For today’s example, I will be looking at the Hot Tub industry where one of my clients has a significant interest and ranks well for many of the most sought after terms including “hot tub”, “hot tubs”, “spa” and “spas” as well as many other related permutations. And while my client enjoys significant rankings across these terms, based on their link equity, it is dishearting to have to explain to them why a site like http://www.choosehottubsdirect.com is competing with them for listings given their back link profile. Unlike JC Penny, ChooseHotTubsDirect is using a number of other link spam tactics to artificially inflate their Google rankings. Let’s take a look at some of the methods they’re using including blog comment spam, blog spam (splogs), and forum spam. They may also be doing paid links but I won’t be focusing on those in this article.

*Note that some of these links may have a nofollow tag on them and therefore do not count for SEO purposes. However, the amount of link spam pointing to this site shows a clear and consistent intent to manipulate search results.

Blog Comment Spam:

This was supposed to die with the advent of the nofollow tag, but obviously it isn’t instituted on all blog platforms. Here is an example of some of the URLs where you can find links purposely created to establish keyword focused links back to ChooseHotTubsDirect even though most of these sites are completely unrelated.

• http://www.startupnorth.ca/2010/09/30/xx-tech-founders/
• http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2008/09/05/jim-clark-in-a-hot-tub-in-italy-somewhere/
• http://community.adn.com/alaska/node/114236
• http://www.adamia.com/about/world-of-adamia/the-city-in-the-sky
• http://www.rvbuyersguide.com/Articles/post/Tips-for-towing-an-RV-safely.aspx
• http://www.chinaexpat.com/2009/03/05/dont-get-married-in-hui-an.html/
• http://magblog.audubon.org/node/339
• http://www.slashfilm.com/chevy-chase-joins-hot-tub-time-machine-considering-fletch-rebootsequel/

I have no problem with getting links by adding value to a conversation happening on a blog. But when the comment exists solely for the purpose of SEO, its spam.

Blog Spam (splog):

These are blogs designed only to create links for the purposes of SEO. There is no value to the end user and most of the time the content is garbage:

• http://homengardengoods.com/hottubs-spa-hot-tub.html (borderline content at best)
• http://www.british-columbia-listings.com/
• http://www.alouc.com/2010/08/
• http://iniciativaacceso.org/
• http://www.miramesanorth.com/
• http://www.j-leaguefans.com/experience-the-best-of-hot-tub.html
• http://www.condecon.net/daily-routine/
• http://eviant.co.cc/2010/03/a-guide-to-buying-hot-tubs
• http://kklocaladmin.org/2010/07
• http://netflixkddworkshop2008.info/2010/07
• http://www.groupe-loft.com/very-good-way/
• http://www.triton-shop.com/2010/04/17/buy-spa-hot-tubs-on-internet/
• http://www.e-redes.org/?p=78
• http://www.ptvr.net/2010/07/
• http://kiksmedia.com/hot-tubs/
• http://www.ytbconsultants.com/like-hot-water-bathing-in-hot-water-baths.html
• http://www.kukonlomamokit.net/
• http://www.directtohomeappliances.com/
• http://hmgf-ugm.org/?paged=2
• http://www.ezprotocols.com/massage/

There are plenty more of these in their backlink profile but after 20 I figured I had made my point. The majority of their backlinks seem to be of this type.

Again, guest writing blog articles that provide useful information to users is a good way to get links. Writing garbage and posting it on sites filled with garbage is not.

Forum Spam:

Similar to blog commenting spam but takes place in a forum:

• http://www.aeva.asn.au/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=892&PID=26104
• http://www.hostingsindia.com/topic153.html
• http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/376275
• http://www.discussionsworld.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=23144
• http://www.webmasterforumsonline.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=16223
• http://forums.adobe.com/thread/594208
• http://intgovforum.org/cms/discussionspace?func=view&catid=5&id=30
• http://forums.zoho.com/topic/issue-with-zoho-mobile-on-nokia-e71
• http://forums.registeredrep.com/forums/clients/google-boys
• http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=564641
• http://forum.bodybuildingpro.com/member.php?u=10761
• http://www.honeymoonforums.com/showthread.php?t=6255
• http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthread.php?t=113473
• http://www.theopia.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2295&start=0
• http://www.webdesignchat.org/link-exchange/928-good-i-heard.html
• http://www.swordfishingcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13828
• http://www.becomehealthynow.com/vblite/showthread.php?p=5252
• http://www.mma-fighter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28969
• http://forums.joeuser.com/376275

Again, there is way more of this stuff in their profile but after 20 instances I think the point has been made.

Another interesting “black hat” tactic that I found is the use of clone sites which are essentially duplicate sites with different skins:

• http://chooseportablespas.com/
• http://chooseportablehottubs.com/

The funniest part about this whole thing is that one of the links that ChooseHotTubsDirect.com does have that is legitimate is their press release about the secret to their success. Apparently, it’s all thanks to their in-house, world class SEO Team:

• http://www.prweb.com/releases/choose-direct/seo/prweb3199884.htm

Hopefully as search technology advances these techniques will become less effective. It’s really frustrating to explain to clients why their competitors are ranking well in the engines using cheap and underhanded link spam techniques. Especially when you are recommending much more costly link development campaigns that center on providing useful content to users and then marketing that content through relevant channels. I don’t envy Matt Cutts and his team at Google as they have an extraordinarily difficult job to do in hunting all of this stuff down. Hopefully this will help.

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This article today from PC World seems to imply that somehow Google has changed the SEO landscape, and done so in dramatic fashion: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/205055/google_instant_will_save_you_seconds_but_not_for_seo.html?tk=hp_new#addyours .  But how do quicker search results change the need for authoritative content and links?  They don’t.   It’s like my friend Benj Arriola said yesterday, “it’s like auto suggest on steroids.” It may cause users to see more information before they click, which may mean that text snippets become that much more important in driving clicks, but this just reinforces current behavior.

The one thing I will say about the article in question is that no one does see the same results anymore.  But this is already been the case for a while now because of personalization and localization having such a strong influence on search results.  But the public is just now starting to understand this.  It doesn’t really affect how we optimize with the exception of paying a lot more attention to localization and localized content and link strategies for key markets.  However, that doesn’t have much to do with Google instant.

I think it’s exciting that Google keeps pushing the envelope for search.  And certainly the “May Day” update had an impact on what the SEO process looks like.  Not so much for Google Instant.  Google Instant isn’t an algorithm change, it just helps you find things faster (in theory).  And of course, that in itself is cool.  It just doesn’t have that much affect on what we do as SEO practitioners.

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Baidu is the dominant search engine in China. It provides users with a wide range of results and information, including multimedia content (MP3 music, movies, etc,), and displays it in a well written Chinese language. Baidu is also the first to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search in China; however, there are a few things you may still be unaware of. Below I have listed five things you may or may not know about Baidu.

1. Pin-yin. Pin-yin is the standard Romanization system for Mandarin, and the most dominant Chinese language used in China. Baidu provides “pin-yin” search that allows users to type in Chinese keywords using the English alphabet. This feature allows users to bypass the English, Chinese, and Pin-yin input options, because Baidu recognizes each of these formats already. Additionally, it helps those users who may not know the traditional written form of the Chinese word, and instead can type it in English or pin-yin. You don’t need to optimize your site in pin-yin. However, Baidu could figure out and rank your Chinese keywords for the pin-yin search.

   

2. Chinese Handwriting Input Method.  Baidu recently started to provide a handwriting input method, which allows users to search the web via handwriting Chinese characters using their mouse.
   
3. Quantity Over Quality. At this point, Baidu is not as sophisticated as Google when it comes to figuring out link relevance, therefore, Baidu heavily depends on the link quantity instead of quality to make a decision for ranking. Thus, there are still a lot of link farm issues existing.
4. Linking is Not Always King. In Google, external linking is considered king. However, Baidu considers various elements in your site besides external links to decide your ranking; for example, internal linking, information architecture, keyword density, etc.
5. Language. Most of the search queries inputted in Baidu are Chinese, while Google China has a higher percentage of English queries. This means that if you want to optimize for the Chinese market, the Google keyword tool is not localized enough. Actually, Baidu provides some useful tools for your Chinese keyword research. For example, Baidu Index is a tool that provides insight on the search queries in Chinese.

Baidu optimization is less standardized than Google, since it keeps improving its algorithm. Because of this, it’s extremely important to be aware of the latest updates, and constantly refine your site to meet Baidus ever-changing standards.

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The early days of search pre-Google days were all about crowded interfaces with tons of things going on the page. This was when the main players in the space were Yahoo and Altavista, and those trying to keep up with the page were Excite, Hotbot, Lycos and other. Many of them started with categories displayed since most of these search engines really started as directories.

January 1997 screenshot of Yahoo taken by Ice House Designs

Every other search engine seemed to go into that direction. Categories make sense that it should help guide you drill down into what you are looking for. Then when Google comes out, it take a totally different approach and keeps it clean. Removes all types of categorization and uses the power of search. Google from the very beginning was banking on the fact that their search is sooo powerful, it is easy to drill down into what you are looking for by simply typing in your search query and that their results are so relevant, you do not need to drill down that deep.

Google Beta in 1999 - Screenshot by Chron Tech Blog.

Yahoo and Microsoft Copy Google

The minimalist, clean, simple interface has always worked with Google. Showing the robustness of their search engine algorithm more than anything else that many people really liked which is responsible for all of Google initial boost to success. So if that is the proper formula, they are probably doing something good, so Yahoo and Microsoft have briefly tried it out. Yahoo still has their clean version still up on http://search.yahoo.com.

Yahoo's Clean Search Interface

It was difficult finding old screenshots, and here is one of the older versions of Microsoft Live Search with the clean interface.

Old Microsoft Live Search with a simple clean interface. Screenshot saved by Guardian.co.uk.

Was Clusty First?

After some time, even if Yahoo and Microsoft made the Google looking search interfaces, it didn’t seem to work for them the same way it was working for Google since they never stuck to that interface. The default Yahoo.com screen is still busy as even. Microsoft kept MSN still busy, killed Live search and made Bing simply with a big random postcard at the back of it. Through the years everyone was also copying the standard search result layout. Where organic results were, and were sponsored listings are along with accompanying eyetracking heatmap data proving their effectiveness. Probably not many of you now about Clusty, I have no accurate data saying they were the first to do this, but as far as I remember, Clusty was the first I saw displaying search results with clusters, hence the name Clusty. These cluster were nothing but categories of the search results which can guide users to drill down on what they are really looking for.

Sample search results of Clusty showing it's search result categories.

Although drill downs were implemented in some way on Google, Yahoo and MSN as related searches and not really categories and were not highlighted on the sidebar. Today, Live Search and now Bing makes it a standard. They have been moving away from the minimalist search result interface and started integrating a lot in the search engine results. And as I have seen their presentations in various conferences, they back up their search results layout that has categories on the side with eye tracking heat map data and other user testing saying that these categories really help users get to what they are searching for. Are they right? Maybe, they could be. And it even reaches a point that Google might consider this as well. Right now there are tons of post talking about the preview of Google’s new search result interface showing a side bar. It does not seem to be categories, but just repositioning the Web, Images, Video, News, etc options from the top to the side. I first read about it here, hat tip to AJ Batac, but somehow I am not able to recreate this on my browsers. I search online about this and there are numerous post about it and I guess the post would not get this many if it didn’t work at all, but it supposed to look like this:

Google Search Result Interface with Sidebar. Screenshot by AJ Batac for The Web Shop.

Can you recreate the new Google sidebar search result layout? If you can what did you do? If you think this is a hoax, tell me about it also. Share your thoughts.

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Earth to Steve, your search engine is not competitive to Google’s because that’s all they do is experiment with new search technology. And they hire the smartest people to do it. It was Google that was the first to push Universal Search, which was a huge change to the way people searched for things. It was Google that came out with Webmaster Tools that enabled site owners to better understand how the search engine was indexing their site. It was Google that first used a quality score to influence PPC results. It was Google that came out with the Big Daddy update that solved a lot of canonicalization problems that MSNs engine still chokes on.

MSN/Live Search to my knowledge hasn’t done much to innovate search. Thier MSN live experiment was a huge failure. They had a directory and then closed it. They still can’t figure out redirects as well as Google or even Yahoo. The fact that their results are so influenced by on page factors makes them more susceptible to spam, scrappers and other black hat SEO techniques. They never have organic search engines at conferences to help Webmasters but they definately have advertising reps if you wanna spend money. The whole culture that MSN portrays is an organization that can’t move because its so big that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Google on the other hand projects a young, innovative culture that “gets it”.

If MSN is ever going to become competitive in this space, they need to get a grasp on how far behind they are and spend more time actually creating search technology innovations that resonate with users. Rather than having their chief executive officer say things like “Our search does not need to be all things to all people.” I mean what does that say? We only care about some people? It’s certainly not a winning philosophy when your trying to compete with Google and you have the resources that Microsoft does.

My other recommendation to Microsoft… buy Twitter. At least then you would own something that people actually cared about.

That’s my MSN rant for a Friday. Hope to see everyone at SES New York next week. I will be speaking in the first session after Guy’s opening keynote presentation. The session is entitled “Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers”. See ya in NYC!

The views and opinions stated by the authors of blog post is of the author alone. These statements may not necessarily be the statements of BusinessOnLine (BusinessOL.com) or any of it’s employees.

Logos on the image used above are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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So if your listening Matt Cutts, I thought I would help you guys out with a couple SEO tips:

1. That title you have on your homepage that says “Google” isn’t really that keyword focused. You might try changing it to:“Google Search Engine – Find Information on the Web including Images, Video and More”I admit I haven’t done any extensive keyword research for Google before making this tag so it might need to be slightly tweaked based on the best keywords. You guys being Google should know what your most important keywords are though. Of course you guys being Google should know better than to rank yourselves #6 for the phrase “search engine”
2. Description tag. Um, here is what Google’s SERP description is:Shopping Groups Books Scholar Finance Blogs · YouTube Calendar Photos Documents Reader Sites · even more » · iGoogle | Sign in. Google. Advanced Search …That doesn’t exactly conform to your best practices for writing Meta descriptions. According to this link, Google itself has a poor Meta description tag (actually it has none). And even though that description tag won’t help Google rank any better in Google, it will help in MSN and Yahoo. You would think that Google would be leading by example with this kind of stuff.
3. Change some internal links. Link that logo you have in the search box on the upper right hand side of the Webmaster Blog with an alt tag that says “Google Search Engine” or at least “Google Search”. I am sure you guys have enough internal link opportunities to figure it out…

So all sarcasm and poking fun at Google aside, this kind of result doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that Google’s algo is perfect (or even close). It also goes to show you that some of the biggest brands still need SEO

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Anyway, Google came out this week and admitted that they had made a mistake with the Position 6 Penalty. I applaud Google for taking the time to communicate this kind of information to Web masters to save them from chasing their tail trying to figure out what they did wrong. I have been there…lol. I think it illustrates one of the hardest rules of SEO to learn. Don’t immediately fix what you don’t know is broken. Often times changes in rankings are temporary and even more often, vary by data center and personalization.

Personally I think your analytics is a better gauge of your SEO campaign then your rankings report, but I understand the value of measuring that data as well. I just think that as we move forward, it will be harder and harder to say that a site has a top ten listing for a given keyword phrase. Especially as personalization of search continues to evolve.

But more to the point, I see situations all the time where clients are concerned about a temporary shift in rankings and are quick to want to take action. But often times the best action is no action. Imagine the collective man hours that people who lost their rankings spent making changes to their site, only to find out today that they should have just stayed the course. Patience in SEO is more than a virtue. It’s a way of life.

Have a great day.

Catfish

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I lost my flag football playoff game 7 – 6. That’s a tough one to lose. Especially when I had receivers drop 7 of my passes. You can’t drop 7 passes in a playoff game and expect to win.

However, my Chargers look pretty good in completely destroying the Lions 51 – 14. If we win the next two games, we get the three seed which seems WAY more favorable.

In more SEO news, Google is going crazy with social media. First they announced the creation of Open Social recently which promises to open up all kinds of new marketing opportunities. And then they announced today that they will be consolidating Google profiles into the other services they provide. Greg Sterling in his SearchEngineLand article about Google and profiles notes that “it potentially turns Google itself into something of a social network, assuming widespread adoption”. I really think that is the direction Google is going. Web 2.0 really is all about building a community. And the more community based Google becomes, the more opportunity they have to make money.

That’s why I believe that social media optimization is just as exciting as search engine optimization. The two are very different really. Social media can have a positive effect on your search engine listings and therefore it’s important that any social media campaign take advantage of SEO principles whenever possible. But social media by itself can return a great ROI outside of its effect on search and can also generate a huge brand lift. And therefore, it deserves be recognized as a separate discipline unto itself and not considered a subset of SEO. I think SMO is one of the most fascinating and exciting opportunities on the Web today. And I think Google’s profiles are going to be a major player in that space within a short period of time.

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