I am going to attempt to debunk almost every Wordpress SEO "Expert" article ever written, and in some respects this article even debunks some of the things I have written in the past. This article does not reference Google Toolbar PageRank in any way First of all you are going to need to do a little homework. Eric Enge interview with Matt Cutts The Eric Enge interview with Matt Cutts was truly exceptional and revealed a number of gotchas that for some reason continue to be circulated. Key takeaways Matt Cutts: … Now, robots.txt says you are not allowed to crawl a page, and Google therefore does not crawl pages that are forbidden in robots.txt. However, they can accrue PageRank, and they can be returned in our search results. Matt Cutts: … So, with robots.txt for good reasons we've shown the reference even if we can't crawl it, whereas if we crawl a page and find a Meta tag that says NoIndex, we won't even return that page. For better or for worse that's the decision that we've made. I believe Yahoo and Microsoft might handle NoIndex slightly differently which is little unfortunate, but everybody gets to choose how they want to handle different tags. Eric Enge: Can a NoIndex page accumulate PageRank? Matt Cutts: A NoIndex page can accumulate PageRank, because the links are still followed outwards from a NoIndex page. Eric Enge: So, it can accumulate and pass PageRank. Matt Cutts: Right, and it will still accumulate PageRank, but it won't be showing in our Index. So, I wouldn't make a NoIndex page that itself is a dead end. You can make a NoIndex page that has links to lots of other pages. For example you might want to have a master Sitemap page and for whatever reason NoIndex that, but then have links to all your sub Sitemaps. I have just provided a couple of highlights, I am not attempting to replace a need for visiting the site I am citing. This is something I hate seeing, when people take other people's content and repurpose it, thus making the original article worthless. There are a few other gotchas in there, I suggest you read it 2 or 3 times to really understand what was said, and what wasn't said. Dangling Pages One of the best descriptions of dangling links is on the Webworkshop site, though they are assuming that links are totally taken out of the equation based on what they quote from the PageRank paper. "Dangling links are simply links that point to any page with no outgoing links. They affect the model because it is not clear where their weight should be distributed, and there are a large number of them. Often these dangling links are simply pages that we have not downloaded yet……….Because dangling links do not affect the ranking of any other page directly, we simply remove them from the system until all the PageRanks are calculated. After all the PageRanks are calculated they can be added back in without affecting things significantly." - extract from the original PageRank paper by Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. Alternate interpretation This is just an aside, as the amount of juice lost to dangling pages currently is hard to determine, and could be handled differently They are assuming that if page A links to 6 other pages, 5 of them being dangling links, then the website will be treated as only having 2 pages until the end of the calculation. Whilst I haven't delved into the maths (and probably couldn't through lack of information and lack of knowledge), it also seems to me that at the time the pages are taken out of the cyclic calculation, a percentage of the link value can still be taken with them. Thus though the site for cyclic calculations will be just 2 pages, the link from A to B might only transfer 1/6 of the juice on each cycle. At the time the original paper was written, Google only had a small proportion of the web indexed due to hardware and operating system restraints. In modern times they have a lot more indexed, thus a more complex way of handling dangling pages could be possible. More food for thought, a link to a page that is considered supplemental could be treated as a full link or as a link to a dangling page, or some other variant. Even more food for thought, a site with multiple interlinked pages with no external links at all could be looked on as a "dangling site". Ultimately what is important is that dangling pages are a juice leak, though it is difficult to determine exactly how much Additional Research On Link Juice Flow I have referenced these works before, and I am just going to keep on referring people to them. SEOFastStart by Dan Theis - a good introduction to SEO, and also introduces the ideas of controlling juice around a website - no email signup required Revenge of the Mininet by Michael Campbell - a timeless classic as long as PageRank continues to be important - the download page isn't hidden if you really don't want to sign up to Michael's mailing list, but I have been on his list for years. Dynamic Linking by Leslie Rhode - A bonus that comes with Revenge of the Mininet I mentioned these is a comment on SEOmoz recently in a discussion on PageRank, and for some reason my comment received just 2 up votes and one down vote. I don't gain in any material way from promoting these free ebooks, though I might gain some goodwill. The main reason I link to them is because they are a superb resource, and it saves me countless hours writing beginners material. OK, On to some debunking Blocking Pages With Robots.txt Creates Dangling Pages On The First Tier In the quoted paragraph above, Matt clearly states that pages blocked with Robots.txt still accumulate juice from the links they receive. Those pages don't have any external 2nd tier links that are visible to a 'bot, thus they are dangling pages. How much juice they leak depends on how Google currently factor in dangling pages, but Matt himself suggests not to create dangling pages. If you read any SEO Guide that suggests that the ultimate cure for duplicate content is to block it with robots.txt, I suggest you might want to question the author about dangling pages. Meta NoIndex Follow Duplicate Content This is a better solution than using Robots.txt, because it doesn't create dangling pages. Links on a duplicate content page are still followed, however both internal and external links are followed and thus are leaks, often multiple leaks for the same piece of content when using CMS systems such as Wordpress which create site-wide links in the sidebar when using poorly designed themes, plugins, and especially Wordpress Widgets. If you read an article suggesting using Meta Noindex Follow, ask the author how they are controlling external links on duplicate content pages. Meta NoIndex Nofollow Duplicate Content If you use Meta Noindex Nofollow, whilst this is handled slightly differently by Google to Robots.txt, as the page won't appear in search results, it is still a page accumulating Google Juice if you link to it, another dangling page or node. Second tier leaks from the page won't leak, but the page as a whole will leak depending on how Google are currently handling dangling pages. I don't see people recommending this frequently, but as with Robots.txt, ask the author about dangling pages. Dynamic Linking & rel="nofollow" Extensive use of Nofollow and other forms of dynamic linking are the only way to effectively prevent duplicate content pages in some way having a effect on your internal linking structure and juice flow. The Wikipedia page on Nofollow really isn't correct. The Dangling Sales Page To finish I want to give you an example of how a sales page that previously might have benefited from lots of links can easily be turned into a dangling page and effectively discounted from cyclic PageRank calculations. Sales pages started off just as a single page with no links:- Despite all the links coming to the site from external sources, this website is a dangling page, thus excluded from iterative PageRank calculations. It might still benefit from anchor text and other factors, but it effectively is not part of Google's global mesh and passes on no influence. Add Legal Paperwork And Reciprocal Links Directory:- A much more structured site, and whilst it gains some benefit from reciprocating links there are 2 factors that are almost universally overlooked. No Longer A Dangling Page - because the site now has external links, it is valid as part of the global ranking calculations. Other pages as mentioned above were previously stating that the amount of juice passed to dangling pages was minimal, so this could be potentially a huge boost. More Pages Indexed - it is only a few pages, but with PageRank it is often not just how much juice you have flowing into a site, but what you do with it. The reciprocal low quality links might not have had a huge amount of value compared to the benefit of being a member of the "iteration club" and having a few more pages indexed. Add a link to the designer Some early single page sales letters were not dangling pages, but didn't benefit from any internal iterations, and acted as a conduit of juice to their web design firm. The Danger of Using Nofollow or Robots.txt on Unimportant Pages I have actually seen this on a few sites:- Reciprocal Link Directory Removed Link to web designer removed Nofollow added to legal papers that are looked on as being unimportant Such a website is now out of the iteration club, it is a dangling page as it is no longer voting on other pages. My Own Gotcha I mentioned that this catches me out as well. A while ago I wrote an article about linking to Technorati being a problem. It might still be true, but the amount of juice lost through such links might also be lower than I thought, due to Technorati using meta nofollow on every page. Technorati tag pages are themselves dangling pages with no external links. Wikipedia and Digg on the other hand are not dangling pages. They still have external links to other sites, and thus any links to them are part of iterative calculations. I would still say it is best to have tags pointing to your own domain tag pages, and to use nofollow on links to Wikipedia and Digg, though with Digg I suggest that is only on links to submission pages which contain no content. Stumbleupon is also tricky - there are no external links from individual pages, but there is extensive internal linking. With Digg and Stumbleupon, profiles rank extremely well, so you can use them for reputation management even if you get no juice direct from the profile. I think I was the first to describe Wikipedia as a black hole of link equity, explained why you should nofollow Wikipedia extensively, and was one of the first to promote Ken's Nofollow Wikipedia plugin. You would have thought in 10 months they would have come up with an alternative to using nofollow on all those out-bound links. They do however link out to a few trusted sites without nofollow, from just a few pages. I suppose Google does still allow them to be part of their iterative calculations. Another Own Gotcha This isn't 100% something I can fix. I have suggested people use robots.txt on certain sites knowing it wasn't the perfect solution. You might notice on this site I don't use an extensive robots.txt, and the design of my site structure is deliberate, but then at the same time I use nofollow with lots of custom theme modifications, and should use it a lot more. Eventually I will come up with solutions to make things a little easier. Tools In The Wrong Hands Can Be Dangerous Using Robots.txt and Meta Noindex, Follow as a cure for duplicate content is a SEO bodge job or SEO bandaid. It may offer some benefits depending on how dangling pages are being handled, but is certainly not an ideal solution due to the amount of leaks that typically remain or dangling pages that are created. Comments *Originally published at AndyBeard.eu

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From Apple to Microsoft to Google, there is hot news written. Below are some of the more interesting articles involving eBusiness and search today. Another obvious patent gets paid off by Apple. Apple has agreed to pay Burst a $10 million payment for infringing on its 1990 streaming video technology patent. Singapore officials have a smash rap video hit on YouTube. It has been views over 80,000 times over the last five days alone. It goes to show that it is much easier to get famous than rich with web video. There is a growing concern over so-called in-text ads according to an article in BusinessWeek. These are the ads where words in articles are double underlined and mousing over them causes a temporary pop-up. The problem is that these ads are not part of the intended editorial context of the journalist writing the article. Personally, I think these ads are highly annoying and distract from reading the article. You won't find them here at WebProNews anytime soon. The looming advertising recession could actually increase targeted Internet ad spending. When sales are down advertisers want to get the biggest bang for their buck and that means more search and niche Internet ad buys. New features are coming to Microsoft's IM according to a leaked report. Features include a SPIM reporting feature that helps users fight IM based phishing and spam. A post by Rand Fishkin's father outlines why the original Google PageRank forumla is flawed. It is an insightful piece with lots of diagrams too!

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PageRank zero became the big number for blogs participating in Izea's PayPerPost program; Google's move to drop the rankings of those blogs drew a harsh rebuke from Izea's CEO. PayPerPost Bloggers Unranked By Google Ted Murphy has been a lightning rod for criticism ever since the unveiling of PayPerPost, an ad system where bloggers are paid to write about an advertiser. Murphy's company, now called Izea, fought back against early complaints about non-disclosure by instituting a disclosure policy. Compared to what happened recently, that brouhaha looks like a minnow compared to what the big fish in the search industry did to PPP bloggers. Murphy blogged that Google had tweaked the PageRank of a number of those bloggers, dropping them to PR 0. When it comes to finding blogs on Google, PageRank is one of a number of factors used to qualify the authoritativeness, and therefore the placement, of a site or blog in Google's search results. Higher PR sites tend to rank well, which means people are more likely to find them and visit. "Once again Google has proved that PR has little to do with blog traffic, influence or relevance and everything to defending their monopolistic stranglehold on search and online advertising," Murphy said in his post. He suggested services like PPP and similar competitors offering revenue to bloggers all have a common denominator: they aren't Google AdSense. Google's content network of AdSense participants extends the reach of its AdWords ad platform. Despite the ominous drop in PageRank, it has been suggested that the blogs victimized by the change have not suffered a loss in traffic, according to Tony Hung. "My take on things is that Google wants to make an example out of Izea," he wrote. Traffic may not be impacted today, but the effects of the dramatic lowering of PageRank may be evident in the months to follow. As the dominant search engine, Google drives traffic to websites, and the higher they place in search results, the better the chance a site will receive a visit. If the PageRank drop knocks blogs out of places where they had been ranking well in search, we expect that traffic will fall as well, and we will hear about this again. follow me on Twitter

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I have been receiving emails and comments about yet another PageRank downturn for multiple sites. Andrew Ooi has compiled a short list of Malaysian sites, many were as much as a PR5 previously, and currently show a PageRank of zero (a white bar) Examples include:- Colleen's Simple Kind of Life and 5xmom The numbers seem to be stable across multiple data centers There doesn't seen to be any change in prominent Search Marketing sites such as Search Engine Round Table and Search Engine Journal, and other popular bloggers such as Emom and Yaro still seem to have their degraded but still "head above water" rankings. Meanwhile Matt Cutts is playing around with $200 PCs and the negative views of the blogosphere regarding Google. Meaning Of PageRank Unchanged Google have had more than a month to change the description of PageRank on their website. I haven't seen any change to Search Engine Rankings and there is still no way to request reconsideration without admitting guilt. The Webmaster Help Center also doesn't give an option to report that you think Google is making a mistake in their manual evaluation. How do I request reconsideration of my site? If your site has previously violated our webmaster guidelines, and you've made changes to it so that it now meets our guidelines, you can ask Google to reconsider your site for inclusion in the index. In addition, if you recently purchased a domain that you think may have violated our guidelines before you owned it, you can use the reconsideration request form to let us know that you recently acquired the site and that it now adheres to the guidelines. To request reconsideration of your site: 1. Sign in to Google webmaster tools. The webmaster tools Dashboard opens. 2. Under Tools, click Request reconsideration and follow the steps. Google do now call this reconsideration, not just reinclusion, and Matt notes that you can still be in the index even though you have a penalty, which he updated November 4th 2007 I did find something cool though which I hadn't seen before, maybe I missed it being reported, or didn't pay much notice. I am still being crawled frequently and there are some interesting spikes. It is a pity that the graph doesn't line up with the scale. From January people using PayPerPost will be able to use SocialSpark. SocialSpark Alpha screenshots do still have PageRank listed, and that will likely be removed totally unless Google change their stance. I still don't sell PageRank, but traffic hasn't changed, if anything it has increased as I write more content that people want to read and link to, and it even brings in some search traffic. Google is making huge mistakes with these updates. I know many people receiving penalties sell links, and I am not trying to defend them. When you get someone like regular reader Rob, a real expert in SEO, who based on the links he receives should be a comfortable PR4, or possibly a PR5, currently a PR0, because he wrote one paid review using nofollow on the links. Then you get affiliate marketers like Vlad who may have written a couple of high quality reviews, and sold some advertising. At the same time he also is an affiliate with some affiliate services which offer SEO friendly "clean links" for their merchants. For a website owner they are still links from which they will be making money, though the money from affiliate marketing is variable - the links still affect search engines, as do many other affiliate links which feature 301 redirects. Now whilst Aaron's issues might be appeased as a result of the recent interchange with Matt, that is really just the tip of the iceberg. Aaron hasn't been lynched. To finish I am just going to steal the words of Michael VanDeMar which he posted as a comment on Matt's Reporting On Paid Links post. Honestly, Matt… and if your legal team won’t let you answer this, then I understand, but if you are allowed to answer then I (and I’m sure others) would really, really like to know… as the G algo stands now, exactly how much off balance would you say it is due to the insidious act of buying and selling text link ads? How many man hours have you spent combating this crime against humanity, and at what cost? And is it seriously skewing the results that much, that all the efforts spent on it were, and continue to be, justified? Is the algo that fragile? The other main reason that I disagree with this idea is that you think (or appear to be implying, anyways) that Paid Link === No Human Review. This not the case 9 times out of 10. You should know that. Update - Official Statement From Izea (PayPerPost) An official statement finally from Izea (PayPerPost) on their blog regarding Google PageRank Updates. We now know from some of our friends inside of Google (thanks "bob") that they are now looking for phrases such as PPP, PayPerPost,ReviewMe, Payu2blog, etc. in the text of your post. For that reason I would suggest refraining from using any type of this text in the body of your posts, sponsored or not. When you disclose thank the sponsor, not PPP. I would like to thank Ted (CEO of Izea) for having the courage to say something about this in public, something it seems Google so far have not managed to do, and rarely do so on an official company blog. Lisa Stewart of Bigfoot Web Marketing also has an excellent writeup of the decision process on the PayPerPost boards that ultimately led to Ted Murphy making a statement. Comments *Originally published at AndyBeard.eu Tag:

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Since the first real information came out about Izea's (PayPerPost) new SocialSpark service, that is in testing but will formerly launch in January my excitement has been a little tempered. As I wrote in my initial preview of SocialSpark, there will be new metrics for gauging the authority and influence of a blog, to help determine advertising spend, not only based upon traffic and demographics, but also on past performance with CPM and CPC data also being made available. With SocialSpark, any required links will be nofollow, though there is an option for editorial links without a nofollow. All the negotiation about a particular campaign will be 100% transparent, thus there will be an audit trail to prove that an advertiser didn't require specific linking, and that audit trail will be open for public, or search engine approval. There will be full disclosure within each post, with a link though to that 100% transparent audit trail, far exceeding any stipulations or recommendation from either the FTC or WOMMA. Advertisers will no longer be able to require a positive tone, everything will be neutral, bloggers can write what they want, but that may affect click-through rates and return on investment. Based upon this, everything seems at least on the surface to be everything a search engine would want to see and encourage. This Isn't Going To Work At least not without some cooperation from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask. Other than the 100% transparency, a lot of this has really been available using the PayPerPost Direct system introduced by Izea 6 months ago. Whilst on the surface the form for PayPerPost Direct suggests that advertisers were able to make specific requests for the tone, and specify linking, PayPerPost direct also provided a negotiation interface. In many ways you can look on the initial order process as being purely suggestions, and the real final negotiated terms were often vastly different to any initial enquiry. That was certainly the case for every review I wrote, yet I still received a PageRank penalty In some cases I even finished the negotiation process, but just didn't have time for a full review, so declined or gave a quick link for free. But I have still received a penalty to my Google Toolbar PageRank, either -1 or possibly -2 A totally open system, with absolute disclosure and a full audit trail is the ideal scenario for internet users, and the search engines really have to make a choice, embrace the openness, or everything IS GOING TO GO UNDERGROUND. PageRank Is STILL In The Equation You will notice on the following exclusive screenshots that PageRank is still being displayed on the new interface, and Ted tells me that a final decision as to whether Alexa and PageRank will remain is still to be made. If it does remain, I would hope they are looked at as the least important statistic, those used to find new publishers who haven't been using the SocialRank code on their site for long enough to generate reliable statistics. Difficult Choices Both search engines and bloggers have difficult choices to make in the coming months. The PayPerPost MarketPlace represents 11,000+ Advertisers and 85,000+ Bloggers, and I am sure that is set to increase. It is noticeable that only a fraction of even PayPerPost bloggers have actually received some kind of penalty, and those are typically ones who were prominent in the PayPerPost Direct marketplace. The funny or sad thing is that there has been a lot of collateral damage. As an example take Rob's situation. To my knowledge he has never written a review for PayPerPost, yet is listed in the marketplace, mainly just to check out the system. As far as I can see, and I have been reading his blog since he had just 3 subscribers, he also doesn't sell links, hell he doesn't even link to his own niche sites from his blog. Rob's PageRank took a -2 penalty purely from association Thousands Of Sites Remain Unpunished There are plenty of sites that are selling PageRank pasing 125×125 advertising spots that have slipped under the radar, yet sites such as SERoundTable and Search Engine Journal have been quite obviously targeted. I know sites where Matt Cutts is a frequent visitor, and has even read paid reviews which have not had a penalty to their Google Toolbar PageRank applied. The reviews were not "under the radar" but written by an authority in the topic being discussed. There are many very prominent sites who every week, or every month blatantly thank their sponsors in what amounts to a post just full of PageRank passing links with no other content. At one time these pages contained at least an introductory paragraph for each one, but often you will just see 8 or 10 links with no other content. Time For An Olive Branch Isn't it easier for search engines to encourage good practice that is accountable, than to punish sites indiscriminately or based on some level of personal bias. Without doubt there is bias and double standards in penalties that so far have been applied, and this is not a purely automatic process. To finish here are a couple more exclusive screenshots to wet your appetite, featuring some of the statistics available in the new interface, and what appears to be a search result. Comments *Originally published at AndyBeard.eu

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Paid links proved the PageRank undoing for search professionals as well as for prominent sites like The Washington Post, but only recently did Google confess to doing this. Yes, Google Admits Torching Your PageRank The flaming wreckage of Google's update took down several sites a couple of PageRank notches. Though it looked like an intentional change, that hadn't been confirmed. Until now, that is. Search Engine Journal heard from Matt Cutts about the update, which has had numerous online industry pros in a tizzy. Said Matt: The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site. Going forward, I expect that Google will be looking at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank. The PageRank plunge has been painfully obvious to people like Andy Beard and Darren Rowse. It puts an image of an old joke about morale in our minds: "the beatings will continue until morale improves." As for PageRank improving, there aren't any instructions about that. But paid links won't be in the equation, it seems.

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After Google's little message to the link-selling public last week, there seems to be a consensus: It was more of a warning shot than actual penalty, as traffic was not affected; and it is a reminder to diversify. It's also a stark reminder of Google's power. Like it or not, Google can strong-arm you into doing what they want you to do, if you need a presence in the search engine results pages. If not, then – if you don't need Google – you should be running a seminar called "Life Without Google." For most everybody else, the warning shot was nigh on bursting your eardrums. Once the din was done, webmasters – especially those of marketing sites – looked around to find everything except their toolbar PageRank still in tact. It was sound and fury signifying, well, something. The most obvious thing it signified was that your toolbar PageRank is virtually meaningless, and is probably why Google slapped it. It's an attention-getter without causing any direct harm. Reports from around the blogosphere have reported no affect on traffic afterward. But what if – if nobody listens to the warning – Google did start taking out these same marketing sites with paid links and cross-linking schemes? Would they crash out of existence? Is Google that powerful? Search Engine Guide's Robert Clough, whose site dropped from PR 7 to PR 4 over the past month, hasn't decided how much he needs Google. Are we willing to risk losing the traffic Google sends simply because we don't buy into this crazy notion? Will we nofollow every paid link just because Google demands it? At this point, I don't know. It's a decision that will be made based on what is best for, and with the input of, our readers, advertisers, contributors and employees. A tough call indeed. But Debra Mastaler at Search Engine Land suggests it's time to stop sucking at the Google teet and diversify, so that, if you want to be truly independent, you can create a world without them. You've heard the line: it takes seven impressions before a user takes action? It's even harder on the web where a person can click away and reach a competitor in seconds. It's not always possible to find and advertise on all the sites your buying public visit. Since many people report assigning credibility to sites they see both on and offline, it's a good idea to start looking for offline advertising venues. Google isn't the only site on the Internet and it's time we stop treating it as such. Start looking for online sources within the traditional and web2.0 areas, experiment with all until your find the right mix.

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Either the Google PageRank in your toolbar is officially meaningless, or Google just sent another message to link sellers. Once again, Google isn't talking and we're left to speculate. As we covered yesterday, two dozen prominent online marketing blogs and mainstream news sites like the WashingtonPost and Forbes.com saw their toolbar PageRank drop between two and four places. The only commonality among the sites appeared to be that they either sold links or were part of a network of sites with internal linking structures. The immediate response was fear that traffic would plummet. However, as noted by many traffic remained the same, or in at least one case, increased. Barry Scwartz at SERoundtable saw a two percent increase in traffic following a 3-point PageRank drop, from PR 7 to PR 4. The lack of real impact has produced the theory that the PR hit was more of a Google head fake. If the search engine company meant business, these sites would have dropped in the organic search results or would have been delisted altogether. Following that train of thought away from conspiracy theories that Google was penalizing sites and blogs that are often critical of company, Schwartz comes up with quite the level-headed conclusion: If Google delisted all of those sites, then that would hurt their relevancy on some queries. With Google, they want to deliver the best possible results. How can they do that and also send a message to link sellers and link buyers? The safest method is to take this route and lower their PageRank. Link buyers, although not recommended, look at PageRank as a measurement for buying links. Google lowering the PageRank of some of these sites should make it harder for some of those sites to sell links. Robert Scoble has his own, somewhat less controversial theory, from a post entitled "Google PageRank is Dead and Has Been For Some Time": [B]loggers were showing up too high in searches anyway. In comparing to my friends we got lots of traffic from Google that we didn’t deserve. The problem is that traffic isn’t good anyway. Put it this way, let’s say I showed up high in a search for Saturn Cars (since I’ve written about them). Most people wouldn’t have found much value in that post and even if they did they wouldn’t have stuck around to be a regular reader. So whether the PageRank update was a message or a relevancy tweak remains a bit of mystery, but these two theories are as good as any.

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Google is penalizing some big-name publications and blogs, including the Washington Post, Forbes, and Engadget. Over two dozen have seen their toolbar PageRank drop by a factor of 2 to 4 overnight. Major Sites Taking PageRank Hits The leading theory is that these sites sell links that pass PageRank and that Google is enforcing its policy. However, some claim they do not sell links and that Google has singled them out for a different reason. Just what that reason is varies, and includes some conspiracy theory about recent posts the company may not like. "Many of the reputable sources that have received a penalty are part of extensive blog networks, and they have one factor in common," writes blogger Andy Beard. "They have massive interlinking between their network sites." Over at Copyblogger, Brian Clark claims to have never bought or sold a link, yet was busted down two spots anyway. He wonders if it was something he said, and relays what it might have been in skit form:   Dude 1: “Wait a minute. Didn’t that Copyblogger guy just put out a free report saying we should move away from business models that rely on Google?” Dude 2: “That’s right… he did. That’s a strange coincidence, isn’t it?” While that seems unlikely, other bloggers have mused about whether this is the end of PageRank relevancy, or just a slap against marketing publications.   "Shoot I’m honored to be on the list of sites that got hit because they are the best internet marketing sites in the internet," writes Courtney Tuttle. "Come on Google, you’re going to slap Problogger? If you’re going to slap Darren and me on the same day I’m feeling like a pretty big deal right now." Whatever the reason, a few note that the decrease in toolbar PageRank has not affected traffic yet. "My search engine visitor levels have stayed the same," says Hyder Jaffari. "I presume the blogs affected by the PR drop are also experiencing the same thing." Here's a list of the online publications affected, gleaned from several blog posts: ·    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ PR7 to PR5 ·    http://www.forbes.com/ PR7 to PR5 ·    http://www.suntimes.com/ PR7 to PR5 ·    http://www.sfgate.com/ PR7 to PR5 ·    http://www.statcounter.com/ PR10 to PR6 ·    http://www.masternewmedia.org/ PR7 to PR4 ·    http://www.autoblog.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://www.engadget.com/ PR7 to PR5 ·    http://www.problogger.net/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://www.copyblogger.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://www.joystiq.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://www.tuaw.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://www.searchengineguide.com/ PR7 to PR4 ·    http://www.searchenginejournal.com/ PR7 to PR4 ·    http://www.johnchow.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://www.quickonlinetips.com/ PR6 to PR3 ·    http://weblogtoolscollection.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    http://andybeard.eu/ PR5 to PR3 ·    http://www.seroundtable.com/ PR7 to PR4 ·    http://www.blogherald.com/ PR6 to PR4 ·    JohnTP from 6 to 4 ·    Coolest Gadgets from 5 to 3 ·    New Scientist from 7 to 5 ·    Seattle Times from 6 to 4 Several weeks ago it was paid directories that were being targeted, apparently to send a message. That message was received loud and clear, but it doesn't seem these sites were hit for the same reasons.  

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Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land points out that "Selling paid links can hurt your page rank or rankings on Google". He says, "More and more, I've been seeing people wondering if they've lost traffic on Google because they were detected to be selling paid links." So far, Google has never penalized any site for link selling. To the foremost, what Google does is prevent links from a site to pass page rank. But now the scenario is changing. For selling links, Google might penalize your site and your PageRank score can also get down. To explain his point more clearly, Danny Sullivan gives the example of the Stanford Daily. Earlier, in one of his post titled, "Time For Google To Give Up The Fight Against Paid Links?", he has highlighted as how the student newspaper of Stanford University used to sell links, even when the news came into the limelight. Even there was no penalty imposed by Google at that time. Around a week ago, the PR of Stanford Daily dropped. Interestingly, there is no apparent reason for this to happen. Drop in the PageRank is reported by others also. It has been confirmed by Google that sites that sell links will have a lower PageRank. In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well. Danny Sullivan has his own views for all this, such as: It's Google's search engine. They have every right to say that if you sell links, they might penalize you. Google is not telling people what to do with their sites, which is a popular argument point. Google is telling people what to do if they are concerned about doing better in Google. Don't want to be harmed in Google? Don't sell links. Don't care about Google? Sell links all you want. Despite Google's policy and even this latest action, they'll never catch all the paid links. It's part of the reason I'd like to see them back off the paid links war and instead work out other ways to determine if a link deserves credit, paid or not. One the question is "What if someone sells links and gets their PageRank dropped or traffic reduced under this new policy by Google? In regard to this question, Google says , "Most people hit with a PageRank decrease will likely notice this, and then they can request a review. Eventually, it may be something flagged within the Google Webmaster Central system." Instead of doing all this, Google can simply change the PageRank meter to something like a red bar. This will warn the buyers from buying a nabbed site. Google also believes that by doing this, it would be easy for anyone to detect which sites have not had their paid links discounted. Google is only decreasing the PageRank for a subset of the sites they actually know about. Once Matt Cutts said about paid links as an issue with his drop in rankings, when asking if they were gone and not coming back. But Google itself is allowing paid links to be promoted in another way via its own ads. Here's an example: Whatever be the outcome, this step takes Google into a new era of attacking paid links. If Google traffic is important to you, it will ge good if you don't sell links. Comments

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In a recent post about paid links, Danny Sullivan wrote about how Google's army of engineers are going to start hand editing PageRank scores if they think you are selling links, which is a move that wreaks of desperation. Google is only decreasing the PageRank for a subset of the sites they actually know about. ... Google stressed, by the way, that the current set of PageRank decreases is not assigned completely automatically; the majority of these decreases happened after a human review. That should help prevent false matches from happening so easily. In contrast, if you're a smaller site not deemed as important to relevancy, a harsher punishment of a ranking penalty may be dealt out. Introducing the New, Corporate Web If they actually follow through with any of this then Google, which touts the value of PageRank, clearly no longer believes in its value. They already show stale data in their toolbar, and might as well scrap the whole thing and start fresh. Their mind control exercise is getting a bit obnoxious. Now they are editing PageRank and relevancy scores. They don't edit based on quality of information but based on method of promotion. And if it is a corporation breaking Google's arbitrary shifting ruleset then Google simply decides not to edit, or only fakes that they care. Google is Wikipedia, but Worse With this news of more hand editing, Google also shows that they are biased against small webmasters are and actively trying to screw over small webmasters to increase their corporate profits. Google is becoming much like the Wikipedia, where generalists wrongly assume topical knowledge greater than that of the real topical experts. In some cases Wikipedia is saved by talk pages and community participation that allow the experts to be heard. Google has no talk page though, which means that Google search results will become a dried out and dumbed down version of the web. The Real Problem With Half Truths & Hand Editing The response to every move is a counter move. So if they actually try to squash link buying then webmasters will look for indirect ways to purchase links. Google also offers tips on how to sculpt PageRank, but sculpt to much and suddenly the intent is changed, and you are banned. Why leave such a thing up to a single Google engineer making a judgement call? If they want to increase the quality of the web they need to be more innovative in encouraging the creation of good content, not make people afraid to invest into creating content only to watch a Google engineer kill it. Link bait is good when you are a large corporation or are syndicating Google spin, but if you are too successful at link bait they will ban your site for it. They did it to one of my sites and they even banned one of their own site. If you are a small webmaster and get judged by Google don't expect compassion. They have no talk page, and they already paid an AdSense publisher to steal all your content. They don't need you. How to Do Well in Google If you are a webmaster assume that Google is lying to you and ignore them. If their view of the web and webmaster advice are reduced to half truths and lies then we can only hope something a bit more honest will come out of their downfall. Comments Tag:

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The paid link debate has a new topic to chew on, namely the official word and demonstrated effect of Google penalizing sites that sell links. Link Selling Equals Google Juice Squeeze From Google's mouth to Danny Sullivan's ears came the word on selling links. He's followed the issue, using the Stanford Daily student newspaper website as an example. Stanford Daily had enjoyed a PageRank of 9, and a $350 per month revenue stream per text link. That PR 9 has dwindled from its position in April, said Danny: Last week, I noticed the Stanford Daily had dropped from when I wrote the above in April to PR7 today. That's a huge drop that has no apparent reason to happen. Some others were also reporting PageRank drops. So I pinged Google, and they confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links. In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well. Humorously enough, Danny discovered an instance where Google doesn't let link selling get in the way of its multi-billion dollar business. On his site, Google advertising for a "PR 6 .Edu Backlink" appeared within a Search Engine Land story.

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Which item published by Google is: Followed by webmasters with feverish interest Can cause intense depression Is linked to the visibility of web pages in SERPs (Search Engine Report Pages) Receives more attention than it deserves If you guessed the Toolbar PageRank, as symbolized by that little horizontal thermometer (values from 0 to 10), then you’re right. Clearly the publishing of such an item would seem to be of questionable value to Google given the anguish it creates among clients. You would imagine the powers that be would be deciding when was the most appropriate time to cease publication. Google apparently sees this in a different light for the moment. They do publish something else that is somewhat similar although certainly a number 2 choice as an answer to the question. You may not even be aware of it. In the SERPs you will occasionally see a web page result that has the words ‘Supplemental Result‘ added. That label is also an answer to the question. Given the concerns, Google has now taken action and as of this morning the label no longer appears. That doesn’t mean your web pages are no longer in the Supplemental Index. It just means Google won’t tell you whether they are or not. Danny Sullivan for one regrets its disappearance and would still like to be able to get the information in some way. The big question remains. Does Google have an equal concern about that Toolbar PageRank? By the same logic, it should. There’s even more furious and inappropriate anguish and reporting on that. However a different answer may apply. Publishing or not publishing the Toolbar PageRank will not be decided by the Google technocrats. More likely it will be decided by the Google Marketing group. Like the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky Button’, it’s become part of the Google brand. The Supplemental label had no such redeeming quality. Since you can’t afford to mess with a winning brand, I guess the Toolbar PageRank is safe. Related: Supplemental Result in Google - Hell or Help Google Supplemental Results Index - A Word To The Wise Comments

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Though the future is still uncertain for the overall importance of links, the quantity and quality of inbound links, for rankings, they are, for the time being, the surest way to improve search engine rankings. Aside, of course, from great content. We went into this last Thursday, and came out still confused. But we work with what we know and what we know is that the quality of inbound links, i.e., the measure how trusted a link source is, far outweighs the quantity of inbound links. Google and company have made sure of it, as explosions of low quality links to a single source can actually hurt your rankings. So the questions remain: How do I know who I want to link to me? Who's a worthy Net companion that won't drag my reputation down? Who's the authority on, say, bicycle seats. Fortunately for us, there are people like Aaron Wall, author of SEObook, who addresses these very questions and gives a nice, basic tutorial on how to test to see if inbound links cut the mustard, if the sites they come from are trustworthy. It's not an overnight process, he warns. I especially like his advice on testing with an orphan page: Point your link at a page that is not indexed and see if search engines index that page. If that link passes trust you can 301 redirect the target page to the page you want to rank. If the link source hurts your rankings you can 301 redirect that link equity to a competitor's site (if you wanted to be dirty). Heh. That little nugget should come with a "don't try this at home" disclaimer. Anyway, be sure to check out the rest of Aaron's post. It's a quick read and worth the time.

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The Single Grain blog suggests that with PageRank updates happening roughly every three months, there are five ways to put one's blog into position for a boost. Three of them could make your dancing feet all thumbs, though. Everyone loves PageRank, even if it is just one out of a large number of factors Google uses to sort its search results. A higher PageRank does help with this, and improving what one has for a blog can raise its position in the SERPs. The Single Grain blog has five steps to getting ready for a PageRank update that could be due any day now. Leaving a useful comment on a blog that doesn't slap a 'nofollow' attribute on the link you use back to your blog will be helpful, Single Grain suggested. That reflects the pushback some bloggers have had with the use of the 'nofollow' attribute. When used, Google doesn't could the link tagged with it for purposes of calculating PageRank. Fortunately, Single Grain noted it's easy to find blogs that use the DoFollow plug-in. Their second suggestion of getting links from A-list blogs, including link buying and blog reviews, may not be as helpful. Google has made noises about cracking down on paid links, so that strategy could backfire. They also tout the usual suggestions from SEO 101: quality content and directory submissions. The right directories can be useful for PageRank, while creating good content tends to be its own reward, especially as it attracts links. A final suggestion on article marketing could put a blogger on the wrong side of Google's duplicate content guidelines. It's likely those marketed articles could get pushed down in the rankings due to duplication, and that won't help PageRank at all.

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We made a video at SMX Advanced with Stephen Spencer recently where we discussed (among other things) some changes expected(?) to be coming to Google in terms of the no-follow attribute.  These no-follow changes have some pretty significant implications for lots of things, first and foremost though it seems these changes are specifically geared to mitigate, to some degree, the effectiveness of PR sculpting. More WebProNews Videos Now, PR sculpting is a fairly advanced concept a lot of folks may not fully understand.  So, I figured I would try to provide some explanation of at least the general ideas involved.  That seems like the best way to go about explaining why Google is looking to make some sort of change in their treatment of no-follow.  If you understand PageRank sculpting, on other words, you will get why Google might not like it so much. I expect I will have at least 5 people ‘way smarter than me’ hop in the comments or rip me in Twitter for leaving out ‘this’ or ‘that’ in terms of the subtle nuances of PR sculpting. My response to this would be; for the purposes of this article, the subtleties are immaterial.  So simmer down.  I would be remiss however if I didn’t add a little warning in here for people to thoroughly read up and make sure you understand PR sculpting before you start slapping no-follows all over your site.  You really can screw your site up if you do it wrong. So what the heck is it anyway? I’m so glad you asked. We’ll start with the concept of your Page Rank ‘power’ or ‘authority’.  This is the overall ‘value’ of a given page in terms of how much ‘authority’ that page has to pass along via it’s outbound links.  You have no doubt heard people talk about ‘link juice’, that’s what link juice is.  The more important (in Google’s eyes) a page is, the more link juice it possesses. Now think of your website as a bucket (or maybe an elegant punchbowl or some kind of fine china bowl if a bucket is too base of a mental image for you). Your bucket contains all of your link juice.  Now think of your outbound links as tiny holes in your bucket.  Your link juice flows through the holes and passes on your page’s authority. Now, the PR sculpting theory holds that the more holes you have in your bucket, the more your link juice is spread around or diluted.  This is at least in part supported by the search engine accepted and approved concept of Crawl Efficiency (see the Vanessa Fox video or article for more on that).  Search engines aren’t going to spend forever crawling and indexing every link on every page, so the concept of crawl efficiency basically means you prioritize the important stuff for them. How do you do this?  Well you stick no-follow attributes on non-important links.  PR sculpting theory takes this one step further and says that ALL outbound links count as a hole in your bucket, so you would then want to make more liberal use of no-follow to help direct the flow of the link juice.  For example; if you had navigation links at the top of your page, in the side bar and again in your footer, PR sculpting would say you add no-follow attributes to all but one set of them.  Less holes = more juice flowing through the holes that are left.  Get the idea?  Good. Now, the hullaballoo at SMX Advanced had to do with some rumors or suggestions that Google may be going to change how they look at no-follow in relation to how the link juice is passed along.  So if you had, for example, 10 outbound links on a page and no-followed all but 2 of them, effective PR sculpting would funnel all of your juice through those 2 and not dilute it over all 10.  Google, being... well, Google, doesn’t like to have situations where people can ‘control’ the value of links - especially for the purposes of ranking better in Google. So much buzzing and grumbling ensued when it was suggested that Google might not look at no-follow in quite the same way moving forward.  If you have 10 links and no-follow 8 of them in other words, they were still going to count you as having 10 holes in your bucket instead of sending more love to the 2 regular links you didn’t add no-follow to. By the end of the show, there still hadn’t been much at all in the way of an official word from Google on the subject.  However, I very strongly suspect we will have one soon.  The implications for counting no-follow links ‘against’ you in terms of authority passing ability raises all sorts of difficulties.  For one, let’s say you have a popular article that gets 500 comments.  Most everybody that leaves a comment also leaves a link.  Generally these links are no-followed.  If more links = some sort of diminished or diluted authority of a page, that would seem to suggest your fantastic article that got 500 comments was maybe not as good as an article that only got maybe 5 comments.  Second, the whole no-follow thing was Google’s idea to begin with.  It’s very existence is arguably not much more than a Google helper to assist them in managing the whole link economy they created out of their heavy reliance on links as a ranking factor.  Google hates paid links because paid links have the potential to impact search results and if you can buy links you can essentially raise your result in Google.  The problem is, paid links have been around longer than Google....  we used to just call them ads.  So, Google decided if you slap a no-follow attribute on a link, it meant you were not trying to pass your page authority on to that link and therefore weren’t being paid to elevate said link in their index. Now, it seems like Google is starting to see people using no-follow to emphasize links via the PR sculpting thing and they want to do something about it.  A cynical person might say they sound like they are trying to have their cake and eat it too...  but a Google person would just say they are just trying to protect the integrity of their index.  Personally, I’m all for Google protecting the integrity of their index...  but I think it gets to a point when maybe they need to do something about their index’s over-reliance on inbound links as a ranking factor. Maybe then they wouldn’t have to sweat this sort of thing quite so much and/or dump the burden of link formatting and management off on the webmasters and the SEOs of the world.  Those guys have enough on their plate as it is.

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A week or so ago, some people noticed some updates to Google Toolbar PageRank scores. It was unconfirmed however if this was an official update. Matt Cutts eventually confirmed on Twitter that it was indeed a Google update. Cutts later said on his blog, "In case you didn’t see where I confirmed it on Twitter, Google recently did a toolbar PageRank update. It’s pretty much done now. If you want more info, I’ve answered questions about PageRank and the Google Toolbar in the past." People's sites are going both up and down, but it is important to remember that the toolbar is "not an accurate indicator of how Google ranks or values a site," as Loren Baker notes at Search Engine Journal. Though it is still a factor. Cutts also makes the bold prediction that this will be the last PageRank update of the year. Haha.

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It shouldn?t be the links that come in, but the time spent browsing a relevant page, that should help determine where a page ranks for a given query. Microsoft has a big idea on ranking pages listed in a search engine index for later retrieval. A query seeking information on a topic ought to bring up pages ordered at least in part by how long people spent on such pages in their browsers. CNET called it a move to one-up search leader Google, which itself only uses PageRank as one of dozens of factors in determining where a page lists in response to a query. Google's dominance of the search market shows their approach is working; Google is even a dictionary-listed verb these days. A Microsoft research paper shows where the company sees an alternative to a site that in the estimation of many already owns the search market. Through looking at "user behavior data," Microsoft's researchers suggested they have a more reliable way of assessing a particular page's importance. Microsoft's China-based researchers claim to have this figured out. But it will need data that goes beyond click-throughs to measure adequately. That brings up an interesting idea: how much access will people, both visitors and site publishers, be willing to give Microsoft to make for a better search experience? Microsoft probably has the ability to utilize its own resources, like the Windows Live Toolbar, to help grab such data. Not everyone will use a toolbar with their browser, of course, and Microsoft doesn't want to be in the position of trying to push it on people, lest they run afoul of their antitrust minders at the Justice Department. Google's PageRank succeeds partially due to its invisibility. The typical Internet user simply doesn't see a crawler's work behind the scenes, and computers can accurately count those inbound links in short order. BrowseRank may be the next great advance in search, but if it relies on active participation beyond a link spider's actions, it may not get the critical mass of data it will need to succeed.

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Users of the Google Toolbar will see updated PageRank values for websites become available over the next few days. Google's noteworthy engineer Matt Cutts stirred up the SEO world with a little note on his blog. The always-sparkling discussion of PageRank and its secret sauce got a nudge from Cutts with his announcement. "I?m expecting that also in the next few days that we?ll be expiring some older penalties on websites," he said. "I figured the SEO industry could use something to discuss, so I thought I?d give people a heads-up about the toolbar PageRanks." Naturally, this little bombshell pulled in plenty of attention from the search engine optimization community. Comments flowed in, with Cutts responding to a handful. In one example, he noted the Toolbar PageRanks tend to update about every three to four months. One commenter questioned whether or not anyone except site publishers actually bother having PageRank enabled in their Toolbar. Cutts said it was more than the commenter suspected. "The last time I checked, many many more users turned on the PageRank display than there are site owners. The PageRank display is actually a popular feature, as it turns out," he replied. It sounds like, on a superficial level, people who use the Google Toolbar don't mind looking to see how popular a site may be, even if they don't fully understand what PageRank. Quite frankly, we're astonished the Wikipedia entry on PageRank isn't required reading in schools these days (we kid, folks).

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Recently a lot of people have been asking me questions about article marketing: what is it and how does it work? Article marketing is the act of writing short articles, generally 1,000 words or less, and getting them published on the Web or in ezines. Generally you don't get paid for these articles, but the ROI is that you get links from the article to your Web site. Since incoming links from relevant Web pages helps your search engine visibility, this is a good thing. First step is to write good quality articles, targeted at your best customers, with keyword rich titles that should do well on relevant searches at Google and the other search engines. You should also craft a good "resource box" which is sort of like an extended byline. You can include links to your site and calls-to-action. It's best to use a call-to-action that's relevant to the article you just wrote. Next step is to get them published throughout the Web. You can look for sites that publish articles that target your audience. This can be time consuming, but rewarding if you do it right. One good article in the right Web site can bring you loads of new traffic. You can also use an article distribution company like iSnare or eZine Articles that will distribute your article (for a small fee) to hundreds or thousands of Web site editors. That can greatly expand your reach, although many of these sites don't have much PageRank, and thus won't give you a lot of link juice. I wrote an article a while back on article marketing called Search Engine Success Through Article Marketing that still holds up. Check it out, then get writing!Comments

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Matt Cutts told Mike McDonald of WebProNews about something new from Google: the search advertising company opened a little help center on the topic of nofollows and links.Google began advocating the nofollow attribute as a way for webmasters to tell Google's crawlers not to count a given link toward the PageRank of the site pointed to by the link. This attribute would help webmasters avoid the sting of being punished over paid links, which Google dislikes due to the way they can "game" the search rankings. Webmasters had questions about nofollow, the answers to which ended up flung across the Internet. Blogger Li Evans asked Google in February why that situation hadn't been cleared up by collecting all the answers in one place. As Google's well-known webspam fighter Matt Cutts told WebProNews how Google finally addressed the situation. They opened up the NoFollow Help Center within the webmaster help pages to help clarify the topic. As Google explains, nofollow helps manage issues like comment spam, crawl prioritization, and the touchy issue of paid links. Watch Matt Cutts go over this attention-getting topic only on WebProVideo:

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For a while now webmasters have fretted over why all of the pages of their website are not indexed. As usual there doesn't seem to be any definite answer. But some things are definite, if not automatic, and some things seem like pretty darn good guesses.So, we scoured the forums, blogs, and Google's own guidelines for increasing the number of pages Google indexes, and came up with our (and the community's) best guesses. The running consensus is that a webmaster shouldn't expect to get all of their pages crawled and indexed, but there are ways to increase the number.PageRank It depends a lot on PageRank. The higher your PageRank the more pages that will be indexed. PageRank isn't a blanket number for all your pages. Each page has its own PageRank. A high PageRank gives the Googlebot more of a reason to return. Matt Cutts confirms, too, that a higher PageRank means a deeper crawl.LinksGive the Googlebot something to follow. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden as the trust is already established.Internal links can help, too. Link to important pages from your homepage. On content pages link to relevant content on other pages.Sitemap A lot of buzz around this one. Some report that a clear, well-structured Sitemap helped get all of their pages indexed. Google's Webmaster guidelines recommends submitting a Sitemap file, too:· Tell us all about your pages by submitting a Sitemap file; help us learn which pages are most important to you and how often those pages change.That page has other advice for improving crawlability, like fixing violations and validating robots.txt.Some recommend having a Sitemap for every category or section of a site.Speed A recent O'Reilly report indicated that page load time and the ease with which the Googlebot can crawl a page may affect how many pages are indexed. The logic is that the faster the Googlebot can crawl, the greater number of pages that can be indexed.This could involve simplifying the structures and/or navigation of the site. The spiders have difficulty with Flash and Ajax. A text version should be added in those instances.Google's crawl caching proxy Matt Cutts provides diagrams of how Google's crawl caching proxy at his blog. This was part of the Big Daddy update to make the engine faster. Any one of three indexes may crawl a site and send the information to a remote server, which is accessed by the remaining indexes (like the blog index or the AdSense index) instead of the bots for those indexes physically visiting your site. They will all use the mirror instead.Verify Verify the site with Google using the Webmaster tools.Content, content, contentMake sure content is original. If a verbatim copy of another page, the Googlebot may skip it. Update frequently. This will keep the content fresh. Pages with an older timestamp might be viewed as static, outdated, or already indexed.Staggered launchLaunching a huge number of pages at once could send off spam signals. In one forum, it is suggested that a webmaster launch a maximum of 5,000 pages per week.Size matters If you want tens of millions of pages indexed, your site will probably have to be on an Amazon.com or Microsoft.com level.Know how your site is found, and tell GoogleFind the top queries that lead to your site and remember that anchor text helps in links. Use Google's tools to see which of your pages are indexed, and if there are violations of some kind. Specify your preferred domain so Google knows what to index

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When the original PageRank algorithm was conceived, it was built around the a mathematical formalization called random walk or RW. Considering a normal surfer to be a random walker, it was assumed that an individual would browse the Internet and randomly visit one of the pages followed by more pages through the hyperlinks on each of the landing pages. When the process ends the visitor would have surfed all the pages. Out of all the pages, the most visited pages would get the highest rank as they are the ones with the maximum number of incoming links.The problems arise because a normal surfer doesn't follow the random walk formulation, hence the assumptions of the PageRank might not apply to a surfer in the real world. There has been an intriguing post written by Bill Slawski which highlights, how the assumptions of the PageRank are flawed and how the recent patent for the "User-sensitive pagerank" addresses some of the assumptions of the original PageRank. The flaws highlighted center around some of the assumptions made by the PageRank. All the links are created equal: The problem here is that the surfers just don't hit on hyperlinks at random, we read the hyperlink, mentally calculate it's value and then click on it. If this is so the How come all the links are equal? Bored Surfers Go to Random Pages: True, that we sometimes get bored with a page and move on to another. But, the next page is not chosen at random, rather it's carefully chosen. Bored Surfers Only Go to Trusted Pages: While it's true that bored surfers don't go to random pages, rather think and then move on, but the page they choose might not necessarily be a trusted one. Pages Change and Lose Value at Same Rates: The pages can lose value during their lifetime but can they at the same rate. There are a myriad factors governing each pages' popularity and each one changes in value differently. PageRank Calculations are reliable: This assumption talks about the 'blocked' PageRank," however  the patents application suggests that these aggregations are not perfect. The User-sensitive pagerank patent application would include various aspects of user behavior to calculate a better PageRank. These aspects pertain to Link Weight; Likelihood of Randomly Leaving to a New Page and Satisfaction with Found Pages. This patent again underscores the need to design websites which intrigue the visitors to spend a longer time at the website and explore it. However, other aspects such as the usability is important too. There have been many discussions about the PageRank and many people seem to think that there is a need to replace the PageRank with something superior, it seems that we have it already. Comments

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An update to the Google Directory has webmasters puzzling over an apparent discrepancy in PageRank scores.For months, the speculation surrounded an apparent decrease in PageRank scores on Google's Toolbar. It seemed the decrease in rank was connected to penalties associated with buying and selling links that passed on PageRank, a practice Google not-so-quietly condemned last autumn.But what was more confusing was that though the toolbar scores were dropping, the actual search rankings looked to be unaffected. Google appears to have updated its Directory on January 8 along with PageRank scores that are significantly higher than listed on the toolbar.Observers say the Google Directory update seems to be pulled directly from DMOZ, the open directory project. As a result, Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable joins others in discrepancy reports:"…it seems like the Toolbar PageRank of this site is a PageRank of 4. But if you look at the most recent Google Directory update, this site appears to be a PageRank of 7."There are few theories posted about why this is occurring, Andy Beard explains how this could be problematic for advertisers looking to assess the true value of a website:"It seems Google used their real dataset for PageRank for the Google Directory export, forgetting that they are telling their millions of users lies on their toolbar with manual penalties, which until now had no visible proof. "Google have the right to do whatever they like with their search engine, but this is another major demonstration of how Google are manipulating public and advertiser opinion."   

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I know a segment of my readers are sick to death with anything to do with Google PageRank updates, and I haven't even bothered mentioning the most recent update up until now… there wasn't really anything newsworthy in it. I just spotted a story on Sphinn that will likely get deleted because it is all in Russian - the Google Directory has apparently been updated from DMOZ data from 08/01/2008 (European date notation) That wouldn't be significant other than Google lists pagerank alongside the listings in their version of DMOZ I have highlighted a few sites that as far as I am aware still have a manual PageRank penalty for what Google might consider selling PageRank Passing Links, including this one. If you look carefully you will notice that the values shown in the Google Directory are considerably higher than those shown on the Google Toolbar. It seems Google used their real dataset for PageRank for the Google Directory export, forgetting that they are telling their millions of users lies on their toolbar with manual penalties, which until now had no visible proof. Google have the right to do whatever they like with their search engine, but this is another major demonstration of how Google are manipulating public and advertiser opinion. They still state that the toolbar PageRank displayed is:- Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar's PageRank™ display to tell you how Google assesses the importance of the page you're viewing. It seems my listing which was previously as a PR5 has moved up a number of places, so there is a good chance I am now on the bottom of the PR6 sites listed. Lets be clear, even though I am most likely a PR6 site, I am not selling PageRank when I write reviews, they are editorial links.Comments*Originally published at AndyBeard.eu

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One of the more entertaining aspects of the entire paid links debate is Google is pretty quick to dole out the punishment, even though in many cases they haven’t taken the time to get their own house in order. We’ve discussed the links to Golfballs.com on the Google checkout blog multiple times. At this point it pretty obvious Google has done some sort of manual adjustment as the page clearly isn’t passing any link juice. Why Google has chosen this route instead of any of the methods outlined in their webmaster guidelines remains something of a mystery. We’ve also been assured that none of the links on these Google mini pages are influencing the algo or ranking in any way. Again curiously they’ve chosen not to implement any of the solutions spelled out in the webmaster guidelines. Here’s a new one I stumbled across last week a list of Google Partners who have implemented Google Checkout all sitting on a nice PR8 page with straight links. I’m sure someone from Google will be along shortly to tell us these links have been taken care of algorithmically and are not passing any juice or influencing the rankings in any way. Fine I’ll believe them. However what I’d really like to know is why isn’t Google following their own recommendations and implementation suggestions for nofollows, redirects, and robots.txt. Should all 5000+ of my readers file spam reports that Google is selling text links? Could we reasonably expect that page to be banned from the index (please oh please that would so make my day). How can Google the company who is attempting to dictate how the web should structured expect everyone else to comply with their guidelines when they are doing miserable job of following those same guidelines themselves? If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black I don’t know what is …Comments

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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) poses a deadly threat to people, especially hospital patients. One effort to track infections in a facility would utilize Google's PageRank algorithm to do so.Once upon a time, a couple of Stanford Ph.D candidates wrote a paper called "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine." They discussed a concept called PageRank, which formed the core of Google and started a journey that led to a company with a market cap of $205 billion as of today.Though there are a lot of secret factors involved in ranking search results today, anyone who wants to study PageRank can do so. It even has an entry on Wikipedia these days.For researchers at Bradford University in the UK, PageRank may be the key to tracking the paths MRSA takes through a facility. New Scientist said a mathematician involved in the research thinks PageRank can rank the routes superbugs take from place to place:"Our new model is based very much on the way Google has achieved number one status among search engines," (mathematician Simon Shepherd) explains. "When [Google's] spiders crawl the web they build up a connectivity matrix of links between pages." "Obviously nurses move among patients and that can spread infection, but they also touch light switches and lots of other surfaces too," he says., "If you observe a network of all those interactions you can build a matrix of which nodes in the network are in contact with which other nodes."Once they have that matrix, steps can be taken to attack those nodes and reduce their superbug-carrying capabilities. Eventually, Shepherd wants to produce a software tool for other hospital managers to use to make similar assessments of their facilities and possible superbug transmission. 

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The Guardian newspaper have today written an article titled Is Google a Grinch or a good guy?, which asks many UK SEO's (myself included) for their views on the recent Google paid link debate. In my opinion the Google AdWords landing page quality score and PageRank paid link updates were definitely necessary and will only help to improve the relevancy and quality of both organic and sponsored Google listings. But perhaps the timing of the updates are questionable, the Google AdWords change in particular caused many advertisers a major loss in profits just before the Christmas period with many campaigns unable to stay cost-effective due to large increases in minimum bids. The major issue I feel is that while Google have the right to prevent MFA (Made For AdSense) websites and paid listing directories from clearly profiting through their algorithm and PageRank indicator, they also catch some of the people who are not intentionally doing so. The roll-out of these changes takes time to perfect and in many cases the more selective paid "review" directories will be penalised initially, as could AdWords advertisers using Google AdSense as a secondary source of income, and with Christmas around the corner it's probably not the best time of the year to be facing these sort of problems. I'd be interested in hearing comments from anyone else regarding these issues, should Google consider it's timing of updates more carefully? Can the short-term issues affecting websites within Google's guidelines be prevented in the first place? If they delay necessary improvements will this harm the algorithm? Is there actually a good time to apply these updates anyway? Comments Tag:

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The wild debate about Google's increasingly hardline stance against paid links looks like Wimbledon, with Matt Cutts taking on Rich Skrenta, while Danny Sullivan volleys against Michael Gray. Cutts, Sullivan Weigh In On Paid Links Internet Drama, in the form of the ongoing paid links debate, received a couple of new entries to fan the flames. Webmasters see paid links as a way to boost their search engine presence against the competition. Google perceives paid links as a mechanism that devalues their core organic search results. Rich Skrenta posted his stream-of-consciousness thoughts about the paid link debate. He said "PageRank wrecked the web," a reference to part of Google's model of weighting search results based on inbound links. "Links used to be for human navigation," said Skrenta. "Google made them count for money and they're ruined now. Nofollow isn't going to put it back the way it was." Cutts answered from the comments, defending Google's position: I truly believe any successful system (be it eBay, Amazon, Usenet, Wikipedia, DMOZ, or government spending) will attract people who try to optimize for that system or even game it. When Google came onto the scene with its new way of ranking search results in 1999/2000, it was inevitable that people would try to optimize for Google and link-based reputation. Tools like rel=nofollow give site owners a method to decide whether to flow PageRank at a link-level of granularity. Over on Graywolf's blog, Gray called Google crybabies over the paid links issue. "The problem is you figured a way to make money off of a link based analysis, and now you?re upset and ridding the waaaaaaaaambulance when other people move in on your cash cow," said Gray. "You feel like you have some god given right to be the only one who makes money off of it." Sullivan answered back in the comments: If we?re talking crybabies, then include the website owners that have tapped into the PageRank economy and now are upset with the Federal Reserve Of Google has decided to cut interest rates. Hey, newsflash - Google?s an independent company that at least in the United States has a court-backed decision that says the First Amendment gives it a constitutionally protected right to do whatever the hell it wants with the PageRank meter. So you built your business around selling ads linked to PageRank, and now you?re upset when Google pulls the plug? Suck it up - the writing?s been on the wall that this WILL happen (not could) since 2003, and all Google has really done is finally made it more visible that many sites selling PageRank weren?t actually passing along credit at all. The point about Google being an independent company summarizes the whole paid link issue, though we understand it will continue to be a sore spot for many. It's Google's game, and they can change the rules. Betting that they would continue to favor outsiders as much as Google favors itself looks like it was a poor wager. follow me on Twitter

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Google continues to beat the drum about passing PageRank through paid links as Matt Cutts weighed in on the topic with another request that webmasters use the 'nofollow' attribute for them. Paid Links Still Evil To Google Though plenty of places in the Northern Hemisphere shiver in chilly temperatures, webmasters will continue radiating heat after the latest double-barreled barrage from Google's loquacious engineer. Paid links have a long history of annoying Google due to the way they can affect organic rankings. This has been the year of living dangerously for webmasters who engage in pushing PageRank through paid links. Google's crackdown on sites using these links without a 'nofollow' tacked onto them means more websites will see the dreaded reduction in their PageRank as punishment. Matt wrote about this at the Google Webmaster Central blog and his personal site. A couple of essential points he made will stand out for webmasters: Q: Is Google trying to tell webmasters how to run their own site? A: No. We're giving advice to webmasters who want to do well in Google. As I said in this video from my keynote discussion in June 2007, webmasters are welcome to make their sites however they like, but Google in turn reserves the right to protect the quality and relevance of our index. To the best of our knowledge, all the major search engines have adopted similar positions. Q: Is Google trying to crack down on other forms of advertisements used to drive traffic? A: No, not at all. Our webmaster guidelines clearly state that you can use links as means to get targeted traffic. In fact, in the presentation I did in August 2007, I specifically called out several examples of non-Google advertising that are completely within our guidelines. We just want disclosure to search engines of paid links so that the paid links won't affect search engines. Several webmaster comments posted to the Webmaster Central blog took issue with the paid links stance, with some complaining of being penalized without cause. One commenter named Jason said one blog he has received the PR 0 hit, and has never bought or sold a link. "What about sites that received the penalty by mistake?" he asked. "I'm hesitant to submit a re-inclusion request because it requires admission of wrongdoing. Is there any way of asking for a review that doesn't require falsely stating that we've gone against the webmaster guidelines?" In response, Matt suggested the drop could have been a result of canonicalization issues, and that PageRank does tend to fluctuate. As far as the language of the reinclusion request to which Jason objected, Matt had this to say: I don't want to force people to claim that they've violated our guidelines in doing a reconsideration request. I believe that we've already softened our language on that form once and that we added the option to say "something happened on this domain before I got to it." But your feedback is something that I've heard before, and I'll try to have someone at Google look at what we can do to remove that concern. If you have suggestions for language or the best way to do it, I'm open to whatever you want to propose. Google isn't worried about whether someone's site gets noticed in the search results or not. The other major search engines have similar views. To them, paid links skew what searchers see, and not always to the searcher's benefit. Matt's example of this on his blog shows how a query for the very serious topic of cancer-fighting radiosurgery brings up useless and misleading results when paid links pass PageRank. "If you stumbled across these entries on the web, you might not know whether someone got paid for writing these posts. In the same way that a regular surfer would want disclosure to know if a post were paid, all the major search engines also want to make sure that paid posts are adequately disclosed to search engines as well," Matt said. Use paid links without identifying them, and Google will penalize the site. It's a cause and effect that enrages webmasters who want to rate well in the world's dominant search engine. Many are going to feel this is part of a ploy to drive them to buy ads on Google to get noticed. That is a side effect of Google's attack on less than useful content. One can see why webmasters will feel this way. Google is a business, not a public utility, even if it seems otherwise to Internet users. They make the rules for their SERPs, as the other engines do, and playing on their site means following them, or going to the bottom of the list. follow me on Twitter

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