Aaron Wall gets special treatment from Google?

[Webnauts]

I was just reading a post of Dan Thies that Aaron Wall (SEO Book) gets a special treatment from Google, and to be honest I was shocked. Can you please take a minute and tell me what you think? Help - Google Slapped Me With A -12 Penalty!!

[Tech Manager]

I think he has an extremely long road ahead of him if he attempts to prove his presupposition.

[incrediblehelp]

The fact that a relevant website, blog and subdomain rank above him is evidence of what? Try typing in "Coke"

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

The fact that a relevant website, blog and subdomain rank above him is evidence of what? Try typing in "Coke"

So for my understanding, it is the power of the domain name? Also, did you read the description tag?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

The fact that a relevant website, blog and subdomain rank above him is evidence of what? Try typing in "Coke"

And let me be specific. If Aaron is not selling a book, then he is spamming. At least that is what I understand from the interview of Danny Sallivan with Matt Cutts at SMX: "You&A With Matt Cutts" Video From SMX Posted + "Give It Up" Session Embargo Lifts

[incrediblehelp]

I dont agree. He is selling a book obviously.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I dont agree. He is selling a book obviously.

Sorry Jaan, but I was an affiliate and I got a message that the e-book have been discontinued. Can you tell me the link where it can be purchased?

Be aware that I did not start the thread to offend Aaron. I just wanted to figure out what is really going on.

[DanThies]

Well, at least my regular readers got the joke. (sigh)

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by DanThies

Well, at least my regular readers got the joke. (sigh)

Oh my gosh. You do have a sense of humor Dan.

[DanThies]

I try. That one was a little too realistic for a lot of folks. Guess I need to get some sarcasm training one of these days.

I'm still suffering from a "-4 penalty" in the 5th spot for [seo book], but my little joke apparently did help gather some links from my readers. Aaron himself even chipped in with a link. #5 is probably as far as I'll get without putting actual work into it, since the top 4 results are all from Aaron's site and he's got years worth of links behind him.

Aaron's book, I am informed, is still available to those who join his ($100/month) training program, so you can actually get it, for just a few dollars more than what it used to cost.

Google giving Aaron the top 4 positions on that SERP does reveal their "treating subdomains just like folders" and "two listings per SERP" nonsense for what it is, but I seriously doubt that any searchers are bothered by this.

[kevsta]

haha...

If the definition of SPAM is "sites positioned above mine,"

this is exactly how i look at the serps. plus I really have taken to correcting the error on my Toolbar PR with a green marker pen...

[kgun]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

The fact that a relevant website, blog and subdomain rank above him is evidence of what? Try typing in "Coke"

That Coke should care more about the digital revolution and the related market potential.

The customer is the boss. Below him the shareholder.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by kgun

That Coke should care more about the digital revolution and the related market potential.

Too fast again, I did not check the site. Of course it shoud be that Coca Cola has done their job.

I thought it was CocaCola dot com that redirects to coca-cola dot com

Why do the company prefer the last name?

[AVC]

Your free SEO book caused Awall to quit selling his and charge "SEO's" 100 bucks a month to join his forum !!!

Why webmasters would pay 100 bucks a month to read recycled SEO content is beyond logic.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by AVC

Your free SEO book caused Awall to quit selling his and charge "SEO's" 100 bucks a month to join his forum !!!

Why webmasters would pay 100 bucks a month to read recycled SEO content is beyond logic.

That was a good one AVC!

[kgun]

Or recycled thoughts

[AVC]

Maybe Google should charge a $1,000.00 a month for the original content !!!

They should charge $2,000.00 a month to read this and throw in a million clicks on Adwords !!!

[kgun]

Isn't that a recycled bit stream?

[tcqgryphon]

Do any of us really state any CURRENT SEO truth's? We still need to keep our jobs - and our secrets - and if it works for us do we give it away?

I've thought for a while that there is more mis-information than information online....

or at least that's what Aarron tells me...

[SEO]

I am glad to see this thread.
I have been trying to share about the benefits of subdomains on this forum for a while now.

There is so much propaganda being spread around about so many topics that it is hard to know what the truth is about anything these days. If somebody can benefit from spreading false propaganda, they will.

With SEO I find that I need to, not so much listen to what others say... But look at the evidence.

I think Matt Cutts inadvertently mentioned subdomains being treated more like subfolders and it has since been blown out of all proportion. The fact is... That the evidence presented to us by Google (not just with the SEO Book example) clearly shows that Google still treats subdomains differently to the way it treats subfolders. Maybe Google does treat subdomains a little more like subfolders... but it is so little that nobody has really noticed it in the SERP's.

I personally tend to believe tangible evidence over public opinion, heresay and offhanded comments.

[AVC]

Originally Posted by tcqgryphon

or at least that's what Aarron tells me...

You call the Awall 900 line too then ??

[wdillsmith]

This might be a silly question, since I've never had subdomains before. I did an nslookup on seobook.com and tools.seobook.com. Not surprisingly, they came back with the same IP. I was always under the impression that subdomains were treated as separate sites, but since they are sharing the same IP, why aren't they viewed by google as one site?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by SEO

If somebody can benefit from spreading false propaganda, they will.

No not everybody, since the benefit may be shortlived. Credibility comes like a snail and may disappear at lightening (electronic) speed.

Interesting question:
Do you think a subdomain can have more votes (higher PR) than the main domain?

Content is King and refactoring Queen.

P.S.
If you don't know the name Martin Fowler that may indicate to me that you are a tagger or designer.

[AVC]

How G treats sub domains depends highly on the main domain, many times it is a trigger to de-index or remove a website from the index if the sub-domains are used to deliberately game search engines.

Many blog networks have suffered due to spam and G only places the most relevant URL's/sub domains (original content, not duplicate spam pages) in the main index and moves the rest to the invisible supplementals.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by AVC

.. the sub-domains are used to deliberately game search engines.

If the Bot is able to identify it, that is self evident. Google use a lot of subdomains themself.

Since you think Google is so fantastic, try the following search at Google.no

gamle (Norwegian plural of old)

The first two hits were porn sites. Now only the first is.

My thought:

Is it so difficult for Google.no to filter (simple string manipulation in my world)

inURL

inTitle

inH1Tags

inBlockquote

inDiv

inClass

(inAttribute

inBody (more difficult if you use the DOM model))

etc.

versus site content, against a dictionary of the most commonly used words here?

[inertia]

The sub domains thing should prove that Google talk bull s**t! I thought they'd dropped the value of sub domains to stop people hogging the top 10 positions? Has anyone seen any evidence of sub domains being treated the same as sub folders?

[full house]

well that would be a little vias.Lets give credit to Aaron, his really good!Maybe its not about special treatment at all.

[DanLew]

I don't think he has been getting treated any differently, I mean if you look how many thousands of backlinks he has for the word seo book , it clearly speaks for itself.

I think too many people were downloading his seo book from torrent and he may of been losing out on money so he decided to close the book idea and charge people to join in his forum. He better go and buy the name seoforum.com instead now

[mawells]

Aaron Wall may no longer be selling a book, but his SEO tool is extremely popular - it's a free tool that helps website owners research keyword popularity at many popular search engines as well as Google. I'm sure thousands if not hundres of thousands have bookmarked this page of his site.

I doubt he's getting 'special treatment' - his site is just extremely popular. The SEO Keyword tool is just one tool that he has available at his site. His site is dedicated to educating website owners on SEO techniques - while he may have shelved his book - his online training modules are still being offered.

He's not spamming anyone, he's simply getting the attention he has earned.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mawells

He's not spamming anyone, he's simply getting the attention he has earned.

Who said that Aaron is spamming? Please...

[google consultant]

sub domains have lost al creditability ! some sneak through, but i would not advise it. Do the etical thing and work on content, quality at that, whats the point of being underhand it just will catch you up. good to see (inertia) you online again. Oh the Aaron Wall side of things. Spam, get real, this guy knows what he is doing, if the big G are giving special treatment to him then ill eat my hat as they blocked his ranking tool then added the same tool to webmaster tools. I think that is far from preferentail treatment. He is there due to inbound linking, fresh content and being very open. Anyway, great question to open conversation.

[inertia]

I read somewhere recently (probably should have bookmarked it) that Google will still return multiple sub domains and sub folders if the search term warrants it, hence the reason for the results for ebay, coke, google etc.

A similar decision must be made where site links are concerned.

[aadisharma]

Looks like Aaron Wall has some good relation with Google Team, that's why he has been able to get so many of results appearing from his website on top 10 for the search term 'Seo book'

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by aadisharma

Looks like Aaron Wall has some good relation with Google Team, that's why he has been able to get so many of results appearing from his website on top 10 for the search term 'Seo book'

What the hell are you talking about?