I didn’t even think about testing this until I sat next to a couple of guys that worked for Google’s indexing team at the black-jack table. (I just happened to be staying at the same hotel in Lake Tahoe that hosted their off site)

So in-between the Google engineer-brainiacs teaching me how to play black jack (and I won over $500 that night!) l squeezed them on indexing techniques.

He said, “no need to do anything, we do it automatically for .com and some other extensions!” I said, “what are you talking about, how do you know where a site exists without a link?”

And as he look at me like duh and said, “we track .com and some other extensions registration, so once they are registered, we know it.”

Well my jaw hit the floor while I double down on a pair of Aces and thought, ok, I will just have to test that when i get home, (as I never trust what Google or Google people say! lol)

So, I tested it and yep, sure as sh*t it’s true.

Within 3 days of a .com or .org being registered (and a WP blog put on it) they are indexed! No other action needed!!

So, forget about all those other fancy ways or services to get your site in the index! That is soooo 2011!

cheers,
Dori

So, what happened?

On about Feb 7th rankings starting to rumble and it has sent SEO professionals (including me) into a frenzy trying to figure out what the heck was causing the decrease in rankings of seo’ed sites.  (And, we still don’t know for sure were the devalue is, but most will agree, there is a devaluing happening somewhere.)

So let’s start late last year…

Last November, there are numerous reports from bloggers letting us know that they heard Matt Cutts speak and Pubcon and he said that “some of the webspam engineers had been loaned out on other projects but since the completion of most, he is getting them back and there were two big projects they were working on.”

He was also reported to say that they will be taking a look at “Exact Match Domain” names and that he thinks right now having an exact match domain is giving a site too much power in the ranks and that this will be revealed in the coming months.
(citation: http://backlinksforum.com/main-backlinks-linkbuilding-discussion/3137-pubcon-matt-cutts.html)

So it should be no surprise that…

On January 21st Google released a “State of Search” type of blog post that dove into webspam. In short, they said even though they have already made great progress, they “have new efforts underway to continue to improve our search quality.” And.. “we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”
(citation: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html)

And then on January 28 Matt Cutt’s further told us on his blog in reference to the above quote, “That change was approved at our weekly quality launch meeting last Thursday and launched earlier this week.” And he went on to say… “The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original site’s content.”
(citation: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/)

Well, I thought, that is great news!

Nobody likes the webspam sites anyway (Google defines webspam as junk you see in search results)

And, most of us who are doing any type of linking don’t want the site we are linking “from” showing up in the rankings and heaven forbid they land on top of the site we are linking “too.” (which sometimes happens if you are linking from an nice authority sites to a long tail keyword) I mean, we are NOT trying to rank THOSE sites so.. check, we’re good!

So then on Feb 7th, the shake down became obvious that it may not just be sites with low quality content being targeted, it may also be low quality linking was next on the list.

Back in the original January 21 Google blog posts said, “The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments.” (see original site citation above)

Ok, check on that one too as I was glad I didn’t do any of THAT! lol

But Backlinksforum.com was buzzing with so much conflicting evidence that a direct pin point on exactly is causing a link devaluation is unclear at best. I just know none of my moneys sites that have been linked to exclusively from my private blog networks were NOT affected, AND, what surprised me most is that I had one of my assistants doing some testing with profile links and xrumer and THOSE money sites were not affected either as they all held their rankings. Hmmm.

One of my sites did however drop from  #4 to #17 on a major keyword, but I had also used someone else’s link network on it AND the links were not contextual) Hmm.

Then on Feb 12, the  JC Penny debacle was released to the world in the New York Times.  WOW!
(citation: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=jc+penny&st=cse)

Bottom lining it, JC Penny was in so many #1 spots that it drew attention to the New York Times and as they investigated their story, it drew the Google’s attention! Weather or not Google did a manual review and de-indexed sites that were contributing to the inflation of their rankings we won’t know for sure, but JC Penny’s rankings have suffered the same sort of ranking drops as many other seo’d sites. Not to the woodshed, but just a couple of spots or more.

And, since it has affected the entire SEO community, my bet is on the algorithm change that lowered JC Penny’s rankings not a manual review. Or maybe both, but one thing is for sure, the rest of us got caught in the back wash. lol

Oh and for the most part “Exact Match Domains” are history. There are some exceptions of course, but unless they are a .com and have age and size, they have been pushed back into the nowheresville just for being an EMD.

So, the take away is?

Google’s WebSpam engineers are baaaaaaack… making our lives interesting again!

A PAGE RANK UPDATE!! =:0

Only took, what, 9 months since the last April 2nd Update? I really was beginning to believe we had seen the last of PR, but even though Google tells us not to pay attention to it, they give us another bone.

Not confirmed yet however. http://googlepagerankupdate.com/

And like the guys over at Search Engine Round Table asked… did it make you happy, sad, excited, bewildered, ready to throw the computer out the window?

Well, I will say that I am in the bewildered zone. I mean, I have SO much PR pointing at this domain that it should of been no less then a PR5!! But know, it went from a PR2 to a stinken PR3!?! WHAT THE?

And in all other cases most of my either stayed the same or lost PR, but that was expected as links shift around and I this is the only site I purposely did some PR sculpting.

How did it effect you?

Do you think PR is calculated the same?

Or any insights at all?

So what does this mean? And, have YOU seen any PageRank changes lately?

I know I have have PR5s, 6s and 7s pointing to this site and it hasn’t budged in PageRank! It continues to lament at a boring PR2.  lol I know that I don’t do much linking to SeoNitro.com and it has gone from a PR1 to PR0 in the last 30 days. And, I know the only other reports coming into me have been about PR decreases.

So.. does this mean since there has been no major PageRank update, all my heavy PageRank sites linking to this site or other sites in question have no PageRank at all (or little)? Maybe, but we don’t know it because it hasn’t been updated. =:0

(and yes, I know the tool bar is incredibly out of date and inaccurate so you don’t have to tell me. lol, And, if you know of a reliable source of PageRank data, I would love to know it!

Or does it mean that Google is slowly dismantling PageRank?

I know I still keep on buying sites at auction that have PageRank because it is PageRank my customers like to see as it still retains that “perceived value.”

But really, what is the value of these sites today since the PageRank was assigned almost 8 months ago?

I don’t have the answer but am thinking unless Google gives us a bone, our industry must turn to other measuring sources.

What do you think?

CRAZY!!

But more important..

Godaddy just make another change to the pricing structure in the Firesale bin.

It use to be that all of those domains could be bought up for $5 each. (on top of registration fee)

Then about six months ago, someone over at Godaddy got smart and they introduced a pricing schedule that started at $9 and dropped one dollar each day until on the last day, you can purchase at the original $5.

Well, a week ago, they changed it again. It now starts at $11 and goes to $10, $9 and $8. Then the last day it drops to $5.

I don’t know what happened to $7 and $6 lol, I can only guess they are still sticking to the 5 day auction so they just bumped up the first three days.

In any case. Like everything else, prices for expired domains are going up, up, UP!

Comments?

What are you noticing out there?

So, that is where you come in.

If you could customize a tool bar for SEO, what kind of things would you want on it?

Even if it is crazy, tell me below!

After you watch the video and read the sales letter, let me know if you have any questions. I will answer them here.

Also, get in on the other discussions.
http://www.dorifriend.com/is-activity-for-real/
http://www.dorifriend.com/the-truth-about-page-rank-2/

— time out—
(My original post was on another report on The truth about Page Rank and you can go see comments and report here: http://www.dorifriend.com/the-truth-about-page-rank-2/ )
—

As I agree with Ryan on almost everything he said, especially about the fact that we give Google TOO MUCH CREDIT and that SEO is actually very simple and more cost effective then a PPC campaign. (I even did a short video report on THAT over two years ago called SEO vs. PPC! that looks a bit like his recent research lol   )

But, I am on pause over this “Activity” thing.

I do agree that it would be an ideal trigger for Google to account for. BUT, unless a site is on page 1 of a major search engine or is getting “direct” traffic from members or others who know to type in the URL, or ah hem, clicking on a LINK somewhere lol, then activity may be hard to measure and achieve for a very well written piece of informative content that users may just LOVE if they new about it. And that is why I think Google has to CONTINUE to place more emphasis on the link vote!

But still, I think this idea of the “Caffeine” update has merit, but I for one, mostly change my seo methods from the results of my “experience” or regarded “test” results, not what Google tell’s me they are doing or how it is going to work. I would be chasing my tail if I did THAT!! lol =:0

What do you think of the report, the “Caffeine” update and this “Activity” thing?

Oh, and what do you suppose Ryan is going to sell us at the end of it?

No hype, no bullshit, just a very well written report on the findings of a study they did on Page Rank.

I was actually floored because for ONE, I don’t ever see other people testing things and if they do, they tend not to share the results, and TWO, that I agree with everything they reported and have been spounting it for years.

I even yelled at the audiance when I spoke at Yaniks Underground that the biggest myth in seo was that “Content was King” cause it ain’t! And of course everyone looked at me like I had 5 heads. lol

Well, without getting into all the details of the report, which I hope you download and read, here are the bullets to the myth breaking findings.

• Google doesn’t care about the “freshness” of your content.
• Google doesn’t care about the “quality” of your content.
• Google doesn’t care if you change the contents of a page
• Google doesn’t care about duplicate content
• Google doesn’t care if you change registrars or owners of a domain
• Google doesn’t care if you change hosting providers and / or servers

What does Google care about, and what is KING in the SEO world is… links, and ONLY links.

Now with that being said. I want you to note that this report is on Page Rank, and not SE rankings. For ranking, I do believe in the “freshness” of LINKs and lot’s of them.

Click the report to download and read. It is short and to the point. Let me know what you think. And thanks to Internet Marketing Blueprint for the report, you just made a new fan!

What do you think, leave a comment below!

(4) If you could choose a link on a lower authority page that would provide a moderate amount of targeted traffic or a link on a higher authority page that would provide absolutely no traffic – all other attributes being equal – for ranking benefits on the site you’re developing links for, which would you choose and why?

Dori answer: If the goal is to rank, I would absolutely choose a link on a higher authority page. It is authority that RANKS the site it links too, not traffic.

(5) Do you feel that you can conserve pagerank or that it’s still worth the effort to sculpt your links, by limiting the number of links on a page, creating them with JavaScript, passing them through a blocked page or using nofollow?

Dori answer: I don’t believe it is as affective as in years past, but I still do it, I still link to inner pages to let PR stream through. Just makes for a better rounded natual site.

(6) Please discuss what link deprecation is and what impact it may have on a link building campaign.

Dori answer: In my world, it is a couple of things.

a. link rolls off the front page of the blog, or
b. link comes from site that loses authority or get’s deindexed, or
c. link is removed from site

It is my experience that the first two do not have much affect on my rankings (believe it or not, I know, strange) so the impact it has comes from my clients who count links instead of rankings.

But, I do believe in defending rankings which in mid-range keywords it takes a continuous flow of new links coming in. But for long tail, old tired links still get the  job done.

(7) Do you think search engines are trying to find a way to depend less on link popularity and more on other algorithmic/social media factors?

Dori’s answer: I did here that Face Book is creating a search engine based on users clicking the “like” link, but I think, if we were going to see an algorithmic change based on social media factors, I think we would already of seen it. And I could be totally wrong.

(8) How much do you stress internal linking on your own or clients’ sites? Do you have a quick rule of thumb or strategy to maximize the effectiveness of internal links?

Dori answer: If this page is about on-page/on-site factors, then I don’t touch it. But I do stress geting external links TO interal pages and let it rip on through the site. No official rule of thumb, but the more the better.

(9) What’s a successful link development strategy many overlook or dismiss?

Getting links from low pr sites or sites NOT in Google’s index and also using the URL as a keyword.

(10) What have you been most WRONG about over the course of your link building/SEO career?

For a long time I thought links had to come from authority sites with good PR to rank for mid-range keywords,  and have found out over the last year or two that that is not the case. =:0

And that links had to come from themed sites with original content. What baloney that is!