, the results between Google and MSN in many cases are wildly different especially with my sites and one seeming obvious difference is how the IBL's are weighed in their algo's

[janeth]

I think the post from cbp shows how they rank sites.

Not that it´s a bad thing, but it does show that they count the links and seem to count them all and I like that.

[delstu]

Originally Posted by pacole3

Someone wanted a specific example of bad Google results vs MSN. Here is one small (but important to me!) example:

Do a search on "Home Decor"

The first website returned is a page under construction with the only reference to home decor being the name of the website.

The 6th site is a website design company with absolutely no reference to home decor on the page.

Do the same search on MSN and there is not a n "Under Construction" page or website design company among 'em!

When doing research online, I am finding lots of results on Google that are not even relevant to the search phrase.

Does Google place so much emphasis on backlinks that content is secondary, or worse yet, irrelevant?

I switched to using Yahoo and MSN for doing research and get much better results.

[greeneagle]

So Janeth what is your take?

If I add back my forum sig and target a client I want to slam down more business for, will it be seen as a couple thousand additional links or 1 link consolidated under one URL. or maybe even a select few?

What are your thoughts now?

Had to ask.
Ken

[cbp]

My best guess is that Google does not give credit for site wide links, but MSN does.

CBP

[janeth]

Not sure how Google will see them and as long as their updates are still going on it´s hard to tell anything but I know it´s worth it for MSN.

Plus the added traffic from the forums makes it a good go as well.

[voasi]

Originally Posted by cbp

My best guess is that Google does not give credit for site wide links, but MSN does.

I agree with you on this cbp. I've bought some pricey site-wide and seen the benefits on MSN and Yahoo! as well for some of my clients.