http://www.inphotek.com/internet-marketing-system-secrets.aspx

http://www.inphotek.com/internet-marketing-system-secrets.aspx
All about those Internet Marketing Systems and how they make money.

Aaron Wall's Bad Advice Blog

NO.. Aaron's blog isn't giving out bad advice. He just had a blog about bad advice that sounds good. While I'm still over the fence on the whole Create Quality Content issue he presented. I can honestly say that I was intrigued by the rest of it. While it's true that you have to create quality content, I have found that a lot of the SEO experts out there are using it to hold back on what works. They harp on and on about having it but when you delve deeper researching their sites using reverse engineering on their SEO .... they're using other techniques to help get people to visit. It's all so "fake" with the "Create Quality Content". Linking matters, Search Engines matter, Layout Matters. Harping on and on about quality content.. well at this point I THINK they get it!

Does Page Strength Matter?

I've been tooling around with the Page Strength tool at seomoz.org. I've seen some interesting results. A few people who are clearly (because I know them) making money in their area have recieved a low Page Strength rating on the tool. I found that rather interesting.

I think what matters isn't the Page Strength but what SEO is adding to the overall marketing efforts. In some cases, the overall Page Strength doesn't seem to matter. What matters is the results from each business's little niche market and how a company fits into that niche market.

I've seen 2 sites that are doing well for their companies but they had less than 3 on the Page Strength meter. I wonder why that is? Is the tool flawed? I don't think it's flawed. I think it's taking too much into consideration. I think if the tool narrowed in comparison to others in a niche market, you'd get a better idea of where a company stands in relationship to the niche market.

The comments on the left side do make a difference. Clearly, the comments recognize the fact that some progress is being made in certain cases. I think as a whole, the tool is a good one for guidance but not the wole picture.

Stopping Google from DMOZing your Descriptions

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-supports-meta-noodp-tag/

Basically, you can stop Google from pulling description tags from DMOZ. The problem with the DMOZ descriptions is that the editor make up their own and it's nearly impossible to change.

I really like that Matt Cutts actually blogs about the search engine he works for. It would be nice to find some guys doing that for yahoo and msn.

Google Bowling

I just read the most shocking article. Michael Pedone wrote an article about Google Bowling. Now, I haven't investigated it yet but apparently it's based on Google penalizing for paid text links.

Apparently he claims that with that penality, competing companies go out and buy links for their competitors. The competitor's site disappears from the SERPs. It's completely bizarre.

I read a back issue of High Rankings Advisor and found interesting information about Google's sandbox and the aging delay. (Also found an article on changing your URL name which I actually need for a client right now).

Suffice it to say, the sandbox has a lot of different criteria. Based on what I've read, things like traffic reports based on the google toolbar and url tracking from the SERPs are being used to track the traffic to your website.

There's lots more regarding links and anchor text, including the length of time it takes for links to show up, and if fit the profile for being artificial or natural. If you're not attempting to artificially inflate your link popularity, then you should be alright.

In one post someone talked about the sandbox:

Sandbox: Sites that buy lots and lots of links or use link networks or any other linking schemes seem to be affected by a longer term "sandbox" effect where the links seem to be discounted and don't propel the site to the top of the SERP's as we have seen happen in the past.

The quality of the links are probably the main issue, although one of the other posters mentioned:

No link can have a negative effect on your PR, that is a fact. The ONLY way a link can have a negative effect is if YOU are linking to a penalised site, so forget about that aspect of it.

OK back to reality. Despite what people say, who links to you does have a massive effect on where you sit in the grand scheme of things web wise. We all know that inbound links count to help you, but they CAN count to help knock you down as well.

The key think with inbound links is quality, plain and simple. If ALL you have is crap inbounds, then by logic, you site is crap. HOWEVER, if you have quality inbounds, then by default, your site must be quality.

You have identified the problem, now focus on building some quality back-links.

So now that I'm somewhat confused, I guess the best advice is to keep targeting the quality links and not worry about the paid for links, no matter how scarey they are. Just Do Not Link To Crap.

Where to start

This blog will detail my continued journey into the SEO world. I've been perusing a lot of search engine optimization content as well as social networking and social bookmarks. I have learned quite a bit following along over at seomoz.org. Rand is quite a guy. The details he gives out at http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php are quite an eye opener. Just when I thought I had a handle on everything, I find that article. While the experts are giving rankings on the different techniques, the rest of us have a great resource on what's expected.

seomoz.org also has another article for beginners in search engine optimization. I've got to agree with all the points the writer makes in the article. I found it quite interesting.