What are these changes you speak of?

It appears that Google are either running a test or have recently made a change on how they present page titles and are now using colons as page title separators. Everyone SEO is aware that Google treat hyphens and pipes as keyword separators, and it now appears that they may want us to start using colons.

Here is an example…

This below search is for site:gordoncampbell.co.uk , as you will see Google is presenting the page title as ‘Gordon Campbell: Glasgow SEO, PPC & Social Media Consultant’ but the page title I have set is ‘Glasgow SEO, PPC & Social Media Consultant – Gordon Campbell’ so it appears that Google is re-jigging my page title to present it better on the SERPs.

Here is another example so you know it’s now just my site…

The following search is for weights York Fitness, Google has presented us with the page title ‘York Fitness: Gym Equipment & Machines | Weights | Boxing’ but the page title that York Fitness has set is ‘Gym Equipment & Machines | Weights | Boxing Equipment | York Fitness’ and truth be told, Google’s version of the page title looks far better.

Do the SEOs at Amazon know something we don’t know?

Do a search for the keyword weights and you will find that Amazon already create page titles in this format and have done for some time. Have they done tests on this at some point and discovered that page titles have a higher CTR in this format? Have they discovered that page titles like this tend to rank better? Who knows but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Anyone else noticed this? More examples would be appreciated.

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Interflora got busted..

So Martin Macdonald broke the news about the demise of Interflora’s search engine rankings and David Naylor’s site published an article pointing out that it appears that advertorials are responsible for the action that has been taken against the site.

News sites got busted too..

I have also received information that many of the sites that have been selling advertorials have dropped in PageRank and search engine rankings have plummeted.

A quick look at SearchMetrics organic visibility chart confirms this and shows that The Telegraph, Guardian and The Independent have all significantly all lost SEO visibility and probably traffic as a result, the thing all these sites have in common is that they all sell advertorials (paid links).

You’re next to get busted..

I hate to say this, but let this be a warning to all of you that guest post, or allow spammy guest posts on your site – you are next in line for a massive kick up the arse from Google!

I’ve heard the argument several times that it would be impossible for Google to determine guest posting algorithmically, this is reminiscent of an argument I heard years ago that Google would not be unable to detect blog networks. There is one massive thing that doubters are forgetting – guests post are blatantly advertised as such and it would be easy to devalue the links from guest posts and penalise sites with too many inbound links from them.

Another argument that I hear is that signature links are natural in guest posts and everybody does it. This might be the case, but from Google’s perspective these are not editorial links and should be no followed.

Believe me, I’m saying this for your own good..

Don’t believe me? Here it is from the horse’s mouth “Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and link-based analysis has greatly improved the quality of web search.” – Matt Cutts.

I was lucky to escape the lure of advertorials

A few months ago I received a phone call from a company trying to sell me advertorials on large media sites. It seemed like a really good offer at the time, especially after Penguin considering the trouble that you now have to go to get decent high-authority links.

I used the withdrawal method

After nearly going through with the deal I pulled out and the reason for that is that every link they were offering had one thing in common, they all contained the word ‘advertorial’ somewhere on the page. This immediately set alarm bells ringing.

I’m not talking about guest posts on high authority sites that are selective about the content that they publish. I’m talking about the types of sites that you find on MyBlogGuest that allow anyone to publish any old rubbish in exchange for a link. These types of sites usually leave a massive footprint as they have the words ‘guest posts’ plastered everywhere which is very similar to sites that sell advertorials.

Look Google, I’m gaming you! Come and get me.

This is a massive tell-tale signal to Google that you have not been given a link editorially but instead have been given a link because you decided to post probably low quality content in exchange for a backlink.

If in doubt just listen advice from Rand Fishkin

If you are a publisher that allows guest posting on your site, don’t have too many of them especially if the quality is terrible and minimise the use of the words ‘guest posts’ send a signal  to Google that people are posting on your site in exchange for links. If you are a link builder publishing content to generate links, make sure you are selective about the sites you publish on. If in doubt, listen to Rand Fishkin he always tells us what nice white hat stuff we should be doing.

Look..

Having a small amount of guest post style links in your backlink profile won’t cause any significant damage, but especially if you are a commercial site and have shed-loads of guest posts with links pointing to your site, then you are definitely going to run into trouble at some point.

Update..

Since this post was written there has been a lot of talk relating to whether or not guest posting can hurt your site. There is still much debate but more people are coming to the conclusion that guest posting does indeed pose a real risk.

Here are a few related posts…

Is guest blogging becoming risky – Econsultancy

How Guest Bloggers are Sleepwalking Their Way into Penalties – SEOmoz

Negative SEO

I have recently written an article that was featured on The Guardian news site about the dangers of negative SEO practices. Negative SEO is a real problem for businesses which could potentially eradicate your site from the search engine results pages.

Disavow Tool

At the time of writing the article, there wasn’t really anything you can do to stop, or protect against it, however Google have just released a disavow tool which should help protect you slightly.

The disavow tool allows you to indicate to Google which links you feel are having a negative impact on your website’s rankings.

This will not stop people launching negative SEO attacks against your site but it may help temporary stop the damage, or completely reverse it if you stay on top of it, something that could take up a lot of your time.

Conclusion

This tool is great if you have a small amount of links that you wish to disavow, but it is unclear if it will actually help people who are being attacked by a negative SEO practitioner as it is possible for these guys to build thousands of bad links daily.

So this is what Google really wants??

<rant>

It appears that the SEO game has changed and if you want to rank for a semi-competitive keyword you are required to have to have some of the most spammed content in the world(Lorem Ipsum) and an exact match domain.

Search for ‘seo dundee’ on Google.co.uk

WTF are you playing at Google? Read the rest of this entry »

If you work in the online marketing industry, the words Panda and Penguin will mean something different to you than to the average person.

Google recently waged war on websites that use techniques to artificially increase their search engine rankings. The first blow came in the form of Panda, a Google algorithm update that was designed to take out certain websites that contained little content.

Shortly after, it was Penguin’s turn. This update was designed to penalise websites that used linking techniques intended to manipulate search engine rankings.

Read more here.

You hate Pandas, you hate Penguins, what about Parrots?

Sit with a group of SEOs for long enough and the subject of backlinks will arise and someone will inevitably pipe up and say something like ‘it’s all about creating great quality content that people want to link to and share and that’s how you get high authority backlinks pointing to your site.’

Stop being a parrot!

When people parrot the ‘great quality content’ phrase after watching a Rand Fishkin seminar, it really annoys me because it doesn’t actually offer a solution. It has become a horrible cliché in the online marketing industry. It’s like saying the best way to create a painting that sells for millions is by creating a masterpiece that everyone will want to buy.

Rand’s Magic Button

You may have heard Rand mention a few times that he has a magic button that allows him to quickly get 400 linking root domains and that button is the publish button on his blog. I don’t dispute for a second that Rand could get this many links by just hitting the publish button, but I bet it doesn’t matter if the content is good or bad, he is still going to get these links because he is a trusted source and an authority in his field as a result of being a total genius.

It would work with anything

If Rand was to put a post on his blog simply saying ‘can everyone please link to this blog post, share this with all their twitter followers  and I’ll love you forever’ accompanied by a picture of his face, I bet he could still get those 400 linking root domains.

So Rand’s magic publish button may work for him as he has a large cult-like following in the industry but the same method is not going to work for the little guy that is just starting out and has a limited budget even if he is able to write a masterpiece. Read the rest of this entry »

I previously did that a post that mentioned what a great job TripAdvisor was doing at getting a massive amount of multiple listings on the search engine results pages but Google have now put a stop to this with it recent update.

Matt mentioned on Twitter that Google have rolled out a small algorithm change that will improve the diversity of results in terms of different domains being returned for any given search.

Below is an example of a search using the keywords ‘number16 Glasgow’ and will show you the before and after results and will give you an idea of what to expect with the latest update.

Before Diversity Update

Before Diversity Update

After Diversity Update

After Diversity Update

So there you go!

Before the diversity update TripAdvisor had multiple listings for several searches in the following format ‘restaurant name + location’.

This isn’t so good for big authority sites such as TripAdvisor but it could be a huge victory for the little guy as they will now have a better chance of ranking high on the search engine result pages.

Find me on twitter – @gorcampbell