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With Google not allowing 3rd party tools to give you Page Rank information a lot of people are speculating that Google is discontinuing Page Rank altogether. Google already hampers the ability for 3rd party tools and sites to display link popularity and search engine saturation, so it’s no real surprise they are doing this with Page Rank as well.

So all of you people out there selling links on PR whatever sites are still safe to keep convincing people that it really helps their SEO.

Personally, I uninstalled the Google Toolbar more than a year ago because I don’t care about Page Rank at all. Link building that is based on the PR of the site that links to you is worthless. Getting 100% original content placed on high-traffic websites is much more valuable. Getting a link from a page that already has related content and traffic is more valuable.

Page Rank isn’t officially dead. It’s just almost entirely irrelevant.

Related articles

• Google Has Made PageRank Updates (andrewsegawa.com)
• Why PageRank Doesn’t Matter Anymore (And What You Should Focus On Instead) (entrepreneurs-journey.com)
• PageRank is Dead (The Rush to SocialRank) (ross.typepad.com)

Image via Wikipedia

 What got me interested in looking that up was a spam email I got from a company titled SEO can be as easy as ABC and started wondering how companies differ in the way they tell people that SEO is as easy as 1-2-3 or A-B-C.

I got the spam from the SEO company because I signed up for a service at http://www.freewebmonitoring.com so I guess since I used their service, the email isn’t considered to be spam even though it is unsolicited email.

So, Indian SEO Firms might not be the top spammers according to the chart above.

According to the spam email from a comapny. I won’t say their name, but it says;

Isn’t that ABCD? That isn’t the point I guess, but their description of the 4 things they think make a good SEO campaign don’t even begin to cover what should be included in an SEO plan.

Buzzwords like SEO Checklist and Site Improvement Roadmap sound good though. Then they recommend automated tools to build relevant and efficient backlinks. If you are using automated tools to build your backlinks, then you are definitely on the wrong track.

Original content placed on high-traffic websites is a much better way to go. Viral marketing and Link Bait are a much better way to go. So many people want a shortcut or a magic pill, they end up buying into the automated tools process and waste their time and their money.

Then they added D. Of course everyone should use analytics to make sure they are on the right track and to look for opportunities to capitalize on trends.

I’ve never tried their program, so I can’t comment on it’s actual use, but anything that has in it’s description using automated tools for submissions and link building turns me off right away. Also, any SEO company that offers gold, silver, bronze, platinum and copper pre-set, one-size-fits-all plans makes me run away.

Every client is different. Different goals, different budgets, different obstacles to overcome, etc. How can a plan for a plumber in Kalamazoo, Michigan be anywhere near similar to a plan for ABC corporation that sells parts to the Aerospace Industry? Your SEO company should be creating a custom plan that fits your specific needs and budget. Anything else is just hype.

The guy that ranks for SEO is as easy as 1 2 3 at least provides information about the topic here and here

Everyone who does SEO has their own opinions and they each have their own reasons for the most part. In my honest opinion, you should stay away from automated SEO tools and one-size-fits-all SEO packages. I’m sure the guys at this company that sent me the spam email will disagree, so it’s always left up to the business owner to decide what sounds real and what sounds like hype.

Good SEO is hard work. There are no magic formulas, magic pills or shortcuts. Don’t buy the magic beans Jack! The beanstalk won’t get you where you need to be.

 References on SEO Spam from Matt Cutts

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/calling-for-link-spam-reports/

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/affordable-link-building-service/

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291 where Google says, Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.

It also says;

You should never have to link to an SEO.Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines — at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

Related articles

• Google Says SEO Is Not Spam (searchengineland.com)
• SEO Scams Hall of Shame
• Cheap SEO: The Truth Behind Automatic Link Building
• Automated Link Building Software? Friend or Foe?

Another related Post about Automated Link Building says;

Black Hat SEO – There are many ways of obtaining inbound links that are considered ‘black hat’ or ‘dodgy’. These can often give excellent short term results – however, in the long term it is likely that the benefit from these links will be negligible at best.  Some examples of black hat SEO are automated link-building software, article spamming and buying lots of links (from places like link farms).  If you are after black hat SEO, this is the wrong website and company. We maintain ethical SEO practices and our hat becomes ‘muddy brown’ at worst!

source; PureSEO

Another source includes these two items in the same category;

Ways to get links:1) Spam link building

-Automated tools
-Black Hat

source

 Anyway, as I said, some SEOs disagree about methodology, but most avoid automated link building like the plague. You decide.

That being said, there are some basics that any website owner or online business owner should know whether they do it themselves or hire an SEO Company to do it for them. So let’s get to the 1-2-3 SEO plan. Remember, I’m not teaching you how to do each step here. I’m just letting you know what the steps are, so a lot of details won’t be included.

1. What Needs To Be Done To Improve My Website?

This is sometimes referred to as onsite optimization and is always the first step. This includes cleaning up the code and making sure the navigation not only works well, but that it is intuitive to your visitors, easy to use. It also includes creating a targeted keyword list.

The structure, (header tags and such) and the text on each page of your site needs to be optimized to target not only one of your key phrases, but also related phrases and words Google would expect to find on a page that is really about what you said it was in your title and header tags. New pages may need to be created to help you target a wider range of key phrases.

These pages should also be written to close sales or generate leads. Many SEO Experts will say that sales is not their job and that their only responsibility is search engine rankings and/or traffic. However, it does you no good to rank number 1 in Google if your site doesn’t close sales. So choose an SEO that knows how to close sales and knows how to use calls to action.

Last, but certainly not least is putting in analytics. Google analytics is free, but there are other worthwhile analytics programs you can use as well. It’s your job as the client to learn how to read your analytics. If the person you hire to do the work is also the person who tells you whether they are doing a good job or not, does that really make sense?

Learn how to read the analytics so you can judge whether or not your current SEO plan is working or not. However, don’t expect overnight miracles. Give your SEO person a chance to do their job even if you don’t see immediate drastic results.

2. Okay, I have my site optimized and it’s ready to close sales, what’s next?

Now you need to add fresh, original content to your website on a regular basis. Whether you choose to add one or more new pages each month, add articles or press releases and news, or choose to install a blog and write content there, you need to understand the value of adding content and updating your site with new information regularly.

The more often you update your website, the more often search engines will update your rankings. And if you are incorporating social media into your online marketing plan, then you will have new content to share. You can’t keep sharing the same content with your network of friends if you want to keep them interested.

3. Now the site is optimized and I’m adding fresh content, what now?

Adding high-quality, original content to high-traffic websites. You’ll read a lot on the web about how you should or should not build links. There is a difference between link building and content promotion.

Just adding hundreds or thousands of links that all use the same anchor text and point to your home page is completely worthless. I don’t care what the PR or page rank is of those sites. So when you see offers to build you 1000′s of links from high pr sites, just know you’re about to waste your money. Submitting articles to 1000′s of article directories is an equal waste of time. It worked years ago, but not anymore.

However, choosing websites like squidoo.com and building a lens with good, original content that is also helpful to readers with links to different pages of your site and using different anchor text that is related to the content on the page you are pointing to is well worth the effort.

There are other high-traffic websites that will allow you to post good, original content out there. These links back to your website are permanent and valuable.

The 3 principles to keep in mind are;

1. Participate on the web, don’t just try and take from it. That means being on twitter and facebook and google plus and not constantly saying “Look at me!” “Look what I have!” “Go to my website!” It means taking an interest in other people and sharing other things besides just what you have to sell. Join forums where your potential customers are or industry forums. Participate.

2. Add value to the web. When you put content on the web, make sure it has value to others. There is a ton of noise on the Internet. Rehashed blog posts and other content that doesn’t produce a new idea or original thought. If you want to stand out and be heard among all the noise, make sure what you have to add has value.

3. Be helpful. When you are in forums or social networks and see a question posted, stop and take the time to answer them. If you don’t know the answer, look it up and get it for them. Add links to where you found it and where they can learn more. Your links are in your signature line or in your profile. They’ll find them. That has a lot more value than going into a forum just to tell people the great deal you want to sell them.

So there is a 3 step system and 3 principles to learn here. I hope this has been helpful. It’s part of me doing number 2 of the first 3 step process and number 2 and 3 of the 3 principles above.

In the beginning of what most people know of the web, say around 1994 and later, large corporations thought the Internet was sort of a fad and not to be taken too seriously. For instance, companies like GM and Chrysler and Ford didn’t see how owning cars.com or autos.com might benefit them.

They figured their traditional advertising and brand recognition were enough. Then they saw domain names selling for millions of dollars that were generic, like cars.com, business.com, etc. Their next step was to try to get laws passed to ban the ownership of generic domain names. Their IP lawyers said that it was unfair that these companies spent millions to advertise and brand their name and that someone can just register a domain name for $10 per year and compete with them.

They lost that battle, thankfully. There must have been someone in the justice system who actually remembered that free enterprise means that anyone can compete with anyone.

Now the corporations are attacking equality from a different angle. They want those corporations that can pay more to be more accessible to consumers than those companies that cannot afford the extra fees. ISPs love the idea that they can charge for premium speed Internet for companies who can afford to pay more and regulate the bandwidth, or speed, of websites owned by companies who cannot afford to pay more.

This would move the bigger companies and corporations ahead of smaller companies and give them an unfair advantage over smaller businesses. They couldn’t block small companies from competing with them because of generic domain names, now they want to stifle smaller competitors by making their websites less accessible than their own.

One example is that with net neutrality in place, an ISP like AT&T cannot make your Gmail load slower than your Yahoo Mail just because Yahoo is a partner and pays them for doing so. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Big corporations don’t think so. They believe that if they have more money than a smaller company and can make deals the smaller company can’t make, then they should be able to stifle competition if they want to.

When someone from a large corporation talks about letting the free market decide, they mean only when it is to their advantage. The free market and free enterprise gives you the right to succeed and the right to fail, yet these same corporations don’t mind the government bailing them out when they fail to run their company properly.

Too big to fail is a lie. In a free market, when one business fails to meet the demands of consumers, other companies, some of them new startups, will be there to fill the demand or void left by the failed company no matter how big they are. So when you hear them talking about letting the free market decide, remember, they mean let it decide whenever it is in their favor.

Large corporations want to block small businesses from competing with them. That is a fact. They even believe they have a right to do so. We spent more money to advertise therefore it is unfair for a company that spent less money to compete with us. That sentence has been used by corporate CEOs and IP attorneys to defend the way they try to block smaller companies from competing fairly.

Net neutrality is a battle that everyone who uses the Internet should be watching and getting involved in. Imagine trying to do research and not being able to access certain information simply because the company providing that information can’t afford to pay what other sites are paying.

Imagine not being able to get a better deal on products and services because the smaller companies that provide those services and products cannot be found as easy as the bigger companies who can now charge even more because they are your only choices since your ISP made a deal with them.

That’s what will happen if we do not keep net neutrality in place. Unfortunately, the ruling that was passed did not cover wireless connections. Wireless providers like AT&T will use that to their advantage and consumers will pay the price for it. They plan to challenge the ruling on net neutrality through the courts, saying the FCC has no authority to regulate Internet usage.

So, basically, AT&T and those who want to eliminate net neutrality are saying that our government has no right to stop them from stifling competition or anything else.

By the way, the vote on net neutrality was right along party lines. 3 democrats voted to keep the Internet neutral and competitive and 2 republicans voted that corporations and ISPs should be allowed to do whatever they want, including creating a fast lane and a slow lane on the web, with small businesses being in the slow lane.

Keep that in mind when elections roll around.  They do this under the flag of not letting the government interfere in business. Again, this only applies to when it benefits them. These same people who oppose net neutrality, supported the bailouts of corporations who mismanaged their companies. But I guess bailing them out isn’t interfering.

Why is all of this important to an SEO Company like mine? Load speed of a website is one of the factors that ranks sites well in Google and other search engines. Without net neutrality, those that can pay more will have faster load times than those that can’t. Many of my clients are small business owners and not big corporations.

It was important that SEO clients could get generic domain names and I helped fight that battle as well. Large corporations already influence how you find things on the web. They control the board of ICANN, (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), who choose which TLDs, (Top Level Domains), can be introduced, such as dot biz, dot info, etc.

Companies like Network Solutions influence ICANN as to what they should or should not approve. And to top it off, let’s say you wanted to start a new TLD, like dot CPA or dot Atty, then under free enterprise, you should be able to do so.  And according to ICANN, anyone can do just that . . . as long as they can afford a $180,000 application fee with no guarantee of being approved.

Now do you see how this affects you and how they keep small business owners from competing in a fair market?

But, with Facebook challenging Google for being the website with the most traffic, there seems to be a chink in Google’s armor and they are no longer everyone’s darling.

Google still has more hits, but FaceBook owns people’s time. People spend hours on FaceBook while only a few seconds on Google as they do a search.

Everyone in the Internet Marketing and SEO world seemed to be always looking for what might be the “Google Killer” and several up and comers had that title given to them prematurely only to find out they were not the Google Killer everyone thought they were.

Most also thought that a new search engine would be that Google Killer. But, maybe not. Maybe it’s faceBook. Maybe it’s Twitter, maybe it’s something else entirely. Or maybe Google is still invincible.

What are your predictions and thought?

I have not chosen Time Warner’s search page as a preference. I have Google as my preference. Time Warner redirects me to their page anyway.

You have to go into preferences and “opt out” of this redirect in order to stop it from happening. Opting me in without my permission is unacceptable. On the web, you are supposed to ask peopkle to opt in, not add them without permission, then make them opt-out of a service. It’s a sleazy tactic to do otherwise.

Since I’ve had Timne Warner for 3 months and it did not start happening until this month, it means that when I signed up for the service, no one asked me to “opt-in”. It was not part of the service I ordered. They recently added it and they assume it is okay to add everyone to their new money-making scheme.

They are over-riding people’s search preferences so they can send you to a page with sponsored links so they can make money from the clicks on those links. Since, sometimes, simply not typing the www before a domain name, Time Warner redirects that to their sponsored links, it is the equivalent of stealing traffic from the website that the person who did the typing intended to go to.

Kazaa got in trouble in the past for amending affiliate urls by replacing the affiliate code on the link with their own and of course they claimed they did that unintentionally. I’m sure Time Warner will claim that their little traffic-stealing scheme was meant to help all of us poor users in case we type something wrong.

They will say it’s a service and they just want to help us out. We already have our default search settings configured and we get plenty of help without Time Warner trying to steal a few clicks on their sponsored ads.

I pay Time Warner for my Internet Service. I own a website and once when typing the address to my own website without the www, Time Warner redirected it to their sponsored links page where a user could have chosen someone else to visit instead of my website. They intercepted ttraffic meant for my site to sell it to someone else.

Is that stealing? You tell me.

Website Content

The most important thing you will ever do for your website is to put in good content. Great content will get you links and your position in the search engine results will be because of the content you put into your website.

Hundreds of back links will not get you ranked well with poor content. Great content will get you good keyword positioning with or without back links, therefore, content is still the most important aspect of your website. Great design, flash, graphics, and a cool banner will not get you ranked well for your keywords and phrases. Great content will!

Let’s first look at your website content. Images are great with alt tags. That helps. But it is the text on the pages that, when done correctly, will help your search engine results. This text is also what will convert your customers into sales.

This text is what your customers will read or not read based on it’s quality. This same text is what the search engines will analyze when they decide how relevant your WebPages are to the search phrase you wish them to send you visitors from.

Article Content

Now, let us talk about article marketing.  If you know about article marketing at all, you know you will be submitting articles all over the web. The links in the author bio at the bottom return visitors to your website if they read and like the articles, you write or have written for you.

Just having your articles in thousands of article directories is not the goal of article marketing, although there are article-marketing gurus out there who think it is. The goal is for webmasters to find those articles and place them in their blogs and websites. If they use your article, their website or blog is likely related to the same topic as your website.

You are looking for these quality links. The links for just being in the article directories do not hurt you, but they do not help nearly as much as those from related websites do.

Your other hope is that thousands of people read your articles. Do you really want people to read poorly written articles and associate that poor quality with your website? Well-written articles get people to read them all the way to the bottom where your links are located. Well-written articles reflect well on your website and your reputation.

If the articles are of great quality then likely your products and services must be great as well. The reverse is also true in the reader’s minds. If the articles are written poorly, then likely your products and services are of little or no value as well. It is not only about the number of keywords and phrases placed into the article folks.

With all of that being said, I still find all over the web, especially at freelancer websites, people going in and saying things like; “I need 400 articles written for SEO and I’m willing to pay $1.50 per article.” Or they say something like; “I need someone to write content for my website and I’m only willing to pay $10 per page.”

I really try to refrain from telling people they are, well . . . stupid, but I am finding it harder and harder each day when I read this stuff.

They will spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have their website designed so it looks really pretty, but the text, the stuff that will actually get good search engine results and sales, they go after cheap content.

Writers that know how to write text that not only is appealing to the reader, but that is also written with the keywords and phrases in mind, are worth being paid well. The moment you start hiring better writers and paying for text that converts sales, you will begin to be successful on the web. That cheap content is not going to make you any money.

A website that is beautiful but gets no traffic and sales may as well be an ugly website. An ugly website that ranks well in the search engine and that makes sales gets more beautiful by the dollar.

My answer: Subdomains are like standalone websites without the advantage of having a real domain name. You can build whole sites on subdomains, but they won’t help the website on the actual domain and the subdomains carry less weight than a site on an actual domain name. /folders help add content to your website. If what you want to put on the subdomain isn’t to help your website, then it’s better to get a domain name for that content. Google has been wavering on how they treat subdomains.

So I looked it up on the Google Webmaster Blog just to be sure.

Subdomains vs. Subdirectories

What’s the difference between using subdomains and subdirectories?

When it comes to Google, there aren’t major differences between the two, so when you’re making that decision, do what works for you and your visitors.

In addition to those considerations, if you use Webmaster Tools (which we hope you do!), keep in mind that you’ll automatically be verified for deeper subdirectories of any sites you’ve verified, but subdomains need to be verified separately.

So, they are the same from an SEO perspective, at least for Google. Remember, you need traffic from other search engines as well. The Google Webmaster blog only applies to Google Optimization. The advice that Matt Cutts gives us is also only about Google Optimization.

Some search engines may treat subdomains as separate websites and subdirectories or folders as part of the actual website. So the safer way to go for SEO purposes is to use subdirectories or folders for content you want to be seen as part of your website.

This is from Matt Cutts on how Google treats subdomains and subdirectories;

My personal preference on subdomains vs. subdirectories is that I usually prefer the convenience of subdirectories for most of my content.

A subdomain can be useful to separate out content that is completely different. Google uses subdomains for distinct products such news.google.com or maps.google.com, for example.

If you’re a newer webmaster or SEO, I’d recommend using subdirectories until you start to feel pretty confident with the architecture of your site. At that point, you’ll be better equipped to make the right decision for your own site.

Remember the KISS principle. keep it simple and stupid. The more you complicate your SEO efforts, the more likely you will make a mistake.

In addition to that, Google has changed their policy on subdomains more than once. They have always counted subdirectories as content for your site. Do you really want to put all that effort into building subdomains just to have them change that policy again?

I recommend subdirectories / folders if you must use them at all. For most websites I put all of the web pages in the root with folders for images, docs, scripts, styles, etc. It makes it very easy to work on your website when you do it this way.

Excessive folders with different keyword names can make your URLs seem like spam. I can’t prove that is a problem, but anything that looks like spam, smells like spam and tastes like spam is probably spam.

What experience have you had with subdomains vs. subdirectories? I don’t mean just in Google. How do they do for you in Yahoo and Bing or other search engines?

1. If I like a site or visit a site often, it’s likely already in my favorites or bookmarks or I know the web address by heart. Google Personalized Search is just another bookmark tool rather than a real search engine results page. If I wanted to find the same sites over and over again, I don’t need Google.

2. Site owners now believe they rank well for all of their keywords. They do not understand personalized search and Google has done nothing to educate them. Google just decided to give them the search results they are getting without really asking them if they want their search results altered in this way.

3. Whenever site owners search Google for the keywords they are targeting, they believe everyone else is seeing the same results they are. They think they are ranking high in Google for their keywords and can’t figure out why they don’t have more traffic and sales as a result.

I get calls from clients where they tell me how well they are ranking. When I tell them to pause their web history and look again, they are usually disappointed.

I get calls from potential clients who tell me they don’t need much help because they are already at the top of Google for their keywords. Again, I have to start by disappointing them with the fact that they aren’t seeing the real results.

This makes Google appear to be ineffective at sending traffic to their website. That’s one of the reason I call personalized search one of Google’s biggest mistakes of all time.

4. Even when I want to get a newsletter, I have to subscribe to it or opt in. If Google wants to offer personalized search, why not let the people that want it opt in from a page where it explains that by opting in to personalized search they will no longer get real search results.

What do you think of Google personalized search?

Maybe it’s just writers block or something, but every single day it seems another post like that gets made. And all of them are bogus questions.

You don’t choose ppc or organic search engine optimization, you do both. You don’t choose to focus on content or links, you do both. The answer is all of the above.

You need on-page optimization of the code. You need well-written content that not only focuses on seo and making sure it’s interesting, but also content that is written by someone who knows how to sell.

You need to build good, related inbound links, using proper anchor text, to more than just your home page. You need links to interior pages as well.

You need to advertise. You need to do video marketing. You need to do article marketing. You need to build Google Knol Pages. You need to be involved in as many social networks as time allows. And those are just a few things you need to do in order to be successful.

It’s isn’t one thing or the other.