SEO Beginners - Detecting Logical Fallacies

There's a lot of great information on the Web, and a lot of even greater misinformation.

I was going to link to some pages that claim to be Google's Ranking Factors, which are lists that some people have come up with that supposedly tell us all of the things that Google might rank pages upon in search results. These are usually more linkbait than legitimate.

I searched at Google for "Google ranking factors" and started looking through the first few results, and couldn't bring myself to go any further.

It's better if you learn as much as you can about logical fallacies, and how people make flawed assumptions and arguments when doing something like coming up with a list of something like "Google's Ranking Factors.

Here are some specific things to keep in mind:

1. Just because Google has a patent on it (and I love patents), doesn't mean that Google decided to use it, or has since stopped.

2. Just because SEO Toolmakers sold tools to help you identify things like perfect keyword densities, or LSI keywords, don't mean that either of those things were ever anything more than a waste of your money when you paid for them, and a waste of your time when you used them.

3. Just because a large group of SEO "experts" participated in a group survey of ranking factors and gave "opinions" (emphasis on the word "opinion") on them, doesn't make them anything more than opinions.

4. Just because Matt Cutts didn't talk about something, doesn't mean that he's "hiding" that something.

5. Just because "Many SEOs think" something, doesn't make it so.

6. When someone suggests that something is a "sign of a quality site" or a "sign of a low quality site", that doesn't mean that Google is using that factor to rank pages.

7. When another SEO firm "confirms" something is a ranking factor, don't take their word for it, test it yourself. This appeal to "authority" is a fallacy.

8. Just because Google has publicly stated that they like "user friendly features" on web pages doesn't mean that the presence of those features helps a page rank higher.

9. Google has had "quality rater documents" leak and spread throughout the Web, and those are instructions and guides to people attempting to identify spam and to rate the quality of page. They aren't a "search engines guide to ranking web pages," and were not created specifically for that purpose. They may be interesting, and you may be tempted to create inferences from them, but don't assume that they are guides to how Google ranks pages.

10. Stupid things like, Google says they don't give nofollow links any credit, so they probably do give some of them credit, and you should have a natural looking link profile, so you need some nofollow links in your profile for it to look natural.

You'll see a lot of things on the Web about SEO and Search engines, and you should look at all of it with some amount of rational skepticism.
I'm stopping at 10, because it's like shooting fish in a barrel, and because there are some people who really believe this stuff.
More: Click Here

Link Building the Right Way in 2014

Let's face it. Link building isn't sexy. Link building isn't fun. And in 2014, if done correctly, it certainly isn't cheap or easy.

Most importantly, and contrary to what you may have heard, link building is far from dead. Many of the "link building is dead" theories are rooted in wishful thinking and/or fear. The fear is real and understandable as the Penguin update finally delivered on Google's long running promise to severely penalize websites engaged in manipulativelink schemes.

(Don't Fear) the Google Reaper

Some have concluded that the best and safest response to Penguin is to stop link building altogether. That's a bad idea.

Here's a reality check: the best way to improve visibility in the SERPs, in 2014, is still link building. Links are still believed to be the most important part of the algorithm, according to the most recentMoz search engine ranking factors survey.

Google's own Matt Cutts confirmed the same in an interview with Eric Enge, stating:

"Links are still the best way that we've found to discover (how relevant or important somebody is) and maybe, over time, social or authorship or other types of markup will give us a lot more information about that."

That statement has some pretty important implications, when it comes to planning and budgeting for a digital marketing campaign.

The main takeaway is this: Link building is still the key to more visibility in organic search. If your objective is to improve visibility in organic search, then invest in resources accordingly. Social media and authorship may (and probably will) impact the SERPs at some point in the future, but not today and probably not significantly in 2014.

Relevance is the New PageRank

The evolution of the original 1 link = 1 vote algorithm took a quantum leap forward in May 2012 with the introduction of the Knowledge Graph, which is used by Google to deliver search results with semantic-search information. This information is gathered from a wide variety of sources, using more than 500 million objects and 3.5 billion facts. In Googlespeak, the Knowledge Graph is about "things, not strings."

It's quite probable that Knowledge Graph is baked into Hummingbird, the latest Google algorithm. Assuming that's the case, then a correlation between "context, not anchor text" and "things not strings" is applicable. Relevance is the new PageRank when searching for linking opportunities.

A real life example could look something like this: Pre-Hummingbird, a search for car covers might yield results split among auto accessories to protect your car, tribute bands that cover the classic rock group "The Cars" and songs covered by Ric Ocasek and the cars. The "old" algo couldn't distinguish one car cover from another. Hummingbird, on the other hand knows the difference. Now, all of those auto parts links coming from high PR band sites, are now exposed for what they really are: unnatural. At best the link is devalued. At worst it triggers a manual review.

Link Schemes vs. Link Building

Understanding the difference between link scheming and link building is critically important in 2014. For webmasters who were doing SEO before Panda, this can be particularly difficult to navigate.

Many have been directly impacted by the Google paradox. Unlike the Einstein theory of insanity, in the Google Paradox, SERPs actually do yield different results after doing the same thing (spammy link building) over and over again.

A link scheme that scored number one rankings in 2010 can and will draw a manual or algorithmic penalty, today. That paradox has driven many a webmaster nuts!

According to Google, the following activities are link scheming – not link building:

• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
• Using automated programs or services to create links to your site
• Linking to a site for the sole purpose of getting a link back
• Building a link networking for the purpose of linking
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting using keyword-rich anchor text
• Buying advertorials or articles that include links that pass PageRank
• Creating & Distributing Press releases with optimized anchor text

Recently removed from the guidelines, but still likely to trigger a penalty:

• Linking to web spammers or unrelated sites with the intent to manipulate PageRank
• Links that are inserted into articles with little coherence

3 Safe Ways to Build Links in 2014

So what's left?

• Focus external link building efforts on the acquisition of editorially given links. These are links requiring human intervention and approval.
• Build links that are relevant – on pages where the readers would have a genuine interest in your website.
• Quality trumps quantity. A few links from high trust/authority websites will have more impact than hundreds of links from "Made for Guest Posting" blogs.

Conclusion

There are no more short cuts to link building. The process is hard and time consuming. In 2014, it's time to spend the time and the money to do it right so you can stop fearing the Google reaper.

More: Click here

Google’s Matt Cutts: Feel Free To Use The Disavow Tool Even Without A Manual Action

In a new video answer today from Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, he says that you can use the disavow tool even if you do not have a manual action.

In which cases can you use this tool even without a manual action?

(1) You tried to remove links but the webmaster linking to you will not remove the links.

(2) You think you may have been hit by negative SEO.

(3) You see links pointing to your site you do not want to be associated with.

(4) You saw a link bomb attack and are afraid it might hurt your site.

(5) You are afraid someone will submit a spam report about you.

(6) You see your rankings dropped and you think it has to do with an algorithm Google ran, i.e.Penguin algorithm.

(7) You can’t sleep at night because of some of the links you have.

But Matt said the primary use for the disavow tool is that you did bad SEO or hired a bad SEO who built bad links to your site and you can’t get those links removed, then use it. But feel free to use the tool in the cases above, even without a manual action.

http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-feel-free-to-use-the-disavow-tool-even-without-a-manual-action-177882

SEOs Focus Too Much On Link Building & Search Engines

Matt’s final point in the video is discussing what SEOs spend too much energy focusing on. They include link building and search engines, as opposed to their users. Matt said they can spend more time on social media and other areas to help build awareness of their sites.

He then discusses how the history of great sites, those sites generally focus on design and user experience first. This way the user is happy and recommends it to others. Matt added that Craigslist is a great site; but, their user experience is not great. So, there are many startups that come in and beat them on user experience to take over in some niches.

More:http://searchengineland.com/googles-cutts-on-seo-industry-misconceptions-updates-revenue-goals-link-building-obsession-161880

Google Negative SEO Extremely Rare

It seems that we're finally starting to see more of what many have suspected for a long time. That others can indeed affect your rankings with bad links. Otherwise known as "negative SEO."

And this time it's going to be damned hard to get the worms back into the can.

Let's go back a bit first shall we?

Over the years Google has always stated that what others did, in particular, with bad links, can't hurt your sites rankings. Many of us knew differently, but it was always kept somewhat behind closed doors. It wasn't written about nor openly discussed. Discretion being the better part of valor and all that.

That's been changing though. Why? No idea. But it has.

Then there was the Google guidelines which have been morphing, as reported by Shaun Anderson

From:

"Can competitors harm ranking? There’s nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index."

To:

"There’s ALMOST nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index."

Then on March 14th to:

"Google works hard to prevent other webmasters from being able to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you’re concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question."

OK, great. But it seems there is more as well. Let's look at one of the now infamous “unnatural linking” messages from Google.

See that bit there? It seems to imply that you're guilty until proven innocent. That indeed links that are out of your control may actually hurt you and that you need to actually go and tell Google that they aren't yours.

All of that only matters if your website is hooked up to Webmaster Tools. If you're some poor soul that doesn't know this and were nuked by a competitor, then the jig is up, go straight to the poor house, and kiss your business goodbye.

The Game is Afoot!

Now, there are those in my own clan that consider me a bit of a Google fanboy. And to some degree that may be true because of my interest in information retrieval and having known some Google engineers over the years. It's really more that I try to look at things from both sides of the battlefield. But this recent development is really a bit disconcerting even for me.

I fully appreciate the desire to stop manipulation. But this situation seems like it has the potential to actually create more spam, not less. Something intimated by Dan Thies in a thread over on the webmaster forums, who is actively discussing the validity of some potential negative SEO that was aimed at him.

For the record, the data seems inconclusive still as I talked to Dan and there were some major site changes that would certainly mess with the data being reported by the folks who wanted to "teach him a lesson." And it's a good thing I'm writing on Search Engine Watch, or else I'd be using far more colorful language to describe what I think of that move.

What's the Answer?

OK, so the world has gone a bit mental. All the changes not named Panda and influx of unnatural links messages have folks on edge. It seems somewhat unlikely that strong domains can be seriously damaged though. It would be far more interesting to see some data on a strong link profile and multiple case studies.

But at the end of the day, if this is happening or not, there must be some kind of workaround. If much of this mania began from the Webmaster Tools messages, seems a good idea that Google looks back to it as part of the answer.

How about something like this?

For example, the domain classifieds1000.com seems to be scraping or otherwise not something I care about. That’s a domain I would tell Google to completely discount. There could also be an option to drill down on a given domain and only block certain pages, instead of the entire domain.

Handy for:

• Dealing with malicious links
• Helping with scrapers and being able to identify them (which helps with attribution)
• Identifying paid links even if we wanted to go that route.

What about the previous SEO work? We've all come along to a site that the client had been getting some crap-hat service in the past. You look at the link profile and shudder.

I'd love to be able to say, “We don't stand behind these, feel free to nuke them”. What about some poor fool that buys a domain without knowing to check backlinks? Be nice if they could also communicate this in some way. No?

Avoiding the False Positives

At the end of the day it is the unsuspecting that need protection. I've written before about the relations of SEOs and Google. Those in the know that stray toward the boundaries, they do so at their own risk. I don't play the 'hat' game. It's all degrees of tactics. If you get burned while knowing the risk, then fair play.

I worry more about those who aren't aware and what ramifications it can have on them. I know plenty of great people that have been stomped over the last while and often they have seemingly done little to incur it. Or were mislead as to what "safe" really was.

Some type of simpler system would help benefit webmasters and Google as well the way I see it. If you have some ideas on how this could be dealt with by working with Google, fire it off in the comments. A positive discussion is far more likely to get Google working with us than whining about the evil...

More Info: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2169138/Negative-SEO-Looking-for-Answers-from-Google

Google announced two upgrades

Google added a new tool to allow webmasters to visually markup their webpages and then download the the HTML markup code to add to their HTML. The tool is named Structured Data Markup Helper. The tool lets you click on the various content and images on the page and then mark what data item type it is. Here is an example of an article data type, but Google supports events, local businesses, movies, products, restaurants, software applications and TV episodes, as well.

Read more @ http://alturl.com/y8xdp

How increase website traffic?

1. On Page Seo i.e. (Accessibility of the Website, Title, Description, 302s, Duplicate content and other major on page factors).

2. Keyword Targeting ( Keyword research is very necessary one should be sure of its service / USP etc and should research upon the words which users will type in Google to search for your particular service/product or content .

3. Content Marketing: This is foremost the top priority of Google at present, Google is not concerned about your service or company or catalog, he is more concerned about what are you offering to your users i.e. you have to promote your web pages through solid content creation strategy i.e. the more you will provide quality to your page through content the more likely it is to be ranked on the top.

Try and research over something you are looking information on and search Google and see what quality of information i.e. content you are receiving on the top ranked pages, now your challenge is to create something better than that ,something that contains more value than what the 1st Position ranker is offering , if you can do that "Trust me you will rank and grab the valuable traffic"

Resource: http://anse.rs/UZ10me