I’ve been a bit down on Google lately, I admit it. So I decided to write up a post to extol the virtues of perfect white-hat search engine optimization. I figured I had better make lemonade out of lemons if my business is ever going to succeed. But the more I researched this article, the more the direction of my post changed.
I wanted to demonstrate that everything that Google preaches is what you should be doing.
What I found 6 hours into this post is that is that the reality of the sites at the top of the search engines do not reflect that they have implemented the advice Google is giving us.
In fact, many of them are doing exactly what Google is telling us NOT to do, yet they are rewarded for it.
So what advice is Google giving us?
- “Focus on the user and all else will follow”
- “Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings”
- “Avoid links to web spammers or ‘bad neighborhoods’”
- “Don’t fill your page with lists of keywords”
Well, let’s see how these play out…
Irrelevant SEO Rule #1 :: High Page Rank Determines Search Engine Placement
I’d first of all like to point something out: A page rank between 3 and 5 will get great search engine results if you optimize for good terms. Do a search for a competitive term, and look at the page rank of the first result, for example:
Paid Survey - PR3, YellowSurveys.com
Home Business - PR5, HomeBusinessMag.com
Mortgage - PR5, Mortgage101.com
Jewelry - PR4, Jewelry.com
Halloween - PR5, Halloween.com
Irrelevant SEO Rule #2 :: Page Rank is an Indication of Trust
There is only one of those 5 sites above that I would feel comfortable linking to from my own site, and that one is Jewelry.com. The rest are textbook examples of sites I wouldn’t trust enough to send you to, let alone give my credit card information to.
But the worst offender is HomeBusinessMag.com, which is plastered with ads to home business opportunities that I have refused to sell ad space to because they looked too much like a Ponzi scheme. Just because they have a page rank of 5, doesn’t mean their content can be trusted. All it means is that they are savvy about hiding their links to bad neighborhoods by using redirects, or - ah, the irony - by running the ads through Google AdSense.
I will say that this site has some good content, but sadly, once you lose trust by promoting scams, you call into question everything on your domain.
YellowSurveys.com is even worse with the redirects in their right column - I’m adding this to point to Jordan’s comment below saying this is actually what Google says you should do, which to me seems far less user-focused than real links to real sites. But if they did that, Google would find that they seem to be linking to some pretty skanky neighborhoods.
Irrelevant SEO Rule #3 :: Write for the User, Not For Search Engines
Well, in my experience, if you want a return visitor, I agree with Google on this one. But evidently, if you want to get found, you have to write like this:
Irrelevant SEO Rule #4 :: Don’t Engage in Link Schemes
A quick search of the inbound links to Mortgage101.com shows that a very high percentage of the 5170 links coming in to their site come from local directory CitiesUnlimited.com, which is a text link that does not have a “NoFollow” tag:
So what’s going on here? Is this an elaborate link scheme? Or perhaps they bought a lot of text link ads?
Honestly, I don’t have a solution for this one, because I’m damned if I tell you to go buy links for your site, yet you are damned if you don’t. The fact of the matter is that getting lots of inbound links to your site works, Google is clear about this.
I’ll be the first to admit that is is damn hard to build inbound links on a large scale. I haven’t bought links, but I almost did as recently as two months ago.
But the risks now associated with buying those links are just as grave as the risks… of, well, NOT getting the links in the first place.
So What Does an Honest Marketer Do With All of this Information?
I started this post to demonstrate that I’m not after a higher page rank - what I want, like you, is more visitors. Obviously, with a page rank at 4 & 5, that’s all eMoms at Home needs to do well in our niche. Since “Referring Sites” represent more than 66% of our traffic, I had better damn well be going after as many links as I possibly can - not to game Google, but to actually be sure that I DO NOT RELY on Google for my and my authors’ livelihood.
To be honest with you, I don’t follow all of Google’s guidelines to do well in the search engines. This is obvious, because even though I have worked to optimize for the phrase ‘home business’, I’m still not even in the top 100 results.
The reason I follow Google’s guidelines is because I want to sleep at night.
I write for users because I want you to come back.
I don’t sell ads to bad neighborhoods because I would never forgive myself if I made a buck at the expense of you losing a buck to a scam.
I avoid massive blogging link memes on this blog because I know that I don’t get quality traffic from those posts, and because I think it makes me look desperate for links, which I am not. I get added sometimes anyway, and I’ve even gone as far as asking myself to be removed from them - they just aren’t worth it.
And I’ve always focused on adding value to the blogging and home business community because that is how you build a successful business.
It just so happens that these are things Google wants us to do anyway. Yet Google’s own search engine result pages are in direct conflict with these guidelines.
Regular readers know that I would never sell out on quality to gain a buck. I hope you don’t either. But sadly, instead of feeling like I have made lemonade with this post, I feel like Google has left me sucking a lemon.
Good thing I’m in this for you, and not for Google, because instead you might get a post like this:
eMoms at Home is a home business site that supports the home business community with internet home business advice, home business work life balance issues, home business productivity and home business ideas. Our home-based authors who work from home write about home based eBay selling, home based craft business, home based freelancing, dads working at home, kids activities for home business owners and products for families who have an interest in home business.
*Snort* 
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Hmmm….
I think the SEO rules still make a difference, but they are skewed by the fact that people can buy their way to the top of the search engine results.
If someone buys a better search engine position, I’m not sure that it matters what their site looks like.
(Of course, I could be wrong about all of this…)
You’ve brought out some of the things that Google should be most ashamed of, and things that I’m sure they’re working hard to combat, though they are far from successful thus far. I’ll take it point by point for you:
Irrelevant SEO Rule #1 :: High Page Rank Determines Search Engine Placement
You’re absolutely right here. “Toolbar PageRank,” as we in the “biz” often like to call the little green bar, is a vastly oversimplified measure, and only one of many signals that Google takes into account. And since they’re only updated a few times a year, the toolbar PR displayed for a site may not be (and probably isn’t) Google’s current valuation.
Irrelevant SEO Rule #2 :: Page Rank is an Indication of Trust
I think we sometimes give Google too much credit here. Google can’t think, can’t understand, can’t trust. It can only process. It has been programmed to think that a site that has accumulated a lot of links over time must be trusted by many, many people, and therefore, should be trusted by the algorithm. The algorithm can be gamed, often quite easily, to the detriment of the engine’s results. I hear rumors that they’re constantly developing something far more robust, but no clue as to what that might be.
In your HomeBusinessMag.com example, I would point out that if the links are “paid links” or advertisements, running them through redirects is actually one of the methods with the “Google stamp of approval.” How’s that for irony? (Love the irony of Google AdSense use, btw!)
Irrelevant SEO Rule #3 :: Write for the User, Not For Search Engines
.
To me, this is the gravest sin (probably because I AM a user). Good thing you covered this one with the paragraph at the end
Irrelevant SEO Rule #4 :: Don’t Engage in Link Schemes
This point is the one that I have the most “helpful” information for. Never, never, NEVER trust Google’s link: function! Yahoo! Site Explorer give a better count of links, though both will include (and have publicly acknowledged that they include) links with the nofollow attribute.
Yahoo Site Explorer shows 127,000 incoming links to the domain: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2FMortgage101.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=s
The most perfunctory of spot checks shows that some of these links appear to be legit, some (as you’ve seen) less so.
I really like your conclusion–because it’s not all about Google. It’s important to remind other people (and ourselves!) of that. I’m am very pleased that you (and many others) choose to do the things that Google has asked in order to do well in Google, and I can only hope that your “Google star” continues to rise. You certainly deserve it–and not just for following purposefully vague guidelines.
Being the joker that I am, I’m tempted to write a post full of keywords, except they all link to the same page, or some page that doesn’t exist. Who knows, maybe I’d even turn punctuations into keywords. Oh yeah, world’s greatest resource on question marks. And then maybe they can also click on white spaces to get to blank pages.
Laura - I actually think that people should be allowed to buy paid links and have it help their business, I just think that Google should be able to account for that as well as for organic true matches.
The problem I have is that they are on a hand-picked witch hunt right now, which is unprofessional, unethical, and goes against everything they say they stand for.
And careful Kelvin - two weeks ago I would have laughed and said go for it! Today I wonder if it would get you deindexed!
Wendy, thanks for this thoughtful piece and for being willing to talk about some of the sourness of the google experience.
I think your conclusion at the end is the right though that it can’t just be about google, it has to be about your readers - and therefore also about long-term quality relationships, your reputation (which is clearly strong) - and being able to sleep easy at night
Joanna
I do optimize my posts. But never follow tightly on the SEO rules for Google.
I sometimes stuffed my desired keywords until it reach 4% per post.
It do so well for my product blog but it’s couldn’t give a good result from my marketing blog.
I guess Google is a strange machine. Which still millions year far to reach human intelligent and judgment.
Yes, your home business considerations are highly beneficial for the home business community, which is always open to exchange home business advice, for the profit and fun of working from home.
(Good comments also can help
)
Wendy, I agree totally. I just feel like saying ARRRRRRRRGHH! to Google right now.
I agree with you. Google’s suggestions will not always get your site to the top, but they are good suggestions.
If you do black-hat tricks, you may get to the top quickly, but if you’re caught by Google’s algorithm for cheating, then your site is banned completely. In my opinion, it’s not worth the risk. It’s better to stay within the lines and make a nice drawing
I know and doesn’t it drive you nuts!
My site dropped down, down, down last week and I was gutted.
Then to my horror, I find the sites that should be getting penalised either have unreadable content (web design essex, web designers essex.. etc) or most of their links are from either viagra or “southern region” enlargement sites.
Grr!
My server is playing up and I have typed this message once so apologies for any duplication.
Google drives me nuts. I play by the book and I always have. So when my site started to drop down for my main keyphrase, I was gutted.
I was even more horrified that the competing sites that should be banned are at the top: One had such unreadable text that it was just a list of keyphrases and a few connecting words and the other got most of its links from a combination of viagra sites and “southern area” enlargement.
Having said that, I shall still abide by the rules as Google may just wise up tomorrow.
EXCELLENT post!! I have been in the IT industry for almost 10 years and still have no idea how to do SEO. Now I’m sure I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and hope for the best.
Aww, so I guess optimizing this page for “the” or “and” is out of the question?
Trying to play by Google rules can be quite a challenge. But I have always been fond of the concept of thinking of site visitors first, search engines second. Too bad that doesn’t always really attract the attention you might want.
Thanks for this article. You have confirmed a few things for me. A question about your blog design - lots of white space and really long long posts. Does it have a positive or negative effect on readership or search or crawlers? (I know that font tags have some negative effect.)
Hi
Thanks for a very interesting article. It certainly makes you think. One thing that puzzles me are the paid links. Google doesn’t like paid links, but isn’t that what Google is all about, selling links. Is this a touch of trying to limit what we do so that we only do things their way.
Trying to control the internet. Who made them the web page interpol?
cheer
les
Your site has been reviewed by the radical blogger = you can see the results here:
http://myradicalblogs.com/?page_id=37
It may take several hours for the front page article to appear. You review however has been published.
The sites that you described in your post are using black hat technics to obtain high rankings in the search engines and to keep those positions they must exert alot of efforts. Though they may lose the rankings eventualy one way or the other.
It just shows that Google’s algorithm can’t beat the spammers. Google can not check manualy every website for every keyword ranking and people take advantage.
Since you would like to sleep at night I would remove the portion of your post where you show the spammy links and replace it with an image.
The sad part is that many of the top sites got their pagerank back while the smaller sites lose out since they cannot make as big a noise.
I think the situation is best described with what I saw on a post of a popular blogger that had lost her PR and never sold links:
At the bottom of the post was an AdSense ad for TLA.
I am kind of with you on this one.
However, I don’t think it is necessarily evil to make money this way, it’s just not something I want to do.
I know people who put up sites like these and they don’t have any problems with making money from them. I don’t expect the Search Engine algorithms to get smart enough to reward good writing over SE spam anytime soon.
The following is just to keep Google (and Yahoo and MSN), focused on what’s important about this post:
———————————
eMoms at Home is the coolest home business site around, because it talks about HOME BUSINESS, home business, work at home mom (WAHM) topics, internet home business advice, home business work life balance issues, home business productivity, home business ideas. Did I mention it that is the best home business site on the earth?
Not to mention, Wendy says that it has “home-based authors who work from home write about home based eBay selling, home based craft business, home based freelancing, dads working at home, kids activities for home business owners and products for families who have an interest in home business.”
And Wendy knows about home businesses, has great home business ideas, and is working from home on the internet (aka. working from home on the web, making money on the web, etc.)