Below is live coverage of the Advanced SEO Roundtable: What is it Really? And Where is it Going? from the SES San Jose 2009 conference.
This coverage is provided by Chris Boggs of Rosetta.
We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. You can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.
| Advanced SEO Roundtable: What is it Really? And Where is it Going? | (08/12/2009) |
| 2:19 | Barry Schwartz: this is Chris Boggs from Rosetta covering live starting now
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| 2:20 | Barry Schwartz: Richard Zwicky is moderating a panel of the "who's who" in Search:
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| 2:20 | Barry Schwartz: Matt Bailey; Todd Malicoat, Todd Friesen; mike Gr |
| 2:21 | Barry Schwartz: Mike Grehan; Bruce Clay; and Matt McGowan in the crowd passing the mike around |
| 2:21 | Barry Schwartz: panelists are on first topic, covering sites that have been banned |
| 2:21 | Barry Schwartz: talking about BMW Germany |
| 2:22 | Barry Schwartz: Todd jokes that they got a lot of good links out of the situation, so if you are a big enough brand and can afford to go down for a day or 2, you may get some great links about it. (laughs) |
| 2:22 | Barry Schwartz: Matt talks about the "stupid" things like hidden text etc that doesnt work and that shouldnt have been done in the first place |
| 2:24 | Barry Schwartz: next question comes from someone who asks how to keep his ranking about BMW germany... Todd suggests coming up afetr the session to get his card (more laughs) |
| 2:24 | Barry Schwartz: next: please discuss Buying Links |
| 2:24 | Barry Schwartz: "oh the link buying" |
| 2:24 | Barry Schwartz: Todd says go direct is the first thing, dont use a broker |
| 2:25 | Barry Schwartz: he quotes Mike Grehan who said that "asking for a link is like asking to do business" |
| 2:25 | Barry Schwartz: make sure you get the most |
| 2:25 | Barry Schwartz: out of the link if you are going to create a partnership and spend the time |
| 2:26 | Barry Schwartz: Todd says get professional help |
| 2:26 | Barry Schwartz: (to buy links) |
| 2:27 | Barry Schwartz: technical difficulties...not sure if posting |
| 2:28 | Barry Schwartz: k we are back |
| 2:29 | Barry Schwartz: panel is addressing campaigns with huge numbers of keywords |
| 2:30 | Barry Schwartz: although important to use analytics to understand them all, Todd F recommends focusing only on the top 1000 or so |
| 2:31 | Barry Schwartz: btw the first Todd above who said dont use a broker to by links was Malicoat...Friesen advocates having someone help you |
| 2:31 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F talks about asking the people that are your partners or charitable benefactors for links |
| 2:32 | Barry Schwartz: question: what about purchasing links on a site that doesnt relate topically? |
| 2:33 | Barry Schwartz: Mike saysthat there are lots of people you could be doing business with, and that great links are a bi-product of doing good business |
| 2:33 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F says that Google is very good at blocking links...the obvious ones are probably not working anyways |
| 2:34 | Barry Schwartz: Matt says that the better link builders that are out there come up wiht a good value proposition to give you a link |
| 2:34 | Barry Schwartz: as opposed to sending a message that says hey I built a link to your site now please link to me |
| 2:36 | Barry Schwartz: Mike says that often when people lose rankings, they dont realise that was the day that they lost a really good link from Wall Street Journal or something |
| 2:36 | Barry Schwartz: people automatically think that their site went down because of an algo update or because of competitors, when in fact you have to do some temporal analysis and determine when you lost a link and then try to get it back |
| 2:37 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M talks about how you can "strech relevancy really far" (laughs)
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| 2:37 | Barry Schwartz: you have to be careful how you strech that, says todd F, because Google will start ranking you for random phrases, and this can change the relevancy of your site in the eyes of Go |
| 2:37 | Barry Schwartz: Google |
| 2:38 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M says true, but you have to also control the anchor text out there to ensure that you still have good relevancy pointed at you |
| 2:39 | Barry Schwartz: question: what about Bing and Yahoo |
| 2:39 | Barry Schwartz: this is like asking who are the next beatles...there wont be one |
| 2:40 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F - says that subdomains on Bing "rock and roll" |
| 2:40 | Barry Schwartz: he says that what worked in 2002 is working right now |
| 2:40 | Barry Schwartz: Mike is frustrtaed that people always look for a "Google killer"
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| 2:40 | Barry Schwartz: Matt talks about all the propoerties that Yahoo and Bing nevere integrated, and is hoping to see even more cool results |
| 2:42 | Barry Schwartz: Mike, (finishing above thought) says that Bing and Yhaoo have their own thing, just like there will never be another Beatles |
| 2:42 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M talks about the differences between the users that are on Yahoo and Bing is great |
| 2:43 | Barry Schwartz: even though there may be less traffic, there are more conversions |
| 2:43 | Barry Schwartz: Bruce says that one of the things that they believe is that the combined marketshare of Y/Bing will actually help garner more advertising technology |
| 2:44 | Barry Schwartz: alkta vista, inktomi, and other tools purchased by Yahoo are still valuable |
| 2:45 | Barry Schwartz: talks about networks of sites reciprocally linking.. Todd F says dont do it, take it down, it looks like crap |
| 2:46 | Barry Schwartz: Mike says he would rather have one big "mother" site and focus on it |
| 2:46 | Barry Schwartz: you cant put enouhg unique good stuff on 10-20 web sites if they are all about the same topic (Todd F) |
| 2:47 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M says that is one of the reasons Todd F got out of spamming and jamming...he never thought he would be up there talking about how writing good content is the key (crowd laughs) |
| 2:48 | Barry Schwartz: Mike Grehan honest;y believes that a lot of tool bar data is in use |
| 2:49 | Barry Schwartz: Matt talks about a company that wanted to rank for UPS, which wasnt UPS |
| 2:49 | Barry Schwartz: it was actually an acronym for a product... in terms of relevan |
| 2:50 | Barry Schwartz: cy, the company was relevant, but most people would back out of the site if they enetered it afetr a search for UPS |
| 2:50 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F says that the engines look at 100s of signals, and this would just be one |
| 2:50 | Barry Schwartz: he would not be too worried about having a hihg bounce rate |
| 2:51 | Barry Schwartz: Bruce remids you that your competitors could hire the country of India to click on your listings and then back click, if that was a concern |
| 2:52 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M has definetley seen that if you work on getting "the second click" on new sites, the bounce rate will not only drop but the rankings will rise |
| 2:52 | Barry Schwartz: he says that it is a factor that is important, |
| 2:53 | Barry Schwartz: talks about search suggest, and some of the "mean" or "angry" things that come up as suggestions |
| 2:53 | Barry Schwartz: Matt says this is definitely a problem |
| 2:54 | Barry Schwartz: he talks about a cool example... if you start with a search by typing in to the box: "how 2"
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| 2:54 | Barry Schwartz: and you get suggestions like "how 2 buy drugs" "how to get pregnant" etc |
| 2:54 | Barry Schwartz: but if you type in "how does one..." the suggests are much more academic |
| 2:55 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F is toying with an idea that involves Chinese proxy servers, etc to help influence search suggest (half jokingly I believe) |
| 2:55 | Barry Schwartz: Q: does siloing still work? |
| 2:56 | Barry Schwartz: Bruce says they do theme-alligned content structure within web site, to ensure that the content doesnt "bleed" across from some pages to the other |
| 2:57 | Barry Schwartz: he says that it still works very well. he talks about when they silo that the rankings go up |
| 2:57 | Barry Schwartz: Bruce also says that the issue doesnt really work the way it was/is supposed to |
| 2:57 | Barry Schwartz: Mike G says |
| 2:58 | Barry Schwartz: that he always felt the was a complete load of bumpkin |
| 2:58 | Barry Schwartz: sorry nofollow was in above post but I used the code so it disappeared |
| 2:59 | Barry Schwartz: btw once again this is Chris Boggs from Rosetta covering this session while Barry flies home. he got an early flight WTG Barry! |
| 3:04 | Barry Schwartz: talking about duplicated content, Bruce says that you have to be careful with how much content you reuse, even if you change the locations, for example. |
| 3:05 | Barry Schwartz: Mike sayss some things are legit even though they may appear to be duplicate content |
| 3:05 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F |
| 3:05 | Barry Schwartz: also says lets be clear that not all duplicate content is subject to penalties |
| 3:05 | Barry Schwartz: unless you are trying to do something deceptive |
| 3:06 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M says you are still hurting your quality score to some dgree, so you need to try and ensure to not have dupe content |
| 3:08 | Barry Schwartz: what about co-brands...do you filter the IPs from search egnines so as to avoid them seeing one or the other? |
| 3:13 | Barry Schwartz: the general consensus is that you should block one or more and only keep one in the index |
| 3:14 | Barry Schwartz: talking about Local listings "getting in the way," Todd M suggests reading David Mihm's Local Ranking facto |
| 3:15 | Barry Schwartz: btw the getlisted.org clarification of what Todd M was talkign about was from Todd F who admits that David buys him beer for the URL mention...kind of like a paid link |
| 3:16 | Barry Schwartz: talking briefly aout "caffeine update" no one has really had a chance to study it yet |
| 3:17 | Barry Schwartz: Todd M says that it is purely speculation until at least a few months, when people try to talk about algo updates |
| 3:17 | Barry Schwartz: should you do press releases and articles, and should you host it on your site? |
| 3:18 | Barry Schwartz: ToddF says you should host on your site, since it is good content |
| 3:18 | Barry Schwartz: he feels article sites are mostly pools of garbage, and would focus |
| 3:18 | Barry Schwartz: on the press releases instead |
| 3:19 | Barry Schwartz: another gentleman in the room says that he has seen zero benefit to press releases in the experiecne they have had over the year |
| 3:20 | Barry Schwartz: Mike G says that you shouldnt be worried about 30-40 links from crap sites, rather that you should look for the one WSJ writer who will pick it up and write an article about it |
| 3:21 | Barry Schwartz: Matt Bailey says to ensure you are targeting publications that keep links indexed for a long period of time rather than dropping them in a matter of days |
| 3:22 | Barry Schwartz: question: |
| 3:22 | Barry Schwartz: about nofollow and removing it, why hasnt google removed all their's? |
| 3:23 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F says it doesnt matter either way since the nofollow doesnt work |
| 3:27 | Barry Schwartz: what happens if you have a bunch of competitors using spammy/black hat strategies? shoudl you keep reporting them and will it eventually work? |
| 3:27 | Barry Schwartz: Todd F says Tim Mayer from Yahoo once said during such a discussion that you "cannot bring a sword to a gunfight." |
| 3:28 | Barry Schwartz: bottom linbe is some industries are so competitive that you simply have to buy links or do other such tactics in order to compete |
| 3:28 | Barry Schwartz: in answering a comment from Jim Pond: |
| 3:29 | Barry Schwartz: that refers to w=once someone clicks through to the site from the search engine, if they clikc on another link on that site and start navigating, they have taken the next step to the "second click" |
| 3:30 | Barry Schwartz: this is supposed to indicate, according to some, that Google and other toolbars would then know that the person didnt back-click back to the search results page, and that the page is therefore leggitimate or worthy or ranking for the term |
| 3:30 | Barry Schwartz: if they click right back to the SERP, and this happens lots of times, some people feel that the algo will then penalize the page and rank it lower |
| 3:31 | Barry Schwartz: hopefully that answers your question Jim thanks for asking |
| 3:32 | Barry Schwartz: Matt says back to the industry competitiveness thing, that you simply have to be prepared to spend more money for a more comptititve sapce, bottom line |
| 3:33 | Barry Schwartz: OK that's it take care folks as I am off to moderate the in house SEO panel. once again, this has been Chris Boggs from Rosetta. Thanks Barry for the opportunity to blog for SER as always! :) |
| 5:36 |  |
