SEO Blog

This post takes a step away from the business of search engine optimization and marketing but it covers an important facet of the environment, the search-media. This is an issue that is obviously near and dear to my heart. I write it because my tech-hardened heart broke a bit while reading an apology from Search Engine Land editor Danny Sullivan to Wired and the search marketing community.

At issue is a short article published in Search Engine Land last Friday morning. Written by Barry Schwartz, the piece was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek exposure of a fairly obvious link-building loophole found in Wired’s “How To” wiki. Links placed in its user-generated content area did not have default NOFOLLOW tags!

Naturally, links from Wired.com are weighted with considerable authority. Search Engine Land found out when they saw spammy SEO content that linked back to the “How To” wiki. Seeing an issue of note and noting the implications of the issue Barry wrote the controversial piece which turned out to read like a short how-to on spamming Wired’s “How To” wiki under the link-bait loaded title, “Get a Free Link From Wired”.

They say it’s not official until someone puts it in writing. Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, Google amended its webmaster guidelines to include a line reading:

“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

The line replaced a less stringent warning which only mentioned the buying of links in order to improve a site’s ranking.

This is likely the last word on bought and sold links for the time being but it re-enforces the values of “whitehat” SEO Metamend is known for following. Our SEO work tends to focus on improving websites for spiders and live-user conversions and not as heavily on the acquisition of incoming links.

Those involved in the selling of links are urged to study up on the rel=”nofollow” attribute .

PageRank valuations are fluctuating wildly again nearly three weeks after Google began targeting sites that bought and sold text-links. Earlier today, reports started coming in to SEO writers and blogs tracking PageRank. This time however the trend seems to tend towards terminal as Google has been assigning a bunch of PR0 valuations to several sites, including some that do not buy or sell links.

rustybrick from Search Engine Roundtable points out the latest PageRank discussion thread happening at DigitalPoint forums. This thread is a good read because it is where a bulk of SEOs are discussing, dissecting and hopefully solving the riddles associated with Google’s means of page-trust evaluation.

European SEO writer Andy Beard has a lengthy post, “ZERORANK” outlining the recent five phases of what appears to be wider PageRank update. Andy also reports on several specific cases in which websites with average or above-average PR valuations have dropped to PR0. Part of his post includes the process of filing a “reconsideration request”.

For the past six or seven years, one of the most dominant factors in determining page or document placement has been an evaluation of incoming links. Google pioneered the method, known as Pagerank, in its original algorithm and has refined it ever since. The recent flap over Pagerank revaluations might provide SEOs a broader hint at changes happening behind the scenes at Google and other major search engines. While unintended, Google might be signaling a step away from Pagerank as a primary means of recommendation and valuation.

A shift away from link based scoring methods would be an enormous step for Google to make however, looking at the evolution of the Internet, it is a logical step to make. Information transmitted over the Internet is changing rapidly as are user-habits. While it will continue to be a primarily text based medium, today’s Internet infrastructure allows easier access to a multiplicity of file types and formats, many of which are not conducive to the link-loving Google grew up on.