Is Onsite SEO Dying Down?

[jitendraag]

Should it be custom website designs? Number 12 for me.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by pervezalam_mzn

NO, On-page SEO is very import for Ranked in SERPs and for PR, If you will not do it then crawler will not crawl your web page regularly and may be your PR goes down, I have checked it many times, so i will say Onpage seo is very important in SEO and for Page rank.



-----------------------------


Pervez Alam
Website Design and Development Services

On site SEO has nothing, nothing to do with the site getting crawled or with PageRank.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by SEO

here - Google Search

Who ranks number 1 for the search word "here"...?

Adobe

They don't have the word "here" on their page...

They have no onpage SEO for the word "here" whatsoever...


Who wants to try to rank for the keyword "here" using onpage optimization...???


I have heard some authorities claim that they could get a blank page to rank for whatever keyword they want... Some even claim to have tested it and proven that they could outrank other pages with a blank page...

Of course... The best way to get good quality inbound links is to have good quality 'link bait'.

That one does not count because if you close you're eyes you can not see it anymore.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

But I have to admit, in few cases you actually get to that point because it requires an understanding that is difficult to transmit to others.

But can you not sell that story here to our subconsciousness?

Originally Posted by janeth

My thinking is this.

Good content, good internal links and lots of external links will win out every time.

My bolding.

Does that mean that there is room for a new Teoma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia now owned by Ask.com Search Engine - Better Web Search or do the remaining big 3 value OBL's higher? Teoma based their search model on so called expert (OB) links.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by kgun

Does that mean that there is room for a new Teoma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia now owned by Ask.com Search Engine - Better Web Search or do the remaining big 3 value OBL's higher? Teoma based their search model on so called expert (OB) links.

It is based on the fact that a link counts more if it is from the same topic as the keywords that you are trying to rank for. Makes the system of getting links a lot more complicated because most people are not going to rank to their competition.

I am good but check out Joe he is even better.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by janeth

I ranked #1 for that term for many years but not a problem. I'll do it again. Give me 7 days.

Well you've guts and confidence,.. Today is June 13,... I'll check again on the 20th.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by janeth

I am all for content. Content, content and more content. But trying to get alt tags, meta tags, h1 tags, bold text and all the other stuff correct is a waste of time that would be better spent on writing more content and getting more links.

I partly agree. Bots are not human beings yet.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Probably not, but, that only prooves that 1 in [pick a huge random number] can ahieve that. how does that proove anything other than it's easy to promote brand names. I can't optimize what I don't have 100% control over. Link text is a gamble at best and that's the only way you place for competitive terms when the term is not on the page. I've seen a few SEO terms that were using paid links do it ... but never an example that occurs naturally without some form of promotion/manipulation. It happens but the fact they make a point of telling the user it's a result of the links could be an indication that they don't really want that, IMO, it's viewed as an anomoly. ie:unexpected/unwanted result

Don't you think that the site of Dell ranking high for the word computer makes sense? That's not an unwanted result. That's exactly what they designed their algorithms for. Notice that those same sites also rank in the top in Yahoo, though a bit lower. Shows that links are as important to Yahoo as they are too Google. Though the emphasys may be a bit more towards links in Google than in Yahoo.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by janeth

I am all for content. Content, content and more content. But trying to get alt tags, meta tags, h1 tags, bold text and all the other stuff correct is a waste of time that would be better spent on writing more content and getting more links.

I didn't notice this post early, but I'm extremely surprised here Janeth. I think you got so used to using CMS's that you can't see the true value that those systems add. They do all that stuff for you.

Your wristband site for example is happily using h1 tags and metas.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

I didn't notice this post early, but I'm extremely surprised here Janeth. I think you got so used to using CMS's that you can't see the true value that those systems add. They do all that stuff for you.

Your wristband site for example is happily using h1 tags and metas.

My bolding. I have looked for software that embed my thoughts into code and content, but has not found a good enough yet.

Originally Posted by Faglork

For me, SEO is about microcontent - can I re-phrase sentences and headlines in a manner that the content *gains* value AND contains all/most of the "buzzwords"? This requires a lot of work, but the results are very good.

Just my 2 cents ...

[kgun]

Originally Posted by janeth

If that was true then DELL nor Apple would rank for computers as neither off them use the keyword on their page that is ranking in the top ten for the very, very competitive keyword computers.

I've ranked for both competitive and non-competitive keywords.

1. How old are these sites?
2. Can content have changed?

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by kgun

But can you not sell that story here to our subconsciousness?

When you talk about content and how structure of content is important you get in a whole range of subjective issues.

It's really amazing that people can write content about something, let's say "widget widgets" use that in the h1 and then not use those words at all in the following paragraphs.

A simple thing like the 5 paragraph essay is great to understand how structure in text should be used. But the problem you face is that people are like: "I'm not going to make all my pages look like that. Then I explain that they don't have to, that it is just to understand how structure works and that they can use this understanding to write in what ever style they want. All that's needed is understand why the 5 paragraph essay is so good. From there you can write as many or few paragraphs that you like. It's not about the 5 paragraph essay it self, it's about the logic behind it.

But in practice few people get it. That's not the end of the world because a text that has heads nor tail also can rank high. This kind of SEO is not about the difference between ranking high or not ranking at all, but more about ranking high for more keywords, increasing conversion rates, etc.

This stuff is difficult to transfer to others and I usually don't go to this level with clients because it does more harm than good.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by kgun

1. How old are these sites?
2. Can content have changed?

I am not even sure that there is any content on the page at all. But it was pulled from the Cached link so it would have been what Google was looking at when they ranked the site.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

I didn't notice this post early, but I'm extremely surprised here Janeth. I think you got so used to using CMS's that you can't see the true value that those systems add. They do all that stuff for you.

Your wristband site for example is happily using h1 tags and metas.

Must not be a lot to on site SEO then.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by kgun

Does that mean that there is room for a new Teoma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia now owned by Ask.com Search Engine - Better Web Search or do the remaining big 3 value OBL's higher? Teoma based their search model on so called expert (OB) links.

It is based on the fact that a link counts more if it is from the same topic as the keywords that you are trying to rank for. Makes the system of getting links a lot more complicated because most people are not going to rank to their competition.

I am good but check out Joe he is even better.

[bj]

This thread inspired me:

The Five Most Common SEO and SEM Mistakes my clients make

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Well you've guts and confidence,.. Today is June 13,... I'll check again on the 20th.

I'm all ready on page one #8 not bad for my first night on the job.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Well you've guts and confidence,.. Today is June 13,... I'll check again on the 20th.

I'm all ready on page one #8 not bad for my first night on the job.

[seoprodigy]

Until the search engines have an algorithm that is a sophisticated as the human mind there will always be a need to optimize a site to bring results to the end user.

I find that people who naively claim "SEO is dead" or "SEO is useless" are jumping to conclusions and really don't understand search. I agree that the search engine landscape is changing. SEO is definitely evolving and getting tougher....but the need for a marketer is not going away.

SEO is a component to the an online marketing campaign, but not the only answer.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by seoprodigy

Until the search engines have an algorithm that is a sophisticated as the human mind there will always be a need to optimize a site to bring results to the end user.

I find that people who naively claim "SEO is dead" or "SEO is useless" are jumping to conclusions and really don't understand search. I agree that the search engine landscape is changing. SEO is definitely evolving and getting tougher....but the need for a marketer is not going away.

SEO is a component to the an online marketing campaign, but not the only answer.

A lack of understanding of how the search engines work?

lol

Please enlighten me.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Well you've guts and confidence,.. Today is June 13,... I'll check again on the 20th.

I'm all ready on page one #8 not bad for my first night on the job.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

When you talk about content and how structure of content is important you get in a whole range of subjective issues.

It's really amazing that people can write content about something, let's say "widget widgets" use that in the h1 and then not use those words at all in the following paragraphs.

A simple thing like the 5 paragraph essay is great to understand how structure in text should be used. But the problem you face is that people are like: "I'm not going to make all my pages look like that. Then I explain that they don't have to, that it is just to understand how structure works and that they can use this understanding to write in what ever style they want. All that's needed is understand why the 5 paragraph essay is so good. From there you can write as many or few paragraphs that you like. It's not about the 5 paragraph essay it self, it's about the logic behind it.

But in practice few people get it. That's not the end of the world because a text that has heads nor tail also can rank high. This kind of SEO is not about the difference between ranking high or not ranking at all, but more about ranking high for more keywords, increasing conversion rates, etc.

This stuff is difficult to transfer to others and I usually don't go to this level with clients because it does more harm than good.

Great post. So you agree that web marketing is art, science, hard business ....

Was that an open question?

<off topic>
This is soccer.

Holland 2 - France 1.

One minute later.

Holland 3 - France 1.

Peter warn your country men to next WM

I hope GoogleBOT find the KW's in this off topic comment
</off topic>

[andrewkeet]

Don’t know Janeth, how do we know you did not intentionally let this site slide in the rankings and are now just claiming back it’s “rightful place”. I say you take some unknown site, I don’t know, mine for example, and get it number one in Google without onsite SEO, and then we will believe you.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by andrewkeet

Don’t know Janeth, how do we know you did not intentionally let this site slide in the rankings and are now just claiming back it’s “rightful place”. I say you take some unknown site, I don’t know, mine for example, and get it number one in Google without onsite SEO, and then we will believe you.

Or she may sit in front of the computer screen in a secret room at Google.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by kgun

Great post. So you agree that web marketing is art, science, hard business ....

Was that an open question?

<off topic>
This is soccer.

Holland 2 - France 1.

One minute later.

Holland 3 - France 1.

Peter warn your country men to next WM

I hope GoogleBOT find the KW's in this off topic comment
</off topic>

Holland 3 - Italy 0
Holland 4 - France 1




And yes,.. when you get to that level of SEO it's practically an art. Though without the basic techniques under it, it's no art what so ever.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by janeth

Must not be a lot to on site SEO then.

The technical part is amazingly simple yes. SEO is no rocket science. Understanding search engines however is a bit more complicated. I don't think I'm at that level yet. If I would be, I'd also had a ticked booked on the next rocket that goes to space.

[janeth]

#6 now and I am about to get into some different things to see if I can push it up a little faster.

[SEO]

Onpage SEO is not just black and white anymore...

In the old days SEO involved having your keywords in your title tag, description tag, keywords tag, H1 tag, in a link to your homepage and distributed throughout your content.

Today the search engines (especially Google) are becoming much more semantic.

Google has patents involving algorithms that measure how long people stay at your website, what they do while they are there, how many pages they look at on your website, where they go when they leave your website, how they leave your website.... Today, All of these things... And more, must be taken into account when doing 'onpage' optimization for your website.

This is where the term "content is King" really comes into play... Having good content for onpage optimization is not just sticking up a heap of keyword targeted text pages and getting them indexed by the search engines. Onpage optimization now involves making those pages sticky... getting people to interact with your site... and getting them to come back again and again.

Google is heading more and more towards counting these things as major site ranking factors...

The 'Google toolbar' isn't just there for 'our' benefit you know...

[HRB]

Man, great dialogue, great info! Thanks everyone
HRB
Wowzzy.com - Interactive Local Search and Business Marketing System "Bringing small business to the big table!"

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by kgun

My bolding. I have looked for software that embed my thoughts into code and content, but has not found a good enough yet.

WordPress is perfect, though you do have to mess with the code a bit to make it the way you want it. You have the logical skills to figure out basic php programming. All you really have to do is mess a bit in the templates that WordPress gives you direct edit access to.

[cbosleeds]

Originally Posted by janeth

I am all for content. Content, content and more content. But trying to get alt tags, meta tags, h1 tags, bold text and all the other stuff correct is a waste of time that would be better spent on writing more content and getting more links.

Hi Janeth,

trust me, getting all the detail right onsite isn't a waste of time and makes a valuable contribution. I have one web page alone that pulls in 2500 unqiue visitors per month on the back of it. There's only about 60 inbounds to that page, and only just off the tail of a really hot short tail key word. The site immediately ahead of me has a domain name 6 years older than mine, PR7 with 3400 more webpages than me and 18066 inbound links to that webpage (82000 to the website). The result immediately behind me is PR7 with a domain name 7 years older than mine, 5100 more webpages across the site than me and 34000 links to that webpage (51000 links to the website). I've replicated this a few times now and it takes a combination of good content, playing onsite optimisation by the system I use, a bit of link building and some exploration of hot search terms that aren't impenetrable. the only hard thing is identifying the right key phrase to go for.

On the onsite side of things - Google doesn't like missing alt attributes for starters, there's a way of dealing with meta desc that only about half a dozen people ever got to grips with (nothing to do with keywords), and a special way to deal with h1. There are dozens of other onsite techniques involved as well, but these are some of the ones most people either don't get or choose not to care about. For me its really just a case of doing a lot of small things that help a little and using their combined weight to box heavy. the devil is in the detail. There are plenty of other ways that work well, but this works for me and its the easiest way I've found to avoid work intensive large-scale link building when I can get away with it. I could never rank for a top key phrase only one or two words long with this method (e.g. toys, games, books, iPod etc) but for ones 3-4 words long in that calibre - a lot of the time, when i have the luxury to choose my own arena. Most of the time unfortunately, customer websites are in a condition only to squeeze a bit of potential out of the onsite before diving into the link building.

[seoprodigy]

Originally Posted by janeth

A lack of understanding of how the search engines work?

lol

Please enlighten me.

Not really sure what you are asking for.

[mark.smith]

Even i think as same...

I have continuously worked for one of my client site while i was busy i have shifted my focus on other.things then On page but still i get gud result...

[janeth]

Originally Posted by seoprodigy

Not really sure what you are asking for.

I was hoping you could help me out with my lack of understanding. I believe content is important as well as internal and external links (anchor text) and title tags but that is about it.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by cbosleeds

The site immediately ahead of me has a domain name 6 years older than mine, PR7 with 3400 more webpages than me and 18066 inbound links to that webpage (82000 to the website). The result immediately behind me is PR7 with a domain name 7 years older than mine, 5100 more webpages across the site than me and 34000 links to that webpage (51000 links to the website). I've replicated this a few times now and it takes a combination of good content, playing onsite optimisation by the system I use, a bit of link building and some exploration of hot search terms that aren't impenetrable. the only hard thing is identifying the right key phrase to go for.

What is the search term we are talking about?

It does not matter the PR of a site or how many internal links are coming into the site. What matters is the anchor text of those links.

Originally Posted by cbosleeds

On the onsite side of things - Google doesn't like missing alt attributes for starters,

Can you show me some proof?

Are you saying that Google will penalize a site if there are missing alt attributes?

Originally Posted by cbosleeds

there's a way of dealing with meta desc that only about half a dozen people ever got to grips with (nothing to do with keywords),

Are you saying that you can make a site rank higher using a tag that Google does not use for ranking purposes.

Originally Posted by cbosleeds

and a special way to deal with h1.

Please teach us.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Don't you think that the site of Dell ranking high for the word computer makes sense? That's not an unwanted result. That's exactly what they designed their algorithms for. Notice that those same sites also rank in the top in Yahoo, though a bit lower. Shows that links are as important to Yahoo as they are too Google. Though the emphasys may be a bit more towards links in Google than in Yahoo.

Yeah... but... they didn't intend for pages not containing the words to rank for a query. Think miserable failure.

[Terry Van Horne]

Janeth, I get your point but the amount of links it takes to get to that point for compettive terms is likely in the 10's of 1,000's. IMO, like a lot of things it seems it can be done that way, but... IMO, there has to be an easier way to do it beyond link text which is often just luck as if it is not paid you seldom get to choose the link text. That's why I optimize the IA which is almost as good as link text as the terms are in the url and many sites use the url as the link text.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Janeth, I get your point but the amount of links it takes to get to that point for compettive terms is likely in the 10's of 1,000's. IMO, like a lot of things it seems it can be done that way, but... IMO, there has to be an easier way to do it beyond link text which is often just luck as if it is not paid you seldom get to choose the link text. That's why I optimize the IA which is almost as good as link text as the terms are in the url and many sites use the url as the link text.

Do you really think you can rank a site for a competitive search term without links?

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Yeah... but... they didn't intend for pages not containing the words to rank for a query. Think miserable failure.

Yeah... but... car manufactures didn't intend to make cars bump into eachother, roll over, and do a whole bunch of other dog tricks. Think air bags, bumbers, etc.

A search engine that doesn't put sites like Dell at the top for the keyword "computer", doesn't really get it.

[SEO]

Originally Posted by janeth

Do you really think you can rank a site for a competitive search term without links?

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

A search engine that doesn't put sites like Dell at the top for the keyword "computer", doesn't really get it.

Try typing ' website ' into Google... How many of the top listings actually have anything to do with selling websites...?
website - Google Search

Or type in ' house website '... How many of those top rankings are websites selling houses...?
house website - Google Search

Are these serp's influenced so heavily because of "on page Optimization" or "off page Optimization"...?

Or could it have something to do with "Authority"...?

It's not just black and white... There are many... many... other factors involved.


A search for ' home' on Google is the most interesting...
home - Google Search

A couple of months ago NASA ranked no. 1 for the search term ' home '...

A couple of days ago BBC ranked no. 1

Today... Heme Depot is the top ranking site.

All of these sites would have to rank for this keyword for different reasons.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by janeth

Do you really think you can rank a site for a competitive search term without links?

No. Would you just use link text to try to place for competitive terms? If so then you have no control over your ability to do that. I do know that placing for competitive terms is much harder if you try and do it only with link text. My point is that onpage will always be just as important as long as SE's want relevant results. Should NASA come up for home? Probably not. IMO, if you have good onpage SEO then the number of IBLs needed to rank is significantly less and less time consuming to produce the same results. Don't forget also that it may be internal linking that is producing the result you keep referring to you have no way of knowing where the link text that produced that result came from. All you really know about the results you refer to is that the term isn't on the page in the result. With enough pages on the site you could get the same result if the term was linked to enough from non navigational contextual linking with lots of deep linked IBLs. My point is that to say SEO is just about linking is to be the one legged man signing up for an a$$e kicking competition. You could win but...

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Yeah... but... car manufactures didn't intend to make cars bump into eachother, roll over, and do a whole bunch of other dog tricks. Think air bags, bumbers, etc.

A search engine that doesn't put sites like Dell at the top for the keyword "computer", doesn't really get it.

Should Nasa come up for home? Do you think that Google likes that result? No, the statement in question is added because Google believes that users should know that the relevance of that page for that query is suspect because the term only appears in link text.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by SEO

It's not just black and white... There are many... many... other factors involved.

Right on brother! A lot of times it is the SEO's personal "secret sauce" that brews those factors into a good rank. This discussion reminds of the saying "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail!".

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by janeth

Are you saying that you can make a site rank higher using a tag that Google does not use for ranking purposes.

You have no way of knowing that unless you are a Goolgle engineer! They have said they don't use the Keywords tag in ranking. Never, to my knowledge, has any SE made any suggestion either way in regards to meta description. There have been more than a few rumours that CTR is used by Google and if that is the case then to some extent the meta description is used for ranking.

[pathikbd]

I am glad to see a good discussion whether Onsite SEO will stay as it is today. Tamar Weinberg's blog in Search Engine Roundtable referred the negative prophecy in my article in Marketing Pilgrim. The article lists some other prophecies of internet marketing. However, not all are negative.

I had a vision about this prophecy. So, I thought I should share it with all of you. However, I have posted a discussion here in another string regarding this prophecy.

Search Engine are getting smarter and they might elliminate the barrier to make your site search engine friendly. Rather, they will try to become more site-freindly. The Onsite markup-based SEO we know today is actually a barrier for sites to follow another guideline. Making the search engines to become more site-friendly is just a matter of time.

I have mentioned Visual Algorithm that will analyze the appearance of the page combining the OCR technology & artificial intelligence. If it is implemented, then Appearance of a site will be the determinant for visible keyword density than code-based texts. That will change the task of Code-based SEO we know today and make all of us shift to Visual Optimization, since it will be the determinant for H1 tags, keyword density, Bold text, etc. Any hidden text, layer or links will not be counted.

Previously, meta tags used to rule the search engine rankings. But, only meta tags don't play much now-a-days for competitive keywords. The offsite SEO is however is gaining more weight though quality backlinks. Internal link structure also has a lot of influence now a days. But, this is a thing that you have the power to manipulate and spam. Rather than what the site is boasting for itself, search engines will eventually want to know what other sites are saying about the site. It's just like they what Google did in the "Google Bomb" update. Before that, you could do a lot of marketing with just using same anchor text all over the internet and not having the keyword in your page. I hope you all know about "Miserable Failure" that pointed to Gorge Bush's site.


Moreover, I regret to miss one prophecy, that is: The Broadcasting Media (TV, as we know today) will merge with the internet technology. Text-based contents will loose traffic, as people will prefer videos more than the text-based content we see now. So, SEO will last till this Text-based content era we now live in.

But, I can bet that SEO will not go away soon.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by SEO

All of these sites would have to rank for this keyword for different reasons.

I see home depot and it would be the reason of incoming links with the keyword "home depot" as anchor text.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

No. Would you just use link text to try to place for competitive terms? If so then you have no control over your ability to do that. I do know that placing for competitive terms is much harder if you try and do it only with link text. My point is that onpage will always be just as important as long as SE's want relevant results. Should NASA come up for home? Probably not. IMO, if you have good onpage SEO then the number of IBLs needed to rank is significantly less and less time consuming to produce the same results. Don't forget also that it may be internal linking that is producing the result you keep referring to you have no way of knowing where the link text that produced that result came from. All you really know about the results you refer to is that the term isn't on the page in the result. With enough pages on the site you could get the same result if the term was linked to enough from non navigational contextual linking with lots of deep linked IBLs. My point is that to say SEO is just about linking is to be the one legged man signing up for an a$$e kicking competition. You could win but...

Onsite optimization will do little to nothing for a competitive keyword.

[SEO]

Actually...

The number 1 ranking webpage for the search term ' home ' as at the time of this posting is the Google Finance page for - Home Federal Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ)
home - Google Search

Try doing a search for external backlinks... I can't find 1 (the page doesn't show any PR either).

It does look fairly well optimized though... Both keyword wise and semantically.

[pathikbd]

Originally Posted by SEO

Try doing a search for external backlinks... I can't find 1 (the page doesn't show any PR either).

You can't find any links when you search in Google. Do the same search in yahoo with the command linkdomain:http://www.homedepot.com. The results are:

Pages (34,809) = Internal Links
Inlinks (133,949) = External Backlinks

[janeth]

Originally Posted by pathikbd

You can't find any links when you search in Google. Do the same search in yahoo with the command linkdomain:http://www.homedepot.com. The results are:

Pages (34,809) = Internal Links
Inlinks (133,949) = External Backlinks

Not sure what you are looking at but I see lots of links.

link:www.homedepot.com - Google Search

Do you really think that Home Depot does not have any links?