Top SEO Blog

The reason Google is the most successful search engine in the world is because they provide the best search results; pages ranked by tangible value. That tangible value is a combination of content and links, with links being the more important factor (they assume any pages linking in will only link to good content or risk their own ranking.)

Here are a few tips that will help you take full advantage of Google’s love of linking…

1.) Link Deep and with Relevance

So why is deeper better and what’s this about relevance? Google figured out that a link to a homepage is only good if that homepage has the information the visitor needs. If a person clicks a link for “amazíng chocolate chip cookie recipe” and ends up on the home page, which has nothing of the sort, Google discounts it as a wasted link. On the other hand, if the link leads to the page containing info on the “Amazíng Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe,” even five levels deep, the link has huge value to the visitor and to Google.

Want some proof? You already have it if you’ve ever used Google’s AdWords pay per clíck service. They will not even accept PAID links to pages that are not the most relevant for their visitors, regardless of what you are willing to pay per clíck. Now that’s saying something!

2.) Use Absolute Links Internally

It sounds complicated but it’s not. Absolute links are those with a fixed full URL. There’s another kind, called “relative” links that skip the first part of the domain and remain “relative” to the file structure. Let’s take a look at the difference…
Here’s the absolute link to the Google Ads page from Google’s homepage: “http://www.google.com/intl/en/ads/“
Here’s what it might look like as a relative link: “./intl/en/ads/“
Long story short; absolute links help your SEO efforts and relative links don’t.

3.) Use Keywords in Anchor Text

Use relevant keywords in your link anchor text (that is the text within the hyperlink.) Forget about “Clíck Here” like you see on so many sites. Not only does that not help your ranking, it actually lowers the relevancy of your real keywords because Google believes that if a word is important enough it will likely be used as part of a link to get the visitor where they want to go.

4.) Follow the 1% Solution

Make no more than 1% of your page text into links (both outbound and internal.) That is, if you have 500 words on the page there should be no more than 5 text links total. And don’t overuse the same keyword text for the links. So if you have three mentions each of three different keywords, try to use each just once in a link. Then use similar text for any remaining links.

Example: If “chocolate chip cookies” is your main keyword phrase you might use “chocolate chip cookies” as the anchor text for one link and then “my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe” for another link.

It’s also a good idea to use 10 Links Max per page whether you have 1,000 words or 10,000 words on that page.

5.) Add a Link Failsafe

This is really simple and almost nobody does it. Links get broken more often than we like. Sometimes it’s because we moved a page and sometimes it has nothing to do with anything we consciously did (especially with blogs.) The solution is to create a custom 404 page (Page Not Found) that looks just like any other page on your site and has a simple note like “We’re sorry we cannot find the page you are looking for. However, if you love cookies of all kinds we think you’ll find exactly what you want by clicking on one of the following links…” Then of course you have a navigation system for them to follow.

6.) Get the Best Links Possible

This is extremely important yet often overlooked because it can be such a difficult and time consuming job. If you take nothing else away from this article, please take this… Finding the best possible inbound links is the single most important thing you can do to make the number one spot on Google.

Here are three tips to help minimize your time and effort while giving you results SEO experts charge an arm and a leg for.

A.) Get listed in directories.

Submít your site to the top directories like Jayde.com and DMOZ.org. Once they link to your site you will have great relevant inbound links and some instant credibility with Google.

Here are some great free directories in order of value, starting with the best… dmoz.org, jayde.com, webworldindex.com, turnpike.net, and directoryvault.com. Yahoo is important but charges $299 for commercial site inclusion.

B.) Use “Special Commands” to do the legwork for you.

The best linked sites can easily be found with a simple search command called “allinanchor:” Here’s how to use it. Go to Google and type in “allinanchor:keyword goes here” (no quotes and no space after the colon.) Now hit Enter and you’ll see the sites that have the highest relevancy for keywords used in anchor text. Look for any that you know are competitors and outrank your site.

Now take the URL for any of these and use this command “link:www.theirdomain.extension” (again with no quotes and no space after the colon.) This will show you all the sites linking in as well as internal pages linking back in.

In short, these two special commands give you an inside look at exactly how the competition does what it does with the results they get. This is huge!

C.) Use good SEO software whenever possible.

If you can afford to spend one or two hundred dollars to save huge amounts of time and get professional results, it’s well worth it. Like many SEO professionals whose livelihood depends on results, I’ve been using SEO software to get top search engine placement for years. The best ones not only help you identify great link partners but will even help you contact them and make sure they don’t cheat you in any way. I use SEO Elite and am still amazed by all it can do.

If possible, get a tool that also does rank checking and reporting. Once you begin you’ll want to check rankings every so often and an automated tool will save you a ton of time. Oddly enough I bought SEO Elite primarily for rank checking then discovered it was worth its weight in gold as linking tool as well. So whatever tool you use, get as much out of it as you can. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Google is being sued by a man represented by a law firm that has successfully sued Google several times in the past. The firm is Kabateck Brown Kellner and the man is David Almeida, a local businessman from Massachusetts who claims that Google’s sign up process for AdWords wrongly conceals that advertiser text ads will run on AdSense content partner sites unless they affirmatively opt out.

Here’s a relevant factual passage from the complaint:

This action arises from the fact that Google does not inform its advertisers that if they leave the content bid CPC input blank, Google will use the advertiser’s CPC bid for clicks occurring on the content network. Google does this despite the fact that ads placed on the content network are demonstrably inferior to ads appearing on search result pages. Because there is no option to opt out of content ads during the AdWords registgration process, advertisers reasonably believe that by leaving the content ad CPC input blank they can opt out of having their ads placed on the content network. Google, however, has charged and continues to charge those advertisers who leave content ad CPC input blank for content ads on third party websites.

The suit states three claims: unjust enrichment, fraudulent concealment and unfair or deceptive business practices under the California Business and Professions Code. The lawsuit also announces itself as a class action. If this were only about an individual plaintiff, assuming he could win on liability, damages would simply be the value of clicks on the content network refunded. But a class action represents millions of potential dollars for the opportunistic law firm.

I would doubt that there can be any finding of fraud against Google but the other claims might be more viable. Opting out of AdSense is a fairly straightforward process after account setup. Still, the case can probably escape a motion to dismiss by Google and will likely go into the discovery phase.

Many auto insurance companies, feeling like personal injury lawyers were seeing them as easy targets, started to take a harder line and ligate cases rather than settle them out of the gate. This case might wind up settling but Google has incentives to fight these cases more vigorously and “send a message” to law firms who may see the search engine as a deep pocket and an easy target.

Google announced today that it has completed its acquisition of DoubleClick, a company that offers online ad serving and management technology to advertisers, web publishers and ad agencies.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed. With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.”

Just five years ago, Microsoft Corp. was considered the Big Bad Wolf of the media business.

Armed with a stockpile of cash and the Windows operating system that dominates office computing, Bill Gates’ company was expected to huff and puff its way into America’s living rooms as well, with video game consoles, home networking systems and TV set-top boxes.

But today, there’s a different wolf at the door. Although Microsoft is still flush with $40 billion in cash, it is Google Inc. that the media industry fears most. So intense is Google-fueled paranoia, in fact, that industry watchers believe the Internet search giant could drive profound changes in the media, entertainment and technology landscape in 2006.

Already, old media are investing heavily in new-media ventures. Newspapers like this one are defending their bread-and-butter income — classified advertising — by stepping up their Web offerings. Media conglomerates such as News Corp. are buying Web properties like MySpace.com that connect them to young audiences, who are forsaking television and radio in favor of the Internet.

This year, new media could return the favor by investing in old media — the folks who know the most about producing entertainment content.

Here are some predictions for the media industry for 2006, based on interviews with industry analysts, executives and investors, along with a little intuition.

Cheap PCs, anyone?

Google will unveil its own low-price personal computer or other device that connects to the Internet.

Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft’s Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap — perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars.

Bear Stearns analysts speculated in a research report last month that consumers would soon see something called “Google Cubes” — a small hardware box that could allow users to move songs, videos and other digital files between their computers and TV sets.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and president of products, will give a keynote address Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Analysts suspect that Page will use the opportunity either to show off a Google computing device or announce a partnership with a big retailer to sell such a machine.

And that’s not the only Google theory out there. Content producers wonder whether Google’s push into video search will unravel the economics that make Hollywood hum. If viewers can find and legally download an episode of “Seinfeld” through Google, will that cut into cable and network television’s profits?

And what if Google, after equipping cities, starting with San Francisco, with Wi-Fi wireless technology, starts to offer pay-TV service for free?

Still, to date, the company’s $123-billion stock market value is based almost entirely on its dominance of one business: global text searches on the Web. Some investors worry that Page and co-founder Sergey Brin could be done in by their penchant for seeing themselves as do-gooders rather than profiteers. But those naysayers are in the minority. Most industry executives and Wall Street analysts believe that Google’s search engine business is robust enough to give the young billionaires two or three years of wiggle room to build nifty services first and worry about making money on them later.