Google is playing games with you – AGAIN.

by rishil on February 22, 2013

UPDATE: The reason for the current UK notices and Interflora’s rankings have been discovered. More information Here: http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/interflora-what-really-happened.html

I am somewhat a tin foil conspiracy theorist when it comes to google. And often my theories do prove to be right, and most times I am not far from the mark. This week, two seemingly unrelated events have triggered one of those theories.

By now, the UK SEO community would be aware that google has penalised a fairly large brand. I call this EVENT 1.

In addition, I have spoken to a fair number (10+) UK SEOs that have had this gem in their inbox:

Unnatural inbound links

We’ve detected that some of the links pointing to your site are using techniques outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

We don’t want to put any trust in links that are unnatural or artificial, and we recommend removing any unnatural links to your site. However, we do realize that some links may be outside of your control. As a result, for this specific incident we are taking very targeted action to reduce trust in the unnatural links. If you are able to remove any of the links, you can submit a reconsideration request, including the actions that you took.

If you have any questions, please visit our Webmaster Help Forum.


Got feedback? Leave it here. Be sure to include this message ID: [WMT-92459]
Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 | Unsubscribe.

This is Event 2.

Notice the wording (emphasis mine):

We don’t want to put any trust in links that are unnatural or artificial, and we recommend removing any unnatural links to your site. However, we do realize that some links may be outside of your control. As a result, for this specific incident we are taking very targeted action to reduce trust in the unnatural links.

If you are able to remove any of the links, you can submit a reconsideration request, including the actions that you took.

So how are these two events tied together?

By now, if you work in SEO, you should be aware that google cannot catch all the spam that goes on, algorithmically anyway. They are getting better at it, as Panda and Penguin clearly indicate, but its not perfect yet. Add to that the “new” public belief that you can hurt a site by Negative SEO (a whole bunch of us old timers have insisted that this has ALWAYS been possible, but it’s a bit easier now).

SO what is googles best defence?

An Offence…

One of the serious problems in planning the fight against American doctrine, is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine…- From a Soviet Junior Lt’s Notebook

“The reason the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices it on a daily basis.” – from a post-war debriefing of a German General

And this is true of google’s latest strategy. Scare SEOs and webmasters to the point that they don’t know what can and cannot hurt them. Get them to clean up search results FOR google. And this latest bout of warnings, IMHO is exactly that.

  1. Penalise a LARGE UK brand  – send fear of god into SEOs. Check.
  2. Send a bunch of vague link notices in GWMT to the general population. Check.
  3. Sit back and profit.

My advice

  1. Don’t panic.
  2. Create a list of all your shitty links (you should be doing this anyway!)
  3. Wait to see if there are any drops.
  4. If there are, you should be able to isolate where the drops are and for what terms. Start clean up.
  5. If there are drops and you cant isolate the drops, then reach out and contact via resubmission, with specific question about the links.
  6. If there are no drops, build newer, better quality links .

Rishi Lakhani is an independent Online Marketing Consultant specialising in SEO, PPC, Affiliate Marketing and Social Media. Explicitly.Me is his Blog. Google Profile

Dear Inbound, Thank you!

by rishil on January 17, 2013

UPDATE: Inbound has now reconsidered and I am happy to sign up! W00t!

Here I am : http://www.inbound.org/users/view/rishil

So we all know that Inbound.org is the beast that Sphinn used to be back in the day. And its cool, I missed the sphinn community and article discussions in one place.

But I haven’t joined inbound yet. I dont hate them. But their registration policy keeps me from being a part of their community.

inbound and twitter

inbound and twitter

You can only register with them if you do it via twitter. However:

1. Why should I give you the authority to follow new people on my behalf?

I protect my follow non follow ration. And people I don’t follow directly, I keep monitored through clever use of Lists. I don’t want to wake up one morning and have strangers tweets in my stream. Do you REALLY need access to following people on my behalf?

2. Why should you update my profile?

I mean this one makes me go WTF? Why would I even think of giving a third party application, however well intentioned, access to updating my profile? What would you even ASK for that?

3. Post Tweets for me.

The only person who has the right to spam my twitter followers is me. I don’t want people being spammed from my account. And yes, I know spam is an extreme description, and I doubt you guys would do anything like that. But still….

So I guess my loss.

Till you dampen those Twitter Authorization policies, we will just have to stay friends. I just cant get into bed with you.
dancellups

Google Algo Update – Quote of the week

December 19, 2012

I dont like mini posts, but this is the quote of the week as far as I am concerned:

“We sensed a subtle change in the force and we asked the force and it said Tatooine was not destroyed (these are not the algo updates you were looking for)”. ~ Judith Lewis

Background:
http://searchengineland.com/no-that-wasnt-a-google-panda-update-you-felt-142820

Read the full article →

Link Building Has Sandbox Effect / Transition Rankings

December 13, 2012

I haven’t really paid much attention to SEO blogs in the last three months. Part of that reason is that I am insanely busy working on new projects that have little to do with SEO. However that doesn’t mean I don’t check or test stuff.
This post is more of an observation and a working theory, [...]

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What the F is an SEO These days?

December 12, 2012

Lately a lot of bullcrap is being posted about SEO and what it means to be an SEO. From PR agencies to web designers, everyone in the digital space fancies themselves as an SEO. Frankly a lot of popular magazines, sites and blogs are posting misinformation about what an SEO really does. A number [...]

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Google Lead Generation Adwords

June 15, 2012

*UPDATE
So these have been around for a while! See: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2011/10/24/adwords-communication-extensions
So Google isn’t just satisfied with killing credit card affiliates, and other traditional online marketers, they are so determined to try other affiliate money making schemes that they are now entering the lead generation business.
Check this beauty out:
The privacy policy seems a bit vague too:
Can someone [...]

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We are NOT Friends.

June 13, 2012

I am genuinely tired of getting linked in requests from people I don’t know or have never spoken to.

Lets get one thing right:
OK so linked in doesn’t make it easy for you to connect to people and “friends” is the easiest option to connecting to someone. But using just the generic message to reach out? [...]

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Google Search Plus Your World. S.P.Y

January 19, 2012

Click on Image for Full View
Is the name google Search Plus Your World just a coincidence? Or a Freudian slip?
GSPYW could ALSO be Google SPY Ware.
Enjoy.

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Learning from the Chrome Penalty

January 4, 2012

I always insist, when a public story breaks in the SEO field of big proportions, you should take every opportunity to learn from it. The Chrome paid posts debacle is actually a pretty good example, as unlike in previous situations, Matt Cutts has publicly announce EXACTLY what the penalties were.  Which is all kinds of [...]

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How to Get a Celebrity to Endorse ALL your Products on Google

December 28, 2011

You see, I love finding interesting gaps in Google, both Organic and Paid Search results. I haven’t often spoken about Paid search manipulation, although it does exist, from arbitrage to brand manipulation. However I always love it when I spot something new, that could have been an innocent mistake, but could be used to pervert [...]

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