SEO and Page Rank

Often new search engine optimization enthusiasts discuss page rank(PR) and their disappointed that the page does not achieve a higher score. Page rank is nothing but an "indicator" of how popular a page is or not. Pages that have a PR0 may just as well out rank a page that has a significantly higher score.

I have had a site with absolutely no page rank that was positioned "above the fold" for a local highly sought after topic. Finally, when I sought out some inbound links the page rank jumped from PR0 to PR3 almost overnight. I really never watched it that closely but when I checked it had suddenly taken a big jump.

Now with a page that has a high PR that links to another page or website will help that page more than a page linking to it with no page rank. A web page with one PR3 linking to another page or site is more valuable than three PR1's linking to it and so forth.

And finally, do consumers value page rank when they visit a site? Most consumers have no idea what page rank is and could really care less. After all, is the product that is being sold relevant to the page rank?

Google Data Center in Oklahoma?

SearchEngineLand reports that Google may be making a move to Oklahoma in an industrial complex that even has its own coal-operating power plant. Evidently Google is looking at the complex to house another data center. Google is growing immensely with other data centers around the country including one here in Dallas. The area being considered by Google is an area of 7,000 acres in an industrial complex. The officials at the complex are being tight-lipped and are neither confirming nor denying whether Google is the company that has purchased 800 acres just south of the area that Gatorade owns.

The data center should be able to handle better local search deliveries and hopefully will help with search engine optimization.

Black Hat Scare Tactics

A really disturbing trend I see in the Search Engine Optimization industry is for so-called SEO professionals to either blog for hysteria or report it on their own website stating, "Blackhat Professional SEOers are on the loose". I suppose they are suggesting they be hired through the mass hysteria that will next leave small babies vulnerable.

This is THE FIRST sign that something is amiss; pointing to others and 'how they are bad'. These unethical tactics run amuck from small agencies to large. I have seen one agency boastings, from one of the largest US cities, they are #1 on MSN but further results show they are 468 place on Yahoo and do not even place within 100 pages of Google which is 1,000 placings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

The above "agency" was from the North US. Here is what came from a Southern US SEO agency: 'WE WILL SEE YOU GET TO #1 ON GOOGLE!' Fact is, they cannot even place on the first page of google with their city name and SEO. So how can they promise first place on Google when they cannot make to the first page of Google for 'City SEO'.

The best thing for clients to learn is investigate. PERIOD.

Click Fraud

Click Forensics of Austin Texas has announced an increase of click fraud for the first quarter of 2007 at 14.8% which is up from 14.2% from the last quarter of 2006. Also interesting to note is that higher priced keywords from $2.00 and up was up to 22.2% click fraud.

Advertisers may soon realize that organic search engine optimization is the preferred way to proceed over the long haul. Admittedly, pay-per-click may be the best way to proceed for commercial websites to gain immediate revenue and traffic but that may come at a premium for small to medium sized businesses.

SEO Companies Positioning

Wow. One company from a major U.S. city announced how they were number 1 on MSN and how they were such big shots in the Search Engine Optimization- SEO community and how they were ranked in the search engine result placements (SERP). Analysis reveals, yes, numbero uno for MSN but for yahoo? Number 486 and Google? Not within 1,000 results for their city and "SEO".

Anything else to say? Oh, SEO-Metro is claiming nada.

Google and Paid Links

Well, here it is Google want to know who sells links. Maybe someone could point out to Matt that his company is the largest seller of links on the planet if I am not mistaken.

That being said, is this not a campaign for webmasters to take advantage of in a fair way or an unfair way with each other. Matt even said,

“Example.com is selling links; here’s a page on example.com that demonstrates that” or “www.shadyseo.com is buying links.

in referencing how users should report websites and webmasters seeking paid links.

SEO-Metro is not seeking paid links but wondering, was not this OK in the past? I know for sure it was common acceptance. Now I understand how a website with cash could out-rank another website with more relevant content but less PR quality links. That would deliver less quality search engine result pages (SERPs) but isn't the algorithms supposed to take care of ranking quality backlinks? So if a site selling airplanes has links from a PR10 selling Antarctica asparagus plus paid links, should not the search engines be able to determine that is not the best quality back-link compared to a PR10 that is about airplanes linking to the airplane site (regardless if links are paid or not)?

So in regards to links and quality content, is not the quality of content that should have higher SERPs? Regardless of back-links or to a lesser extent determined by back-links? All-in-all realizing that back-links "help" determine more relevant content.

Maybe Mr. Cutts has that in plans with his mentioned,

That will be enough for Google to start testing out some new techniques we’ve got — thanks!

I would suppose this leaves link brokers in a quandary among others.

Google Searches Increase

Well, Google got off its feet once again to dominate the United States search engine industry. March results are in with Google leading the other search engines with 64% according to Newsweek Information and HitWise. Yahoo! was positioned at 22% and MSN at 9% with Ask.com sliding in with 3%.

The search engine war is on. Make not doubt about it. The other smaller engines are still at the prevailing war and not giving up. Very interesting for statistics keepers. SEO Metro loves comptetition, it's good for business.

User Analytics

Recently a company announced it had a "new approach" to measuring users conversions, surfing habits, click-through rates, etc. It then proclaimed that its initial cost per lead was $500 per lead and had been reduced to $70 per lead after three months of interactive software. Seems like quite an expense that would be avoided with proper, organic SEO. Any company that can spend $500 to generate a lead should have a university classroom to tear apart the statistics, problems presented, leads, landing page stats, etc. to expertly work out the problems. My question is are these reports even valid. It seems it is just a marketing hype from companies that are either irresponsible, lazy or just ignorant of basic statistics, SEO and online marketing.

Indexability for SEO

The ability for search engines to not be able to index pages is an often unforeseen variable in SEO. Take for example SEO Metro's client Dallas Computer Repair. This website at one time had another template that was indexable by MSN search engines and Yahoo! search engines but was not able to be easily indexed by Google. Problem? Well, yeah with Google having 50% of the searches worldwide daily. The aforementioned website is now able to be crawled by all the major search engines which has made a huge difference in traffic.

The reason that Google was unable to crawl the content was most likely the amount of code that preceded the actual content. The new web template is much cleaner with dramatically less code preceding the content. It took some time, a few months, before the search engines would properly place the site. It was as if the site had launched for the first time minus the filtering time a new site is given.

SEO Slamming

Slamming SEO Professionals

One thing I just saw on the internet was about SEO professionals slamming other SEO pro's. One thing SEO Metro will never engage in personal slamming nor slamming professionals. Now, we may slam techniques and what is being said, however, we will not point to the source but will make vague comments; nothing that could be directly pointed at a particular event or article per se. The owner of SEO Metro has graduate, professional credentials and does need to engage in practices of slamming individuals, however, SEO techniques that are bad are up to endless slamming.

SEO Methods

I keep seeing gawd awful SEO claims, ads, techniques, worthless duplicate articles that should have stopped long ago. These SEO Pro's claim to be Professional, however, their techniques and methods stand alone as solid proof. Another claim particular SEO Pro's use is to proclaim they use "ethical" methods while either lying through their teeth OR ignorant of sound SEO techniques and methods while all the time spamming the search engine with their very own SEO website. Is there no shame? No. These people have never stated their supposed credentials on their websites if they even have any.

SEO Credentials

What is quite disturbing in this online wild frontier is that professionals are not posting any professional credentials. I see tons of supposed testimonials, tons of boasting about anonymous clients and making the millions of dollars in ROI thanks to the SEO work but no proof.

Need I say more.

Search Engine Submission

One topic that needs to be ended for our clients is "search engine submission". SEO Metro is not engaging any wasted time in search engine submission. Our marketing campaigns ensure our clients the search engines will find them quickly. We frequently get asked about search engine submission and our time is better utilized with a better ROI using sound and grounded marketing with quality backlinks.

Marketing

SEO Metro has been off on a massive marketing campaign, content building and research trying to get all the right keywords and relevant helpful content online. We are now indexed by Google, Yahoo, MSN and some of the minor search engines which will help bring visitors and clients to our search engine optimization company.