Does all links count in Search Engines – A SEO checklist

Checklist of links that count, that count and pass link juice and links
that don’t Count

There is a difference between links that count and links that help rank a website, also there is a set of links that never count.

Links that count and help rank a website;

1. Links from good authority websites like major news sites, major blogs and other quality sites.
2. Links through link exchanges from quality sites many argue that reciprocal links don’t work but in my point of view , reciprocal links do work if done with the right websites
3. Links from article syndication through this plays a small role in helping a website rank but still it helps. The problem with these sites is that due to the large amount of syndication that happens Google devalues links from too many duplicate copies but still some links work.
4. Links from directories. Directories like dmoz, yahoo provide the maximum link juice but some paid directories or other human edited free directories also pass link juice to a website
5. Links from press releases: Yes links from press releases still work and they do help a site push its rankings
6. Text based links – Today this is the hot topic since Google is finding it hard to combat text links bought for link juice and Pagerank they are penalizing sites for buying and selling links. Penalties include loose of trust in Google, looking some value of toolbar pagerank, totally removed from search engines etc. But ofcourse they do work and links bought from big sites tend to pass a lot of link juice.
7. Links from social linking where people link to your site because they link you, this also plays a important factor and does help in rankings
8. Link from some sponsors, say you sponsor a event and they link back yes it helps if the linking site is non-profit or high quality site with already good reputation in Google.
9. Links inside PDFs and word Docs also count for link popularity if they are from good recognized sites.
10. Links from forum footer do count but to a very small extent, Its important the forum doesn’t do anything to stop spreading of link popularity

Links that count but don’t help in boosting rankings:

1. Link from social bookmarking sites like Digg, delicious, technorati etc. These links as far as our research goes are crawled very well by Google and other search engines but they don’t pass pagerank or link juice since most of the links are NOFOLLOW. Nofollow is a syntax added to the HREF tag for search engines to understand that the linking site is not trustworthy or simply that they are links that are beyond editorial control.
2. Link from wikipedia yes it counts but again not for Pagerank or link juice but good for Google love, Wikipedia also has Nofollow in most of its pages but all search engines pick links from wikipedia and crawl it.

Links that don’t count nor help in Search Engine Rankings:

1. Links from sites banned by search engines. If a search engine finds a link from banned site it don’t even follow it mostly and they never count as a link nor pass link popularity.
2. Link from Spam sites which again is blacklisted by search engine algorithm don’t count.
3. Link from blogspam, comment spam are not counted as link popularity links anymore with search engines.
4. Links that are embedded in Javascript don’t count since JavaScript is not crawled by search engines.
5. Links inside Adsense ads are not crawled since its embedded in JavaScript and they also are in IFRAME.
6. Links inside some complicated Flash files are not crawlable since search engines don’t understand complicated flash.
7. Links inside password protected pages / password protected PDFs don’t count.
8. Links from pages which are inside search results and only accessible by searching through a search button don’t count.

Search Engine Genie SEO Blog Team,

Age of domain SEO – Role of age of domain in SEO

Many over a course of 2 years had been debating whether Age of domain name plays a important role in Search Engines. From my point of view yes Google takes into play age of domain , inception date of a domain into google’s search results, inception date of backlinks for a site etc.

Of this Inception date of backlinks and age of backlinks is the most important factor. When sites like digital point started rotating text link ads ( Co-op ad-network ) on different websites based on link weight Google immediately stood up to the occasion and started seeing the date when the link to an other website was crawled for a particular date and when it sees the same link again on the page and compares it with the previous data. This is what we call the age of Backlinks and the pattern of change of links over a period of time.

When we say inception date of a website into Google it simply means when Googlebot first crawled a website and added it to its index. This also plays a important role with Google.

Now coming to the age of domain this plays a very important role when it comes to search engine algorithms. A person can register a domain before 10 years but the site might have been included into Google results only before a year so even if the domain’s age is old still for Google the inception date is the most important factor. So we don’t have to worry too much about age of domain name understand that its important to get the domain name indexed by Google as soon as possible and getting permanent backlinks getting indexed by Google as soon as possible. These 2 factors play a important role with Search engines especially Google.

SEO Blog Team,

Microsoft threatens to take on Yahoo if it doesn’t meet its deadline

Phishing emails target Google adwords customers

Recently we have seen a surge in adwords phishing scams, phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. eBay, PayPal and online banks are common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging,[1] and often directs users to enter details at a website, although phone contact has also been used.[2] Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users.[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical measures.

Beware of phishing emails to adwords. We are into adwords for both our sites as well as client sites and we have seen a increase in phishing emails to adwords advertisers. There are some adwords advertisers who spend more than 200,000 a month in Google Adwords. If any of these account holders fall for the scam they will loose their personal information and possibly some money .

Here is how a recently Scam phishing email to adwords advertiser look like

Dear Google AdWords Customer,
Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login
, and update your billing information. Your account will be reactivated as soon
as you update your payment information.Your ads will show immediately if you
decide to pay for clicks via creditor debit card. If you decide to pay by direct
debit, we may need to receiveyour signed debit authorization before your ads
start running, depending on your location. If you choose bank transfer, your ads
will show as soon as we receive your first payment.
We look forward to
providing you with the most effective advertising
available.
Sincerely,
———————————————————————————-
The Google AdWords
Team

Please be aware that lot of people lost their personal information and money to phishing scams. If you find a email on this scam forward to adwords-support@google.com

Sites and businesses banned from adwords,

List of Google’s banned areas of advertising with adwords and Adsense,

1. Academic Aids:

You are NOT suppose to promote or encourage provide service for
writing thesis, academic paper writing, prewritten Academic
aids advertising for applying for exam on behalf of
someone else.

2. Aids to pass Drug Tests:

Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of products designed to help
someone pass a drug test. This includes products such as drug cleansing shakes
and urine test additives.

3. Alcohol:

Different countries have different laws when it comes to alcohol ads. US don’t
allow hard alcohol ads and countries like India bans all alcohol ads. Wine and
champagne are restricted in some areas.

4. Anabolic Steroids:

Advertising steroid related produced for Muscle enhancement is strictly
prohibited.

Automated Ad Clicking:

This is targeting Google itself. This destroys search engine’s natural tendency
to send potential leads to sites. Automated ad clicking ads are banned.

Bulk Marketing:

Bulk email marketing, EMail marketing software and non-opt in lists are banned
from advertising.

Copyright: Copyrighted information is not allowed in Adwords.

Counterfied designer Goods, Data entry affiliates and programmes are banned from Adwords advertising.

Dailers:

Dailers are mostly malwares or spywares which try to connect to a premium number
and you will be charged huge if you are not aware of what’s happening.

Drugs and Drug Paraphernalia

Don’t promote drugs and drug paraphernalia.

e-Gold

In the past one year e-currencies especially egold have become very popular in
Nigeria. E-gold is an electronic currency backed by real gold stored up in a
bullion somewhere in the United States and accounted for by weight. E-gold was
established by Douglas Jackson in 1996.
E-gold is used as a medium of
exchange on the net. Many businesses now accept e-gold as a form of payment for
their services or products all over the world. Our very own Nigeria caught the
bug about a year ago with people using it especially to fund their forex trading
accounts, hyip programs and muli-level marketing programs.
The main
attraction perhaps for Nigerians is the fact that the process of opening and
operating an e-gold account takes just a few minutes and verification is never
required unlike payment systems like paypal.
Another controversial feature of
the egold system is their non-repudiation policy which regards all spends as
being final. There are no charge-backs with egold. To fund an egold account, all
a user has to do is find an Independent exchanger whom he pays cash in exchange
for his egold account to be funded.
The two features of e-gold stated above
has made it a preferred medium of operation by fraudsters. The fact that no
verification is needed and that once the egold gets into their account, it can’t
be retrieved makes the system a perfect one for fraudsters. These limitations
notwithstanding, millions of people all over the world have continued to use the
system.
With its growing popularity in Nigeria, the egold system gradually
became a target of fraudulent activities by criminally minded Nigerians. Today,
egold fraud in Nigeria has become an issue. Perhaps it is the next level of
internet fraud in Nigeria.

Fake Documents

Don’t promote fake documents.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion
of false documents such as fake IDs, passports, social security cards,
immigration papers, diplomas, and noble titles.

Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Devices

Don’t promote fireworks or pyrotechnic devices.
Advertising is not permitted
for the promotion of fireworks and pyrotechnic devices.

Gambling

Don’t promote online gambling or related sites.
Advertising is not
permitted
for the promotion of online casinos and gambling activities.
This includes,
but is not limited to, the following:
sports books
lotteries
bingo
poker
sites that provide tips, odds, and
handicapping
software
facilitating online casinos and gambling
gambling tutoring online
gambling related eBooks
‘play for fun’
gambling or casino games of skill
including sites where the primary
purpose
is ‘play for fun’ gambling
affiliate sites with the primary
purpose of
driving traffic to online
gambling sites

Hacking and Cracking sites;

Google has always been against hacking and cracking sites. its illegal to promote a hacking website in Google Adwords. Sites if found will immediately be banned. You can actually find Hacking and Cracking sites in Organic results though since its very difficult to filter sites in Organic results.

Miracle Cures
Don’t promote miracle cures.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of miracle cures, such as ‘Cure cancer overnight!’

Mobile Subscription Services
Mobile subscription sites must display the required service details.

Prescription Drugs and Related Content
The promotion of prescription drugs and related content is restricted.
Google AdWords only accepts pharmaceutical advertising from pharmacies that are based in the U.S. or Canada. Pharmacy-related ad campaigns can only target the U.S., U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands), and/or Canada. Ads for prescription drugs will not be displayed in other countries. Additionally, Google AdWords requires all online pharmacy advertisers and affiliates to be a member of the PharmacyChecker Licensed Pharmacy Program. Ads ill not run until a valid PharmacyChecker identification number is provided.
Note that pet pharmacies and affiliates advertising pet prescription drugs when targeting the U.S. or Canada must also be PharmacyChecker approved.

Prostitution
Don’t promote prostitution.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of prostitution.
Scams/Phishing for Personal Information
Don’t use phishing or other scamming tactics.
Advertising is not permitted for sites collecting sensitive personal information or money with fake forms, false claims, or unauthorized use of Google Trademarks. Examples of personal information include email addresses, user names, passwords, and/or payment information.

Template Sites for Ad Networks
Don’t promote template sites for ad networks such as AdSense.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of template sites for ad networks. This includes products and services that create template or pre-generated websites solely intended to profit from ads.
Tobacco and Cigarettes
Don’t promote tobacco and cigarettes.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products, including cigarettes, cigars, tobacco pipes, and rolling papers.
Traffic Devices
Don’t promote illegal traffic devices.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of radar jammers, license plate covers, traffic signal changers, and related products.
Weapons
The promotion of weapons is restricted.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of certain weapons, such as firearms, firearm components, ammunition, balisongs (switchblades), butterfly knives, and brass knuckles.

An other April Fool Joke From Google

Google this year had the most number or April fool jokes mainly due to the growing number of blogs they have. Google has a blog for every service they provide. Most of these blogs are maintained by different set of people working for Google and it seems everyone wants to have fun.
I recently came across this particular posting by Google Blogger Team on their new announcement of Google weblogs with loads of features favouring Search Engine Optimization. This is such a weird posting you will definitely laugh if you are into blogging or Search engine optimization or search engine marketing.

“Announcing Google Weblogs (beta)
Today we’d like to offer you a sneak
peek at an exciting new product we’ve been working on: Google Weblogs. Since
Google bought Pyra Labs in 2002, we’ve been dreaming, planning, and implementing
the next revolution in personal publishing: Google Weblogs. Google
Weblogs, or “GWeblogs,” or “Gblogs,” which will launch later this year in a
public beta, is the next revolution in personal publishing. Here’s what you can
expect:
Don’t limit yourself to “reverse chronological” publishing. Our
advanced Google algorithms put your best content at the top of your blog. Even
if your later work goes downhill your previous posts will still shine.
No
more template languages to mess with or sidebars to get right. Our advanced
Google algorithms automatically populate your blog’s sidebar with the most
relevant possible content.
Stop worrying about your PageRank or your search
engine optimization. Post directly into Google search results for maximum
visibility.
Save your readers time and effort. We’ll automatically extract
the most relevant sentence from your post for the index page, along with any
necessary ellipsis. We’ll also put some words in bold!
Your blog’s header
will stay fresh with new images from our team of artists, each and every
anniversary of a scientific achievement.
Unsure of what to post about? Just
click “I’m Feeling Lucky” and we’ll “take care” of the rest!”

Google’s stock ( GOOG ) rise among speculation by an analyst

Google (nasdaq: GOOG )’s stock rose $17.99, or 4 percent, to $473.27 among early trading on Friday after Analyse Jeffery Lindsay predicted higher sales and revenue for Google from its search engine advertising programmes. Lindsay said after Google’s new approach to AdWords its sales will be increasing in the coming Months.

According to Lindsay Google has been slapping low quality advertisers from their AdWords advertising platform which gives opportunities for reforms to the AdWords campaign. Com score a leading company which tracks clicks in search engines reported lesser number of clicks in February and march but Lindsay says this is mostly due to Google slapping lower bidding advertisers and increasing its price facilitating for higher advertisers. Google has been changing and increasing its AdWords bid prices for a long time and according to Lindsay Com score don’t record all these information.

Linday also predicts Google’s shares might rise as high as 750$,

Source:forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/04/04/ap4856278.html

Google super fast indexing and ranking

I was seriously amazed when we saw Google index our Blog posting in less than an hour and the blog post already started ranking. Infact I posted the blog before around an hour and a half and Google came to our site and indexed it before an hour and now the URL is showing up in search results for the keyword we are targeting.

We recently added a new SEO comics section to our site and I personally blogged about it. Google was super fast in indexing and ranking the page I still cannot believe my eyes Google is truly amazing.

Check this screen shot,

Long live the King Of Search Engines ,

New SEO comics Section in Search Engine Genie Live now,

We have always wanted to bring a comic section in Search Engine Genie, After a long wait we were able to bring in a comic section in our website. Our designers have done a wonderful job of bringing in some great comical work on today’s happening in Search Engines. Lots of comic images will be posted in this page very soon. Our SEO comics page will be one of its kind and the only colored comic pages for the SEO industry.

We are right now in process of adding upto 40 images. After we complete with that we will be updating a new image every week to make sure we keep the page upto date on latest happenings.

All images are watermarked and proprietary to Search Engine Genie, Feel free to vist the comic page often and enjoy our sense of humour on the Search engine industry we love,

http://www.searchenginegenie.com/seo-comics.htm

Search Engine Genie Blog Team,

System and method for supporting editorial opinion in Google results.

I was just reading through a patent filed by some leading Googlers on editorial review and user based opinion on a website, It was a very interesting topic to be discussed.

“An editorial opinion parameter for a favored source may, for example, cause the score of the associated web page to be upgraded by a percentage of its previous score or by an absolute value. Similarly, for non-favored sources, the applicable editorial opinion parameter may cause the score of the associated web page to be downgraded by a percentage of its previous score or an absolute value. In extreme cases, the applicable editorial opinion parameter may cause the web page to be moved to the top of the ranked list or removed from the list completely. In another case, the applicable editorial opinion parameter of a web site may selectively affect one of the scores used in determining the final ranking (e.g., the text match score, the connectivity-based score, or the popular opinion score). Once updated scores have been determined, the server 120 may provide the updated ranked list of search results to the user [act 660]. The updated ranked list may be provided to the user via the output device 270. If, in act 630, the search query does not match any of the query themes stored in database 400, the server 120 may provide the original (i.e., non-updated) ranked list of search results to the user [act 660]. Implementations consistent with the present invention allow editorial opinion to apply to entire web sites. The techniques described herein also provide integration with other parameters in computing an overall ranking. For example, editorial opinion may be considered as an additional input parameter that combines with other factors such as textual-matching, connectivity analysis scoring, etc., for determining the overall ranking. This provides for a better result than conventional processes that simply return web pages on favored sites that match the query. In particular, implementations consistent with the present invention could assign a higher rank to a web page that is on a web site that has not been identified as a favored source in comparison to a web page from a favored source, if it is found to better match the query. “

Upgrading and downgrading a websight is based on editorial opinion compared to other factors in Google’s search algorithm. Search engines had moved a lot of towards editorial opinions, google has team of quality testers around the world who are supposed to check their results for quality and any possible search engine spamming,

Also editorial opinion depends on monitoring visitor behavior through their toolbar or analytics or through cookies. Google has ways of understanding through toolbar day a user behaviour and the time a user stays on a website.

Some points from the patent as noted by tedster:

1. Get a bunch of people to find and rate really good websites and really spammy websites for certain searches
2. Make their rating into a parameter
3. Look at what the algo says the top results “should” be for a particular search
4. See if that search is in one of the topic areas that has an editorial rating
5. If so, look to see if there is some relationship to either the good guy list or the bad guy list
6. Shift the search rankings according to whatever parameter the editors generated.
7. Serve the shifted results to the user.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7096214.PN.&OS=PN/7096214&RS=PN/7096214