Thread: THE SEO Factor not many people talk about =)

I'm starting to like this forum... it's one of the better ones... Not many spammers... Good input from users. so I'm going to share something that not many people would be so quick to share.

My people call it "The Net Vote". Most SEO consultants or companies... either don't know about it... or don't want you know You to know about it. the net vote is the combined vote of all visitors to a website.

The secret to raking high on Google ( which is not really a secret at all ) is written right on the Google Webmaster guidelines for all the world to see. it says "Build a Good Site".

The problem is... most people read too far into that or refused to take it at face value. They end up getting frustrated and trying to take shortcuts to the top which usually get them burned and in their frustration they turn to SEO firms and get burned even more.

Google's primary goal always has been... and always will be to provide quality results. Google's success was in achieving that ( unlike Microsoft just throwing money and mass advertising at it with dumb ass Bing and the two other previous failures to take on Google).

Google is in the business of measuring public opinion of the website. This results in The Net-Vote. Google measures how much time people spend on a website... How many times they clicked on a website... How many times they come back... And over what period of time... all adding up to a Net-Vote-Score for any search term.

I'm sure you've heard of these factors before... But rarely do people publicly talk about how these factors combine to create the Net Vote Score. They will usually just hint at things like "does the site get bookmarked?" Google doesn't know if you bookmark that site... But Google does know if you went back to it... and for how long... and how many times.


It all started out with the Google toolbar. With this toolbar Google was able to measure how many times and how long people spent at a website. The more toolbars they had installed the more people they could record activities from.

This is why Google would negotiate the pre-installation of the Google toolbar on thousands of DELL computers at a time. Everything from notebooks, desktops, PDAs, whatever! Everything Google could get its hands on... got the Google toolbar installed on it ( this strategy is important to note for a point I will make in a paragraph below).

When other search engine companies realized what Google was doing they scrambled to deploy their own toolbars. Alexa, Yahoo, ask.com, everyone! But they were all too late. Their toolbars sucked... and people didn't want 4 inches of toolbars at the top of their browsers. The Yahoo toolbar I think was the worst.

Eventually, the Google toolbar was defeated legally as a plaintiff was successful in presenting a case of "invasion of privacy" due to Google's recording of the data I mentioned above. That is why the default for sending information to Google in Google's toolbar is now - off. But, it was still... Too late. Google was already a net Titan! they had and still have the financial resources to dominate and monopolize data.

With the toolbar effectively gone... where would Google get it's data from now?? there's only one logical place... And that's the ISPs. We had thought this for years... so much that we never actually looked for any proof of it. it was the only logical step. Google is not hard to figure out after you realize what their goal is ( collecting data for the Net-Vote ).

It was confirmed for us last year by Verizon... That Google was attempting to secure exclusive rights to all data passing through the Verizon FIOS network ( which will dominate the US ISP infrastructure for the foreseeable future). The case was in legal negotiations in the state of Louisiana.

Google has gone state-by-state and secured exclusive rights from ISPs to monitor data passing through them. The data is anonymous... yet still tells Google everything it needs to know to continue to monitor the activities of users on the net. This was no doubt very expensive... and when the other search engine providers attempt to do the same thing... they are once again - Too Late as Google has beaten them to it and secured it exclusively.

I see no reason for Google to ever change this basic strategy of collecting the Net-Vote.

SEO firms go on and on about Domain Authority... so let's check that. DMOZ is a perfect example of absurdity on that factor. Which do you think Google will take more seriously... A few or 100 editors at DMOZ... Or the algorithmically calculated vote of the entire Internet ( The Net-VOTE )? The idea that Google needs or wants the input of third-party data... Is at this point absurd.

Google has the resources and technology to continue its dominance in the search engine arena. They do not need or want to import of third-party data. The relationship between perceived authority domains and high-ranking sites is one of algorithmic calculation and relativity... NOT scoring a link and big PR domain and getting a worthless site boosted to the top of the search ranks.

Simply put: All the link's from all the so-called authority domains in the world... Will not make a Blank page rank ... For Anything. because when the user gets their... They're going to make up their own minds as to whether they like the site or not... And Google is going to be right there measuring their opinion.


The bottom line for success is...
Make your website appealing to users.
Make it relevant to their search terms.
Give them reasons to come back.

Do your best to avoid the hype factors: aged domains, search engine friendly coding... and all the other BS that self proclaimed SEO consultants feed youto keep your ear full and on the bill.


Alicia.V

Nice post - thank you

nice post
to summarise
content remains and always will be king with google
only reason i want a site in dmoz is so all the erm link chasers will pay more thats it he he

hmm let me think
i made 2 days ago linkweel and my website is now #2 in google
i don`t think there was any other factors to make me rank higher

Originally Posted by datog

hmm let me think
i made 2 days ago linkweel and my website is now #2 in google
i don`t think there was any other factors to make me rank higher

yeh i can do that too with a small keyword
try doing that with a larger one see if you get the same result

DMOZ is a long dead relic of old time SEO. Google used it when they were new to search engine market and their Algorithm was too simple and new at those times. It's not same anymore . lot of things has changed since then.

A visitors time on a site maybe a factor but I'm not sure it's one of the biggest factors. But again if visitors spend time on a page that means the page is ranked for right keywords in Google and also the page has quality content. So again I guess it means this links with Googles quality content rules.

Also if visitors spend time on pages then site usually converts well. So it is always a major factor from site owners side. I think SEO consultants don't press about this much because it's not an variable which they can control. Like if a client brings a project for them and expect them to optimize the site. They can't simply tell the client your content is not good and go change all your content to quality stuff before start optimize. Maybe few might understand it but others would simply take the project to another SEO company or consultant. So most SEO guys would can with what they have than asking client to do a major redoing. Also they can get a site to rank with other elements than content, Maybe this will change in future with Panda updates and incoming updates but for now this is what happens in reality.

Originally Posted by bluearrow

DMOZ is a long dead relic of old time SEO.

yeah I knew that at the beginning I told everyone it was crap but of course no one believed me. Just like no one believed me when I said Yahoo was crap in 1999. I told them Yahoo had no value and that they would not endure as business model. People were like yeah... whatever... okay. look at Yahoo stock right now it's at like $16. Google stock is at over $500.

Sometimes it's just common sense to look at what has value doesn't. but a lot of people are just followers and they buy into the hype and that's what my post was partially about... Avoiding hype factors.

Originally Posted by bluearrow

I think SEO consultants don't press about this much because it's not an variable which they can control.

Yeah I was going to get into that... But the post was getting a bit long. you worded it better than I would've anyway... They have no "control over it". and subsequently cannot bill you for it unless you take a full package from them which usually means starting from scratch. most clients don't want to face that... Or the amount of work it actually takes to build a major site.

So they send clients around chasing meta-tags and keywords for as long as they can... For as long as they keep them on the bill.

I think the same. Years ago I told my webmaster friends and also some SEO guys that DOMz is just a spam dump which Google gonna drop soon from their algo if they hadn't done it already. Not many would listen. I pity SEO guys because they didn't have much choice about they. DOMZ was a flashy thing in those days. Clients used to come insisting they want their sites listed in DOMZ. It's so useless to explain them it not gonna help their sites. It's a loose loose situation for SEO consultant.

Yep Clients come with different ideas and budgets. There are bad SEO companies and people who would simply milk clients till clients get fed up with their SEO fantasies. Even for a good SEO guy there are not so many choices. Some clients comes with so little budget and expect so many things. Some only want to get on page SEO elements corrected. Some try to teach SEO consultant how to do it. So if you try to preach them the right many walks away and you soon would be out of business.

I'm not a SEO consultant but I worked with them for long enough to know how things work. People simply don't listen.

Great article.
Always focus on your visitors and then put a little attention to the On-Page SEO and then help jump start your site/blog with the Off-Page SEO.
Then all you need to do is adding unique, interesting and helpful content to your site which will bring you constant flow of "snowball" traffic...
It is very hard to keep up with the newest SEs algos changes and eventually you will lose that battle, so your best bet is not to go in that battle if you don't need to in the first place.

No matter how they change the search algorithm core factors remain same. Quality content, updating content regularly, on page optimization, back link building.

i can but it takes more time and need more linkweels backlinks

Originally Posted by datog

hmm let me think
i made 2 days ago linkweel and my website is now #2 in google
i don`t think there was any other factors to make me rank higher

Unless you really want a term.... I mean Really need it. I am usually content with being in the top three. Occasionally #4 as Google fluctuates.

The reason I say this is because if you dedicate a high percentage of your website to a single term you may lose your reach of longtail terms that actually add up to more traffic then being number one single term.

good article.. i'm as a newbies in this industries will always rely on google algorithm.. i really don't know how to be a playmaker in this industries, what are google says i'm just stick with it

If you want to show up on Google's top ten you need backlinks, good onsite opimization, good content AND more backlinks.

Originally Posted by datog

i can but it takes more time and need more linkweels backlinks

so your point is ?

Originally Posted by apexglm

so your point is ?

I think he meant that you could rank top in Google result with back links alone.

He is right. I have seen sites which have nearly zero content rant over good sites because those sites owned by people who know how to use black hat seo methods smartly. But I don't think these methods going to work in future since Google has already decided to make content is king theory into work. I think software like Xrumer might be out of job soon.

Originally Posted by Nemanja

It is very hard to keep up with the newest SEs algos changes and eventually you will lose that battle, so your best bet is not to go in that battle if you don't need to in the first place.

That's exactly right... Google has thousands of people with high IQs working on its algo. the combined IQs of these people can never be defeated for sustained period of time. Even though the strong financial resources of Microsoft have failed three times to take any significant market share from Google. And so it's absurd to think that we as individuals... Or even SEO firms could succeed on a sustained basis.

It has been done from time to time... last year JCPenney actually defeated the Google algorithm for many clearly irrelevant terms to its product line on its website ( I should have bookmarked the article ) but the bottom line was they were eventually suppressed by human decision in Google. but JCPenney had succeeded in their goal. The campaign was timed perfectly during the busy Christmas season in which people were searching for gifts online. And JCPenney has such a strong product line and brand name I doubt any repercussions from Google would mean very much to them.

JCPenney surely put a large amount of financial resources into the campaign... which was likely to be a back link blitz. Similar to what you guys are talking about in which you can get a site with not much quality content to rank for a given term.

My people call it the Boost Factor.

The theory is... You can keep a relatively new or low quality site boosted in the ranks by a steady flow of fresh inbound links. It's like blowing on a balloon to keep it in the air. You have to keep blowing on it to keep it afloat because the balloon would not float on its own. In the end the financial cost of this type of campaign is not cost-efficient - like PPC campaigns for low profit margin sales. it is much better to fill the balloon with helium or hydrogen ( which would in this case be quality relevant content ...).

great article for newbie like me...

thanks

Informative article, and it is like article rewriting i.e. even "The Best Spinner" software will never, ever rival a competent human writer. The point being that original and relevant content will ALWAYS boost your Google rankings.

choose keywords relevant to search terms is very important, people should pay their attention to this more.