BrysonMeunier
from BrysonMeunier 522 Days ago#
Only 4 people have voted this up? The rest of you think SEO is a fad then?
from BrysonMeunier 655 Days ago#
Thanks, all, for the Sphinn.
To Barry's point, I actually submitted another article to SEL with this one called "When It Comes To Mobile Users, Don't Just Redirect Content-- Optimize It" in which I present 16 reasons for optimizing a mobile site rather than just redirecting content. I suppose Barry and a few of you can read it in the queue if you're interested. Not sure when it will be published.
At some point in the future I want to address the idea of separate mobile URLs vs transcoding or reformatting desktop content. I addressed it a year ago here, but I think there's more to consider, and hope to do a more comprehensive post in the coming months.
To all of you, what mobile SEO issues do you want to see addressed in a future post? This mobile search problem is a brave new world for SEOs, but I think if we all tackle it together we'll have a better chance of solving it than if we tackle it alone.
from BrysonMeunier 964 Days ago#
Thanks, Jordan! Appreciate the sphinn.
Story: Mobile SEO Myths Exposed
from BrysonMeunier 1019 Days ago#
I thought this article was misguided actually, but I’m voting for it because it had some valid points, and I agree that mobile SEO is becoming more important than ever. I also disagree with the two desphinns, as mobile SEO is not just traditional SEO applied to the mobile space. See my search engine land article about it for details: http://sphinn.com/story/102699
from BrysonMeunier 1080 Days ago#
@ddalasta, I mentioned a few on the post I referenced, and Danny Sullivan mentioned a few in his initial summary. Together I think that’s about as many as Aaron Wall mentioned in his original observation. I think the burden of proof is on the theorist, and to me he didn’t prove his theory even in the examples he mentioned. For example, as I mentioned on the blog post, ehealthinsurance.com is still beating Aetna in the search results for "health insurance", even though Aetna is a much bigger brand. But I think all of this is really beside the point. The point I was trying to make is that Google changes the algorithm all the time, and that these changes that we’re seeing are probably also a result of big brands optimizing their sites, and not a large-scale update. Long-term white hat SEO pays off for brands big and small, and that’s what we’re seeing on our end. Not favoritism to big brands or small. I know this is an unpopular statement, but that doesn’t make it wrong. To me, Mr. Wall failed to make a compelling argument that this is happening across the board, and he didn’t recognize that optimization by large brands is clearly a factor in more brands ranking in the SERPs. I’m just amazed that so many people are committing the logical fallacy of argument from authority and accepting his argument because of who he is, and not what he says. I don’t subscribe to his blog and I’ve never read his book, but I understand his position in the industry and respect what he’s done. I just don’t think he’s made a compelling argument and I wanted to stand up and say it since no one else was. If you believe that Google is playing favorites in spite of the outliers that exist, you’re allowed to take that position. But I’m surprised that so many in the industry are following suit, since to my mind there’s really not a lot of evidence to support it.
from BrysonMeunier 1081 Days ago#
@Skitzzo, yes I did. Did you? Because you missed this part: "but this was just one of the hundreds of changes that we make each year, so I certainly wouldn’t call it an update."
from BrysonMeunier 1081 Days ago#
1) I commend you for starting an interesting discussion, Mr. Wall, not for having your facts straight.<div>2) In that case it could be a result of a change in the industry. Big brands have been doing SEO for a while, and smaller changes happen all the time. What you’re witnessing is more likely a result of increasing big brand involvement in natural search.</div><div>3) You showed seven SERPs. I can show you hundreds more that don’t fit your argument. And I’m not arguing that there wasn’t an algorithm change. As Matt Cutts said, there was. But it wasn’t large scale.<div>4) You showed seven graphs, some of which had conflicting infomation. No, I don’t see a trend because you haven’t made a compelling case. And ad hominem charges don’t make a false argument true. They just make the person making the charges look small.</div><div>That being said, I don’t need your aging reputation to justify myself as a professional SEO. I simply need to outrank you, which according to you, I am. Thanks for the publicity. Go update your book.</div></div>
from BrysonMeunier 1081 Days ago#
I don’t agree with Aaron’s post at all, but I commend him for starting an interesting discussion. I don’t think there’s a big brand shift in the sense that Google did something overnight to help brands rank. I think that logic might have worked when SEO book was first "published", but we all know what Matt Cutts, Vanessa Fox and others have said, that algorithm changes happen all the time.To me he hasn’t proven that this shift has actually happened on a large scale, as there are many queries that show otherwise. And even if it has happened I see it less as an algorithm change and more of a change in the SEO industry. If something is happening, I think we need to look less at the engines and more at the SEOs. I am not surprised at all that big brands are starting to rank on competitive terms because big brands have SEOs who are good at what they do. As a result, it’s not as easy for the little guy to rank as it was back when all they had to do was buy an SEO book to get to the top of the listings. Because people are looking at the engines for an explanation, they’re missing what could be legitimate causes. For instance, I haven’t seen anyone mention rel=canonical as a possible catalyst for this change. Big brands in my experience are notorious for having legacy content management systems that fragment their substantial link popularity, and zero IT bandwidth to implement redirects to fix it. Two weeks and a day ago at SMX West, Matt Cutts introduced the rel=canonical tag as a solution to this primarily big brand problem. And two weeks later we’re talking about a rankings shift that favors big brands. To me, Aaron Wall is looking too much at the Eric Schmidt brand statement as a way to connect the dots, and not enough at coincidences like this one. This, of course, assumes that there was a large scale shift toward brands, which I don’t think is supported by the evidence. If anyone’s interested in more, I’ve detailed the argument here.
from BrysonMeunier 1306 Days ago#
Congrats, Jordan! That’s a good compromise. Wish we would have thought of it.
from BrysonMeunier 1468 Days ago#
Jeff, thanks for the Sphinn! We’re glad you found it interesting.
from BrysonMeunier 1475 Days ago#
Jeff, glad you liked the post. Thanks for the Sphinn!
from BrysonMeunier 1535 Days ago#
Thanks for the add!
from BrysonMeunier 1559 Days ago#
I think we should look at this in context in order to better understand the issue. 1. Google built into their free Analytics software a feature that allows marketers to better understand who they’re trying to market to by letting them see internal search queries as well as pages visited and products bought after performing the query. This data is valuable to natural search and paid search marketers because it can help us find keywords that we might not be in the first 30 listings for in any of the major search engines, but that users of our site are interested in. This can be used for buzz analysis or keyword targeting to generate more profit for our sites. 2. MM noticed this announcement and said nothing about the value to marketers, but instead called it an advertisement for Google’s Custom Search Engine. He then said that he likes the Google CSE but had confused site search with the "site:" search operator and was disappointed. He then added hyperbole to his disappointment, saying "the fact that Google won’t properly index and rank Supplemental Results Pages makes the whole process a waste of time." 3. Dave noticed the absurdity of this statement and someone sphunn it. 4. A few people commented, also confusing the "site:" search operator with internal search engines on web sites in the term "site search" or making an argument from authority. 5. I stood up for other thinking people, washed my hands of this and got back to work. Thank you, Dave, for your insight. Why you still subscribe to SEO Theory I’ll never know.
Story: SEO Is Here To Stay, It Will Never Die