Image: Google search for social media traffic
Last week I was reading an article at Search Engine Roundtable about Google pulling website titles from Google maps and according to a comment on the post Googler, John Mueller has said this:
“We may choose to replace titles which are repeated on a number of pages or which otherwise appear to be suboptimal”
So is this the reason why I am seeing the phrase Social Media Traffic – at the start of my page title tag when I search Google for that particular phrase? I am not too sure.
My actual meta page title tag for the page coming up is this:
“Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites?”
Google are currently showing this:
“Social Media Traffic – Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites?
You check the Google cache for the page here and there is no mention of the extra phrase at the start of the page title tag.
Pretty strange right? My thoughts are, if it gets me a higher CTR then I am all for it.
Posted in Search Engine News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
July 24th, 2009
I have just been looking at what keywords people have been typing in to find this blog and someone searched for:
“digital point forum pr has been reduced”
So I’m guessing this searcher is curious to know why Digital Point Solutions and Digital Point Forums have both had their PageRank scores dramatically reduced:
Here are 3 good reasons why Google might have spanked their PageRank scores.
1. The buying and selling of signature links amongst its users – Buying and selling links that pass PageRank is against the guidelines, this alone could warrant a PR penalty.
2. The link sales forum – Plenty of guideline breaking links get sold in that forum every day, again this could warrant a penalty.
3. DP COOP – The Digital Point Coop link exchange network is still active and spamming Google’s search results to this day.
And that’s just for starters, I’m sure if I looked into it further I could find a few more.
Posted in Search Engine News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
July 20th, 2009
I remember about 3 years ago when you could actually use the allinanchor search command on Google as an SEO tool.
The allinanchor command basically shows you the search results according to links only, so content is not a factor. 3 years ago you could do a regular search and then do an allinanchor and work out things like this website isn’t ranking as high as it should do because it hasn’t got enough anchor text links or it hasn’t got the right keywords in the content.
Unfortunately at sometime around February 2006 the command seemed to stop working. Now I don’t believe Google actually disabled the tool, because if they did I think it just wouldn’t do anything. Allinanchor searches on Google will still bring up results, it is just the vast majority of the time they are no different to the regular results.
I believe the command stopped working because the algorithm changed, on page factors are no where near as important as they used to be and lets face it most of the time when people get a lot of links on something they are optimised on page for it.
So what can you use the allinanchor search command for?
OK so here it is, the allinanchor command is a Google Sandbox detection tool. If you want to get a rough estimate of where a sandboxed site should be ranking according to the links it has then use the allinanchor command.
Here is an example, one of the brand new sites that I am working on KoshCreative.co.uk is currently ranking nowhere in the 1st few hundred results for its main phrase design agency even though it has lots of links with that anchor text. If I do a allinanchor search on Google UK for design agency, I can see the site coming up on page 6 – Link
I believe that the position result is roughly where the site would be ranking according to the links it has if it were not in the sandbox.
With a little testing I think you could make a pretty good Google sandbox detection tool by using this command. If any of you know anyone who could make something like this up for me I might be willing to pay to try it out.
Posted in Search Engine News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
June 19th, 2009
A little while ago I remember Patrick from Blogstorm saying how he thought that one of his pages went supplemental because it was linking to a page on DigitalPoint.com. I figured it was probably just a coincidence – sites like Search Engine Roundtable link to the forums all the time, these sites would not rank at all if this were true.
However some new evidence has just come to the surface which further proves that linking to DigitalPoint.com could indeed be harmful. Now this evidence is not damming and it could easily be a coincidence, but it definitely made me wonder.
Here are the new PR scores for each of the SEO tool reviews on this site:
Can you spot the odd one out? What do you think? Is this just a coincidence? Or has Google well and truly deemed DigitalPoint.com a bad neighborhood that should not be linked to?
Posted in Search Engine News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
August 2nd, 2008
Image credit: google pagerank
Google really got serious about giving out PageRank penalties in October last year. Andy Beard was at the centre of attention and the following post, a long with a couple of others that he did got a lot of traction:
Google PageRank Update October 2007
The 7 in the title of this post is not a fixed number. I want to put together a big list of all of the most important sites/pages on the net that appear to have PageRank penalties.
Normally PR penalties are applied to sites selling text links outside of the Google guidelines, but in some of these cases I couldn’t find any paid links. The sites may have internal linking issues or there might be other reasons. I just have a feeling that all of the following sites should have a higher PageRank score:
Enn.com
Environmental News Network is and environment news site and hub that has been around since before 1997. The website currently has a Google PR of 4/10, I am guessing it should be 8/10.
Possible reason for penalty: Up until very recently this site had spammy text links in its footer. These are gone now so maybe the site is due for an update. Or maybe there is another reason.
Update: I am pleased to report that Enn.com appears to be no longer penalised. The website’ homepage now has a PageRank of 7/10.
Fark.com
Fark is a very popular social news site and forum, which was established in 1999. The Fark.com homepage currently has a Google PageRank of 5/10, it should most probably be 8/10.
Possible reason for penalty: Unknown, anyone who can work out why this website is penalised will be given SEO god status – they nofollow everything. The only thing I can think of is the partner links – someone at Google may have mistaken these for payola.
Independent.ie
The Independent is a very popular Irish newspaper. The website currently has a Google PageRank of 4/10, I guess it should have a Google PageRank of at least 7 out of 10.
Possible reason for penalty: Website has dofollow text links to commercial sites in a drop down menu in the top nav. which says more services.
Update: Someone has just pointed out to me that the sites that are linked to via the drop down menu are owned by the Independent, so it is possibly a mistake on Google’s part if those are indeed the cause. Even if they explain on a reinstatement that they own those sites, Google may still keep them penalised – purely because of their anchor text choices and the fact that they are linking from a trusted news source to highly commercial properties.
Online.WSJ.com
The Wall Street Journal is beyond important. The homepage of this site currently has a Google PageRank of 5/10. I am guessing that the site should have a PR of 8/10.
Possible reason for penalty: Unknown
STPT.com
According to Wikipedia in 1997 Starting Point was the 7th most trafficked site on the net. Sometime during the 1st few months of 2008 the sites PageRank dropped from 7 or 8 out of 10 to 5/10. At the April 2008 PageRank update the sites PageRank again fell, this time to 4/10.
Possible reason for penalty: It looks like the website may have been penalised because of the directory of websites it has. Website owners can pay $99 per anum to have their website reviewed for a listing. IMO the directory is well maintained, but they need to make an effort to add more BOTW sites themselves.
TimesOnline.co.uk
The Times of London is one of the oldest and most well read and respected newspapers in the world. Website currently has a Google PageRank of 5/10 on its homepage, I am guessing it should be an 8/10.
Possible reason for penalty: Unknown, but there maybe some text links on the site somewhere that are leaking PageRank. I would say that if there is that it is probably just a mistake and not intentional.
Update: I am pleased to report that The Times is no longer penalised and back to a PageRank of 8/10.
W3Schools.com
Far more geeky then the rest of the sites, but equally important. The internet has been built on information provided by websites like this. Website homepage has a PR 5/10, I am guessing it should be an 8 or a 9/10.
Possible reason for penalty: It looks like the website may be selling text links..
If you know a really important site that has had its PageRank reduced just leave the URL, why you think it is important, your name and your website. If it is a good one it will be added to the list.
Update: Drew Broomhall from The Times has been in touch with me. Some unintended paid text links were the cause of the penalty. These links were nofollowed a long time a go, but the penalty remains.
I told Drew what he needed to do to get it back, but he did not seem overly concerned. He knows that PageRank penalties do not effect rankings or traffic. I have a feeling that now it has been talked about, it will get fixed.
Random thought: I have been trying to think of some reasons why a PageRank penalty could be bad for a website. Obviously for people in the SEM industry it is quite important. If you have a poor PageRank score, people might think that you are not very good at what you do. But what about other industries?
I have studied the effect of links from PageRank and -40 hit penalised sites and one thing that I am sure about is this: if the visible PageRank is not there then it cannot be passed. I am not suggesting that links from penalised sites do not work, because in some instances they definitely do. I believe that links from PageRank penalised sites do not pass as much trust and authority to the sites they link to.
So here is the only potential drawback for the publisher that I can think of: If you own other websites that you link to, then those sites will not be getting the credit they deserve in the search engines.
Posted in Search Engine News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
June 26th, 2008
