The SEO News Blog from Pat Marcello

I was over at SEO Book, reading Aaron Wall’s post from June 16, entitled “Expert SEO Testing: Usually Worthless,” and was surprised to learn that rel=”nofollow” no longer works. Matt Cutts, Google’s spokesperson, admitted that was true at the recent SMX Conference.

So, Wall linked to Danny Sullivan’s post “Google Loses “Backwards Compatibility” On Paid Link Blocking & PageRank Sculpting,” which made me curious. So I went over to Danny’s blog, which explains the situation in much clearer detail.

Page rank sculpting is the practice of adding “no follow” to links going to your overhead pages, like your privacy page, your terms of service, or other pages that you don’t want ranked in the search results. It used to be that if you had 10 units of page rank and each link on your page was worth 1, when you added “no follow” to 5 of those links, they would transfer their page rank to the remaining links, right? So, then, each of the bare links would be worth 2.

What Matt Cutts is telling everyone now is that “no follow” no longer transfers page rank to the bare links. So, basically, by using no follow, you’re merely wasting PR. The “no follow” links will be worth zero, but the bare links will still only be worth 1.

I should say, “Is,” because apparently, this has been true for about a year and nobody noticed.

Great.

If you’re using “no follow,” don’t run around trying to change the links back to bare links. It’s not worth the time and effort. Just understand that you don’t need to do that anymore. It’s a waste of time.

Why did Google decide to institute the practice in the first place? Basically, to stop blog comment spamming, and yet, it didn’t really stop anything, so it “no follow” means “bupkiss.” It’s like the keywords META tag. Another useless convention.

Put your time into more important things like developing good, unique content and solid keyword research. Those should always pay off. I say, “should,” because there’s just no accounting for the whim of the Google ghods.

Keep your eyes and ears open to what’s happening, and try not to get caught up in the fads or fancies. Nobody truly knows the algorithm but Google, and they’re changing it all the time. Even the few people who claim to know it probably have no 100% clear idea.

The other day, I was over at SmartPageRank.com checking on this blog because I heard that Google had updated PR rankings again, and was curious. I had recovered from the paid links drop to PR0 back up to PR3 again, and was hoping maybe I could see a PR4 (where the blog was before the nasty debacle). I really shouldn’t care, and I’ll tell you why in a minute. But… I was totally surprised when…

I saw a PR0 again! Wow! That really pissed me off. And sure enough… days later, the PR0 appeared in my Search Status (see yesterday’s post) toolbar again.

I’m sorry but I won’t stop selling links. So, there, Google! My links have been there a long time, and so, people are obviously finding value in having them there. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to take that away from them. They were loyal to me before Google decided to penalize people for having paid links, and I seriously doubt that those links continue because the folks who are buying them wants to get some link juice. They didn’t leave me when I was a PR0. They just get clicks on the links or they wouldn’t keep paying for them, right? I mean, if Google took my PR away before…

I’m guessing that’s why they did it again.

So be it.

Does it hurt me? Well, if I was trying for some reciprocal linking, I’d say yes. But I’m still ranking #2, right under Matt Cutts (the Google spokesperson), for “seo canonical” for my post on canonical linking. And I’m ranking #3 for “WordPress marketing,” and #5 for “twitter nofollow,” and various other terms on page 1 that are pretty competitive. My page rank, though now bupkiss, hasn’t hurt me at all.

I was on the phone with Brad Fallon one time, when Tellman wanted me to find out why a site I’d been working on for a few months still had no page rank, and he told me that page rank means nothing. We all still worry over it and think about it, but the proof is in the pudding, people! PR means zip, zilch, zero.

What matters is where you land in the results.

So, I’ll keep selling links. It’s a matter of principle.

I have a few cool plugins for Firefox, but one of my favorites is “Search Status.” Here are some things it does:

• It provides not just Google Page Rank, like the Google Toolbar does, but Alexa ranking of any page you land on as well. And these ranks sit in your lower toolbar and you can see it automatically. You can also see a compete rank and an mozRank, which measures the link juice coming into that site, as well.

When you right click on the Search Status symbol (an @, but with a q in the middle), it will show you the following about any site you visit:

• Highlights “no follow” links. Want to see if a blog is allowing spiders to follow links? Turn this option on and all “no follow” links appear in little pink boxes. You may want to use this when considering the site’s link potential.

• Gives you a link report on. How many are coming in/going out? How many of them are follow links?

• Shows the META tags and description

• Shows what the site looked like historically.

• Gives you robots.txt, whois, and sitemap

• Provides the keyword density and highlights any keyword you choose

• Shows all pages indexed in Google, Yahoo, and MSN (now bing.com)

• Shows the sites linking back in Google, Yahoo, and MSN

So, you can learn much of the SEO data just from this little plugin. Of course, some of it overlaps with the data you get from SEO Quake, but I think you really need both plugins to have a fully functional SEO browser. I mean, there are other SEO add-ons for Firefox, but these are 2 I couldn’t do without.

And if you want a firm foundation in SEO, visit http://SpiderLanguage.com

Have you ever sat back and wondered how your site was faring in several of the Google Data Centers? Or what about how many links you have coming back to your site from outside? What about mod rewrites… any good at creating those? META tags?

And on and on…

There are metrics that we all like to check out occasionally when it comes to our site. Where do we rank? How do we stack up to the competition?

Of course, if you’re ranking #1 for several keyword phrases at Google, it’s not such a big deal, right? Your SEO plan is working.

But what if you’re not ranking that high or ranking at all? What if your site’s been up a while, but you’re still not seeing your site in the SERPs (search engine results pages)? Where do you need to tweak things to make a difference?

I have a great SEO tools site for you that I just stumbled upon! It’s called “Link Vendor,” and you can visit at: http://linkvendor.com

The Searchmetrics Report there is fascinating. You plug in your URL and it tells you how you’re doing in terms of simple SEO, META data, technoology, social bookmarking, and more. Very cool.

Anyway, if you’re a stats loving strange person like me, this site will totally turn you on. Check it out!

When you ask a group what a landing page is, you might come back with many different ideas. Some will say it’s a squeeze page. Some, a sales letter, while others have no freakin’ clue whatsoever and are still scratching their heads.

It’s simple…

A landing page is where you LAND after clicking on a link. It can be any of the above, or it can be totally unrelated to commercial enterprise. It’s just where you end up, no matter what the link says or what the page includes.

You can make mistakes when setting up a landing page, though, so you should keep some things in mind:

• The anchor text in your link must match the page. If you hyperlink the phrase “dog training,” then the page that people land on when they click that link best be about training your dog.

• The keywords on your page must  match your link.  When you’re link says, “used golf balls,” your page should have words like “used golf balls,” “used bridgestone golf balls,” or “cheap used golf balls.” The page should be not just about “golf,” but indeed, “used golf balls.”

• If you have an online store, and you’re selling video cameras, when your anchor text says, “Mino Flip video Camera,” then that specific product had better appear on the page after a person clicks on that link. It’s best when it’s the only thing on the page, but worst when it’s not on the page at all.

There are a couple of reasons that you want to be heed these warnings.

First, especially if you’re using pay-per-click to advertise your link, you’ll have a huge tiff with the Google ghods. Your page quality will be “poor” unless your link actually matches what’s on your page.

Secondly, have you ever gone shopping online and clicked a link and didn’t find what you thought you would when you got to the landing page? Did it tick you off? How likely are you to go back to that page or even that company again?

Remember that anchor text delivers page reputation.  Don’t advertise what you don’t intend to deliver.

It’s like a chihuahua growling at a pit bull. Could mean trouble.

I hope everyone is in the midst of a wonderful holiday week. Though today was “back to work” for me, I was actually anxious to get back to it. I can’t take more than 5 days away from the action!

So, what did I do? I spent the entire day after Christmas listening to SEO stuff. Exciting for me, boring for some, but I really enjoy learning and knowing more about search every day.

One thing that I realized is that I’ve never written about in this blog is proper linking. Oh, we talk about the incoming links or backlinks plenty, but did you ever consider the links pointing out to other places on your page and what about the pages you choose to link to? Are they worth bothering with or just a waste of your time?

One big no-no is to have unrelated links on your website. So, if you’re in the golfing niche, your links should be all about golf, and you shouldn’t include a link about knitting for a friend. It’s bad Internet business.

And did you also know that you’re passing some page rank to all of those pages? Let’s say you have 5 links on your page, each of them gets 1/5 the page rank link juice that your page has. So, the more links on a page, the less likely it should be for you to want to link there.

Think about it: If a page has 200 links, and you’re one of them, 1/200th is a lot smaller than 1/5, not to mention that the page is a probable link farm, which Google disallows. This could put you into a “bad” neighborhood, and will not help your page rank or your reputation with the grand Pooh-Bah search giant.

So, be careful when choosing links, and when choosing pages to link to. It’s just good SEO and good business.

No, it’s not in my mind. Really. I have happy places all over cyberspace.

So, OK, you already know that I’m into the SEO, blogging, and IM thing, but did you know that I’m a total cat person? Yep. If I could have a kitty ranch and be a kitty wrangler for the rest of my life, it would make me very happy.

One big problem… I’m allergic to cats. Sigh. So, I have two now (had three once, and that was the most ever), and love them to pieces, but I can never have more than that. I shouldn’t even have one.

Anyway, our first cat, a big orange tabby, was a replacement kitty for one that was lengendary for his exploits and died of old age. I still miss Draco and that was 10 years ago that he left us.

But the replacement kitty is every bit as precious to me, and we call him “Rain Kitty,” though his real name is Fitz. He had a stroke when he was about three years old and it addled his brain. We think he was poisoned, which caused the problem, but he’s uber-cautious and doesn’t cotton to other cats because he can’t see out of one eye or hear on that side, either. So, he’s defensive.

The other cat is a foundling. He was in the bushes in our complex, and though we took him in to find his owners, that never happened. His name is Blue and he’s bad to the bone! He goes into other people’s houses and begs whatever they’ll be willing to give him. But people just love it! He’s like the mayor of our condo complex and everyone knows the blue cat. People say to me, “I don’t like cats, but I like Blue.” He’s a trip.

Yet, he and Fitz don’t get along at all, so all day, we spend letting one cat in one door and the other cat out the other door. It’s been 2 years!

So, if this is an Internet marketing blog, why am I telling you this?

Because you can have any niche you want to have and still make money. You can be in the cat niche, too. Or, you can be in the dog niche, the golf niche, the sailing niche, the cell phone niche, or any other niche where you’re totally interested in the topic.

And when you are, you can build sites in what I call my “fun” places.

I’ve written about HubPages.com before, and I have a site there for my cat interests called “Captivating Cat Breeds.” I also have a wiki about cats at PBWiki. And, I have a Ning site about cats, too. These are all fun for me because I can add articles, videos, polls — whatever. I want to create a fun place to be.

And where do I send people? To my cat store, of course. That’s where I make money from the cat sites. But I could just as easily be selling ebooks, movies, or anything else in regard to cats (and I will be in the future). It’s my fun side.

Just don’t make the mistake of linking your store or the site where you make money to any of your Tumblr blogs because that will get you booted. They don’t like affiliate marketing. So, no problem. Link it to a Squidoo lens and use that to send people to places where they can purchase your wares.

Getting as much content into Web 2.0 can be as powerful as anything else you do online. Just be sure to do some diligent keyword research and to use those keywords in everything you do. Hook one to the other (in a Round Robin, like, not each to each other and back again), and you’ll do well in the search engines, too.

Just decide what makes you happy. If you’re in a niche right now that’s making you money, that doesn’t mean you can’t have another, too. I mean, come on… what’s more fun than that?