Comments for SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog

Comment on There is more to trust than links by Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:37:23 +0000

It’s too soon for me to draw any firm conclusions, but Google has indicated that the more often your site appears high in search results, the more likely it is to appear high in search results. If that is really the case (this would be one of those “200 signals” they talk about, I suppose) then position in the SERPs might indeed have some impact on trust.

But I would be careful about using that as a cornerstone for an SEO strategy.

Comment on The Google Sandbox Patent by jnoempire

jnoempire — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:38:06 +0000

Brilliant, just Brilliant

Comment on There is more to trust than links by dahmak

dahmak — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:07:28 +0000

Hi Michael,

I know this might be a little of topic but nevertheless what are your thoughts on the relationship of positioning in the SERPs compared to traffic and/or popularity (popularity from the search engine point of view of how many people are actually clicking through from the search engine).

Thanks,
Karim

Comment on What are you optimizing for? by Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:30:52 +0000

Well, I certainly did not mean to mischaracterize anything.

Comment on What are you optimizing for? by Nicolette

Nicolette — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:21:15 +0000

Gee Michael, I didn’t know what I love is the “boring” stuff. The analysis and sleuthing are what make SEO fascinating to me.

Comment on A Guide To One-way Link Building by Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:15:30 +0000

If there are people in the Entertainment (television, film, stage, and radio) and Science Fiction and Fantasy genres who want to send me unique articles and images to be published on Xenite.Org, I'll be glad to link to their sites as long as:

There is nothing defamatory or pornographic in the content
The sites are not banned or penalized by the search engines
There is nothing defamatory or pornographic on their sites
There is nothing illegal, that incites people to commit illegal acts, etc. in the content
Nothing illegal on their sites
They don't turn around and submit that stuff on other fan sites (I can usually tell if the fan sites pick it up from me or if they get it direct from the source)

Most people in the SEO industry don't have connections with those industries, but I would give permanent one-way links to content providers. I'll also link to people (writers, actors, producers, crew members) on popular shows and movies who let me interview them, but I don't go out of my way seeking the interviews.

Comment on What are you optimizing for? by Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:09:57 +0000

Well, I agree that “social media optimization” is not clearly defined, but it seems to me that you can achieve optimal performance through social media marketing.

For example, if you’re tracking several dozen social media sites, you can probably figure out which ones are appropriate for an SEO blog, for a business blog, for a news blog, etc. Ensuring you participate in the right social media resources for your site would be, in my opinion, part of the optimization.

Search engine optimization isn’t really very appealing to most people because it requires work. If you can just spend an hour a day submitting your site to “linking sources”, that’s easier — even if the linking sources don’t pass value.

There are plenty of people in the industry who have to do the “boring” stuff — analyzing SERPs, keyword research, looking for ways to improve page optimization, etc.

It’s just that you don’t get as many links to your blog for sharing good information as you do for sharing ideas about how to get links.

Comment on A Guide To One-way Link Building by GabriellaS

GabriellaS — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:45:32 +0000

Hello Michael

I have enjoyed reading several of your posts. I do agree with you sometimes you are a bit long winded but it’s all valuable information. I had to quote you on our blog ( I hope you don’ mind, we are not cheap and tawdry… not really lol) “You want a link? Give me unique content that no other site is allowed to have. I’ll give you a link in a heartbeat. If there is a magic bullet in link building, unique, original content is the magic bullet for link building.” Is that an offer?

Comment on What are you optimizing for? by John H. Gohde

John H. Gohde — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:27:47 +0000

Sphinn is about Internet Marketing (IM), yet I see absolutely no one there ever mentioning this fact. I do not think that Social Media Optimization is even possible. I would call it Social Media Marketing (SMM) rather than SMO. What ever you call it, social media manipulation is definitely a part of IM. SMM is positively not SEO. SEO transcends IM, as not all websites are about grubbing money.

I really resent these SMMs and SEMs trying to usurp the title of SEO when what they actually are doing is not remotely connected to SEO.

Comment on What are you optimizing for? by Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:08:40 +0000

The point of the post is to get people to think about what they are actually doing. I don't think web marketing will ever be replaced by SEO in the lexicon, but if people are using SEO to refer to more than just search engine optimization they need to be clear about that.