Search Engine Optimization
Based in the Ottawa area, we help our clients with their computer and Internet needs. Our specialty is modifying our client's website content to ensure that search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing give it a high ranking. In addition, we offer assistance in the design of web stores to simplify the shopping experience and enhance revenue.
While search engine optimization (SEO) is our specialty our clients often have other computer related needs. Our expertise allows us to help our clients in a variety of ways. We also offer webmaster services, computer network services, data recovery and other computer services.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Link Farming
Recently one of my clients asked for help boosting their ranking. I have worked with the client and the webmaster to provide really good quality content for the site. Since the site is rarely updated the changes took roughly three weeks.
Unfortunately the results were not as strong as I would have liked. I took a closer look at the websites of our competitors and it was clear to me that their content was weak and poorly optimized. I then checked their links and the situation was suddenly very clear. Our competition had very strong links. In one particular case the site that was providing a variety of high page rank links was in dutch while the sites being linked to were in english.
Google provides a lot of weight to links. Although they do not support link farming (ie paying for links to your website) it is apparent that the practice is alive and well. I suspect it will remain strong until Google finds an effective way of getting rid of it.
I'm not a fan of link farming for a couple of reasons. First, the search engines will find a way of overcoming it and penalizing sites that use it. Second, other than the fact that you have managed to fool a search engine it accomplishes very little. I would rather have a few people come to a site and like the content enough to continue using the site than have a bunch of people come to the site and leave immediately.
Unfortunately the results were not as strong as I would have liked. I took a closer look at the websites of our competitors and it was clear to me that their content was weak and poorly optimized. I then checked their links and the situation was suddenly very clear. Our competition had very strong links. In one particular case the site that was providing a variety of high page rank links was in dutch while the sites being linked to were in english.
Google provides a lot of weight to links. Although they do not support link farming (ie paying for links to your website) it is apparent that the practice is alive and well. I suspect it will remain strong until Google finds an effective way of getting rid of it.
I'm not a fan of link farming for a couple of reasons. First, the search engines will find a way of overcoming it and penalizing sites that use it. Second, other than the fact that you have managed to fool a search engine it accomplishes very little. I would rather have a few people come to a site and like the content enough to continue using the site than have a bunch of people come to the site and leave immediately.
Labels: Black Hat?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Trying to fool a search engine
Recently I was talking with a client who asked a very simple question, "What would happen if we repeated a heading many times but did not actually display it on the page?" The idea behind this tactic being that when a search engine webcrawler reviews the site it will notice the headings and (presumably) determine that the website has a very high relevancy for whatever is contained within the headings. This technique has been around a long time, it may well be the original "black hat" technique of SEO and I would astonished if it still worked. By the way, there are many techniques for showing one set of content to people and another for webbots and I expect that some of them work very effectively.
The answer to my client's question is that (assuming it is done correctly meaning that the web bot is fooled into thinking that the content is real) the search engine ranking of the site will improve based upon the phantom content. That's a short answer and an accurate one however it does not tell the whole story. The crawlers are getting better all the time and phantom content is something they are learning to recognize. (For example, I would expect that many webcrawlers ignore headings that are not followed by content relevant to the heading.) A technique that works today may not work tomorrow. That's not a big deal though.
Using phantom content violates the terms of service that you have with the search engine companies. That does not make using such a technique illegal. The risk is that your website will be penalized or even banned from a search engine. The search engine companies have no obligation whatsoever to list your website. Once your website is banned or penalized it is a very slow process to get a good ranking again.
The answer to my client's question is that (assuming it is done correctly meaning that the web bot is fooled into thinking that the content is real) the search engine ranking of the site will improve based upon the phantom content. That's a short answer and an accurate one however it does not tell the whole story. The crawlers are getting better all the time and phantom content is something they are learning to recognize. (For example, I would expect that many webcrawlers ignore headings that are not followed by content relevant to the heading.) A technique that works today may not work tomorrow. That's not a big deal though.
Using phantom content violates the terms of service that you have with the search engine companies. That does not make using such a technique illegal. The risk is that your website will be penalized or even banned from a search engine. The search engine companies have no obligation whatsoever to list your website. Once your website is banned or penalized it is a very slow process to get a good ranking again.
Labels: Black Hat?