Even though we all make mistakes, when certain people or organizations mess up, it’s a bigger deal. Therefore, when a company like Google seemingly breaks its own policy, it gets a lot of attention.
Aaron Wall, the author of SEO Book, first broke the news after discovering it in one of his forums. In short, Google apparently violated its own Webmaster Guidelines for paid links as part of a marketing campaign for Google Chrome.
“It was obviously paid exposure,” said Wall.
Shortly after this interview was conducted, Google responded to the incident and devalued its Chrome landing page for “at least 60 days,” according to the company’s Webspam Head Matt Cutts.
In a statement to WebProNews, a Google spokesperson said:
“Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.”
Wall did tell us that he hoped that, going forward, Google would be more “lenient” when dealing with others since mistakes can happen to anyone, even search giants.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Jan 5th, 2012. 
Inbound links increase the value of your website in the eyes of Google and the other search engines. And, they help more people find your website and all you have to offer. Each inbound link is like your website just got another vote of confidence.
So, once the link has been set up, your job is done. Or is it?
Getting links to point to your site is one of the most challenging parts of search engine optimization, but link building doesn’t end once a link has been set up.
In fact, getting that link should only be the first step in a long-term link building strategy.
Do you follow up on links? Let us know.
Let’s talk about this for a minute. Someone received your link request, and went to the trouble of responding. Or, they heard about you, researched you, and maybe even purchased something from you, and then decided to link to you . However it started, he thought it was a good idea to create a link to your site and took the time to make it happen.
Do you just congratulate yourself and move on?
No! The person who helped you deserves a little bit more of your time and attention.
Not only should you send them a thank you for the link, you should treat this like the opportunity it really is. By establishing a relationship with them, you could not only boost your search engine rankings, you could be opening the door to rich collaboration and business opportunities.
Consider these nine important questions for sites that already link to you.
1. How popular is their site?
The more popular the site, the more beneficial it can be for you. Start by checking out the number of inbound links the site is getting, they are a good measure of the popularity of the site. Then you can sort in order of priority and start with the most popular.
2. Which of the sites that link to you are bringing you real traffic?
Review your log files or investigate Google Analytics to find out which of your links are actually bringing you traffic. When sites bring you traffic, it can be for a combination of reasons, for example:
- You share the same target market and their visitors are interested in what you provide
- They’ve talked warmly about your products and given you a good review
- They’ve placed your link in a prominent spot on their site
- They get high traffic themselves
For whatever reason, getting traffic is only part of what you need. The next part is …
3. Does the traffic from the sites convert to sales?
As important as it is to get traffic to your site, if none of the visitors DO anything when they arrive, you aren’t really too far ahead. The critical question is ‘does the traffic they bring convert for my benefit?’ Set up Google Analytics to help you find out the answer. And, if you find out that they link to you, they bring you traffic and the traffic they bring converts, then stop reading this article IMMEDIATELY and get in touch with them.
Start by thanking them, and then initiate a dialogue to explore what else you can do together.
4. Have you done them a favor in return?
No? Do so, right away.
Yes? Do so again.
It’s very easy to do a favor for someone and being helpful and willing is a great way to build relationships – and relationships are at the heart of successful link building. It might be as simple as sending them an email thank you and asking them to keep in touch.
5. Do you know how the link got to be there and can you put a name to the person behind the site?
It’s really important to remember that it’s people who make links, not websites. Visualize a network of people linking to you, not just a network of websites linking to you.
Do a bit of research to find out who they are and what they do. What do you have in common? Why did they link to you in the first place? Is there more business you could be doing together? And, as we talked about in question four, what favor could you be doing for them?
6. What social media sites are they active on and have you linked up with them?
With the escalating popularity of social networking, contact through social media is critical today. Because these people have linked to your website, they’re relevant to you – and they bring with them a network of friends and followers who are also likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
Follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or whatever, and respond to their posts, re-tweets or comments. Do that and just watch your network – and your inbound links – grow.
7. Can you say at least one thing that is great about their site?
Make sure you do.
Write a complimentary blog post, add a kudos when you re-tweet, make a positive comment, agree with them, elaborate on their ideas. You’ll be getting yourself an even bigger fan.
We all love a bit of flattery and it can be a powerful tool when you are building relationships. Dale Carnegie put it very well when he said, “Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself”.
8. What linking text do they use when they link to you?
The linking text that people use when creating the inbound link to you is very important for your search engine rankings. Therefore, you need to know if they are using a really basic ‘click here’ or if they incorporate more keyword-rich text in the link. If necessary, it is worth the time to make a quick approach to them and suggest they use one of your important keywords or phrases in the linking text. It will strengthen the value of the inbound link for you.
9. Are there any ways you can collaborate, either in content or in business?
If there’s really a good business fit between you and a site that links to you, then they’re likely to respond positively to any business proposition you may make. Time to start brainstorming. Is there more you could be doing to help each other or generate more business?
In summary, don’t view getting an inbound link as the end of the story. If you see links as simply a way to boost your search engine rankings, then you’ll miss out on some tremendous opportunities.
Instead, remember that link building is really about building relationships with people and generating opportunity. It is about being part of community, providing useful content to your readers and the people who link to you. Who knows where it could all lead you?
What is the most important element of link-building to you? Comment here.
Filed under Internet Technology by on Feb 12th, 2011.
We recently looked at how Google and Bing use links on Twitter and Facebook for organic ranking, following an informative piece from Danny Sullivan on the matter. Google’s Matt Cutts has now addressed the subject a bit more in a new video uploaded to Googles’ Webmaster Help Channel.
Do you want social media to influence search rankings? Comment here.
"We do use Twitter and Facebook links in ranking as we always have in our web search rankings, but in addition we’re also trying to figure out a little bit about the reputation of an author or creator on Twitter or Facebook," says Cutts. "I filmed a video back in May 2010 where I said that we didn’t use that as a signal, and at the time, we did not use that as a signal, but now, we’re taping this in December 2010, and we are using that as a signal."
Now, this doesn’t mean that suddenly Twitter and Facebook links are the main ranking factor determining where your content is showing up in organic searches. If anything, Google seems to be tiptoeing into the waters in this area.
"The web search quality team has a lot of different groups in a lot of different offices, so people including the original Blog Search team, people who worked on Realtime Search…have been working on using these sorts of things as a signal," explains Cutts. "So primarily, it has been used a little bit more in the realtime sort of search, where you might see individual tweets or other links showing up, and streaming up on the page. We’re studying how much sense it makes to use it a little more widely within our web search rankings."
To reiterate, you’ll still see this playing more of a role in realtime search, but Google is "looking at it more broadly within web search as well," according to Cutts.
"Now, there’s a few things to remember," Cutts warns. "Number one is: if we can’t crawl a page (if we can’t see a page), then we can’t really assign PageRank to it, and it doesn’t really count. So if we’re able to obtain the data, then we can use it, but if for some reason a page is forbidden for us to crawl or if we’re not able to obtain it somehow, then we wouldn’t be able to use it within our rankings."
This would appear to mean that links within Facebook will not mean a whole lot when the user isn’t sharing their updates with everyone. Many Facebook users have their privacy settings adjusted to only share with their friends. While Facebook may have far more users than Twitter, privacy settings will greatly reduce that number in terms of links that will potentially help your search rankings.
"This is something that is used relatively lightly for now, and we’ll see how much we use it over time depending on how useful it is and how robust it ends up being," says Cutts. "The one thing I would caution people about is don’t necessarily say to yourself, ‘Ha. Now I’m going to go out and get reciprocal follows, and I’m gonna get a ton of followers,’ just like people used to get a ton of links. In the same way that PageRank depends on not just the number of links, but the quality of those links, you have to think about what are the followers who mean quality. Who are the people who actually are not just bots or some software program or things like that."
Would you like to see Facebook/Twitter links carry more weight in organic search? Share your thoughts here.
Related: Google & Bing Are Looking at Links on Twitter & Facebook for Organic Ranking
Filed under Social Media by on Dec 20th, 2010.
Search and social go well together, and the search engines are finding more and more ways to use them together. In fact, the right combinations of these two elements could eventually dictate who has the most useful tools for users.
It’s become more and more clear over time that having a strong social presence is helpful in building a strong search presence for a variety of reasons, but it’s not been so clear, just how the search engines have looked at things like Twitter and Facebook profiles when it comes to organic search ranking.
Should social media be considered in search ranking? Tell us what you think.
Search Engine Land Chief Danny Sullivan posted an important article about this very topic, with some rare and surprisingly direct answers from both Google and Bing. While, neither exactly gave away their respective secret sauces, it would appear that they have set some things straight.
Google reportedly uses when an article is retweeted or referenced in Twitter as a signal in organic and news rankings (even though links on Twitter are nofollowed). They also use it to enhance the news universal results (based on how many people share an article).
Google "computes and uses author quality" for when someone tweets. When Sullivan asked if they calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on who tweets it, Google Responded, "Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the ‘Top links’ section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search."
Google says it treats links shared on Facebook Fan pages the same way as tweeted links, but they have no personal Facebook wall data. Authority for Facebook Pages is also treated like Twitter.
So, the more authoritative the crowd sharing links to your content, the better. Not that different than PageRank.
Bing
When it comes to Twitter, Bing tells Sullivan it also looks at social authority of users and more specifically, looks at how many people they follow and how many follow them, adding that this can add "a little weight" to a listing in regular search results (though it carries more in Bing’s separate Social Search). Bing decides when links should carry more weight based on the person who tweets it.
As far as Facebook, Bing currently looks at links shared on Facebook that are marked as being shared to "everyone" and those from Fan Pages. "We can tell if something is of quality on Facbook by leveraging Twitter," as Sullivan paraphrases Bing’s response. "If the same link is shared in both places, it’s more likely to be legitimate."
Bing does not use its new Facebook data in ordinary web search…yet.
On a related note, Bing is finding other interesting ways to utilize Facebook with search.
So, clearly it pays to tweet and build a credible Twitter presence. This means gaining a significant following in number, but also getting authoritative users to follow you (and hopefully retweet your links). This would appear to be good for plain old fashioned organic rankings as well as other supplemental search results. More importantly, it pays to create good content that will attract authoritative Twitterers to share it with others.
These things of course pay anyway, but it’s nice to know that they actually do have an effect on search rankings as well.
It’s not surprising that Twitter is currently playing a more important role in to search engine ranking than Facebook, simply because Twitter is public by default. Facebook is much more walled, meaning that most of the good Facebook data is private. Though it will be interesting to see what happens when Bing does integrate its newly acquired Facebook into its regular search offerings.
This wall of Facebook’s is also a factor into why Facebook could potentially unleash its own legitimate search engine. It’s got a search feature now of course, but there is a great deal of potential for them to do a whole lot more and really get under Google’s skin. More on that here.
Sullivan provides more background and context around the search engines’ social signals, as well as the full with both Bing and Google, and details about the Twitter Firehose’s lack of nofollow.
With the information Sullivan has gotten out of Google and Bing, will you focus more on social media? Comment here.
Filed under Social Media by on Dec 3rd, 2010.
File this one in "maybe, possibly, perhaps" category: rumor has it that Yahoo, with its history of dealing in search, advertising, and content, just might acquire popular deal of the day site Groupon.
Kara Swisher reported earlier this afternoon, "Sources said Yahoo has been eyeing [Groupon] for possible acquisition, which would put it smack dab in the hot space around local purchasing and consumer information."
And that would make a degree of sense, since Yahoo’s been trying to explore new niches and Carol Bartz recently told David Lieberman, "It is far from a healthy, vibrant economy."
Swisher’s sources said that nothing’s been decided for sure, though, and we’re not at all close to the point at which possible purchase prices get bandied about.
The CEO of Groupon, for his part, didn’t help to clarify the situation in a brief telephone conversation with Nick Saint. Andrew Mason’s response to a request for comment was, according to Saint, "Uggggggghhhhhhh!"
As always, we’ll see what happens and be sure to report any significant developments. One relevant point: Groupon raised $ 135 million in April in a funding round that put its value at $ 1.35 billion.
Top News – WebProNews
Social Media – mit Facebook Fanpage, Twitter und Co.
Social Media Paket für Ihr Online-Netzwerk. Accounts einrichten, vernetzen und mit Traffic belegen. Alles mit Video, eBooks und Checklisten unterstützt. Erstellen Sie kinderleicht z.B. ihre eigene Facebook Fanpage. Die Paktete sind auch einzeln erhältl.
Social Media – mit Facebook Fanpage, Twitter und Co.
Social Media Revolution 2 is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore. Based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.
Filed under Social Media by on Sep 15th, 2010.
