SEO’s Say The Stupidest Things!
This is a post that I’ve wanted to write for quite a while. I love seeing people test new ideas out and writing about their findings, it’s human nature to learn more about subjects of interest. However in a desperation to say anything new/fresh about SEO we are starting to see a few little fallacies slip through the net. After all SEO has to always move forward/improve and SEO rockstar #78 has a reputation to maintain, right?
It’s understandable, Panda shook alot of people up in 2011 (with people losing jobs and many more losing clients) and although no-one has truly and properly explained what Panda is and how it works there is a belief that it is a quality metric/algorithm. The update has been great for the bigger SEO companies as it has mean’t that SEO can now be sold as ‘harder than ever!’ Copywriters can charge more for their quality/optimised content and link building ‘specialists’ can talk about outreach, infographics and kinetic typography. You can understand why SEO companies and freelancers are beginning to share their “advanced SEO” secrets again (yes the SEO blogosphere was dead pre Panda).
This has unfortunately lead to people screaming utter drivel from the rooftops:
- Going forward links will hold less sway influencing search results.
- To be successful you must vary your anchor text.
- Want to beat Panda? Write quality content
- Want to beat Panda? Create quality links
I’m sorry but from what I’m still seeing and hearing this isn’t the case.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve talked to a very high profile person within the SEO industry about link building. He told me that one of his clients had seen rankings drop after gaining links from Vogue, New York Times,Shape and many more. Yes lets go through that again rankings decreased after gaining quality links.
Surely these are the links that I should be looking to gain for my client? Every SEO blog under the sun is telling me that I should be looking to gain links from quality resources. If we hear that Google are penalising websites for this then people are going to start to think “why shouldn’t I go back to what I know works?”
I’d also be interested to find out how this was explained to the client!
Client – Excellent so you got me links on these quality websites, you told me that Google will like this. So how are the ranking results, gone through the roof I expect?!
Supplier – Yeah, umm, about that…
This doesn’t mean spam the shit out of the internet, lord knows we have enough of that already. But please could we at least tone it down a bit when it comes to this quality only approach when it’s obvious that a good mix of link techniques are still required to get results, after all this is why the clients are paying us right?!
I suppose at the end of the day it is the game that we play…
I can’t ever see links becoming less important unless Google rebuilds their algorithm, so like you, I am indeed sick of seeing people say that will happen. In order to (only slightly) defend people who say the other 3, while I don’t agree with those statements, I do think that sometimes we all say things out of a desire for an ideal. I wanted to think that the Pandalized sites that I dealt with (who were unfairly penalized I think) could regain their rankings if they did the typical “right” things. It didn’t happen. Sites that are total crap and have crap backlink profiles continue to kick ass.
Your point about how you must vary anchor text is particularly interesting as I feel that sometimes, when I write about that, I am not able to articulate all the intricacies. If you conduct a competitive analysis and find that your competitors all have 95% generic money anchors, I think you can probably do something similar and do well. If they’re very, very well balanced, I think you need to do the same. However, nothing works to such an ideal in this industry. You can do what your competitors do and still suck. You can do all the spammy stuff that people don’t like and rank your ass off.
And yes, it IS a game I think. A fun one, of course…
Hey Julie, thanks for dropping by
I totally agree, if Panda has screwed your site then trying to do the “right” things in a positive and idealistic way is a good way of doing it. Sitting on your arse and whinging about any Google update isn’t going to get you anywhere! I suppose the irritating thing is the blind faith that is given to just producing “quality”. Even now there are only a couple of half decent case studies on how people have overcome Panda and what it entailed.
In terms of anchor text it’s quite obvious that anything too over the top is going to get flagged, will it result in a penalisation? Depends on the authority of the site… I like to vary my anchor text with long tail variables and synonyms but still like to make sure that Google is aware of what terms are most important! I know of agencies who use exact anchors for 30/40% of their links, I’d like to see how they do in competitive sectors… At the end of the day it’s about knowing what metrics to check with competitors and learning what works for different markets.
It is a great game! However like sport I prefer the doing/winning side to the media side!
p.s – you got your link as I had just turned comments to do follow 2 mins before you showed up…
Sweet!!! That will get me out of Panda, whoop!
Well it is from a “quality” website…
The SEO industry is mostly posturing. Everyone wants to say they do wonderful white hat things and that it works like a charm. In reality, spam still rules a lot of the results and you honestly cannot expect that just by being more “ethical” you’ll trounce competitors.
Hey Joel thanks for stopping by
Your comment is spot on as is your post at http://www.vovia.com/blog/seo/going-to-war/ it’s rare to see such honesty on a company blog so fair play!
I also like the image on your homepage, very cool.
I think the whole quality content thing is a great way for big agency SEO’s to charge more for services.
Client: What’ve you done this week?
Supplier: Erm, wrote a blog… thinking about doing a Press Release…
Client: …and…?
Supplier: Sent some emails….
Client: What the F*** am I paying you lot for?
Supplier: I’m building quality links it took 6 weeks to get published on [insert well known blog who take paid submissions] and I sent 4 emails to some webmasters today.
Client: It better be f***ing worth it… I’ll call you in a fortnight
Supplier: Before you go I’m going to need an extra £350 next month so I can submit you to [well known directory] I was chatting to some guy on a forum last night he knows a guy who knows a guy who edits that category.
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SEO is comical to me at times, the people who are in the know don’t really say much when the spotlight is on them. Those who want to be perceived as being “in the know” are the ones always talking like they have inside information.
I suppose I enjoy pretending I know stuff and moaning about people, it’s my own little SEO niche!
Empty drums make the loudest noise.
I see the same old stuff rotating round and round social media. Its getting stagnant out there. Please for the love of SEO can we have an injection of new and interesting ideas. I can’t take another copycat regurgitated article.
Sean – it’s good to see a strong personality in a banal environment.
and where did you get a picture of a ball of fluff with eyes?
Thanks Shelli
I expect the same old shit to be regurgitated (nice visual…) within SEO for a long time yet! I’m just a keyboard warrior like the rest of the industry! The fluffy thing was found via Google, can’t remember the search though (maybe confused or something similar)