SEO Forum Watch Blog

Does Article Distribution Help SEO?

2005-12-16T15:42:00.000+00:00

I thought it would be nice to make this post and more to point, share my joy with all three of you that may be reading it. Over the last few weeks I’ve started experimenting with writing articles and distributing them to see if it would help with SEO.

What is Article Distribution for SEO?

In short, article distribution is writing articles that are focused on your market sectors target audience. The articles could be news worthy stories or anything else you feel people would like to read about. You then submit the article to websites that display them. There are even services dedicated to distributing articles. I would recommend Articlesender which is one of the best distributors I’ve used and completely free.

When submitting your article you can normally add what’s known as a bio box. The bio box is displayed at the end of the article and is your chance to inform people who wrote the article. You can add a link to your site in the bio box.

If your article is accepted and posted on the site, it should be indexed by the search engines. So you will now have a new one way link pointing to your site. People who are looking for content to publish on their site or ezine may find your article and choose to use it. The rules are if they do use your article they have to include your bio box with the links.

Does it work for SEO?

I don’t know? Not yet anyway. I’m still tracking the results of the few articles I’ve wrote and distributed so far (some of which I’ve posted on SEO Forum Watch). There is a good thread over at WebWorkShop discussing the same question and I came across an interesting discussion on Matt Cutt’s blog. Matt didn’t directly say article distribution doesn’t help Google SEO but did say he felt sites that simply reproduced articles where not adding any value to the web. Whether that means Google discredits links from article distribution sites or sites reusing the content I don’t know. But as mentioned before I’m tracking the articles to find out if any SEO benefit is happening on what search engines.

Other Benefits of Article Distribution

The last article I published did however produce significant traffic. The article titled “The SEO Snowball Effect” was picked up and used by both WebProNews.com and WebProNews.co.uk. This had the effect of referring traffic from their site through the bio box link on the article to the company I work for. Looking at our stats I could see in two days WebProNews had referred just over 180 visitors to our site. We even had someone requesting a SEO campaign because they read the article.

In my opinion this is where article writing is going perform. If you can write articles of such quality, that the authority sites in your sector use them. Then your going to get both targeted traffic and recognition of being an expert because of your association with them.

I will be posting more on this when I get evidence of whether article distribution has any SEO benefit. I’ve got a feeling it will work on Yahoo and MSN but not the big G. If I fail to make another post before Christmas or you fail to make it back, have a great Xmas and a good new year.

SEO Forum Watch - 2005 - 2006

2005-12-13T15:18:00.000+00:00

Well it’s coming to that time of the year again, where we say good bye to the old and welcome the new. Lots of us will be looking at what was achieved in 2005 and looking at what can be achieved in 2006. The New Year is always exciting in the search industry, with people rounding up the year and predicting what’s going to be hot, where things are heading etc.

Anyone who visits SEO Forum Watch regularly would of noticed it has been put on the back burner but I refuse to end the blog there and know it will come into its own come 2006. When I get time and the opportunity is right, the SEO Forum Watch will be moving to a WordPress blog and most probably be changing its focus slightly.

2005 was an interesting year for the SEO community, with the new MSN search probably being one of the biggest stories. And then towards the end of the year Google’s Jagger update hit us in three parts but rumours of Google engineers not being happy with the update is probably the bigger story there.

It looks like the Jagger update has tried to rebalance the importance of natural linking by devaluing reciprocal links and adding more emphasis to TrustRank (authority sites). However looking at Google’s results does leave one feeling like they have taken a bit of nose dive, even if the sites I’m conducting SEO on have benefited from the update!

As I said above the new MSN search in my opinion is the biggest story of 2005. MSN was previously using Yahoo as their search provider and is still using Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) to provide their sponsored results. MSN will be launching their own pay per click advertising service in 2006, replacing Yahoo’s and giving them an all important foothold on the SEM market. No doubt an advertising network will quickly follow for web publishers to be paid for displaying their ads (think Google adsense but with a MSN logo).

Well this has been my first round up post but no doubt I will post at least one more (time permitting). If you do for some reason forget not to come back, have a great Christmas and all the best for the New Year. Have a drink for me and raise your glass to getting even more traffic in 2006.

James Anderson

The SEO Snowball Effect

2005-12-06T15:36:00.000+00:00

SEO can seem like a long hard slog with little to no reward at times. Your mind often racing, constantly thinking about keyword phrases, H1 tags and links as you lay in bed trying to catch a few winks. Six months down the line your SEO efforts are nowhere to be seen, not even a trace, except in the redness of what used to be the whites of your eyes. But what if, it didn’t have to be this way. What if, there was a method of seeing results sooner rather than later.

I still remember when I first set out on my path of SEO enlightenment, vividly. If I knew some of things I know now, it would have been a completely different journey and a much shorter one to arrive at the place I’m at now (slightly further up a never ending path). The sleepless nights as my brain churned through the new chunks of information learnt that day. The eureka moments when you learn the most simplistic of things like anchor text and emphasising keywords with bold tags. Learning how to perform keyword research was one of the most enjoyable and undervalued aspects of SEO. And did I mention the sleepless nights.

Anyway enough reminiscing and back to topic of this article. The SEO snowball effect is a simple an analogy. Remember those cartoons where a character would role down a snow covered hill, gathering more snow and increasing in size until they crashed into something like a tree. Well that is the SEO snowball effect, minus the crash at the end (hopefully).

You see, if you drew a chart that measured the effort put into SEO and the traffic it produces, you get something very much similar to that snowball. At first the effort you put in yields very little traffic if any at all. But putting the same amount of effort in again results in slightly more traffic, until further along the chart, the same amount of effort yields a much greater output of traffic.

The problem with this is the time it can take to see the first initial traffic from your efforts. Many webmasters will give up because of this, while others carry on but only see little reward in the first year or so. However, there is a way of optimising the initial stages of this snowball and it all comes down to keyword selection.

In brief, many webmasters focus on keywords they believe are worth the effort in terms of traffic and rightly so. After all what’s the point of chasing keywords that no one uses or only have a very small number of impressions? So we go after the big boys, the keywords with lots and lots of traffic. But this contributes to the snowball effect because the effort required to obtain a top hundred ranking can be a lot on keywords with higher traffic levels. While the traffic gained from being listed in position 67 will be insignificant. So may be there is a reason to gun for those keywords with fewer impressions?

If you conduct you keyword research intelligently you should be able to find quite a few keyword phrases with small amounts of traffic but more importantly, phrases that contain your main keywords. By optimising these phrases you are contributing to the SEO of your main keywords, simply because the main keyword is part of phrase. These lesser phrases in terms of traffic are much easier to reach traffic generating results and therefore can be done much quicker. Once you’re happy with the rankings of that phrase, simply move onto the next until all small traffic phrases are optimised. In a lot of cases the combined traffic from sub-primary keyword phrases can be more than the primary keyword it self, not to mention more targeted.

When all sub-primary phrases are optimised, the chances are your site will rank well for the primary keyword with little to work left at all to get the top spot. The best thing is you have targeted the best keywords but received highly targeted traffic earlier in the campaign. Turning the snowball effect from an annoying symptom into a competitive advantage.

Article by James Anderson, an SEO Consultant at Podium Solutions, a web design and internet marketing company based Manchester, UK.

©2005 James Anderson. Author bio box, links and copyright notice must be included in all reproductions of this article.

Phantom Traffic and the Overture Keyword Assistant Tool

2005-12-02T14:22:00.000+00:00

SEM campaigns involve detailed keyword research that’s critical to the overall success of the marketing campaign. Many companies use the Overture Keyword Assistant Tool to conduct this research. But would they base a marketing campaign on this data if the accuracy and reliability was uncertain. The following article questions the accuracy of Overtures data by documenting an SEO experiment that had some very interesting results.

Websites that are dependent on search engine traffic rely heavily on detailed keyword research to reach their target audience. Whether the resulting information is used for PPC, SEO or featured ads is beside the point. Simply put, if you want to exploit search traffic, you need accurate data on the number of searches carried out for each particular keyword.

Some companies will sub contract the keyword research to a specialist company and others will tackle it in-house. Regardless of who performs the research, a large number of people will primarily use the information provided by the Overture Keyword Assistant as the foundation of the project. I’ve been of the view for some time that the data Overture provides is often inflated, especially primary keywords. Recently I have been conducting tests to ascertain the accuracy of Overtures data in an effort to prove my suspicions and to see how big the problem is. The results so far are way beyond what I expected.

The SEO Research

Approximately one year ago I set up a new website focused on VoIP phone systems. The website was built to rank highly on Yahoo for the search phrase “Phone System” and a number of other keyword phrases. According to Overture the phrase “phone system” has 350,066 searches performed each month in the UK alone. The website is currently on the first page of results in Yahoo.com and in the top three positions for Yahoo’s UK only search.

With the keyword tool reporting this amount of searches and the websites position, you would expect the site to be receiving a large volume of traffic. But to put it simply, it does not. For example, over the last two months the site has only received three visits from people searching for “phone system”.

This test is not concrete because the majority of searches for phone system could be performed on another engine that Overture pulls its results from like MSN. But you would have to agree that it’s not very likely. Especially when you consider the site ranks in the top three positions for the search phrase “phone system” on MSN.

Overture’s keyword tool pulls its results from a number of sources, Yahoo and MSN being the largest in terms of traffic. The site has a large number of top three listings on apparently high traffic yielding phrases e.g. IP Phone, Business Phone System, Office Phone System etc. yet only receives a very small number of visitors.

Phantom Traffic

So what’s causing the highly inflated number of impressions the tool returns? I can’t say for sure but can certainly name a few things that could be significantly contributing to the effect. I’m also going to try and coin a phrase here and call the phenomena “Phantom Traffic”, which simply means non-genuine traffic or searches conducted for other reasons than an actual genuine interest of finding a site relating to a keywords particular theme. I strongly believe both of the examples below are affecting Overtures data and are contributors of phantom traffic.

1. Manual SEO Position checking

People manually checking the search results to ascertain a websites position. Search phrases that are perceived to be high traffic yielding in theory will have more people conducting optimisation and therefore more people manually checking their positions. More people manually checking their positions causes the number of impressions to be inflated (phantom traffic). This is self perpetuating; the more people checking results inflate the number of impressions, causing even more people to target the phrase and manually check their positions etc. etc. etc.

I’m certain this is impacting the Overture Keyword Suggestion tool significantly enough to cause many sites to chase phantom traffic. I also believe this to be the biggest contributing source of phantom traffic. Many webmasters manually check their rankings every day and some even more.

Auto Generated Pages Compiled from SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages)

Spam sites gathering keyword rich content from the SERP’s. These sites will automatically query search engines for their most sort after keywords (probably researched via the Overture keyword suggestion tool). The sites automatically copy the results pages of the search engines which are highly keyword focused. Quite often these sites will auto generate tens of thousands of pages, all focused on a select number of keyword variations. These keyword rich pages are normally buried quite deep in the site because they have no value to human visitors. Each page will be linked using rich anchor text and then pass the relevance back to one of the main pages via an anchor text link.

The idea behind this SEO trick is simply to produce large amounts of optimised content that’s linked together in a favourable fashion. Some of the programming that goes into these kinds of practices can be very clever, while others are very basic indeed. The problem is virtually every page being generated or regenerated for that matter is influencing Overtures data, unless the programmer is using an API key (which is unlikely).

Conclusion

This is very worrying to me as there must be a large number of people who base their entire keyword research campaigns on the data from Overture. This may cause their entire marketing campaign to focus on nothing more than Phantom Traffic. So what can one do to avoid targeting phrases that mainly consist of phantom traffic?

Well first of all it’s wise to use a combination of data sources. Wordtracker provides similar data to Overture but it’s gathered from different sources. Comparing the two data sources can sometimes highlight phantom traffic. If you notice keywords with an extremely high number of impressions, just ask yourself if it’s believable. Common sense can go a long way in this game.

Personally I’ve always advised clients to target sub-primary keyword phrases first and once rankings are achieved to focus on the next sub-primary phrase. If you intelligently select sub-primary keyword phrases that include the primary keywords, you are optimising the primary keyword at the same time.

Example

A good example of this is the sub primary keyword phrases, “web design Manchester”. The company I work for is currently listed on the first page of the major search engines for this phrase. The primary phrase is “web design” and is also being optimised at the same time because the words are contained in “web design Manchester” (we’re currently holding position 11 on Yahoo UK for search phrase “web design”). The search phrase “web design Manchester” is also one of our best performing keywords because it is so targeted. Anyone searching on that term is specifically interested in web design in the Manchester area.

Optimising in this fashion has several benefits. First of all sub-primary phrases should be less effected by Phantom Traffic and the number of impressions you see should be similar to the number of genuine searches carried out. Sub-primary phrases tend to also be less competitive with fewer people specifically optimising for them (however, this is not always the case). So reaching a traffic generating position is easier and faster resulting in faster ROI.

Once enough sub-primary phrases are optimised to rank well for primary keywords. The campaign will already be bringing in targeted traffic and therefore cause much less pain and wasted effort if the primary keyword is heavily affected by Phantom Traffic.

The other advantage is much of the time sub-primary phrases are more targeted and the traffic they bring tend to convert much better. I have personally seen this time and time again. Sites that have little traffic but enjoy a conversion ratio of 1/3 because the traffic they do receive is extremely targeted sub-primary keyword phrases. These websites often out perform sites receiving ten times the amount of traffic from primary keywords. It’s all down to specifics though and what works for some may not work for you. As mentioned before, common sense goes a very long way in this game. Just don’t get caught up chasing phantom traffic.

eCommerce Solution ready for launch

2005-11-21T16:00:00.000+00:00

Today is a great day as we're ready to launch the ecommerce solution everyone has been busy building. Trolleytech eCommerce is a powerful solution that enables retailers to sell their goods online. You can see a site using the trolleytech ecommerce solution by clicking on the link below.

Flava Fashions Store

Jagger update - No Comment

2005-10-25T11:38:00.000+00:00

Jagger Update

If you have'nt noticed already, Google has been very busy with its latest update. Named Jagger, the update has caused many webmasters to feel the wrong side of Algo blade with the result of their sites falling from grace.

What the update has changed no one can say just yet, but one thing for sure is its not over yet. Anyone who has been affected by this update is well advised to sit back and let it finish before making any alterations. The three stage update has been going on for the last week and is predicted to continue for another couple.

No Comment

Just a quick one. Because of the overwhelming spam problem the SEO Forum Watch has had recently, I've had to switch off the comment facility. Until I get around to finding a solution that allows genuine people to leave comments and stops automated spam, I have no other choice but switching it off.

Linking out to sites is something that needs to be overseen very carefully and a large number of this comment spam was linking to sites you would never allow. So for now, the feature is off. Sorry for inconveneance (or however you spell it).

Web Design Manchester

2005-10-24T12:14:00.000+00:00

Web Design Manchester is one of the keywords the Company I work for targets. We could have targeted the more popular term "web design" but found using pay per click services "web design manchester" yielded a much higher return on investment. This is because we're based in Manchester and companies are wanting to work with local businesses.

Going for web design manchester also contributes to the larger but less targeted phrase web design. Conducting a search on Yahoo for both phrases brings our website up in promanant positions, number 1 for web design manchester and number 14 for web design (24.10.2005).

When starting a new SEO campaign it is wise to use a similar technique when possible. In the early stages of the campaign while conducting your keyword research, try finding less competative keyword phrases that also contain the main keyword phrase. Some of these phrases may be more targeted than the main just like web design Manchester.

This will also help to bring traffic earlier in the campaign. Targeting the main keyword phrase will take longer to reach positions that receive clicks. Where as the less competative phrases are much easier to optimise to traffic generating positions.

Once you have reached the desired position for the less competative phrase simply move onto another e.g. web site design Manchester or Manchester web designers. After all sub phrases are complete start gunning for the main phrase.

SEO Spam

2005-10-20T10:27:00.000+00:00

So Much Spam & So Litle Time

Well as per usual this will be the first post I've made for a while which is due to a heavy work load and the huge spam problem I've at present (I'm that close to jacking this blog in and starting a new one).

Anyone reading this blog (not automated programs that is) will be able to see the huge amount of spam comments being added to the blog. These spam comments are just people exploiting the ability to leave comments with a nice little anchor rich text link. I can see why it's tempting to do so and wouldn't mind so much apart from the manner in which there being posted.

I followed one of these links the other day, only to find a redirect to a page selling an automated blog comment and pinging tool. I didn't read that much into it (far too busy at present) but read enough to get the picture.

The tool allows you to search for specific keyword focused blogs and place a pre configured comment with your text link, creating thousands of backlinks that influence PR and link popularity. It then pings the blog hoping to allert crawlers to the new comment spam. Well we all know links are a must for competing in competative markets but surely you need to either be desperate or simply not care about pissing blog owners off to fall to these drastic measures.

I know there is probably a way of preventing this from happening but have not had the time to conduct any research. So any automated programs reading this, please feel free to a leave comment on how I can prevent you from returning ;) or anyone reading this who knows any methods please let us know.

All work & no play

As mentioned before my recent work load has been incredibly high, this has been a combination of pre-xmas search engine positioning for a higher number of clients than usual but mainly the last few componants required to have our brand spanking new eCommerce Solution up and running with it's own dedicated website to advertise the truly amazing / revolutionary features it contains.

I've been mainly focusing on the SEO side of things. The first thing was to completly anoy the hell out of the developers by telling them "no, your just going to have to do it this way" in order for the front end to be complety search engine friendly. Which doesn't sound like much work, but when you think every little change has to be left for a few days, waiting for each of the main search engines to pick up the changes before you're able to view and conclude the results, a frantic work pace was required from all the team if we were going to meat the launch date set by the management.

How many test shops?

In order to even come close to the launch date, we had to set up a total of seven test shops. Each shop containing a few dozen or so products, just enough to create a site requiring deep crawling for all pages to be indexed. This allowed us to test seven different additions to the SEO at the same time. Then it was just a simple case of studying the impact of each development and choosing which was the best to include in the end product.

My favourite development has got to be the SOE componant "self optimising eCommerce", which basicly automates a large quantity of elements that effect SEO. When the shop owner adds each product via the CMS, it will take things like the name of the product and use it for the title and alt tags on corresponding images. This allows people who no knowledge of SEO to optimised pages but also allows who want full control over the SEO elements to adjust them as well.

At the moment the dedicated site is not up and running but we do have the demo shop online which shows off the eCommerce Solution quite well.

Just a quick one

2005-06-21T08:38:00.000+00:00

It's been quite a while since my last post and I have not had time to keep on top of things. Thought I had better let everyone know that the SEO Forum Watch will be going into skeleton mode for the next couple of months as I clear a back log of jobs and work.

What goes around, comes around

I was asked the other day if I could provide a link to the Hudson Industrial Services to help someone get their site indexed, (so there you go). That's what the internet is all about, I help you and you help me.

Domain Registration & SEO

2005-05-22T16:37:00.000+00:00

It’s been a long time since my last post, too much work and not enough time. Anyway, a short while ago the SEO forums were a blaze with the latest patent release from Google. The patent included loads of different techniques a search engine could use to determine relevancy and I say could because it would be very difficult to use all of the items covered in the patent. My own thoughts on the patent are many items have been included to dilute the true gems.

One part that really caught my eye was using domain registration information as part of a search engines algorithm. I remember several months ago reading a news story that Google had become a domain registrar and many were presuming domain registration would be one of Google’s many new adventures. This gossip was stopped as quickly as it started with Google announcing no domain registration service was on the cards. So why become a domain registrar?

Length of Domain Registration, logical ranking criteria

Well as mentioned above part of the patent focused on using domain information to determine the reliability of a website. In short, if a domain has only been registered for one year it may be more volatile than a domain that’s been registered for ten years. If you’re serious about your online venture, it makes sense to register your domain for a longer period of time. Google could use this fact as part of their ranking criteria and I suspect they have been doing so for some time.

So if you haven’t already done so, I would recommend contacting your domain registration Company to register your domain for at least five years. It may not affect your rankings at all, but on the other hand it may give you just enough of a boost to push some of those keywords onto the front pages. With domain registration costing as less as it does nowadays, it may turn out to be the most cost effective ranking boost you’ve ever paid out for.

If it doesn’t produce any results, no harm done and you may have just saved yourself a couple bucks on next year’s budget :)

Domain Names & Website Hosting

2005-04-09T17:50:00.000+00:00

Purchasing a domain name and finding good hosting is a must for anyone going online. Choosing where to purchase your domain and hosting is critical. I thought I would help by suggesting a great place to purchase cheap domain names and website hosting. The Lycos shop is very cheap and provides a great service, there is nothing worse than speaking to new clients who have requested me to conduct SEO only to find out the Company who they purchased their domain name from has registered it to themselves will not hand it over. It still amazes me how often this happens and lets face they have got you by the short and curlys, after already investing in advertising, business cards, brochures etc. most people can't afford to start their website all over again with a new domain.

Owning your domain name is very important and using a credible service that gives you full control is a must. This why I thought I would make this post and let you know where I personaly think is the best place to go to register your domain name and purchase hosting. The Company I work for can provide the same service but selling a .co.uk domain at £1.99 for 12 months is something we cannot beat. So unless you don't mind paying a couple of quid more to support a UK Domain Registry Company, visit the Lycos shop

SE's Indexing Race

2005-03-16T22:25:00.000+00:00

When MSN first launched its brand spanking new search engine many couldn’t believe how fast it was a crawling the web, indexing new pages far faster than any other search engine. I was seeing new pages being added to sites and 12 hours later; there they were in the MSN index. Pretty phenomenal most would say.

Not long after this many people started noticing a slow down in MSN Bot activity. So I thought it may be nice to conduct a quick little test to see who is winning the indexing race. A couple of days ago the Company who I work for started adding links to a site that is nearly completed in order to get the new site indexed. The site is a double glazing website and was not known to search engines before. So even though its not highly scientific as you can get lucky with these things and could add a link to the Double Glazing Company just as a Bot is making a visit but I thought it would fun anyway.

The Double Glazing Company search engine indexing race

So it goes like this, the race is to see what search engine out of Google, Yahoo and MSN manage to find and index the entire Double Glazing Company website. Which ever search engine fully indexes the site is deemed as the winner (sorry no prizes).

The results so far

Well so far after two days of having various links pointed at the Double Glazing Company, Google has managed to find and index one page and MSN has managed to find and index two pages. Google has only indexed the Double Glazing Company’s index page while MSN has indexed both the index page and the DIY Conservatory page. Unfortunately Yahoo! has not indexed anything(no surprise there), but this blog is quite popular with Yahoo and may well give the push it looks like its needs.

<21-03-2005> Latest Results

We Have a Winner

Since the last post, Google has dropped the Double Glazing Company from it's index. Then today it indexed every single page of the site. So we clearly have a winner and it's not MSN who has still only indexed the same two pages as above. When MSN first launched it was indexing the web at an incedible rate. It would seem that MSN Bot has eaten a hell of a lot of pages which has caused it to become an overweight Bot resulting in slow movement.

Yahoo! has still not even indexed one page so is clearly in last place but second place is still open. Will Yahoo! manage to out pace MSN to the post or will MSN complete the job it started last week.

More results coming as when and when they happen.

Google's algorithms

2005-03-13T20:58:00.000+00:00

For some time now people have been increasingly talking about Google's algorithm and the fact that they may be using more than one. On the WebWorkShop SEO Forum, PhilC a site administrator has been conducting some detailed research into this phenomenon. What PhilC has been doing is querying the numerous datacenters (DC’s) used by Google to answer user’s keyword searches.

PhilC has noticed that there appears to be several groups of DC’s returning different results and inside these groups, there seems to be more than one algorithm in use. Read the full thread here. Google using more than one algorthim.

What does this mean?

Well I think PhilC summed it up well in one of his posts suggesting this would be a good way for Google to introduce algo updates on a couple DC’s enabling them to test them before introducing them more widely. This would help to prevent disasters such as the infamous (for some) Florida up-date which caused Google to do some back pedaling after realizing the new algo wasn’t as good as they first thought.

Another impact it has is to keep SEO’s on their toes, something many have said Google is trying to do with more and more vigor. Whether this is just a by-product nobody could really say one way or the other. One thing for shore is by using more than one algo it will be harder to work out it out.

One thing that gets me on this one is how can Google be giving you the most relevant results each time if it uses more than algo. Shorely in order to return the most relevant results you could only have algo, the most relevant algo.

VoiSpeed IP Phone System

2005-02-24T20:33:00.000+00:00

Information optimisation using the VoiSpeed IP Phone System

While search engine optimisation is quite specific, the term optimisation is generic and can mean all kinds of things. One form of optimisation is information optimisation. Recently I have been playing with the VoiSpeed IP phone system which we recently switched over to at work. I have to say it is a great piece of kit and enables you to do all kinds of tasks.

VoiSpeed IP Phone System

Currently the VoiSpeed IP phone system isn’t that well known, which I think is a real shame as it isn’t just a viable alternative to the traditional business phone system, it is a far superior phone system. I have been testing its many features and some of them are an absolute dream. Here are just a couple of my favourite features so far (it would take me weeks to mention all of them).

Instant text messaging

This is probably the simplest feature on the phone but its one of those things that in a year’s time your wonder how you coped without. It just a pure and simple text facility, right click the mouse on someone’s icon who is logged onto the office phone system, select send text message and write away. The amount of time this has saved me from not having to go from one office to another is just great.

Voice mail box with a twist

The voice mail on the VoiSpeed phone system is just a little bit better than anything else I have used before. It works just like any other mail box, a call comes in, the receptionist forwards it to your extension for the caller to leave a message, and they record their message. But then, because this is the VoiSpeed IP phone system and it is software based and driven by your network, it automatically sends the message to you by email, ready for you to log into your email account from wherever you may be and listen to the message.

Anyway thought I would give you a break and something to read while churning through the directory list below.

Free Directory List

2005-02-19T21:43:00.000+00:00

Submitting your website to directories is a great way of increasing link popularity, website exposure, brand awareness and traffic referrals and is a must for all website owners who want to have a successful online presence. The link popularity obtainable from free directories alone can produce a PR 4 website and contribute to your over all search engine rankings.

This is why I thought it would be nice for both me and you to construct a list of directories to submit your website to.

Directory List

The Blog List

2005-02-12T17:43:00.000+00:00

Help the SEO Forum Watch build the blog list

While searching the internet you always come accross useful blogs that contain loads of great information. So I decided from now on when I come accross a great blog I will add them here. Below you will find some blogs that have exchanged links with the SEO Forum Watch and others that have been added purely on merit. One thing for sure is all of the blogs below have good information and worth a visit.

Computer News Onsitetechsnet your source For All Your Computer News

If you would like exchange links with the SEO Forum Watch or think a blog would be a good resource for our users, please leave a comment with the blogs details below. Any links in the comment you leave won't work but any good blogs will be added here.

Thanks for helping to build The SEO Forum Watch Blog List

Is the sandbox no more?

2005-02-10T17:15:00.000+00:00

Something big happened to Google's SERp's

Just as I was complaining that little has happened in the SEO forum world, a massive change has happened in the Google SERP’s.

A big debate is still continuing on the Webworkshop SEO Forum - Is the sandbox no more?

What’s actually happened no one can really say for sure just yet but a few days ago a huge chunk of results have been updated with the end result of many webmasters sites seeing drastic changes in their rankings, some good and some bad. What at first sight seems to be a mass sandbox drop e.g. Google removed the sandbox filter from a huge quantity of websites all in one go. But is that really what happened, what are your thoughts?

Some have said it may be the start of a semantic ranking algorithm, while others are saying it may be Google trying to play us with a bit of good old fashioned confusion. A few more people have even said that the only sites that have dropped into the rankings are all either SEO websites or related to SEO in some shape or form e.g. an SEO clients website.

Personally I have seen a few sites that I have been working on affected, all dropping straight onto the first pages for the search phrases optimised. Quite a relief as some of them I have been working on for the last eight months (You can imagine how the clients felt after eight months of SEO with few results). I do not know what happened but I have a strong gut feeling that what we have just witnessed is something to do with the sandbox. If I’m right and it was Google experimenting with the sandbox it begs a few questions.

Is this the end of the sandbox?

Hopefully yes but it may be the start of an even greater type of sandbox. My own thoughts on the sandbox are quite well known and I fail to see how it benefits the webmaster and more importantly the end user. The internet is the fastest moving form of communication we have ever seen and search engines need to reflect that. What use is it if a new trend becomes popular and by the time a webmasters site has come out of the sandbox, the trend has ended. If Google continues using a sandbox type filter, the likes of MSN and Yahoo will defeat them by showing fresh content. The new MSN search already has a search builder that enables you display sites with recently updated content.

Is this the start of something new, a new way the sandbox works?

This could be the one and I just hope it isn’t. Google has made it clear that they do not want people to be able to interfere with their ranking algorithm. What we have seen may be a taste of things to come, a “mass sandbox” type effect where sites are held for a longer period of time and then all released in one go. This could enable Google to test the new SERP’s to spot trouble areas and address them before the new SERP is public.

The above is pure speculation and the truth of what actually happened is probably something completely different. One thing for sure though is something has happened and it is likely to be something big!

The Cross Roads Phenomena

2005-02-04T18:09:00.000+00:00

By James Anderson

Well it’s been a while since my last post. Its been incredibly busy at the office in the last week now that we have come to the end of the post Christmas slow down in sales and have started to pick up new business again. If you don’t already know I work for Podium Solutions IT Consultancy in Manchester, UK and Podium Network Solutions, a complimentary site that concentrates on the Network side of things and has also just secured distribution rights with one the biggest VoIP Business telephone systems manufacturers in the world. I’m really looking forward to this year, with new clients and market sectors to work with, IP telephone systems being just one them. I’m sure this year is going to be one of the most exciting ever in the realm of search with new innovations drastically changing the very fabric of the internet it self. I will be posting and commenting on this as and when anything happens.

Already this year we have had some pretty juicy news and probably one of the biggest events of the year has already happened, yep the new MSN search engine launch. The launch of MSN’s new search engine has already caused frantic searching, tracking and some head scratching which has lead to some quite nasty calluses in the office. I have to say that so far I am very impressed with their new search engine and it has been an absolute dream optimising pages for it, its just so nice to be concentrating on content rather then exploiting links. So it’s a big thank you to MSN for bringing on-page optimisation back to the forefront of SEO. How long this will last is another question as we have already seen several tweaks to the algo so more emphasis on link analysis could on the cards, I only hope that MSN stays away from that road and the other search engines follow suit. PLease let links return to the good old days, when links were used purely to link to sites that the webmaster thought were usefull and benifited their users and not just a tool that has to be exploited in order to acheive an online presence.

For the last month I have been searching for the UK search engine market share statistics but have been unable to find any I would consider reliable, please read this as a cry for help and answer by leaving a comment on this post (PLEASE). As per usual locating the US market share is no problem what so ever but that’s not really relevant for us UK subjects. This quest comes from seeing reports suggesting Google has finally started to lose its total domination and a very worrying news report on the ITV news, reporting on the MSN search release stating that the UK market share for search was currently Google around 50% followed by Ask Jeeves at 20% with Yahoo coming in at the third spot with only 7% of market share. Where ITV are getting their figures from I don’t know but it does not sound right to me, what are your thoughts? Also in the news report they stated that the MSN search was not producing relevant results and had a lot of ground to make up when comparing it with Google for the search term “How big is the Internet” and then went on to say although MSN’s relevance was an issue many websites had already started to advertise with them. Obviously ITV doesn’t have anyone working for them that actually understands how advertising works on the internet thinking that MSN’s adverts are independently driven like Google’s Adwords, Well if they need someone who knows the ins and outs of the web I would just like to say I’m available for hire and you can contact me by leaving your details using the comment button below. In all honesty the report sounded like it was sponsored by Google.

OK enough ranting and back to the actual theme of this blog. So what’s been happening on the SEO forums recently, well in a nutshell “nothing”, a very big NOTHING. So here is a thread I came across today. Using Plurals Or Singular Versions Of Keywords on the Highrankings SEO forum. Just one of usual threads on whether to use plural keywords or not.

So this brings me on to the actual point of this post, is the SEO Forum Watch working and to put it simply (in nutshell), the answer is a very big NO. I started the SEO Forum Watch in the hope that I could attract some users who would actively help to build the SEO Forum Watch by making their own posts and commenting on others. Well I know that your reading this and I know the SEO Forum Watch gets a fair amount of traffic, so what am I doing wrong? What do I have to do in order to get you all posting and contributing? Or was the SEO Forum Watch just another one of my really dumb ideas like the time I thought it would be a laugh to wear my armbands on my ankles in the middle of a swimming lesson back in primary school. Or the time I tried to get into a beach festival without paying by trying to climb down the 90 foot cliff that surrounded it after drinking a crate of super strength lager only to discover my climbing skills are lacking to say the least, although I eventually landed in the festival after bouncing, pirouetting and somersaulting, discovered it is quite difficult dance at a dance festival when you’ve nearly broken both legs.

Well I think I have demonstrated some of my better ideas but is the SEO Forum Watch worth perusing in its current format. Several months after starting the SEO Forum Watch I discovered well established blog based on the very same theme of SEO Forum Watch, providing one place to keep up with the best threads from the best SEO forums, the only difference being Threadwatch.org seems to be successful rather than just a one man attempt at providing a blog that feels like a ghost town. I only heard of Threadwatch.org after a comment was made on one of my posts about a cloaking thread, saying that I should not be promoting the use cloaking to persons new to SEO. A fair and just comment if the SEO Forum Watch was specifically targeting webmasters new SEO, a little comment tennis was played where I was accused of being someone new to SEO who had no idea about cloaking and to tried and prove this by hiding the entire Threadwatch.org content with cloaking the site when I tried to visit (the things that people will do to try and win a debate lol). I’m not a confrontational person so I decided to let them have the last comment so they could revile over their little victory and in all honesty is was the first of only a couple comments made on SEO Forum Watch so I was just happy that someone had made a comment and hoped it was the start of a snowball. I guess I didn’t make any friends out of that which was a shame as Threadwatch.org is a big blog with loads of good content and has the same user base as I was trying to target. Threadwatch.org, you would have been a good friend but I guess you just couldn’t handle the competition from one of the best ghost towns the blogging community has ever seen. I came, I saw, I just couldn't conker.

For all of you who are still reading this post, please accept my apologies for my constant tangent bound rambling.

Back to the point (yes I’m going to finally spit it out), what I’m trying to say is that I do not think that continuing the SEO Forum Watch in its current format is worthy of my time and will be looking at changing the format completely. Please let me know your thoughts on this, you’re the people I’m writing for so its only fair if the SEO Forum Watch is going change and head in another direction that you should have your say on the destination.

I think I may start concentrating less on SEO forums and rather the topic of SEO in general. This would make it easier to start new posts as I would not be restricted by having to wait for a juicy new thread to be started on a forum and I would also personally enjoy posting a lot more.

Please let me know your thoughts? I’m at a crossroads, theirs a definite fork in the road and at present I can only see the road signs facing my way. Along time ago one of the signs said your entering a town called Ghost and I have still not seen the sign that says “you’re now leaving Ghost Town”. Please if you have map or just a good sense of direction, help someone out who is feeling slightly lost.

I must stop making posts when I have had a few drinks. Sorry for the spelling!

Search engines unite

2005-01-20T16:39:00.000+00:00

It's World War Spam

Come across this on PC Pro News this morning, Search engines unite to fight spam, Google, Yahoo & MSN have joined forces to "attempt" to fight spam.

The type of spam we are talking about is the type you find on most forums, blogs and guestbooks. The search engines as well as a few big blogger sites such as Blogger.com are showing a united front (there is always a first time) and will now recognise the following code in the HTML of a link.

< href="http://www.spam.co.uk" rel="nofollow"> My Great Website < /a>

Note the rel="nofollow", this will instruct the search bots to ignore the link without ignoring the rest of the links/content on the page (unlike the META tag nofollow). Meaning no PR will be passed and the anchor text will not be parsed creating a link of no value to the person spamming.

This has got to be good news for any forum/blog owners out there that have a spam problem and may help to stop the pesky spammers. This is all well and good but you have got to ask if this alone will prevent what seems to be the unpreventable. How will any would be spammer know that many of the links they are generating are of no value and lets face it "most" spammers are using spam techniques because of their ignorance/arrogance to the web community and a small number of the remainder are quite simply some of the most savvy webmasters online who don't mind breaking a few eggs!

If the last statement is true which I believe it is, most spammers won't even no that such tactics are being used while the less ignorant others will simply look at the source code to determine if the target site is worth spamming and if not move on to the next. The real clever spammers will not be affected, it’s the old catch up game that the search engines are playing and unfortunately the seasoned spammers are not one or two but several steps ahead the game. With spammers creating large networks of sites that are built purely to be used for harvesting large quantities of links that point to the spammer’s main site.

The World War Spam Front Line

Surely this is where the front line of the World War Spam should be focused, fighting the spammers who are clogging up the search engines main arteries with spam blood cells which block the good types of blood cells trying to reach their rightful destination. You see for nearly every genuine website you visit there is several spam sites with the sole intention of making a certain site more visible by pointing tons of relevant links at it. The worst part is that it’s not difficult to create your own network of spam sites for link harvesting and the only personal cost involved is your time. With more and more networks being created everyday and the complex cross linking structures some of the stealthier ones use, its hard to see how the problem can be combated affectively without the chance of harming genuine sites.

Stealth Networks

I wrote an article some time ago about creating website networks for link harvesting and tactics people are using to protect the network from being discovered and penalised by search engines. The basic element being used is to include not only links to the network in a strategic fashion to eliminate the chances of the entire network being discovered but to include links to other sites outside of the network that are considered to be quality sites and other relevant sites. So as these types of networks get harder to discover, how are the search engines going to eliminate them.

It’s Linking All Gone Wrong

When Google introduced link analysis for first time it worked and the theory was sound, basing their algorithm on a type of voting system where each web page has a vote and the strength of the vote is determined by the number and strength of votes cast to that page. The system worked and a highly relevant search engine was the result but unfortunately as people worked out how the system worked they also discovered it was easy to influence. As Google became the number one provider of search results holding the largest share of internet traffic, webmasters needed to rank well on Google or lie at the bottom of the SERP’s with little to no traffic. In affect, Google became a victim of its own success, creating the most relevant search engine to date but one that was probably easier to influence it results than the rest. The situation we are in now was simply inevitable.

The idea would have been great and worked well to this day if wasn’t for the fact that people will always try to out wit search engines to their own advantage. The whole ethos of link analysis was based on the concept that if a webmaster reads something they like or believe is relevant to their site on another site they will link to it, which fundamentally is how linking should be conducted but due to link analysis, links have now become a commodity. You have probably seen sites that sell links for ranking purposes and some of these services (not all) are in control of these types of large networks and will simply add your links in exchange for cash. Put simply, if you want your site to succeed and bring new customers from search engines you need links and it’s only the competitiveness of the market sector you compete in that determines the amount of unnatural links required (and £) to be placed high on the results pages.

Summary

My personal view is link analysis is killing the internet and needs to be changed; we need another way of determining the relevance of a site for the search query made. The search engines need to tackle the problem at its source rather than focusing on the symptom. Until a new type of algorithm is created that doesn’t rely on links, links will be exploited creating link spam instead of being something that benefits the internet as a whole.

There is Still Some Hope

The fact that some of the search engines have opened channels of communication and have begun to look at tackling the massive problem of spam is good but its going to be a hard job and I believe that the solution to the problem is located a lot closer to home than they imagine. As the relevance of search results largly determine a search engines market share and spam is lowering that relevance, I think it is safe to say that an all mighty war has begun.

Welcome to 2005 and welcome to World War Spam.

Relevant Link Exchange Forum

2005-01-14T16:05:00.000+00:00

Conducting Search Engine Optimisation for Web Design

Search engine optimisation is something we all want to perform on our web sites and as many will know link exchanges can help a site gain link popularity. At Webmaster-Talk.com - Relevant Link Exchange Forum you can post your requests for other users to exchange links with you. Exchanging links in this way is much simpler and quicker than the standard way of sending out hundreds of emails to would be link partners.

Webmaster-Talk is a fast growing forum with a large user base with a large number of web design focused sites using the forum, so if your in the web design market sector looking for links I can think of no better place to start.

Web design is a very competitive industry and reaching a high position in the SERP's will be an up hill struggle for any new sites starting a search engine optimisation campaign. My personal view on how best to conduct search engine optimisation for a new web design site is to target local phrases first and then to move on to bigger and harder phrases after a good position has been reached. Conducting search engine optimisation for the term "Manchester web design" will be much easier than the term "web design". By optimising "Manchester web design" you will also be optimising the phrase "web design" because it is included, but your stand a much better chance of generating targeted traffic early in the search engine optimisation campaign.

Google Adwords Pay Per Click Service

2005-01-12T11:09:00.000+00:00

Google's New Ad Policy to Affect Affiliate Marketers, A few days a go I read that rumours were going round the blogsphere that the heavy weight of search was introducing changes to their Adwords program.

The short of it is that Google will now only allow one advertiser to use its pay per click service (Google Adwords) per URL. This will impact the affiliate marketing sector the greatest and and could also cause some companies to dropped from Google Adwords whilst an affiliate is still allowed to advertise or vice a versa. Google will determine the right Advert to show by the amount of £££'s the advertiser is willing to pay per click and the click through rate. So if an affiliate out bids the main site and gains a better click through rate, their advert will be shown instead of the actual site owner’s advert. Reading a few other sources, some people are already predicting that websites that relied heavily on affiliate marketing may start producing unique websites for each of their affiliates to by pass the new rules.

Happy New Year

2005-01-08T16:50:00.000+00:00

Happy new year, it has been a while since my last post on SEO Forum Watch and have been away back in Devon seeing the family (how nice it feels to get back to work and away from the complications of family life). My Christmas holiday was the perfect mixture of relaxation from a very busy year that has seen some huge changes in terms of work and personal projects and seeing old friends who I no longer am able to socialise with due to moving to Manchester for work. I hope all of you have had just as good a Christmas as my self.

Well its 2005 and I can’t help but wonder what the year is going to bring. I am willing to put money on Google losing a large chunk of their users to MSN and Yahoo after seeing the results of Google’s search engine deteriorate and MSN and Yahoo’s go from strength to strength. This will bring a big change to a large number of webmasters currently focusing purely on Google in terms of SEO. My advice to you early in this year is to start focusing more on Yahoo and MSN (it’s what I have been doing for the last couple of months), hey the trend has already started, have you?

OK enough slating of Google so now it is time to say thanks to Google who left SEO Forum Watch a nice little PR 4 in its stocking, so I will be adding a new resource directory in the next few weeks if any of you would like to exchange links, just leave a comment on this post and I will get back to you.

So a few posts back I was still pondering on the direction SEO Forum Watch was heading in and decided to go down the “just offering the facts route” but after further thought I fail to see how I really could, I’m strong minded individual with strong thoughts on a wide variety of subjects so I guess that I will have to offer my opinions and just hope you like them.

Just thought I would welcome in the new year with this post and will have to get back to the main reson this blog is here and actually report on some threads. So until then, enjoy the new year and happy SEOing

Google Ignores my Forum Blog

2004-12-20T17:47:00.000+00:00

Come across this thread today and just had to include it. The Forum Zone - Google Ignores my Forum Blog is a thread by ForumJunkie who runs a blog called A Forum Blog, was having problems with the indexing of the blog. I don't want to say any more than that because it will spoil the outcome of the thread but it is worth a read to see how even some of the more experienced Webmaster out there can over complicate SEO.

Open Directory Project (DMOZ)

2004-12-15T14:47:00.000+00:00

Open Directory Project (DMOZ) is considered to offer a website very strong listings in terms of the value added to your SERP’s. In more recent times the directory has come under some strong criticism from webmasters who cannot or have not got listed after a few years waiting for a review. Another aspect that has seen a heavily negative attention is the public forum where amongst other things you can query an editor about your submission status (if you’re up for a belittling experience with undertones of condemnation).

ODP Bad Press

The problems that webmasters have been reporting with getting sites listed are as diverse as the directory it self. The general consensus is that no matter how good your site is or how long you wait for a review/listing, you receive nothing. Looking through the directory it is clear that some categories could do with some much needed updating. I can fully understand why some webmasters find this so annoying, knowing that their site would be a worthy addition to a category that is mainly comprised of outdated websites that didn’t survive the dot com boom or worse still contain no websites at all. Some people have even gone further to say that the catorgory they submitted too has not been updated since they submitted two years ago yet when they do some digging they found out the editor is one of their competitors that has added several sites owned by themselves purely to create a network of highly graded backlinks pointing to their main site that just so happens to be number one in Google. Of course I could not say how true the later is but one thing for sure is if you’re going to have something policed by humans, some humans can be and will be corrupt.

The second part that has really got webmasters backs up is the submission status forum where you can ask for a status update after waiting a month and then again after waiting six months. The replies webmasters are receiving from some editors are causing offence. Personally I would not use the public forum and think it was a mistake that the ODP are regretting as well; taking time to reply to threads that could have been better spent reviewing more sites and updating old cats.

The Value of Being Listed

Being listed in the ODP gives you a very strong link from the directory it self and because of the way it relies on human editors search engines consider a link from ODP very highly and are less likely to scrutinise it. The ODP also has its data used by a high umber of other directories the most famous being the Google Directory, so being included in the ODP will get you in loads of directories. Also the way that link analysis works is not only does Google look at the link going to your site but looks at the links going to the links that go to the link pointing at your site. Often the link you have in ODP will have quite a good link chain that adds even more relevance. Simply put being listed can dramatically effect your rankings.

Getting Your Website Listed

Even though a lot of webmasters are reporting difficulty getting into ODP there are ways to increase your chances.

1. Website Content

First of all make sure your site is full of unique content, one of the most common ways of being rejected is having duplicate content or content of little value. Don’t submit a website if it is full of affiliate adverts.

2. Submit To The Right Category

Make sure you submit to the right category. If you submit your website to the wrong category an editor will move it to what they think is the best place where it will join the back of the queue. The editor may not take the time required to find the best cat and therefore your site could end up in a never ending cycle of being resubmitted (in theory).

3. Submit To The Regional Category as well as the main

You can submit your site into the main and regional categories. Often it is much easier to get listed in a regional section and I have personally seen websites listed in as little as two weeks. Once you’re listed in the regional section you can use the status request forum to check your submission status mentioning that you have excepted into the regional section. Make sure you submit to the right regional section that your offices are physically based in.

4. Do not submit your website more than once

I don’t know whether this is just scare mongering but I have heard on several occasions that by submitting your site again can cause your website to be placed to the back of the queue.

5. Follow the guidelines

When writing your title always opt for the name of your site, in other words don’t add your keywords. When writing your description never use promotional language and superlatives, describe your website from a third perspective view. Read all the guidelines.

Conclusion

It is well worth getting listed in the ODP but it is not worth dedicating your entire existence on being listed. Submit your site in the best fashion possible and if it gets in great but if it does not don’t worry. There are hundreds if not thousands of other directories out there that will benefit your website so after submitting to the ODP find and submit to as many as possible.

The amount of time it will take to get your website listed will vary depending on each category. The site I work for (Podium Solutions) was listed in the Salford Web Design section just three weeks after it was submitted and has taken over a year to get listed into the main category for search engine optimisation. One of our website is still waiting to get listed but while waiting it has reached a PR 4 just by submitting to other directories.

Best Cristmas Sales

2004-12-14T15:28:00.000+00:00

Best Online Christmas Sales Ever, Good News For Web Design & Internet Marketing Companies

Last week it was announced that Christmas sales had dropped on the high street but online sales had risen by a massive 63% compared to last years figures.

The increase has been due to the higher levels of comfort online shoppers experience compared to battling with traffic jams, busy shops and higher prices. With the Internet gaining in popularity daily we should eventually see online sales overtake that of the high street. If you do not a website at present you have already missed out on a large share of this market, surely it is time to contact a web design and Internet Marketing Company.

With this in mind the year 2005 has already been ear marked to see a dramatic increase in companies going online. This will be good news to some Companies (Internet Marketing & Web Design) and bad news for others (more competition).

From an Internet Marketing & Web Design perspective

At present the Internet is already a crowded place with Google containing an index of over eight billion web pages; any websites joining the battle for the top spot are going to be up against it. Unfortunately for a lot of companies new to this medium they will expect to have a successful website just by having one created, whereas anyone familiar with the Internet will now how difficult it is to turn a baron stats report into a thriving list of unique IP’s. Obtaining a high level of how Internet Marketing works and the best practices involved will be an up hill struggle with many lessons to be learned. One thing for sure is the year 2005 will be a great one web design and Internet Marketing companies.