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JeremyLuebke
Good deal. I have actually been pricing out having a very similar tool built for Drupal. I need a little more control over variations though. I want to randomize the usage of the links and it's variations so as not to over do internel linking.
Hmmm, it's a grey PR bar: http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0
I'd like to take a quick pole. When you see the grey bar in cases like this does it make you think it's a manual or an algorithmic penalty? I am leaning towards automated because most hand penalties I have seen just go away with no evidence like a grey PR bar.
Does the ruling define what a meta tag is? meta description and meta keywords would be obvious. What avoyt the title tag? Are they defining the title tag as a meta tag? If not, HAH
Have you tried using a system like salesforce to manage your contacts? When dealing with multiple industries at the same time it can be useful. My spreadsheets begine to look cluttered after awhile.
Story: Matt Inman - an Evil Genius
@NickWilsdon I know the cash advance site took a ranking nose dive well before this article. So did a number of other thin affiliate sites JustSayHi widgets were promoting.
More important to Matt I'm sure is that JustSayHi.com took a penalty due to this article. That's REALLY got to hurt them.
Story: Matt Inman - an Evil Genius
@shoe I don't know about a long time ago. Back in January they at least ranked for thier own name. Maybe it happened after you touched on the tactics.
As far as whichhunt, I don't see that. I see this as an important issue that needs to be discussed. Not Matt, but the use of linkbait in this manner and what is acceptable to the big G and what isn't. And yes I agree that everyone has done some grayhat stuff. You can't find the line until you (or someone you know) has crossed it.
@jane The problem is not with the links existing in badges. The problem is the links not pointing towards the site that you can find the content that the badge promotes, and even worse, the links pointing to spammy cash advance thin affiliate sites.
@jane The guardian article has a quote from Google stating badges / widget linking back to originating sites is fine, but this example they considered a violation of the TOS.
I agree about the 180. I was VERY suprised to see them make the statement. They usually only say what the bad is. Never what the good is because they want to reserve the right to change thier minds if it suits them.
As far as why they banned ALL his sites, you have more inside info than me. the only thing I know about is JustSayHi.com (the propegator of the spam) and the cash advance site (which was hit way before this story broke).
I can just say Google doesn't like being embaressed. If you get them media attention for allowing anything resembling spam, expect a nuclear bomb. I can't say I blame them, perception is reality.
Come on people. Anytime a person at the Googleplex farts these days, SEOs go running to the hills talking of the stench of a penalty. Sometimes people just have gas....
3...2...1... And so begins the mass creation of Delicious accounts meant to spam.
1 part automatic account creation
1 parts proxy
2 parts 100's of random sites (non competing) automatically added to dummy accounts
3 parts target site being promoted
@SlightlyShadySEO You are right, but there are always ways around those spem traps. Thank god for Amazon Turk and bulk upload of bookmarks for new accounts ;)
Story: Get A Free Link From Wired
Is this what it has come to? Hunting down and exposing every DoFollow link on the web? How about we stop talking about it so they continue to work ;)
Here is the full text from Google cache from yesterday.
----------------
informational:
Our primary strategy to combat rating spam is to sandbox offending accounts in a manner that both (a) prevents the spammed ratings from influencing the stumble button of other users and (b) prevents the spammer from realizing that their strategy is ineffective. Then, occasionally, we purge batches of these spammer accounts and their attendant reviews and tags. Another strategy that we've used on occasion is to allow the spammer to spend months futilely attempting to promote a garbage website before eventually banning that website. This tends to generate helpful word-of-mouth in spammer forums. Unfortunately, because most of the various sandboxed states aren't visible to the general public, this leads to the incorrect impression that spamming is tolerated.
The best ways via which a concerned citizen can inform the sandboxing process are:
1. Rate garbage content thumb-down.
2. Mark spam reviews as unhelpful (Helpful->No).
3. Report spam messages that arrive in your inbox.
4. Flag suspected spammer accounts via the 'Flag as Spammer' feature.
As you probably expect, we have a general policy not to discuss algorithmic details of our rating and anti-spam technologies in the forums. On the other hand, we are interested if you believe that you've discovered a spammer who has not been sandboxed. The best route via which you can present evidence of spamming activity is the feedback page [1].
Regarding the paypal.com reviews.... Many spammers believe that rating, reviewing and/or tagging several legit pages will make an account seem more real. Apparently, this spammer has a relatively unsophisticated partially automated solution that targets a fixed list of pages. We like when that happens. ;-)
We have a nascent proposal to introduce a class of trusted user who could see the sandboxed state of accounts. But because our sandboxing code has grown organically, this would require a lot of refactoring. I make no promises.
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Story: 20 Hard Core SEO Tips
Good list except for #1, 4, & 5
#1 - Are you kidding me? You hate your regular users that much? That is taking 5 steps back (in usability) to take only 1 step forward. Give people consistancy and they will reward you. You can audit and tweak a site without redesigning it.
#4 & #5 - So basically you are saying since you have Jedi powers you do not need a light saber. Sorry but even Yoda carries a weapon. Why would you not use EVERY method to your advantage. Not to mention, if a page is about "blue widgets" it only makes sense to have that phrase in both the title and url for attracting the user searching for blue widgets.
Robots.txt'ed out files can accure PR. I guess usings Robots.txt is now out for LinkJuice molding. Good to know.
While all of you have been debating this topic I have been busy passing you up in the SERPS ;)
j/k
But seriously, maybe if Google did start penalizing link sellers accross the board, we could get site owners to integrate incontent links easier instead of all these side bar links. Just thinking out loud.
Not so much a feature as an opinion. I'd like to see a change in how ads are used in the design. That's a whole lot of ads to see every single page for a social site. I'd personally like to see ads integrated in a more user friendly way. Rands example here with Techmeme is golden: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-advertising-on-the-internet-should-work
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Story: New SEO Plugin for Wordpress: Internal Link Building