INKJAM

Joel, a blogger, was witnessing a sharp fall in organic search traffic for the past few days. He apprehended that the cause might have been a  manual action  imposed upon his blog by Google. His apprehensions were finally confirmed when he received the following notification (read: Dear John letter of SEO) in his Google Webmasters Tool account: Unnatural outbound links Google has detected a pattern of artificial or unnatural links on this site.  Selling links or participating in link schemes  in order to manipulate PageRank is a violation of Google's  Webmaster Guidelines . As a result of  unnatural links from your site , Google has applied a manual spam action to  xyz.com . There may be other actions on your site or parts of your site. Joel is now at a total loss and wants to know how he can remove the unnatural outbound link penalty and recover his site's lost traffic and rankings . If you are a blogger or a webmaster sharing the sa...

Have you ever wondered why for most searches at Google, we end up spotting a Wikipedia page among the top 3 results? The reason for this is simple - Wikipedia ranks among the best search engine optimized sites in the world! While Google continues to send millions and billions of visitors the Wikipedia way, it teaches us (the SEO enthusiastic crowd) a very important lesson: To be Google’s blue eyed boy, you need to do your SEO right. And, what better way to gain inspiration for our sites’ SEO than to delve deep into the Wikipedia website itself for ideas. Here are some of the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tips that the Wikipedia website teaches us : Create Resources, Not Articles The Macmillan Dictionary defines Resource as “something that you can use to help you to achieve something, especially in your work or study.” This means any information you provide that helps a reader achieve success (over and above others) in their field of work or study will qua...

Most SEO services on the market today are probably wise enough not to promote themselves as black-hat or automated SEO advocates, but this doesn’t mean that behind closed doors this isn’t exactly what’s going on. As such, it’s sadly a case of businesses having to be a little on the wary side when it comes to certain danger signs and keeping tabs on whether or not all is as it appears to be.  And of course, it’s much easier to decipher what’s what before signing up in the first place, despite having to see through smoke and mirrors to do so.  Here’s a look at just three very simple examples of how you might be able to tell that something’s awry with a SEO provider’s approach: Fixed Package Promises The thing about organic SEO is that while it is indeed possible to promise and deliver positive results it isn’t even remotely possible to promise an exact position in the Google results pecking order – i.e. number one. As such, it’s usually a safe bet to assu...

Most website owners only dream of creating content that goes viral and increases their overall traffic, but only a few are able to create link bait content that people just can't resist. The term Link bait has gotten a lot of popularity over the last couple years and that is mostly due to how effective the strategy is. If you provide content that has an incredible headline and delivers exactly what people want to see, then they are much more likely to click the link and also share it with their friends and family. While there are plenty of different tips and tricks that people have tried over the years, only a few still continue to be successful. So let's take a look at what works in 2013 and beyond. Guides People use the internet to gain knowledge every day, and providing them "how to" guides will get you some easy traffic. While there are plenty of other how to guides out there, being creative with your content is what will determine if it becom...

Google Authorship is one of the latest trends to grip the online world. It is Google’s markup system which links authors to their work, through their Google+ profile. SEO guru Sue Reynolds explains that it is Google’s way of validating who did what, giving credit to whom credit is due. Meanwhile, Michelle Gilbert, author and researcher at AmpAgency.com explains that writers are not only the beneficiaries of Google Authorship. Websites and brands also enjoy a considerable impact from this markup system. Google Authorship offers Branding Opportunity Because of Google authorship, it is now easier and more convenient for startup entrepreneurs to bring their brands closer to the attention of their prospective customers. This is because Google Authorship makes it possible to represent brands together with content in Google’s search results. So, aside from the high-ranking benefits, Google authorship also ushers in excellent branding experience to small and mid-size businesses. For...

We begin our discussion by understanding what robot.txt files are all about and how they influence search crawlers. Robot.txt files (as set up by webmasters) are used by search engine spiders to determine which pages of a particular domain should be indexed by it and which pages should be left out of the index. Blogspot by default restricts search engines from indexing Label pages of Blogspot blogs. This is done with the help of robot.txt files.  Blogspot Labels Labels help bloggers categorize their posts easily. For example all my posts related to 'Blogging' can be found here : http://www.inkjam.org/search/label/Blogging An interesting thing to note here is that fact that a Blogspot blog does not have separate page assigned for its 'Labels'. In fact, post categorized under a label can be accessed only with a 'search' command.  Robots.txt for Blogspot Blogs   As stated earlier, Blogspot by default prevents web spiders from crawling its...

Backlinks are links from another person’s domain to yours and are good for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Also known as external links, they are like little votes for your website, and if you have lots of “votes”, the search engines will assume that you have a good website and rank you higher. Do you really need links to rank your site? They are just one part of your website’s SEO, so the answer is no. It is possible for a website to be ranked highly, even if it has few (or no) backlinks at all. However, it is turning out to be increasingly difficult to have your website ranked highly on the search engine result pages (SERPs) without having a decent number of links pointing to your website. How many backlinks are needed to rank a website? Again, you do not need any to rank your website. As soon as the search engines crawl and index your site, they will do the ranking on their own terms (based on a number of factors and not all of them are known). As time progresses an...

In my previous post, I had covered the Impact of Penguin 2.0 on Link Building and SEO . In this post I will solely concentrate on Guest Blogging and how it has changed in the post Penguin 2.0 era. However before I proceed any further, it would be helpful to recapitulate what Guest Blogging is all about and why it is considered such an important SEO tool. The Concept of Guest Blogging The concept of guest blogging is easily understood with an example. Let us consider that there are two individuals X and Y. X owns Blog A, while Y owns Blog B. X approaches Y with a proposal to publish an article on Blog B in exchange for a link that will point to Blog A. This is how Guest Blogging works. Why is Guest Blogging an Important SEO Tool Continuing with the same example, X publishes an article on Y's Blog simply because doing so will give him a link back to his own blog. Thus guest blogging is nothing but a link building exercise which will help X's Blog improve it...

Penguin 2.0 algorithm update is here and it promises to hit webspam hard. With the next generation Penguin 2.0, (called so because this change is not just a data refresh within the existing algorithm, but changes made to the algorithm itself) Google attempts to specifically target black hat spam and give greater thrust to content quality and ethical link building.  Before going further into our discussion, it makes sense to recapitulate what the original Penguin update was all about. The original penguin update (Penguin 1.0) was released on April 24, 2012 in an attempt to de-rank all websites that participated in unethical SEO practices (Black Hat SEO) that include keyword stuffing, anchor text over-optimization and unnatural link building. The Penguin update also came down hard on the so called 'link networks' that promised quick SEO results for their clients. Google subsequently made several 'data refresh' updates to the original algorithm to counter webspam...

With another major Penguin update looming large (sometime this summer according to Matt Cutts) I wanted to put together a quick reminder of the link building strategies you should be straying away from in order to keep your site ranked well in Google search results. Google has already made a dozen or so updates to its first Penguin algorithm update, but this next one apparently according to sources is going to be just as big if not bigger than the original. So now that I’ve warned you let’s get into the top 5 specific link building strategies you should be staying away from in order to better protect yourself from not just this upcoming Penguin update, but more that follow throughout the year. 1. Anchor Text Abuse Whether you like it or not, Google is forcing SEOs to limit their anchor text strategies. In order to adapt, you’ll need a majority of your anchor texts to be brand specific and domain specific rather than keyword specific. 2. Guest Posting on Lower Quality...