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33
Sphinn It!

Went Hot: Nov 12, 2007 - 02:05 pm
Posted By: rmccarley 821 Days ago
Source: http://sacramento.14thc.com
Category: SEM

Some of the techniques Sacramento-area SEOs offer are out of date, including meta tag optimization, keyword density and mass submissions. These are the techniques I stumbled across while doing research for a different project.

10 Comments

Comments

from Halfdeck 821 Days ago #

Votes: 2

Cliff notes:Beware of SEOs that offer services related to:- META keywords- keyword density- submissions to search engines- submissions to thousands of directories- guaranteed #1 placement on Google/Yahoo/Live

from g1smd 820 Days ago #

Votes: 0

*** Meta Tag Optimization - Meta tags don’t influence rank in the search engines. They were too easy to manipulate so the search engines developed more complex methods of determining relevancy. ***The meta description is a vital part of the mix. Do not ignore that one! Every page must have a different one otherwise you fall foul of Google’s custering function that then hides the "similar results" from view.

from Jill 820 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Good post! I noticed the same thing when doing searches for various local New England design companies who also offer some level of "SEO services." (I was seeking them out to see if they might be interested in our local search marketing organization.) It was amazing to see all the crap still spouted about SEO at the local level, and all the spam used on their own sites!

from rmccarley 820 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@g1smd - But it doesn’t influence rank, just click-throughs once you do rank. I considered putting that in but decided it would confuse the issue. The market for this site is people interested in purchasing SEO, not people that understand it.@Jill - Thanks!

from Woz 819 Days ago #

Votes: 0

>But it doesn’t influence rankWell, if a bad description tag triggers that page being not included in the SERP due to factors such as duplication issues, I would call that quite a marked influence on rank.The description is still an important tag and needs an all-or-nothing approach, ie., either a well crafted one, or none at all.

from ColinCochrane 819 Days ago #

Votes: 0

Keywords meta tag is a service that is generally offered as part of an entire package, because it is trival to implement, and there is no reason not to, necessarily. If it helps in certain engines, great, if not, it’s 5 seconds out of your day.As for keyword density, if an SEO firm is actually telling clients that keyword density is a direct factor in ranking, then they are obviously spouting nonsense. Keyword density is a useful stat to monitor to make sure that a page isn’t spamming any particular word to a ridiculous degree, or on the flip side, making sure that the phrases you are optimizing for are actually visible to any meaningful degree.

from g1smd 819 Days ago #

Votes: 0

The meta description text DOES affect rank.Pages with the same meta description are clustered together and the duplicates are filtered out of the SERP. They are hidden behind the "click to see omitted results" link on the last page of the results.With a different meta description that other page could have ranked highly for some other related keyword or phrase, instead of being hidden away for this one.See also: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/8222#comment-43372

from leadegroot 819 Days ago #

Votes: 0

"Guaranteed Placement" Yes, but watch out for the customer who has actually read Google’s guidelines and thinks SEOs are *supposed* to offer a guarantee - and wouldn’t guaranteed placement be the best guarantee? :(

from JamesOmdahl 818 Days ago #

Votes: 1

Man, these designers must be getting their optimization service list off a template somewhere...I see the exact same thing all over the Denver area. The one that gets me the most fired up is the "search engine submission" service...what a scam. And we wonder why everyone is so wary of SEOs...

from rmccarley 818 Days ago #

Votes: 0

@JamesOmdahl - I was thinking the same thing about the template. They all say the same thing. I know a few of the Sacramento companies outsource their SEO to a local firm (that doesn’t show up in the SERPs) and that explains some of the duplication but not all.