SEO is a joke

[collusion]

My take on that in general is that when a site becomes a vet, IBL's start to count more than any new sites. You have heard of the site maturity penalty right? Well, maybe there is more to that than meets the eye. Maybe at first IBL's don't count because Google knows a new site will be buying them left and right so it waits until sufficient time for the business to fail and if it don't then IBL's kick in. Food for thought.

[ctabuk]

No, I read the whole thing, start to finish, why not just admit that you have a communication problem, in your post you just had to add the 'wait, more than one post'- Now I love Chicago, I have never been there, but I was a fan of the Band 'Chicago' (Terry Kath, Peter Cetera, Robert Lamb etc) Now please don't change my opion of a great City, remember - when you post, you are an ambassador for who you are, where you are and how you relate to others. Now we are here to help. My post was tongue in cheek, it was designed to get your attention, but politely.

[AndrewX]

Very well said, ctabuk.

Chicago wasn't bad in their early days... "25 or 6 to 4"?

[collusion]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Hoptoo, you kept your cool, I would have been tempted, No I can't put that.

That is why I relate to you badly. You don't see that what you said implied you had something to say to me? Just say it, don't talk about what you would have said. To me that is a challenge. For some reason, alot of people on here, not all, but alot seem to be sensitive. This is the real world. If you can not keep up with a good argument, just give up. Don't complain about it. Stick to the topic instead of putting me down. The topic I brought up was that Google doesn't care about IBL's until the site has matured. Somehow you only quoted what you wanted to be sensitive about.

[collusion]

I don't want to bring up any conspiracy theories but does anyone think Google may have watered down their results by applying all these rules into their algo?

For example, my previous post was worldwidepiano.com , my buddies dad's site is ranked #4 for piano broker in Google and someone comented that the #10 spot was a ticket master. That result definately belongs at #5,000,000,000,000 for that term. They have irrelevant results because they are too strict.

[AndrewX]

Yeah, I will agree that Google has a few issues with their SERPs due to their anti-SEO filters. Although any programmatic ranking system, which is exactly what a search engine is, will not be able to always provide the best top 10 for every subject. I say, at least now there are 3 main engines, which makes things a little bit more fair overall...

[andromeda]

Originally Posted by collusion

Sites that maintain a top ranking, they usually know the "secret" to following the algo and tiny changes are made that you wouldnt notice just by looking at it. Backlinks help, like I said SEO is 80% of the deal. The other 20 percent comes from backlinks, relevant outbound links and so on.

Have you ever thought that some of the sites you speak about might be "owned" by a Google employee or someone that is key to their operation?

The sites are definitely not owned by Google employees. :) According to the wayback machine, there were no updates done in more than a year, and I've never noticed an update on the site, either. Interesting!

[greeneagle]

Quote:

"I say, at least now there are 3 main engines, which makes things a little bit more fair overall..."

Does it?
What about thos "F" SERPs?

Ken

[AndrewX]

Well, it does spread the love around a bit.

Interesting "F" post, BTW. Thanks.

[ctabuk]

I have e-mailed our New Friend. I leave the matter there! WOW

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by collusion

I do search engine optimization and positioning for a living and I always see other seo's complaining about how hard it is to get ranked in Google.

Contrary to belief, it is 80% based on optimization. The key here is that alot of SEO's have their own opinion on if a site is optimized or not.
A site you show me that you claim is optimized is most likely not.

Sure, a few IBL's are nice to have but there are sites ranked on the top of Google for hard to get keywords and they have hardly any IBL's at all compared to the competitors.

It is all about keepig your optimization in tune with Google's algo. When they change their algo, thats when you change your optimization.

Well, how do I do that you ask?
Sorry, can't tell ya. I would be giving up monthly checks if I did that!

For an SEO surely Keeping is spelt my way and YA is not recognised by SE's. You are are not SEOGUY by any chance? And whilst I am at it Optimisation does not carry a Z. Have a nice day, nothing personal there just an observation

[collusion]

Nothing personal here either but shouldnt we open up a thread just for sensitive people or somthing? When you sign up it clearly asks if you are over 13 or not. Lets keep it adult and professional.
This thread is aboout one thing! That is Google is no BIG search engine that is better than any other. They are still susceptible to "tricks" and can easily be manipulated.

Google has come FULL CIRCLE. That which they have desperately tried to work against has happened. They filtered so much that they nulled their efforts completely out!

As for your email to your new "friend" I am here to stay.

[AndrewX]

>> Google is no BIG search engine that is better than any other

Google most certain is a BIG search engine. They've also got the top traffic, so in the minds of many that does make them them better, even if some aren't pleased with all the SERPs.

>> They are still susceptible to "tricks" and can easily be manipulated.

Of course. They want to be manipulated, but only to a degree. That is how they work. They rely on the world wide community of websites to tell them who is the authority in any given field. Of course they don't want their index to be seen as being purposely manipulated, which is why they've been fighting back a bit.

[collusion]

Originally Posted by AndrewX

>>
>> They are still susceptible to "tricks" and can easily be manipulated.

Of course. They want to be manipulated, but only to a degree. That is how they work. They rely on the world wide community of websites to tell them who is the authority in any given field.

The point of Google is that they can NOT be manipulated. That would definately make them lost share holders and faith of its users quickly. I am talking about them being manipulated by "tricks" as in hidden texts, cloaking, smartpages and so on.

[wednesday]

Originally Posted by collusion

That is Google is no BIG search engine that is better than any other. They are still susceptible to "tricks" and can easily be manipulated.

I can't imagine a search engine that cannot be manipulated to some extend. There are 100s of engineers working on new algs. And there is an army of reverce engineers. The algs become prety much public very soon after every update. But it's not the goal to 'follow'. This way you may find yourself on a wrong track guided by a wrong alg.

Martin

[freehits]

Just stumbled across this absolute joker.
Look at the #3 result here

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=direct+tv+news

When my dog makes one of these ...I put his nose in it.

[collusion]

I like my SPAM fried, LOL.

[freehits]

That is a legendary steamy pile.

[flood6]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

For an SEO surely Keeping is spelt my way and YA is not recognised by SE's. You are are not SEOGUY by any chance? And whilst I am at it Optimisation does not carry a Z. Have a nice day, nothing personal there just an observation

Who called the spelling police? It's OK, Inspector, no emergency here. Optimization, recognized (sometimes things get spelt a little different on this side of the pond). For your sake I hope the punctuation cops aren't around.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by collusion

That is why I relate to you badly. You don't see that what you said implied you had something to say to me? Just say it, don't talk about what you would have said. To me that is a challenge. For some reason, alot of people on here, not all, but alot seem to be sensitive. This is the real world. If you can not keep up with a good argument, just give up. Don't complain about it. Stick to the topic instead of putting me down. The topic I brought up was that Google doesn't care about IBL's until the site has matured. Somehow you only quoted what you wanted to be sensitive about.

I agree with that and most people call it being in the sandbox.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by collusion

p.s. MSN is the same as Google. It is al about optimization. With all the threads you suposedly follow I cant even believe u asked me that.

It´s all about links.

[collusion]

Janeth, there are sites on top that have 2 IBL's to their name. And the sites just under them have 100,000+ links sometimes. I have came upon many searches like that. Havn't you?

[janeth]

The amount of links do not matter, it is the anchor text that matters.

You can have 10,000 links with the anchor text hotels and I can out rank you for the keyword Janeth with just onsite optimization.

[collusion]

Be careful. The spelling police is in this thread. He might arrest you for saying "optimiZation".

[janeth]

lol

Either way, you could not take a site and compete for a competitive key phrase without using links with good anchor text.

[lizardz]

collusion, I like your style, post in a way that will get people to react, add the ibl you want to push to your sig, make the thread stretch, bam, more ibl for free. Nice going. Like it, LOL... you've got 3 pages now, a few links per page, nice going. A lot of these problems would go away if sigs weren't shown to the search spiders, that's a trivial tweak in phpbb.

[greeneagle]

lizardz,

You haven't been hanging around Forums very long if that is how you think it works.

If you really think that is what happens, show me my 2300+.

Ken

[janeth]

If it helps at all it is very little.

[lizardz]

Ken, it's hard to know what to say as I admire your carefully crafted keyword strings, fully changeable at any time you need a new batch of strings pointing wherever.

The forum itself seems to have some decent people on it, but man, avatars? keyword packed signature/urls? If it doesn't matter why are you doing it? Please, give me a break. If it didn't matter you could just add this to your sig: site 1, site 2, site 3. But of course it does matter, as you know perfectly well.

Now I see why webmasterworld doesn't allow any stuff like this, it's an invitation for abuse. I always thought that policy was a little extreme, I don't anymore.

[collusion]

Lizards,

Signatures don't count. It is only there to share with others. As someone pointed out before, there are many ways to drive traffic to a site without working to get the site ranked. The sigs are merely to allow others in this forum to view a possibly interesting website. If you have one I would be more than happy to click your sig.
Avatars are there to add a face to a person. Don't you like to look those that you speak to in the eye?

[collusion]

P.S.
Today I recieved a newsletter from SitePointNews explaining that you can add your anchor text URLs to google answers, 3 hours later I get an email from WPW releasing a statement that Google made saying it does nothing but get your site BLACKLISTED. Sigs in forums have no value or very little. Google knows that Forums aren't trying to spam them or it is not a threat anyways, but let you try and spam Google directly and you will get the axe!

[lizardz]

"Signatures don't count. It is only there to share with others. As someone pointed out before, there are many ways to drive traffic to a site without working to get the site ranked. The sigs are merely to allow others in this forum to view a possibly interesting website. If you have one I would be more than happy to click your sig.
Avatars are there to add a face to a person. Don't you like to look those that you speak to in the eye?"

Signatures don't 'count'? What are you talking about? If they didn't 'count', they wouldn't be in the google cache, and they wouldn't appear when I visit the site using the googlebot useragent logged out, and if they didn't count, people wouldn't be so carefully crafting their link text. They are links, they have link text, of course they count. Is this some type of joke or something? This is an seo forum, I could see that statement being made elsewhere, but here? Save it for newbies please.

I like looking somebody in the face when I talk to them too, but all I see here are jpgs, what I'm reading is your words, the image is just eye candy, a distraction, often simply a fantasy, no way to ever know unless I actually was talking to you in person, aren't the poster's words here strong enough to stand on their own?

Anyway, as a philosopher once said, if you don't like something, don't do it, so I'm out of here, don't see much pro here, though I did read some good posters, oh well.

[collusion]

Originally Posted by lizardz

This is an seo forum, I could see that statement being made elsewhere, but here? Save it for newbies please.

You seem to be a newbie if you don't know how little sigs with links count.

Originally Posted by lizardz

I like looking somebody in the face when I talk to them too, but all I see here are jpgs, what I'm reading is your words, the image is just eye candy, a distraction, often simply a fantasy, no way to ever know unless I actually was talking to you in person, aren't the poster's words here strong enough to stand on their own?

Anyway, as a philosopher once said, if you don't like something, don't do it, so I'm out of here, don't see much pro here, though I did read some good posters, oh well.

If you reply to this post them you most likely don't care about what that philosopher said.

I got to tell you. At first I came out with cut-throat words like you seem to be doing. I also learned who's full of it here and who isn't.
I know for a FACT that Ken is very knowledgable and one of the few that hasn't sent me any hate mail in my PM box. I know what he says is true because of experience.
None of these links are boosting my PR or any other R for that matter. It is there for jokers like yourself to visit a quality site. The text that you think is anchor is merely a description of the site. Am I lying? visit a link in my "anchor" and tell me if the text matches the site.

I would also love to click on your sig if you had one to check out your website(s).

[cbp]

lizardz - you have inspired me to add a signaure....

CBP

[collusion]

lol@cbp

[greeneagle]

lizardz,

Welcome to WPW,

You haven't been around long enough to have participated in our "Forum Signature Value" Threads, one was pretty bloody before everyone conceded.

Nor would you probably know that I just added mine back in after several months reprieve, to prove that point.

Would you like me to dig up the threads for you so that you can read them, hashing it out for yourself, or do we really have to drudge through that again?

I can't use me as an example because you could excuse the anomoly of sveral months signature absance.

Take janeth. She has been here for years and posted 3000+ times without a sig break that I know of. Please show me her 3000+ links, or anyone elses that comes anywhere close, using any tool.

Texas isn't the "Show Me" State, but I am going to borrow it anyway; Show Me.

I think I can speak for almost everyone here in saying:

This issue, as many others recycle, cyclically. We periodically have to address them. I and the others here don't have the time to wade through hundreds of useless one-line meaningless posts generated by false open invitations to Forum Signature Spammers.

I hope you don't take offense to my dealing with this issue directly!

Again welcome aboard WPW.

Ken

[Mel]

To say that this thread has not been ...... well...entertaining would be incorrect but to say that it has been educational would be a far strech.

Having been in this business for a few years, and having ranked a goodly number of sites in that time, I like to consider that I am at least a competent SEO. In that time I have seen a fair number of people who were convinced that there was only one way to do SEO and only they knew about it.

Fine with me, its a free country, but you'll pardon me if I don't change my methods on the basis of a few posts by someone I have never met.

[greeneagle]

Mel,

Now, I know I don't have to invite you to be more explicit and really speak your mind here, do I?

That's just a little reserved, even for you!

LOL
Ken

[collusion]

The idea of this thread was not to change anybody's mind on the way they do seo. It was meant for you to maybe do your research into this. By all means, do what you do. If it works for you, like it has for Elite Skills then you have nothing to worry about.

[greeneagle]

collusion,

You are the thread owner, and your original post is "all over" changing optimization techniques as "times" change! I don't see a diversion here!

Ken

[collusion]

ey ey ey, I need a vacation. Hey Ken, come up here and pick me up. Leave the computer at the office. :)

[collusion]

You are right though. You hit the nail on the head. I believe that no matter what you need to change on-site optimization with EVERY little update the SE of choice makes. That just makes sense though don't it?

[freehits]

Originally Posted by lizardz

if you don't like something, don't do it.

hahaaaahaaaa
I have never read that book by A.Philosopher, he sounds deep.

[supernatural_247]

Originally Posted by Elite Skills

It's about the keywords in inbound links. Inbound links provide the rank but the keywords dictate for what keyword to improve the ranking.... Just make quality content and people will link to it. The more they refer to it on the web, the higher the ranking.

AMEN!! Too many SEO's focus on BSing the system rather than focusing on serving their visitors. Visitors will recommend good content and these links will boost your ranking...

collusion... you're full of sh*t... your portfolio is something else -- I see a PR5, a PR1, and a PR0... kinda sucky for someone who calls himself a pro... you're just like all those other "seo" folks who waste client's time and money... go get a real job...

[cMcMillan]

AMEN!! Too many SEO's focus on BSing the system rather than focusing on serving their visitors. Visitors will recommend good content and these links will boost your ranking...

Yep, content content content!!!

It is quite funny when you see all these SEO websites where thier Page Rank is 0/10 and they charge loads of money. It's better to learn how to do it yourself anywho.

[supernatural_247]

cMcMillan... welcome to webproworld!! btw, nice site you got there!...

[brian.mark]

Originally Posted by supernatural_247

collusion... you're full of sh*t... your portfolio is something else -- I see a PR5, a PR1, and a PR0... kinda sucky for someone who calls himself a pro... you're just like all those other "seo" folks who waste client's time and money... go get a real job...

Since when does PR relate to ranking? I have plenty of PR0 pages that are ranking top 10 for some competitive terms. PR means just about absolutely nothing any more.

If I have the choice of rankings without PR or have PR and no rankings, I'll take the rankings any day. I don't know if collusion's portfolio sites are ranking or not, but judging by PR alone is pretty naive.

Brian.

[supernatural_247]

[quote="brian.mark"]

Originally Posted by supernatural_247

I don't know if collusion's portfolio sites are ranking or not, but judging by PR alone is pretty naive.

Point taken! and yes, it's the actual rankings that count in the end.

[cMcMillan]

Yea... I would have to agree it is the rankings that are definatley more important. If you have a site with really crummy content I think you can still have a decent rank in PR. But it's still all about content, content, content! You just have to make sure your keywords are used correctly and not abused, your title is sexy, you have decent spelling/grammar, no broken links, decent load time, and everything has to be relevant to the user... psh, I can do it myself I don't need to pay no stinkin' SEO specialist a buttload of money! *shrug* Getting off topic...

thanks supernatural... if you ever need some cheap hosting just PM or AIM me I can hook you up or something.

[greeneagle]

I hope no one minds me meandering back on topic...

There is a big difference between SEO (everything that can be done in a Site to promote it) and SEM (everything that can be done off-site, including the many other digital doors to promote it).

It's really time we understood these issues, differences, ever expanding technologies, and how they apply to marketing, here.

If you don't plan on including SEO in your Site's build and some measure of SEM to launch....

Stay at home, because you are not going anywhere in this ever increasing competitive media....and that's no joke!

Ken