Google Caffeine In Effect, Link Builders Find Backlinks Disappearing


Posted by girlie

google-caffeineThe new Google Caffeine is already in effect now and Link Builders around the world are a bit amazed about what the heck happened to the links that they built throughout the mid and end of 2009? Last Google PR update has clearly proven that Google is now taking the backlink profile more seriously. All crappy and spammy links are seeing a slow and steady decay in Google’s sphere.

Off late, there has been much hype about Angela Paul’s link building. I am pretty sure even you would have heard about it if you are remotely connected to Search Engine Optimization or Link Development industry. In my opinion Angela Edward link building strategy is going to be garbage when considering Google Caffeine is in effect. Google Caffeine would always give more weightage to the backlinks which fly out of ‘related’ authority websites over forum profile and social media profile links.

The Link building service providers would now need to chose the inbound links more carefully since Caffeine is built for doing justice to only authentic websites which have slow and natural links built. So if you are probably building 2,000 links a month from different forum profiles you are doing nothing but a Donkey’s Job. Google has a serious disregard for digital spam and Caffeine since its inception was coded and introduced to make Crawling Faster and Spam Removal – more effective.

Following 3 factors are most important for any Link Building Service provider looking to create more authority links – Trust, Merit & Intent as mentioned by Link Moses – Eric Ward, repeatedly. So thats how WE at BuckDat as Link Building Service providers are going to mould our Link Development Strategy.

Which Backlink Would Qualify For Google’s Caffeine?

  1. Non reciprocal links.
  2. Links coming out of regularly updated ‘on-topic’ related websites. (Link Wheel would work perfecly well)
  3. Links coming out of RSS farms would be effective and would benefit due to dynamic multiplicity of content.
  4. Links coming out of Forums would be the biggest push if the linking threads are on topic.
  5. Links built to bread crumbs are going to give the contents good link juice and would enhance the crumb development in Search Engine Results.
  6. Links coming out of Embedded PDF files show a trend of bouncing back on top of Caffeine results. I see 3 results on Google Caffeine search engine results pages with .pdf files when I tried googling for keyword “High PR backlinks”.

And so on…

Another aspect is that when you once create backlinks on certain content node of a website, you must make sure that you instantly ping that site using pinging service and submit the page for Social Media to enable quick crawling. This would ensure that your Link Building Services show quicker results. Not to forget that Google Caffeine has been coded to crawl a larger chunk of web more quickly, so if you are able to bring the link page before Google Goggles instantly, nothing more better. Your link has an increased chance of getting cached if the above steps are followed instantly.

We would love to know your thoughts on Link building strategies for Google Caffeine.

Please feel free to share if you have any note worthy finding on Search Engine Result Pages & what factor of Caffeine you think is possibly triggering the results you are seeing. This is an hour where we need to heavily revamp and restructure our Link development strategies in wake of Google Caffeine coming in effect.

Not to forget that present day search engines are heavy duty dynamo with ever updating algorithms and Link Building Services which totally comply with each Search Engine Update are going to be the ones which produce best results on the Search Engines and produce links that stand the test of time!

Source: Buckdat Team


How Google’s Speeding Things Up Could Affect You


Posted by girlie

Google’s need for speed could begin to influence the transition to the next generation of search and page-ranking factors in query results, as the company makes a transition to Caffeine, the next-generation of Google Search. While the move to speed up the Internet mostly touches Google’s architecture and organic search results, some search marketers believe the move affects search advertisers, too.

Read article http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120970


SEO: five developments we can expect to see in 2010


Posted by girlie

seo-in-redThere have been many recent blog posts about potential SEO developments for 2010, so I thought I’d gaze into my own crystal ball and see what patterns emerged from the mist.

So, if you want to dominate the natural SERPs over the next 12 months, these are the factors that I think are going to be the most important.

1. Website load time

Check into Google’s Webmaster Tools and you’ll get plenty of feedback on website load time – a sure sign that it’s an element you need to get right.

When the GoogleBot crawls your site, it needs an easy and unblocked route to your content. Many posts on the Google Webmaster Central blog suggest allowing the GoogleBot to crawl all areas of your site – they could be key areas in your visitors’ journeys, and they could have high load times. Giving GoogleBot free rein over your sitemap will make sure you get the best possible feedback about page load times.

Google’s ‘Caffeine’ update incorporates load times as part of its algorithm. So far it’s been difficult to measure the impact of this change in the UK SERPs; but as we move through 2010 this update will affect more sets of keywords and themes. In August last year, the big shake up had a big impact on a set of ‘Hollywood’ search terms, which also gave more power to brand owners. I expect this to roll out even further and – of course – throw up odd results (i.e. from other countries) as we go along.

2. More competitive local search results

Google Local Business listings have proven to be a fantastic channel of traffic for website owners. As more SEO agencies look to leverage the power of these listings at the top of the SERPs, I expect Google to reward top spots by focusing on quality and relevance.

The current set up means you can easily bump your listing into the top spots for relevant searches like ‘Solicitors Kent’, but as we move into 2010 I expect listings that have more reviews, similar location-based inbound links and use other Google products (e.g. AdWords, Product Search) will benefit the most.

I expect Google to tighten the algorithm of local listings further, so it won’t be (potentially) as easy to achieve quick wins in this area.

3. Authority websites to continue to deliver more weight for SEO

The way we search is changing. Whether your original search stemmed from Facebook, a Twitter post or elsewhere, these days we can avoid trawling through pages of search results to find what we’re looking for. In some cases it may just be easier to ask someone within an online community – we are guided by recommendation more then ever.

Although it’s hard to predict the longevity of Twitter’s growth (or decline), networks of this kind will be a growing source of direct visits to your website. Regular visits from authority websites will strengthen your position in the SERPS and need to be taken into consideration for your SEO.

This means you need to embrace social networks: tweet regularly, generate discussion and get your news read!

4. Link building: chasing PageRank will be a thing of the past

Link building strategies are often guided by chasing a link from a site with an awesomely high PageRank; but I predict we will soon be switching our attention to websites that have greater relevance and high crawl rates. Inbound links from static websites that are never updated will be worth very little, whereas a link from news source that isn’t necessarily ‘anchored up to the nines’ will be of greater value.

I also expect PageRank will be removed from the Google toolbar in 2010.

5. Long tail will (still) be the future for 2010

As we use increasingly accurate searches, the user journey through Google’s results pages may be much shorter then previous years.

This means that websites (especially eCommerce or news-related sites with lots of fresh content) need to focus on higher quality ‘SEO friendly’ content. Good descriptive copy, metadata and headings all count towards achieving accurate results.

There will be more pockets of opportunity for long tail searches in SEO; the trick is to identify these terms and build your strategy around them, rather than getting distracted by the the ego-inflating terms that don’t necessarily convert.

So, there you go – a few little gems from Coast Digital’s SEO crystal ball! Let’s hear your predictions for 2010 too… ideas in the comments please.

Source: Ashley Fletcher for Coastdigital.co.uk


Google Caffeine – It’s Started


Posted by girlie

For those of you in the SEO world, you’ll have known for some time that Google has been planning some major new changes, and has recently started to implement them. The full-blown Google Caffeine is coming soon, so this is just the start…

However if you are just a regular user of Google with little or no knowledge of SEO, you may not know that Google now personalises your search results, based on sites you have clicked on before!

Now, in the past, if you’d been logged into a Gmail account, or other Google service which required you to login, then Google would have already been personalising your search results. To stop it from doing so, you could just log out.

However, now the new changes have taken effect, you’ll notice a couple of subtle changes…

1. When you mouse-over the very top of the Google search home page, you will see that there is a menu bar which auto-hides itself.

screen-shot-of-new-google-home-page

screen-shot-of-new-google-home-page

 

Now move your mouse:

screen-shot-of-google-home-page-with-mouse-over

screen-shot-of-google-home-page-with-mouse-over

Okay, not much new here, but now do a search for anything you like, and look at the new option in the Top Right-Hand side…

googles-new-web-history-feature

googles-new-web-history-feature

Now click on the Web History feature (see arrow above), and you’ll see the following option:

googles-new-web-history-menu

googles-new-web-history-menu

You can now select: “Disable customisations based on search activity”.

Doing so will (for this browser session only), leave your SEO search results unaffected. If you have a Google account, you can sign in and change the settings by selecting “Web History” at the bottom RHS of the above screen, and logging in. This way, if you have a Google account, then it will mean that you can disable Web History whenever you are logged in.

So what does this mean for me?

Well if you are doing some SEO or having some done, and want to check your Google position, don’t get excited unless you have disabled Web History – you haven’t shot to #1 overnight!

If you are a Google user who finds it hard to remember the URL of your favorite sites, and doesn’t bookmark them, then Web History can be handy. Say you search for Car, and click on a specific site, next time you search for Car that site may appear closer to the top of the results – in a nutshell that’s what Web History does. However this will skew your results so that if a super new Car website appeared that is cheaper and otherwise superior to your old favorite, it could take you longer to notice it exists. It also means that Google knows exactly what you search for, and gathers data from your every move, using it to manipulate the data it provides you with…

So we’ve at least told you how you can opt-out of this service if you want it.

Other changes which have been happening for the last six months or so, are where US, Australian, and other non-UK English-speaking sites appear in the SERPs. For example, searching for Sandwich Shop Cheltenham (despite that fact that Google know’s I’m in the UK), brings up results of Sandwich shops in Cheltenham Australia, amongst those in the UK – oops! How could that be even remotely relevant?

OK, so this could be useful for those of us in the UK for specific information-related searches, but if you are looking for a product or service, then this is highly irrelevant and makes the likes of Yahoo, Bing or another top search engine perhaps preferable?

Google deny there is any fault with this particular change, however the internet jungle drums say otherwise.

Only time will tell as to whether this is a permanent change or a temporary blip, but it’s good to know that with Bing’s popularity on the up, we do have other options, if we aren’t happy with what Google are up to. However for the time being, Google is still THE Search Engine of choice for the masses, the question is, how long for?

Source:  Google Caffeine – It’s Started


Siloing revisited


Posted by girlie

While the concept of siloing (also known as theming) has been widely adopted into SEO jargon, it’s clear that the technique itself is not widely understood. It is for this reason that we chose to revisit the concept of siloing after first addressing it in our SEO Newsletter last spring.

In its simplest terms, siloing is a site architecture technique used to split the focus of a site into multiple themes. The goal behind siloing is to create a site that ranks well for both its common and more-targeted keywords.

We developed our siloing technique after discovering that many of our clients expressed difficulty in ranking for both their site’s generic keywords (i.e. jelly) and specific page terms (i.e. organic strawberry jelly). We found that by haphazardly linking to unrelated (or even semi-related) internal pages, clients were actually diluting the theme of that web site. This, in turn, caused lower rankings because the search engines were unable to identify what the site was supposed to be about. By implementing proper siloing, site owners can ensure that their pages rank well for theme-specific keywords, as well as general site keywords.

There are two distinct methods of siloing: directory silos and virtual silos. Both allow site owners to create tight themes through linking strategies, however, they approach the concept very differently.

Directory silos: Directory silos reinforce themes by grouping like content pages under one, highly organized directory. A minimum of five content pages are needed to establish the theme and each must be named to reinforce the subject matter.

Think of a directory silo like a file cabinet. In order for the file cabinet to be effective, everything must remain tightly grouped in its place and filed under the appropriate, structured heading. Every distinct category will have its own heading. This means if you are a site specializing in peanut butter, all of your creamy peanut butter pages would be grouped together and all of your chunky peanut butter pages would be grouped together. The two would never be mixed.

Your creamy peanut butter silo might look something like this:

Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/traditional.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/organic.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/lowfat.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/jellyhybrid.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/creamy/honeyroasted.html

In the example above, each page is named to help the search engines see the like theme. The directory naming system helps establish that these pages are all about creamy peanut butter. Sticking to this format will help prevent your themes from blurring and keep them unique.

Most sites will find that their topic is widespread enough that they need to separate it into multiple themes. If you find that your creamy peanut butter silo can be divided even further, don’t be fearful of creating multiple sub silos, however keep it within reason. We recommend keeping the pages about 2-3 directors deep. Delving any further than that and you may run into trouble. Additional silos give you more room for keywords and keyword synonyms. The tighter your silos are, the better your chance at ranking for your theme-specific keywords. Just make sure you’re not forgetting your more general terms in the process. Your silos should target both sets of terms.

Once you create your separate themes, you may find instances where you want to connect them. For example, let’s say your peanut butter site has a silo about the health benefits of different types of peanut butter. If you have a page that specifically addresses the health benefits of creamy peanut butter, it may make sense for you to link the two pages. The best way to do this without diluting your theme is to link from the creamy peanut butter page to the health benefits landing page. This shows the engines that you have two unique silos and makes it easier for both pages to stand out. Linking at will can cause confusion for the engines as they try and decipher what your page is about.

Virtual Silos: Virtual silos use a vertical cross-linking structure to create subject themes. In other words, the theme of the top landing page is created by supporting pages linking to it. This form of siloing may be useful for an established site that does not have a directory file system already set up or is fearful of breaking established page links.

In a virtual silo, each supporting page is linked to the theme’s landing page and also linked to the other supporting pages for that theme. The theme of the silo is created and reinforced by this type of cross linking of the pages. With virtual siloing, pages don’t need to be in the same directory in order to be in the same silo; the theme is established solely through the use of links.

For example, let’s say you want to create a virtual silo for crunchy peanut butter using the five crunchy peanut butter pages listed below:

Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/superchunk.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/lowfat.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/organic.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/jellyhybrid.html
Peanutbuttersite.com/crunchy/almond.html

To create the virtual silo, all five pages would link to the crunchy peanut butter landing page. This tells the search engines that these pages are related to- and support the topic presented in the landing page. Each page should then also include a link to every other supportive page in the virtual silo. In this case there are four other pages in the silo. The easiest way to do this is to include navigation on the page to link the pages together and basically creating a mini-sitemap on the page.

When linking out to other pages within the site, you must be very cautious about not risking the integrity of your silo. To link two related peanut butter pages found in separate directories, link the same as you would in a directory silo. Each page should be linked to your main landing page, as well as linked to one another. Linking this way will help build the theme of that silo. As mentioned earlier, when linking this tightly, beware of failing to address your general keywords.

Sticking with our peanut butter example, say your site sells a type of jelly that is particularly complimentary to creamy peanut butter. It may be fitting to link from your peanut butter page to the flavored jelly page. Since the jelly page would be a supporting page in the Jelly silo, you would want to link your creamy peanut butter page to the landing page of the Jelly silo instead of to the particular flavored jelly page. Doing this would dilute your theme of the creamy silo. By linking to the top of the Jelly silo, you not only keep the integrity of the two silos, but you also are helping to establish the Jelly landing page as the main page for that silo. If you absolutely had to link the creamy peanut butter page to the flavored jelly page you would want to do it with a rel=nofollow in the link command.

Whichever method of siloing you plan on choosing, we recommend designing your silos before creating your Web site, whenever possible. Doing it this way will allow you more options with your design process. If you’re not sure what silos your site will need, you may opt to run your keyword testing to see which terms you plan on targeting. If you know you want to rank for the terms “creamy peanut butter” and “jelly hybrid”, then you will need to create unique silos that address both of these themes. This will allow you to create deeper silos, while keeping your original structure intact.

Source:  lisa-barone