Search Engine Optimization

Post about search engine optimization. These posts should be more about the application of SEO theory than the theoretical ideas.

Real advice from bad SEOs

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 24, 2008 in Search Engine Optimization

Maybe I should call this post “bad advice from real SEOs” but I think it’s better to emphasize the fact that it’s real advice being offered by people in the SEO community.
When I wrote about Google’s March 2008 Update (and I use the term “update” loosely as only an SEO knows how), I was only […]

Three things that are changing today’s search environment

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 18, 2008 in Search Engine Optimization

Search engine technology is constantly changing but there are larger pattern flows in process that represent collections of actions or decisions. These larger patterns have a greater impact on the search environment than specific events such as the proposed Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo! (which would be disastrous for the search environment if it happens).
1. […]

How SEOs should and should not use Webmaster Central

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 17, 2008 in Search Engine Optimization

I rarely comment on specific SEO tools as it’s pretty well known that I consider nearly all of them to be worthless, or at least worth less than the knowledge of how to structure informative queries is worth.
Google’s Webmaster Central Tools have received a lot of attention and as I have studied blog and forum […]

Google’s March 2008 Update Upshmate

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 14, 2008 in Search Engine Optimization

It may be time for Matt Cutts to update his what is an update post from September 2005 and I don’t mean his October 2005 post more info on updates.
His December 2006 explaining algorithm updates and data refreshes is also getting stale.
So, some of my Web pages vanished from Google’s index. That happens from […]

Fundamental principles of keyword analysis

Posted by Michael Martinez on November 14, 2007 in Search Engine Optimization

Keyword analysis is one of the oldest, most fundamental tasks in search engine optimization. All that content enrichment and link building has to be driven toward the right keywords, the actual queries people use to find content on the Web.
There are four kinds of keywords:

Brands (high value)
Pop expressions
Seasonal descriptors
Random descriptors

“Pop expressions” includes anything […]

SEO for blogs - Basic Blog Search Engine Optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on November 8, 2007 in Search Engine Optimization

There are a million search engine optimization blogs out there and most of them have shared one or more posts about Blog search engine optimization. I’ve steered clear of the subject until now because I feel it’s been done to death.
Then again, a client just showed us their brand spanking new blog and they […]

Why SEO link tools suck

Posted by Michael Martinez on November 1, 2007 in Search Engine Optimization

SEOs are easy to please. All you have to do is create a tool that performs a useless “link:” search on Yahoo! and grabs the Toolbar PageRank from Google and SEOs are happy.
What they think they learn from Yahoo!’s reported backlink data, I don’t know. They certainly don’t learn anything useful for search […]

When site search comes up short

Posted by Michael Martinez on October 23, 2007 in Search Engine Optimization

An increasing number of voices in the SEO community are advising people to use “rel=’nofollow’” on their ancillary pages (examples include “About Us”, “Contact Us”, “Locations”, “Terms of Service”, etc.). This misguided advice doesn’t benefit anyone and on most sites won’t have much impact but where it will hurt you is if you’re relying […]

20 Hard Core SEO Tips

Posted by Michael Martinez on October 16, 2007 in Search Engine Optimization

For those of you loyal readers who wish I would just take a break from the theoretical musings, here is the type of list of SEO tips I rarely give out. You may have seen some or all of these ideas before but I’ll explain some of the benefits for each tip below.

20 Hard […]

SEO Technique: Creating Copy Blocks

Posted by Michael Martinez on October 11, 2007 in Search Engine Optimization

Let’s take a look at four examples of copy blocks.

PageRank flow

PageRank flow You determine PageRank flow through your internal links. Think of your Web site as a complex set of boxes with holes them. The boxes are all attached to each other in an Escher-like combination. Your PageRank is water and you […]

Next Page