Why I'm starting to doubt everything I'm told by Google and SEO experts

[Homer J Simpson]

I know of two examples, one local and one national, that do everything they're not supposed to

Duplicate content
Multiple sites
Keyword spamming

Both of the companies I'm monitoring have a page rank score of Zero, so how are they both rank first page for their terms and in many cases first place on google using these tactics?

Is everything we're told a load of crap just to try to get us to actually make more of an effort?

 

[StartUpC]

Actually I know dozens of examples... We are monitoring them
During the past 3 years more than 60% of these unethical pages / sites disappeared from the SERP's top 50. On the other hand 100s of new spamming sites have been booming in with features you've enlisted above

Duplicate content does not seem to be the fiercest rule to break in the eyes of Google - but sometimes the penalty comes. As we've seen it depends on the rest [eg code] of the site content. Using the same template with duplicate content the penalty comes...

On the long run content and UX drives clients...

 

[thelegalstop]

Google SEO is a declining value in business, anyway. And, as usual, marketers ruin everything. Google needs to constantly upgrade their algorithm to avoid spam, but the number of searches is declining altogether.

If you wanted to search for the best Indian Restaurant in London, you would put "indian restaurant london" into Google, now you just tweet "hi guys what's the best indian restaurant" and get 6-7 responses from real people who were in these restaurants and can recommend you the best, based on their experience.

If I were you, I'd move my attention to twitter.com/search and start positioning there, before marketers and spammers will ruin that.

 

[Ian J]

If you wanted to search for the best Indian Restaurant in London, you would put "indian restaurant london" into Google, now you just tweet "hi guys what's the best indian restaurant" and get 6-7 responses from real people who were in these restaurants and can recommend you the best, based on their experience.

Interesting example you've picked as in my experience if you asked a dozen people to recommend an Indian restaurant you would get a dozen different answers

 

[Love2travel]

The page rank score doesn't mean anything from my own experience. I was into the adult related sites and I had a few ranked on the first page of google for keywords that have over 500 million results and with page ranks of 0. I did not spam them they just got natural back links. And one site was a page rank 5 and I could not find it in the first 30 pages.
I have since sold these sites and they still are on the first page of google, they fluctuate but always go back to around the same number. Soooo I never cared about pr. But I will say there are suckers out there that pay more for a high pr.

 

[zigojacko]

Google SEO is a declining value in business, anyway. And, as usual, marketers ruin everything. Google needs to constantly upgrade their algorithm to avoid spam, but the number of searches is declining altogether.

If you wanted to search for the best Indian Restaurant in London, you would put "indian restaurant london" into Google, now you just tweet "hi guys what's the best indian restaurant" and get 6-7 responses from real people who were in these restaurants and can recommend you the best, based on their experience.

If I were you, I'd move my attention to twitter.com/search and start positioning there, before marketers and spammers will ruin that.

That's absolute BS. I bet if you asked 1000 web users where they'd go online to find out what local Indian restaurants are worth going to, over 90% of them would not say Twitter!

I'd go to Google, it's quicker, it's more relevant, it's shows my local area, it shows ratings/reviews, it shows which of my friends have been there or rate it. Google search is not going anywhere any time soon despite the natural shift in intentions/progressions, like with anything in life.

 

[fisicx]

If I were you, I'd move my attention to twitter.com/search and start positioning there, before marketers and spammers will ruin that.

They already have ruined it.

 

[Mystro]

Theres lots of ways of artificially getting to the top of Google, its staying there is the trick, the guidelines are there for a reason flout those it will be a matter of time till you are there no longer..

Why waste time monitoring others, spend your time constructively and keep doing the right things for you.. as you could end up replicating something that is soon going to be gone and you with it

 

[UKSBD]

Search engines have changed the whole business model. it is all about lead referral now.

A lot of websites aren't set up to actually sell anything they are just set up as middlemen to get leads to pass on.

What this means is digital agencies are just getting in to more and more markets effectively using crash and burn websites, once one website gets hit they just move on to another.

 

[NickGrogan]

now you just tweet "hi guys what's the best indian restaurant" and get 6-7 responses from real people who were in these restaurants and can recommend you the best, based on their experience.

Actually no you don't. I searched for the phrase "the best Indian restaurant?" not many results, almost all PR tweets - are we the best Indian restaurant type of thing. 2 or 3 real requests since January, only 1 with any replies.

Maybe your results are different? Twitter is mainly people shouting about themselves, not asking/answering questions.

 

[UKSBD]

I suspect what thelegalstop is saying is, if you are looking for the best Indian Restaurant in your area you ask your mates via Twitter, facebook, the phone rather than wasting your time using Google.

 

[fisicx]

Or do what most people do and go to the same one you went to last time. Going onto twitter when you are in Portsmouth and asking your mates in in Bolton for a recommendation is just daft.

 

[webgeek]

Getting to the top and staying there are very different propositions.

Brands can violate all the rules SME's have to play by, because they get a different rule book to follow.

But these PR0 pages could in reality be massive sites 301'd over to new domains after the last PR update and could therefore crush Joe Average with ease. Or, perhaps they've rented some disposable links, employed a voodoo doctor and are casting bones while they buy links.

Too little info to do more than speculate wildly, hence the above. If you want to know why someone ranks the way they do, it would be nice to know the domain/url and search query of concern.

 

[Love2travel]

.

If you wanted to search for the best Indian Restaurant in London, you would put "indian restaurant london" into Google, now you just tweet "hi guys what's the best indian restaurant" and get 6-7 responses from real people who were in these restaurants and can recommend you the best, based on their experience.

I love google but I have never searched it for food. I use yelp for that. But if I'm researching cars like I did today I would use them.

 

[ronnie7272]

Is everything we're told a load of crap just to try to get us to actually make more of an effort?

Yes it's a load of crap. No Google isn't trying to make you make more effort, they are trying to encourage you to spend money on Google Adwords by frustrating you. They want you to give up on SEO.

1. It's not in Google's interest to inform you how to rank websites. If their guidelines and advice are true then they are acting against the best interests of their shareholders.

2. As far as SEO consultants are concerned, most of them don't practice SEO the traditional way and use lazy "me too" methods they read about on forums! The top SEO consultants keep their own proprietary methods to themselves. They have invested resources into R&D, why would they tell the whole world how to rank websites. It's an embarrassment to the industry reading the advice and tips some SEO consultants give the general public. It's the blind leading the blind, regurgitating the same rubbish they have read on forums themselves. If you want to practice SEO correctly then do your own R&D from scratch. That's the only way you will learn how to rank long term.

 

[webgeek]

You don't need a bevvy of test sites and ubersecret algorithm decoder rings in order to get found online. Sure, some methods make things come together easier than others.

However, you don't have to eat, sleep, rave, repeat SEO all day and all night before your site will rank well on Google.

A bit of knowledge, a boatload of effort and a bit of oversight to make sure you're heading in the right direction. That's a recipe for success.

Google will waffle the ranking order, pushing and pulling sites to and fro. Increased uncertainty about organic rankings leads to increased Adwords spend. The only sure thing is that Google will make money at our expense.

 

[wearewattle]

The SEO consultants that claim secret methods are just using private blog networks, multiple c class IP's hosting sites that look and feel real but act as tools to place links on for their clients, the really sneaky ones are buying expired domains and resurrecting sites and then using those to throw links on. Its not a big secret just Google private blog networks! But it is the WRONG way to do things, and is misleading - they would never explain what they do to a client.

 

[StevePoster]

marketers ruin everything.

They doesn't care what method they will use and what matters most for them is to get their users attention and sell their product and services.

Google needs to constantly upgrade their algorithm to avoid spam

Spammers also update their spamming techniques to look natural.

If I were you, I'd move my attention to twitter.com/search and start positioning there, before marketers and spammers will ruin that.

Twitter is a microblogging site and a fast pace environment. What's the connection to start positioning there?

 

[thelegalstop]

Twitter is a microblogging site and a fast pace environment. What's the connection to start positioning there?

Because there are 255 active users there?

Have a look around right now (yes, I mean it!) if you're not alone, how many people are checking their phones right now? I bet most of them are checking up their tweets or chatting on Facebook or checking out this funny vine, whilst making selfie for instagram

 

[senses]

SEO can be summarised by this:

Does your site offer the reader value, information and quality content.
If it does it will rate well, if it does not (or you try and fool it, or copy) it wont.

Its amazing that if you apply that to everything how quickly you find your answers.

 

[thelegalstop]

SEO can be summarised by this:

Does your site offer the reader value, information and quality content.
If it does it will rate well, if it does not (or you try and fool it, or copy) it wont.

Its amazing that if you apply that to everything how quickly you find your answers.

I couldn't agree more. I don't understand why people are paying a lot of money to build link wheels, SEO content builders and massive submissions, without bothering to actually offer quality value on-site.

 

[senses]

SEO experts (and we offer this also) have their place. But those who generate link wheels are crap. If the link is placed on a site which either:
- Is not related in content type to yours
- Has a bad page rank
will result is dragging your site down.

If you want to get to the top of google
- Your site must have great value and content
- Links to your site must be on related sites
- The link area must ALSO offer value and content
- Your site must be understood by google (micro schemas, webmaster tools, proper site markup, and optimised to be delivered to the user fast.

Feel free to PM me, ill happily quickly look at yours, then YOU can decide what to do with it!

 

[senses]

Just to add to the above.

SEO is two fold:

- Making sure your site is made properly and that Google can understand it
- HARD WORK IN CREATING STUFF PEOPLE WANT TO READ

There are NO shortcuts and no guarantees. It takes time, hard work and more time!

Want to be top of Google. The ONLY way to do this, is to be the highest bidder in PPC!

 

[wearewattle]

Did anyone else notice that not one person gave a monkeys about me explaining what most SEO companies actually do Nobody cares - they just want to rank and could not care less how.

 

[wearewattle]

Just to add to the above.
Want to be top of Google. The ONLY way to do this, is to be the highest bidder in PPC!

What he said!

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Want to be top of Google. The ONLY way to do this, is to be the highest bidder in PPC!

My sites seem to do OK without PPC...

The advice in this thread is a good example of why you shouldn't listen to the know it all down at the pub...!

 

[senses]

'The only way to be certain of #1 is PPC'

The skill is getting to #1 without PPC of course, its a damn site lot cheaper!!
But you could never guarantee that!

 

[Shaliniverma]

There are ton of websites having zero PR with low page authority and domain authority are ranking in the first page of Google. The reason behind this is that they are properly optimizing their website.
Talking about the website you have specified will not be stable for long time as they have followed spammy techniques. So you just have to focus on your techniques with no spammy links.

 

[NickGrogan]

Talking about the website you have specified will not be stable for long time as they have followed spammy techniques. So you just have to focus on your techniques with no spammy links.

One of our competitors has used some very spammy techniques. The have been top 3/4 on google for many years for their target keywords.

 

[adammcintyre]

Don't worry about spam sites, they eventually get their comeuppance. Focus on building a high quality branded website so that people don't need google in order to find your products - they already know who you are.

• 50% of my revenue comes from search engines (too much)
• I rank well for many of my targeted terms.
• My site has been online for 4/5 years.

During my time online I've regularly seen new spam sites rank above me, but always fade away.

Since dot, I've focussed on creating high quality products, a reputable brand and valuable content.

It's not the fastest way to get to the top of google, but by building a solid honest foundation, it leaves you up there for a very long time.

I've never been hit by a google update and I've never done any white or black hat link building. I've just focussed on making good stuff and other people have naturally built my link profile for me.

However, it is import to note that google can drop you at any moment, even if you are legit, so relying on them for large portions of traffic/revenue is not the smartest option.


Organic vs spam = turtle vs hare.

 

[senses]

Organic vs spam = turtle vs hare.

Couldnt agree more.
And i agree, if you do this properly, and get to the top, its really really hard for anyone to topple you.

 

[BristolRemovals]

It seems pretty unfair at the moment.

 

[BristolRemovals]

I wonder what impact a Yahoo and Bing merge could have on the market?