Are embedded links in widgets ethical?

Google and other search engines have always stressed for people to get only natural links. The whole link based algorithm depends a lot on natural links. Scientists wrote link based algorithm because links are natural and more reliable. Talking about widget embedded links this has been in debate for a long time. Search engines always have mixed opinion on this.

Embedding links in widgets has been in existing from the day widgets were introduced. Statcounter.com a world famous tracking company which provides free tracking were PR 10 because of the links embedded in their counter. Seeing this people started this natural usage of links in a commercial way. People started approaching commercial counter companies to embed their links when free counters are distributed in exchange for a payment. Lots of companies got temporary benefit from it but the search engines immediately woke up to the occasion. An SEO company which did this as part of their link building strategy was completed banned from Google’s search engine. Also Google started implementing link based penalties like the -60 penalty for sites that use widgets to embed links. Even we were affected a bit but later recovered. So is this ethical? . In my opinion I feel the user should know that the link is embedded into the widget code as long as they know it its fine. But if the links are embedded without the user’s knowledge then it’s wrong. I feel search engines too have similar view. People should have the ability to embed the link or remove it or make it no-follow. If they can do it I am confident the search engines will accept it whole heartedly.

Tags: Link Building, SEO

SEO Blog Back Again

I have to personally take the blame for not updating my blog regularly. I am learning to get rid of this laziness in me. Ill make sure from now on ill keep you entertained with my posts. Also blogger ftp being discontinued affected our blogs but that was not till end if May. I don’t have an explanation for not posting before may. My last posting was in Feb, that is 4 months before blogger discontinued allowing FTP publishing. Now I am back to some serious blogging I will be giving you latest updates in SEO industry and also will continue to share my experiences that I have gained over the years.

Tags: SEO Blog Back Again

SEOs in twitter prosper

Twitter has become an excellent tool for SEOs. SEO had a wrong name with many social sites. Places like myspace, Orkut and even social bookmarking sites like digg hates SEOs. But nowadays there are many SEOs who use twitter the right way.

They have learned methods to use sites like twitter with lot of respect. I have seen some very good discussions in twitter between people in search engine industry. Some SEOs have 1000s of followers which itself is a very good sign for SEOs.
People are listing to the SEO guys and I have seen people like matt cutts, Adam lasnik follow some SEO guys. Matt cutts makes some interesting comments in his twitter account which is worth the read when you are in search engine industry.
He already has a whooping http://twitter.com/MattCutts number of followers ( 45,000 ) .

Its incredible since there are so many people who are active in this search and SEO industry. Today the awareness of people about search engines is huge. Only good SEO companies and SEO guys survive in this ever increasing competitive industry.
Other people to look out for in twitter are Danny Sullivan, Jeremy Zawodny and lot more. I don’t recommend you block anyone who wants to follow you unless you feel they are really spammy. I have seen people having 100s of followers before seeing anyone spamming them.
Most SEOs feel twitter is a great neighbourhood. Even Pageoneresults ( Edward ) has named it twitterhood. Great to see SEOs use a great platform in a constructive way.

Top 10 Most Influential Websites In SEO

Sphinn

Top 10 Influential People In Search Engine And Search Engine Optimization Industry

Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts joined Google as a software engineer in January 2000 and currently he is the head of Google’s Web spam team. Before joining Google, he worked on his Ph.D. in computer graphics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has done M.S. from UNC-Chapel Hill, and B.S. degrees in both mathematics and computer science from the University of Kentucky. He wrote the first version of Safe Search, which is Google’s family filter, and he has worked on search quality and web spam at Google for the last several years.
Danny Sullivan
Danny Sullivan is the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, a blog that deals with news and information about search engines, and search marketing. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine and for a year he was in England working for the BBC. Sullivan started Search Engine Watch in beginning of June 1997. Search Engine Watch was a website with guidelines on how to get good search engine results. Matt Cutts of Google considered Search Engine Watch as “must reading,” and Tim Mayer of Yahoo! as the “most authoritative source on search”. Search Engine Land is a news web site that deals with search engine marketing and search engine optimization. It was founded in 2006 by Sullivan after he left Search Engine Watch.
Brett Tabke
Brett Tabke is an American programmer and SEO professional. Brett Tabke has worked in the computer industry for almost three decades. Tabke is at present the CEO and founder of Webmaster World Inc. He is also the founder of PHD Software Systems, a specialty software manufacture that produced a line of software for Commodore computers in the 80′s and 90′s. Tabke gave several SEO staples as “Link Farm”, “SEO Themes”, and the classic “SERP” (Search Engine Results Page). He was also a founding board member of SEMPO. He also wrote a chapter for the best selling “Google Hacks” book. He is also the first identified person to have fully decoded the Excite and most of the Altavista search engine algos. Tabke’s document “26 Steps to 15k a Day” is one of the most widely read in SEO history.
Shawn Hogan
Shawn Hogan is currently the President and CEO of Digital Point Solutions. He is also a very good programmer, analyst, technical writer and artist. However, around these parts he’s perhaps better known as digitalpoint, webmaster of the DigitalPoint Forum. In the world of eCommerce, Shawn is known for numerous things, not the least of which is his very popular SEO Tools. These extremely regarded tools are accessible free of charge and belong in the arsenal of every serious webmaster, including forum owners and administrators.
Aaron Matthew Wall
Aaron Matthew Wall a, California-based blogger and search engine optimization expert who writes the popular blog SEOBook. He is a recurrent speaker at the Search Engine Strategies and PubCon conferences.
Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin is the CEO and Co-Founder of SEOmoz, a head in the field of search engine optimization tools, resources & community. In 2009, he was called among the 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs below 30 by Business Week, and has been written about it in The Seattle Times, Newsweek and the NY Times among others. Rand has keynoted conferences on search from Sydney to Reykjavik, Montreal to Munich and spoken at dozens of shows around the world. He’s predominantly passionate about the SEOmoz blog, read by more than 40,000 search professionals each day.
Michael Grey
Michael Grey, another man “in the know” when it deals about Search Engine Optimization. He blogs on the subject of SEO at Graywolf’s SEO Blog. He is a SEO although he does work in a lot of different areas of internet marketing. He has traditional SEO projects and works as well as managing his own PPC campaigns for some affiliate products and a few e-Books which he sells.
Loren Baker
Loren Baker is a graduate in Mass Communications (marketing and advertising) from Towson University seems to do good justice to his graduation by entering into Search Engine marketing. His interest in SEO and web world made him the Director of Search Engine Marketing in his same organization, WebAdvantage.net where he managed Search Engine Marketing and SEO team. And with the his learning and experiences, in July 2003, he launched his own Search Engine Journal where he is the editor now.
Darrin J.Ward
Darrin J. Ward leads the Darrin Ward team, a group of SEO & SEM professionals that propose top-tier professional SEO and search marketing services. Darrin has been greatly involved in the SEO industry since day one. Darrin has founded a number of successful SEO and search related Websites and search companies.
Jeremy Zawodny
Jeremy Zawodny is currently a Technology Evangelist at Yahoo. Formerly he was part of Yahoo’s platform engineering group. He’s been at Yahoo ever since then, helping to put MySQL and other Open Source technologies to use in amusing, interesting, and often very big ways. In 2000, he started writing for Linux Magazine and continues to do so today as a columnist and contributing editor.

Cleaver Hidden link from GOV to SEO’s website

How do you cleverly hide a link on a government website. First become a friend of United States Department of Commerce Office of General Counsel. They get an insider to carefully hide the link right on the homepage with optimized anchor text keyword.

Look here