September 2007

Being a more relevant business on the Web

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 30, 2007 in SEO Theory

There is a difference between having a business on the Web and doing business on the Web. A Web-based business traditionally doesn’t have a store front, although there is no reason why you cannot set up a Web-based business and then settle down in a building somewhere.
In the early 1990s I actually knew someone [...]

Scooping up visibility on the Web

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 28, 2007 in Content Theory

Fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs can rejoice. At long last his Carson Napier stories are being brought to the silver screen. Angelic Pictures has acquired the film rights to all five of Burrough’s Pirates of Venus books. The first movie, The Pirates of Venus, is due to be released to theaters in [...]

Link Analysis: Crunchy numbers and soft tallies

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 26, 2007 in Intermediate SEO, Link Theory

Some definitions for useful link analysis

It’s time to start looking at numbers, but first let’s define some concepts. If you’re serious about analyzing links then you have to be serious about analyzing content. That is, Web page structure is very important to your link analysis. We’re not looking for numbers of backlinks. [...]

Linking analysis: Who is linking to you and why

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 26, 2007 in Intermediate SEO, Link Theory

One reason why a Web site may be showing a strong link profile is that it could have allies. Web site alliances are nothing new. They have been around since the Web began but quite often people who are new to search engine optimization assume that most links are obtained or exchanged rather [...]

What every good SEO should know about link analysis

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 24, 2007 in Intermediate SEO, Link Theory

The only valid test for determining whether a link passes value is to determine whether the link passes anchor text. There is more than one kind of value that can be associated with a link but most people are only interested in either internal PageRank or anchor text. You cannot in any way [...]

Fundamental principles for link analysis

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 23, 2007 in Intermediate SEO, Link Theory

Link analysis is probably the one search engine optimization skill that most SEOs underdevelop. Their reliance upon link query operators at Google and Yahoo! ensures that SEOs have virtually no clue about what is happening with their linking profiles.
If you’re going to use a search engine as a reporting tool you cannot allow it [...]

Manage crawl-to-index lag times efficiently

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 20, 2007 in SEO Theory

Do you need to submit an XML sitemap to the search engines?
Not so long ago many people complained on forums and blogs that submitting XML sitemaps to Google “caused” their sites to fall out of Google’s index. These same people usually said that as soon as they deleted their XML sitemaps their sites were [...]

Linking patterns: Why link-heavy pages win, lose, or draw

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 18, 2007 in Link Theory

How many links per page is okay?

John Biundo made an interesting point in Ten Lessons From SES San Jose. Let me quote him for you:
2. Who says you should only have 200 links per page?
This is something that has passed as wisdom since I’ve been following SEO, and it’s always made some sense to [...]

Using free analytics data for competitive analysis

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 17, 2007 in Competitive Analysis, SEO Metrics

Free Web Analytics Providers

Alexa
AttentionMeter
Compete
Quantcast
Rankings

There have been times in the past when I have spun cautionary tales about using Alexa data for comparative analysis. Many times.
I beat up on Alexa mainly because one marketer likes to bleat about his Alexa rankings. I sometimes wonder if he has made the connection between his proselytizing for [...]

The United States government says links are not endorsements

Posted by Michael Martinez on September 16, 2007 in Link Theory

The United States Census Bureau does not endorse sites it links out to:”…Note: The Census Bureau is not responsible for the content of information located on other web sites linked from this page. No endorsement by the Census Bureau should be implied by an external link from this page….”
The National Space and Aeronautics Admnistration does [...]

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