Posted by Eric EngeIntroduction from Rand:Guest poster Eric Enge (of Stone Temple Media) was gracious enough to contribute an immense effort on this impressive guide. In related news, he's done a brilliant, not-to-miss interview with Matt Cuttsthat was released just tonight. Thanks a ton, Eric - we hope to feature many more of your contributions in the future.Hidden Text is one of the challenges faced by webmasters and search engines. Spammers continue to use hidden text to stuff keywords into their pages for purposes of artificially boosting their rankings. Search engines seek to figure out when spammers are doing this, and then then take appropriate action. For the average every day webmaster, one challenge is that there are many ways to create hidden text unintentionally, and no one wants to be penalized for something they did not intend to do. To start our look at hidden text, let's examine Google's Webmaster Guidelines for hidden text, to see the bottom line: If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages Obviously, this is a fate we all want to avoid. Note the use of the word "perceived" in the above snippet. Doesn't sound like a simple black and white problem, does it? In fact, it's not, so let's look at some of the forms of hidden text.A Few Ways to Create Hidden TextThere are many techniques for creating hidden text. Some of these can be done without the use of CSS, and they are usually fairly easy to detect:Make your text and background colors identical (or virtually identical) - this is the original method used by spammers for creating hidden text. It's easy to detect, and I am not aware of any legitimate use for this technique. Set the font size for text to 0, or to a negative number. This is also easy to detect, and I can't think of any legit use for it either. Use a Noscript tag. Here is some sample code for this: <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- document.write("This text is not hidden") //--> </script> <noscript>This is hidden text</noscript> This is really only "pseudo hidden text". While it's possible to make the text contained within the noscript tags different from what is in the Javascript, about 3% of users will see it, and that's more than enough to generate spam report complaints to the search engines. In other words, stuffing a lot of keywords within noscript tags comes with a fair amount of risk. Text way below the fold. This is also a "psuedo hidden text" technique - that of providing content that is really not there for users. So while it is visible, the text is clearly out of the "action oriented" area of a page, and resides well below the fold, and the user needs to scroll down to see it. The text could well be directly related to the site's basic purpose, and the intent in this case would be that of "keyword stuffing". It's hard to detect algorithmically, but, under human review I would conjecture that it would be seen as a poor quality signal.CSS Based Methods for Hiding TextCSS techniques for creating hidden text are more interesting because they are much harder for search engine crawlers to detect unless they crawl and interpret the CSS. Most crawlers don't do that currently. Here are a few methods for using CSS to hide text:Specify an attribute of display:none. Here is a sample snippet for that: <div class="hiddentext" style="display: none;">This text is hidden </div> When you use display:none, the specified text does not display on the screen, and it is as if the element is simply not there (it has no effect on the placement of any other items on the page). One example use for this attribute is in dynamically creating printable versions of your articles. You can take the existing HTML version of a page, and create a print page by replicating the page, but applying the display:none attribute to the navigation and advertising elements of the page. It's a great technique that allows you to algorithmically create print pages for your articles quite easily. This technique is also used legitimately for the creation of menus, such as DHTML menus. Specify an attribute of visibility: hidden. Here is a sample snippet for that: <div class="hiddentext" style="visibility:hidden">This text is hidden </div> This technique varies from that of display:none. While it also makes the text invisible, the space that the text would have occupied is still used up in the page layout. The space simply shows up as a blank area. Use the z-index command to place your text on a layer below the currently viewable layer. The z-index command is just like any other property. Here is an example of what this could look like:.hiddentext{position: absolutetop: 120px;left: 250px;z-index: 0;}.visibletext{position: absolutetop: 120px;left: 250px;z-index: 1;}The "visibletext" div is visible simply because it has a greater z-index than the "hiddentext" div. Of course, it does not take too much of a scan of the CSSto detect this technique. Fahrner Image Replacement. This is usually done using CSS to place the image over HTML text. It works simply because the text does not appear to be invisible when you scan the HTML. However, after the text is drawn, if you place an image over the same spot, the text will be covered up by the image. One potential legitimate use for this is to make the text available in HTML for the visually impaired, and for search engines, while rendering a better looking version of the text in an image. Susan Moskwa at Google commented on a Google Groups thread about this and said "if your intent is purely to improve the visual user experience (e.g. by replacing some text with a fancier image of that same text), you don't need to worry." Use CSS to position the text off the screen. Sample code would look as follows:.hiddentext{position: absolutetop: 0px;left: -5000px;}This is another oldie, but goodie. A revised version of this would be to define a label for a table, so that the table is easier for people using screen readers (with impaired vision) to use:.hiddentext{position:absolute;left:0px;top:-500px;width:1px;height:1px;overflow:hidden;}This variant can then be used as a class for label tags within a table. The result is therefore accessible to screen readers, but does not clutter up the screen for users who have normal vision. However, while the intent may be pure here, there is a risk of the search engines misinterpreting your intent. Flash based methods for hiding textScalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR). sIFR is a technique that uses Javascript to read in HTML text and render it in Flash instead. The essential fact to focus on here is that the method guarantees that the HTML content and the Flash content are identical. One great use for this is to render the text in an anti-aliased font. This can provide a great improvement in the presentation of your site. At a recent Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) event, Dan Crow, head of Google's crawl team, said that as long as this technique is used in moderation, that it was OK. However, extensive use of sIFR could be interpreted as a poor site quality signal. SWFObject. Unlike sIFR, this method does not guarantee that the HTML and the content in the Flash are the same. SWFObject does not reference the text in the HTML at all. It simply draws a pre-compiled Flash movie in place of the HTML. At the same SEMNE event referenced in the prior point, Dan Crow indicated that this technique was "dangerous". Even though this technique could be used for entirely legitimate reasons (e.g. the same purpose as outlined for sIFR above), there is no way for Google to detect that. Worse still, since an approved technique exists, it just looks bad when you use an unapproved technique. Unintentionally Creating Hidden TextThere are a few ways that this happens. One of the most common methods is that your Content Management System (CMS) has some of these techniques built into it. This is actually quite common. In particular, some of the CSS based methods are used by CMS systems. For example, many CMS systems use the display:none technique to to implement drop-down menus, or other widgets that the user clicks on that then "expand" to display more text. Tab folders would be a great example of this. Sometimes the display:none technique is used in user generated content systems where the page normally shows the number of comments on a post, but chooses to suppress the text "0 Comments" in the event that no comments have been made yet.Another common way that people create hidden text occurs when they start providing enhancements for the visually impaired. As with the example provided above of using hidden lables within a table, it comes about because you are trying to place text in a place that will make it look cluttered to a user with normal vision. The solution people use to serve both audiences is to hide the text from the sighted users.Detecting Hidden TextSo how does Google do at detecting all of these types of hidden text, and telling whether or not the purpose is a legitimate one v.s. a illegitimate one? A recent post titled Number One on Google Using Hidden Textgives you reason to think that it's not as simple as it sounds. That noted, there are some techniques that Google has clearly labelled as bad, or intuitively just seem bad. These are: White text on a white background Setting the font size to 0, or a negative number SWFObject Specify an attribute of visibility:hidden Using the z-index command - someone tell me if I am giving this technique a bad rap, but it smells like trouble to me Just stay away from these techniques, because by using them you are simply asking to get slapped. There are some methods that could be abused, but may be OK in some cases:Use CSS to position the text off the screen. This is one of those things that can be abused, or could be used legitimately for improved the experience of users with impaired vision as we discussed above. Use a Noscript tag. There is a real application for this to deal with those users who have Javascript disabled. This is about 3% or so of the web surfing public. Text way below the fold. As note before, it is not really hidden text, but it's intent is not good, and it's likely to be seen as a poor quality signal. Specify an attribute of display:none. This technique certainly can be abused, but it is also commonly used for many types of things as a coding technique with legitimate intent. Fahrner Image Replacement. I have listed this technique here, even though the Google Guidelines identify this as a no-no. However, one cannot overlook the comments by Susan Moskwa above. sIFR. The beauty of this is that it by definition shows the same text as the HTML, but still, use it in moderation. How you get discoveredPutting keywords unrelated to the rest of your content is a sure flag Putting too many keywords in your "legitimately" hidden text. Too much text in there in general could inspire someone to take a closer look Use a legitimate technique, but use it too much, so it raises an "investigate me" flag Use an edgy amount of hidden text in seemingly legitimate ways, but then also participate in several other edgy techniques. This will also raise an "investigate me" flag. Have a competitor report you. It is in your competitor's interest to do so, and it happens all the time. Google guarantees that all authenticated spam reports are reviewed. Have your site reviewed by a human. However, this happens, there is no upside to this, only downside. Google's Position on Hidden TextIt's always good to start with the Google Guidelines for Hidden Text, but you need to look a bit deeper than that. Note the Berghausen, Dan Crow, and Susan Moskwa comments I have referenced above, as well as these statements by Googlers:In the following Google Groups threadGoogler Susan Moskwa had this to say: Of course, as with many techniques, there are shades of gray between "this is clearly deceptive and wrong" and "this is perfectly acceptable". Matt did say that hiding text moves you a step further towards the gray area. But if you're running a perfectly legitimate site, you don't need to worry about it. If, on the other hand, your site already exhibits a bunch of other semi-shady techniques, hidden text starts to look like one more item on that list. It's like how 1 grain of sand isn't noticeable, but many grains together start to look like a beach. Related to this is a recent posting by Matt Cutts on ThreadwatchIf you're straight-out using CSS to hide text, don't be surprised if that is called spam. I'm not saying that mouseovers or DHTML text or have-a-logo-but-also-have-text is spam; I answered that last one at a conference when I said "imagine how it would look to a visitor, a competitor, or someone checking out a spam report. If you show your company's name and it's Expo Markers instead of an Expo Markers logo, you should be fine. If the text you decide to show is 'Expo Markers cheap online discount buy online Expo Markers sale ...' then I would be more cautious, because that can look bad.And, in my most recent interview with Matt Cutts, we spoke about hidden text. Typically with hidden text, a regular person can look at it and instantly tell that it is hidden text. There are certainly great cases you could conjure up where that is not the case, but the vast majority of the time it's relatively obvious. So, for that it would typically be a removal for 30 days.Then, if the site removes the hidden text or does a reconsideration request directly after that it could be shorter. But, if they continue to leave up that hidden text then that penalty could get longer. SummaryAll these statements suggest that Google does try to detect intent, and is not going to ban a site solely because of someone using hidden text in a way that appears to be legitimate. This does open the door to those who want to abuse this. If someone stuffs a few words in a bit lf legitimate looking text here or there, it's hard to detect algorithmically. However, this is a trap door and an accident waiting to happen. Many webmasters who choose to walk the line on this technique may well be walking the line on other techniques. Google, and the other search engines, relay on this to out real abusers. Also, competitors are anxious to expose those sites that are over the line.Witness the commentary in my recent interview with Matt Cutts. We talked about a blog post that a relatively little known blog about a competitor ranking for the term access panel using hidden text. Matt Cutts had picked up on this quite quickly, and Google was prepared to take action on it. However, it turns out that the site that was "outed," responded and removed the hidden text, so as Matt indicated in our interview, he removed the offending text. The point is that your competitor wants to report you for doing bad things. That motivation should be a strong deterrent to abusing these techniques.Ultimately, intent is one of the most important factors. Don't use these techniques to abuse the system. Too much of a good thing turns into a very bad thing. Also, use them in commonly used ways. This is no time to invent some novel new way to apply hidden text to making your site design snazzy or better. For better or worse, doing something unusual, even if your intent is pure, is just asking for trouble. While the search engines want to treat your site appropriately, you make it harder for them by inventing new and unusual coding techniques. Stick to the methods that are commonly in use by others, and you will be better off. In addition, even if your use is completely legitimate, you still need to use any hidden text techniques in moderation. Extensive use of any technique, even in perfectly legitimate ways exposes you to risk. This may by wrong or unfair in some ways, but it's the world we live in. Being morally right, but banned, does not help anyone at the end of the day.Sources:14 ways to use hidden textCan I hide text in HTML to get a top ranking?Invisible Content Just for Screen Reader UsersText Replacement With Flash - Dangerous?Googler Berhausen's comments in Google GroupsGoogle Okays Hidden TextGoogle Offers Advice on Flash Web Sites & SEODo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishBryan Eisenberg pinged me this week and asked if SEOmoz would participate in their latest contest - "My Hyperlink Can Beat Your HyperLink." It's not just fun, it's participatory, engaging, and incredibly valuable - both from a learning perspective and for the winner. Here are the details:Just comment on this post or the ones like it at Copybloggerand Grokdotcom (coming soon), linking us to the landing page you want tested and telling us why you should win.Judges Brian Clark, Rand Fishkin& Bryan Eisenberg will choose 5 winners.To be eligible, contestants must have clear metrics and analytics in place, the ability to test (Google Website Optimizer is free, so no excuses), and the willingness to implement our suggestions.Contestants must have enough traffic to yield valid test results.For each of our winners, the judges will select a single link to be tested, then agree on three variationsof that call to action (a.k.a., anchor link).I think Bryan and the FutureNow crew are a bit frustratedby the research from MarketingSherpa studyshowing that "click here" was the most effective anchor text for inducing a click-through. (Off topic - If the web were to revert to a "click here" based link structure, it certainly would have an interesting impact on how the engines interpret anchor text). Their experience suggests that there may be much better text to use when requesting a click, and it should be terrific to see how their testing works out.So - in the comments on this post, link to your landing page of choice and Bryan, Brian and I will review them, choose a few and we'll watch as the Eisenberg's work their magic and educate us all in the process.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by shor"Anything with a halfway interesting story about how an upstart like Facebook will beat Google will get listened to if for no other reason than to argue about it." - Robert ScobleTo test Robert's theory and to offer some belated support to his Google killers, we're going to get this party started with the story of a little Korean website that could.Outside of its native country, there are few people who have heard of Naver, a Korean web portal that launched back in June of 1999. Despite the presence of Yahoo, Google and rival Korean search engines, today Naver is the undisputed king of Korean search, enjoying  +1 billion daily page views and an astonishing +77% search market share. Naver is a David and Goliath story well worth studying and there are bloggers betterqualifiedto talk about the history of Korean search so to cut a long story short, a significant part of Naver's success is derived from two services.1. Knowledge iNis a 'knowledge search' service - essentially the Korean version of Yahoo! Answers but predating Y! Answers by three years. Users ask questions and other users that answer are rewarded with 'knowledge points'. Its database of over 75 million articles is 10 times the size of the entire Wikipedia database. 2. Integrated search service - there's no doubt South Korea is switched on, boasting an incredibly high broadband penetration rate and a very sophisticated online userbase. However, even Google is irrelevant when there are no documents for Googlebot to crawl and index. Back in the early days of the Korean Internet, there simply were not enough Korean language documents to answer queries so Naver began paying content providers a fee to create a walled garden of content. Seven years before Google or Ask's universal search, Naver was already algorithmically serving up a mash-up of search results from their bucket of 'collection' databases.Korean web 2.0 observer Chang-Won Kim believes Naver has created a benevolent cycle- Naver, as the go-to guy for both user aggregated content and vendor aggregated content, has made it seamless and natural for South Korean content providers to place all their content on Naver. What can we learn from the South Korean search industry?Yahoo! In Pole Position For Once?When Yahoo! Answerslaunched in December 2005, few analysts foresaw the upside in a Q+A service that tapped into Yahoo's almost half a billion global users. Within two years, Y! Answers has accumulated over 95 millionregistered usersand is one of a few good news stories to come out of Yahoo on a quarterly basis. Let's not beat around the bush, like Naver, Yahoo has the 'ecosystem' to make knowledge search THEsearch experience that online users are looking for. Mahalo provides hand-picked results from a small team of writers, Yahoo Answers provides hand-picked answers from millions of users. Which place would you turn to first, especially if such a search was already seamlessly embedded into your social network (hi Yahoo! 360). Figure out how to best mash-up Yahoo Answers into Yahoo! Alpha, take it mobile with Yahoo! oneSearchand we might just have the Naver of the Western world.Facebook Could Really KillHurtTickle GoogleOkay, snap back to reality. Yahoo! has thus far sucked at integrating their myriad properties and we also know that Yahoo! 360 hasn't really taken off.Q+A is a social network. People ask questions and other people answer. At 45 million users, Facebook is a social network that has a critical mass of answerers. While Facebook already has question apps (eg. Slide's My Questions) we're talking about taking it to the next social level where Q+A becomessearch. Picture this - a large search box at the very top of every Facebook page. Type in a query into the box and you'd be taken to Facebook's very own database of answers (aka search results). If the database does not provide your answer your question, hit the submit button to make your query public and wait for Facebook users to provide the best answer. For example, if you chose to follow a particular category like 'animated movies', you'd be able to see new 'animated movie' questions in your Facebook news feed...Could you see a better way to procrastinate on Facebook than to help fellow Facebook users while earning yourself some glory?Facebook's fantastic usability (compared to existing social networks) is a clear reason why they could very quickly own this space despite Yahoo's huge head start and Google's intention to free the 'social graph'. A Q+A service would also mesh well with Facebook's current walled garden philosophy butthe only problem is, and it's a big one,  without the benefit of Naver/Google-style content databases, Facebook users would still be relying on Google or another search engine to help reference their answers.Where does this leave us?Kill Nothing But TimeIs Facebook an actual Google killer or just an accomplice? Is Google the next Google killer? Will Yahoo turn around 360 and make Yahoo! Answers the way to search? The answer is no current social network has the complete package required to replace Google:Reach & Scalability= ability to answer long tail questions and provide fast response times.Usability= robust spam/moderation, ease of contribution.- Google has search databases (blog, book, maps, video etc.)- Facebook has social usability (and ability to wall-in content)- Yahoo has Y! Answers and unlike Google, a web portal presence. - Ask used to have Jeeves' answering service (and Google had Google Q+A) but it did not scale well. Think of it this way - today's search engines answer three basic questions:1. Transactional questions: "Where can I buy the latest Buffy figurines?"2. Navigational questions: "How do I get to the Toys R Us website?"3. Informational questions: "What are the operating hours for toy stores in Seattle?"But there is one type of question that they can not answer.As Yahoo's Bradley Horowitz said,"Yet there is a subtle but profound limitation to “web search” as currently realized: search engines can only return results that… well… you know… exist."Surely a searchable social network-based Q+A service would be able to answer all four types of questions?Any Questions? Technorati Tagsnaver, google, yahoo, microsoft, facebook, yahoo answers, knowledge in, scoble, ask, universal searchDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by great scott!Hey Gang,After a brief departure (in which Jeff aptly covered Whiteboard Friday duties) I'm back to present you with this week's WBF. This week, Rand discusses some of the unique ways to implement links on your sites (and others) beyond the standard-issue text link; including the pitfalls and benefits of each. Why bother, you ask? Well, sometimes, depending on content, it can seem a bit, shall we say, unusualto put a text link on a site. These methods provide you with some options and a bit of diversity in how you implement (or request) links on sites.For those of you who've asked, here's a screen cap of this week's Whiteboard, in all its glory:Technorati TagsSEOmoz, Rand Fishkin, Whiteboard Friday, Links, iFrame, CSS Overlay, Image LinksDo you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by JacI have a humble request. Fall has come, so I am back in school for the last year. I enrolled in a magazine writing class because I thought it would be fun. So far it has not been fun at all, but our first assignment is to profile a person, business, or organization. I lovingly think of SEOmoz as all three, in a way, and I knew right away that I wanted to do my article on it. One of the points of my article will be that SEOmoz is revolutionary in its accessibility. Prove me right by helping me to answer the following questions. I would be very grateful. We are also encouraged to submit these articles to various magazines, so you never know where your luminous words may end up (though I would definitely let everyone know if that becomes the case!). I’d love to hear from staff members and anyone, really.Why hasn’t SEOmoz taken the format of a forum or implemented one on their site?What will SEOmoz be like in ten years?Are SEO “newbies” encouraged to use the site? Will they always be?Is SEOmoz moving to pioneer a standardized SEO certification course? Or should SEO be an undergraduate degree soon? (There was some talk of this post-SEO Quiz)If everyone had to name a single element that makes SEOmoz so rewarding to read and participate in, what would that be?Don’t feel limited to these questions. Feel free to use this space to reflect on all things SEOmoz. I appreciate everyone’s time. Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishThis morning, Andy Greenberg wrote an article for the front page of Forbes' technology section - Google Purges the Payola. The article focuses on the ongoing battle between search engines andpaid links - a battle that most see as unlikely to ever end:To most users, the difference between sponsored links and advertisements is a blur. Take, for instance, the online site for the British magazine, New Scientist. Near the bottom of the New Scientisthomepage are "sponsored links" that launch the curious to odd destinations including teeth whitening sites or German language sites that sell women's shoes--places that are probably only marginally interesting to most New Scientistreaders.In the byzantine coding world of search engines, however, the mere existence of such links bumps up the placement of those particular teeth and shoe sites when someone types "white teeth" or "schuhe" into Google's search engine.Search engines hate this kind of paid-for popularity. Google's Webmaster guidelines ban buying links just to pump search rankings. Other search engines including Ask, MSN, and Yahoo!, which mimic Google's link-based search rankings, also discourage buying and selling links. But as Web commerce has boomed, so too has the value of links--for everyone, including Google. And that's lead to innovation--or from Google's perspective, scams.Tonight, as I was answering emails, I opened up some tabs and hit the "stumble" button - admitedly, I love StumbleUpon and the wonderful corners of the web it brings to me - and noticed an odd pattern. The first site I reached had this in the bottom right-hand corner:Wow... Paid links - and sure enough, no "nofollows" on those suckers. Well, I thought, maybe it's just a coincidence. I kept stumbling.The next site up had this in the footer:No way! It's using a Wordpress theme that's been "sponsored" by a web hosting outfit. The theme links back to the creator, but the ICDSoft link is pointing to their site and has the link title as "web hosting by ICDsoft." Crazy coincidence? Yeah, probably, but I decide to start tracking as I'm stumbling - maybe it'll make for a good blog post (whoa... did Rand just break the fourth wall?).Site #3 had this in their sidebar:Links to Feng Shui and SEO Services without nofollows - why am I not surprised?Over the course of the next 20 minutes, I stumbled another 16 sites, and found 6 more that featured the kinds of links that might fall under the heading of "Google Payola." Check it out:There on the top is an advertising link without a "nofollow" on it. Who knows? Maybe the two sites are owned by the same people, or the site wants to give them editorial endorsement, too - totally possible, but very hard to tell. The next site, as you scroll down, shows a lot of questionable links (though again, hard to tell if they're truly "Payola").Next up is a blog with a cute design and a post on Feedburner. But, on the sidebar:BTW - From what I can see, Bizrate.com's links in their marketplace widget are direct and passing juice. And they're ranking pretty well for those four phrases on Google right now.Next up we've got another site that looks pretty suspicious (just from the layout) and has a lovely list of very "run, don't walk" type links at the very top:Then there's a blog with a nifty post on must-know Latin words and expressions: All well and good except... Look at the four image links in the top right-hand corner - nofollow's? Nope.The next site has a pink theme to raise awareness for breast cancer - which is terrific. In fact, I don't even see any bad sidebar links. But, then I scroll down a bit more and see a familiar badge:I personally think PayPerPost and other pay-to-blog services are terrific so long as they're disclosed. In fact, I'm thinking about using them for SEOmoz's premium content one of these days. However, they do certainly fit into what Andy discussed in his piece for Forbes and Google has railed about them in the past, so they probably come under the headline of "Payola," too.Of course, finally, I had to come full circle. There's a large number of odd pages on Forbes.com and since this has been reported several times in the SEO world previously (and Google's probably removed the link value at this point), I figured it's fine to mention. Basically, on the bottom of many pages at Forbes, you get a drop down menu that looks like this:Forbes' Special Advertising DropdownThe problem is, when you look at the code of the site, you see this:Forbes Noscript Tag ContentThe pages they link to look like this:Forbes' Mesothelioma Attorney PageWhile there's an obvious indication at the top that it's a sponsored page (much like a sponsored section in a magazine), the links aren't "nofollowed" which I'm guessing is why the pages don't appear in Google's index (though Yahoo! and MSN both have all the ones I checked).I suppose you could call that irony.My point with all this isn't to "out" sites for selling links - no way. I've encouraged some of our clients to purchase links in the past and I suspect I'll do so in the future (though we generally try to be extremely careful about it). I personally think selling links and making a living off the gap in search technology is neither evil nor illegal (though I do think there's usually smarter ways to go about it).What I'm really trying to show is what an immense quantity of websites are engaged in link practices that Google would consider "un-trustworthy." Yet, as you can clearly see in the search results of thousands of commercially competitive terms, paid links still rule. I think Danny Sullivan summed it up best in the Forbes article:"Google will never be able to stop paid links altogether," Sullivan says. "They'll stop the obvious stuff. They'll create a climate of fear and a sense of responsibility. But some will still get through." And so long as "some" get through, the economy of paid links will continue to generate revenue for a massive subsection of the web. The search engineers certainly have their work cut out for them if they want to tackle this problem in a scalable fashion.p.s. One final frustration - I would have loved to link out to some of the sites that I posted about, but I'm seriously concerned about the "bad neighborhoods" phenomenon, which is frustrating. I hate worrying about whether or not a link from SEOmoz is going to hurt our rankings (as something has with this page) or if the engines might remove our ability to pass linkjuice if we're not careful where we link. There's got to be a better way, right?UPDATE From Rand: Although I'm still conflicted as to whether it's the right thing to do, I've removed the references to the actual sites in question. It certainly makes the blog post less powerful and doesn't nearly illustrate the hypocrisy of the engines' positions on paid links (as showing the site helped to illustrate how many high quality, legitimate sites that probably have never heard of Matt Cutts or the guidelines for paid links engage in this behavior). However, I'm trusting Donna Fontenot'swisdomand pulling the specifics.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishIf you've been on the Yahoo! home page in the last few days, you've seen this phenomenon:The red box around the Indiana Jones 4 link should, by all rights, take the user to a Yahoo! Movies page about the upcoming film - after all, Yahoo! has had links like these for years on their home page and they've built that expectation into the user experience of the site.However, this is the page you get when you click that link:Why? Because Yahoo! is attempting to drive more search traffic via its homepage - one of the web's most popular destinations. We, the users, are meant to understand that the magnifying glass symbol indicates we won't be taken to content, but instead to a search result.Here's the twist - no one's bidding for advertising on the query they're sending users to - "george lucas indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull" - and, the results are organic; there's no specific attempt to drive traffic to a Yahoo! property from the results (which is hard to believe, as this pagewould be a perfect result.If you see Yahoo! having some inflated search query numbers next quarter - don't forget that not all of those were typed into the search box. Additionally, if you're looking to beef up your traffic, watch the Yahoo! homepage for queries they link to and grab those sponsored results (and optimize your pages) as fast as you can. Yahoo! rotates content out every few hours - sometimes even more frequently during the day. It's all the more reason to stay on the cutting edge of popular trends.Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by randfishI'm combining two short blogs into one tonight - hey, it's easier for you to read and me to write, so why not, right?First off, I wanted to do a roundup of some of the great material that's popped up over the past few days:Click FRAUD!! Andrew Goodman wrote an excellent piece on the subject at Traffick, and it reminded me that this old blog post from MindValleyLabs (who just launched SocialRank) was a must-read as well - Is Fraud Rampant on Google's Content Ad Network? Yahoo! did an impressive upgradeto their search results and the search functionality from their homepage - mirroring the rollout of MSN/Live's upgraded search functionality(which we'll be reporting on later in the week). To help us understand how Yahoo! changes might affect SEO, and specifically keyword demand and targeting, Joost De Valk wrote a post on Yahoo!'s Search Assist & Tracking Keywords. What does Techmeme's leaderboard(and, more importantly, the thousands of bloggers linking to it) tell us about viral content in the 'sphere? Easy - bloggers are obsessed with reputation and ranking and anything that plays on that ego will attract an incredibly amount of links & traffic. Aaron's post on exploiting passion for profitis easily one of the SEO world's best reads this month (I know, I know - we're only 3 days in) Happy 40th, Brian... Is it really the new 20? If so, I'm worried about Copyblogger being overrun by rampaging frat boys. I actually found a good number of very interesting sites on PC Mag's Top 100 Undiscoverd Websiteslist. I almost wish that someone would cover "up and comers" in the web world every month... On last thing - for goodness sake, DO NOT MISS SMX Social Mediain New York on October 16-17. Rebecca and I will both be speaking there on multiple panels, plus you can get a discount on SEOmoz membership if you attend (or, if you're already a premium member, we're giving you 10% off the show price in the premium discount store). The reason I'm so excited for SMX Social is simple - I think it's going to be one of the first conferences where 65%+ of the material will be completely new - Facebook apps, Bribing Wikipedia editors, tactics that still work for getting on Digg, etc.And now, to part 2 of the post. I actually saw this spiffy graphvia Lisaand thought - I should make one of those to reflect what my weeks usually look like.An Average Week in the Life of RandHere's the raw stats for those can't live without the numbers:Reading Blogs, News Sites & Forums7.00%Consulting w/ Clients6.00%Answering Email50.00%Company Internal Meetings2.00%Crafting + Giving Presentations4.00%Blogging12.00%Answering Premium Q+A5.00%Setting SEOmoz Strategy1.00%Contracts & Finances1.00%Travel Time4.00%Tool & Content Design2.00%Social Media & Blog Participation3.00%Non-client, Industry Meetings & Events3.00%I actually found this to be an interesting excercise, and one that made me realize how badly I need more help with my email.p.s. We found out the genius responsible for the Brock Sampson linkbaitlast night - I think he deserves his own case study, and possibly an interview, too Sadly, he's already working at another SEO company - and one that we probably need to add to our recommended list :)p.p.s. As always - let us know what we missed in the comments (and feel free to link out).Do you like this post? YesNo

  Posted by CredoPaulINTRO from Rand: Paulwas the winner of our Landing Page Competitionand authored a post last weekon his personal style.This blog post is going to take on a very simple format:  first of all I’m going to present my landing pageas a “good cop persuader” and refer to the work of Gerry Spence.  Then, I’m going to present my landing page as more of a “bad cop salesman” and refer to the work of Dr Robert Cialdini.  I’d love to give you more, and I had lofty ambitions for this post, but that’s all I’ve got space for.Caution:I have to say, Spence and Cialdini are not in the mould of Bryan Eisenberg(a true online conversion expert, and author of “Call to Action”), in fact, I would be willing to bet neither Spence nor Cialdini have ever heard of the term “landing page”before in their lives… but, then again, neither had I until recently… so let’s just go for it!Here are the two books I’ll refer you to:How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence (ISBN-13: 978-0312144777).  Gerry Spence is often referred to as “America’s finest trial lawyer”.Influence: The Psychology of Persuasionby Dr Robert Cialdini (ISBN-13: 78-0688128166).  Described by the Journal of Marketing as “one of the most important books ever written for marketers."You’ll learn a lot more about selling/psychology/influence from the two books I've mentioned above than you will from me in this blog post.  However, in the spirit of the SEOmoz full disclosurepolicy, I am happy to answer any questions you post in this thread fully, honestly, and in line with what I have learned studying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of scientifically tested direct response results (offline results).  Please consider nothing to be off-limits, and after we are done I will vanish into the night together with my silly little theories and ideas - deal?You are very welcome to pay me a visit over on my own blogif you want to check out my latest meanderings, and I’ll certainly still be lurking around here at SEOmoz.First: Introducing “How to Argue and Win Every Time” by Gerry SpenceI argue that the powerful argument comes not from disavowing our divine uniqueness in favour of someone else’s style, or values, but from tapping into the wondrous well of our own personhood.  We do not fail to make a persuasive argument because we lack electric genius or lightning wit, we do not fail because we possess but a sparse fund of words, we fail to make the successful argument because we have fixed certain locks to ourselves, locks that imprison our arguments, locks that bar us from assuming a successful stance or from adopting a winning method. -- Gerry Spence So, what represents the divine uniqueness of SEOmoz?  I would argue that it is the story of the “Linkerati,”as found in the SEOmoz blog archive.  As I read the series of articles rand wrote on the “Linkerati,” a little siren went off in my head… and I knew these articles would arouse what I will call the “let’s go!” feeling within a small section of the target market.  I’ll concede to you that my exquisitely sensitive emotional antenna wasn’t really tested during the process of identifying these articles on the subject of the “Linkerati”, because for a long time they were among the most popular on the SEOmoz blog (as measured by number of thumbs up).  So, I’ll just have to ask you to take my word for the fact that I would still have “felt the force” even if it weren't for all of the thumbs up.  This work on the “Linkerati” was clearly written from the heart and based entirely on what I perceive to be the core beliefs of SEOmoz as an organisation.  What I’m saying to you here is that the Linkerati story “persuades” people in a way that is entirely moral, ethical, and truthful.  In other words, by putting the story of the “Linkerati” front and centre in my landing page I helped to free SEOmoz from their own “locks,” as Gerry Spence would put it.  I just helped SEOmoz say what they had to say.Yes, I realize that to all of you “old pros” out there the story of the “Linkerati” is all a bit ho-hum and “heard it all before”.  However, as I mentioned in the last post, my landing page was targeted to those who fall into the category of “newcomers” to the SEOmoz community; and to them the story is hotstuff.Finally, because the core message (the “big idea”) of my landing page is entirely in alignment with what I perceive to be the core beliefs of SEOmoz, I think this should help to silence a lot of questions about the intelligence level of people signing up to the premium membership packagefrom my sales letter.  I’d love to talk with you more about switching off the “oh yuck” reaction in people (people like me, for example) who generally don’t buy from sales letters… but I simply don’t have space to do so in this post.  The cat & mouse game I’m referring to has been going on for more than 100 years, though - Robert Collier wrote briefly about the “dying sales letter” a century ago.   The sales letter is always dying in one form or another, but just remember the nature of human psychology hasn’t changed much since the beginning of time and it won’t change much in the future, either.  OK, I’m tired of being a good guy; let us move swiftly on to Cialdini.Second, Introducing Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Dr Robert CialdiniAlthough there are thousands of different tactics that compliance practitioners employ to produce "yes," the majority fall within six basic categories: the principles of consistency, reciprocation, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity (not included among these 6 principles the simple rule of material self interest) -- CialdiniCialdini examines the ability of each of these tools to create a kind of automatic, mindless compliance that makes people say "yes" without thinking first.  Consider: as human beings we don't have time to critically analyze every new situation, person, or choice we are faced with on a daily basis.  We have to take some “autopilot” decisions and focus only on a few normally reliable features of the “whole,” during our decision making processes.  A quick example: if a policeman knocks on your door, flashes you a badge, and asks to come in to your house so he can ask you a few questions about an “incident” across the street, few would hesitate to comply.  Not many of us would ask him to wait at the door as we call his station, check his badge number, and so on.  Criminals frequently exploit this fact to do people harm.  Another example of a shortcut response: expensive products = high quality products. The reason why we trust our shortcut responses so much is because they are extremely accurate, dependable, and helpful.  In fact, we'd all be completely lost without them - stuck in a state of "paralysis by analysis," if you like.  The following point is critical: The proper targets for counter aggression are only those individuals who falsify, counterfeit, or misrepresent the evidence that naturally cues our shortcut responses. -- CialdiniReciprocationThe rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.  We are obligated to the future repayment of gifts, favours and the like.  There is no human society that does not subscribe to the rule.  We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food in an honoured network of obligation. -- CialdiniMy landing page gives people the story of the Linkerati.  This story of the Linkerati is nothing new to all of you SEO veterans out there.  However, to people outside the SEOmoz community it's news, and a very fun, interesting and educational read.  Bottom line: my landing page induces a desire to reciprocate in those readers for whom the story of the Linkerati is fresh.  Social ProofAs a rule, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. -- CialdiniThe use of testimonials is classic social proof in selling.  The reason why I didn't use testimonials in my copy was because I didn't feel the testimonials on file offered general appeal; they sounded "too far up the ladder of abstraction" for my liking.  However, it was a weakness on my part not to weave in some relevant testimonials throughout the copy.  Question: are there other ways to "trigger" social proof besides testimonials? Yes, the idea is basically "monkey see, monkey do".LikingWe like people who are similar to us.  This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background or life-style.  Consequently, those who wish to be liked in order to increase our compliance can accomplish that purpose by appearing similar to us in any of a wide variety of ways. -- CialdiniWonder no longer why my landing page uses a "just you and me talking" tone of voice.  To paraphrase SEOmoz member Mike Tekula, who put it so eloquently, "The writing style is less about presenting a product or service and more about you sitting down with Paul (Rand) and having him explain a few things to you."  I'd also include here under “liking” the picture of Rand and the SEOmoz team.  This increases likeability by helping to humanize the selling effort - we think we are far less likely to be ripped off / get a raw deal if the guy selling to us is willing to show his face (and the face of his team).AuthorityIt is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding of the study -- CialdiniLogos for The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, and so on... all demonstrate or imply authority.  Selling Rand as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies on a minimum retainer of $10,000 per month?  That is authority building, too.  By the way, building Rand up as a $10,000 per month minimum consultant is also an illustration of what is known as the "contrast principle".  This makes the required investment of $399 seem small when compared to what others have paid for access to the same/similar information.Commitment and ConsistencyThe tactic of starting with a little request in order to gain eventual compliance with related larger requests has a name: the foot-in-the-door technique.  Subjects had innocently complied with a trivial request a couple of weeks before, and these people became remarkably willing to comply with another such request that was massive in size. -- CialdiniLibraries could be written on this subject, because the power of commitment and consistency is mind blowing.  Some say (Robbins, for instance) that commitments are the basis of all selling, and I would tend to agree.  All I'm going to do here is explain a seeming discrepancy in the data of the landing page results: Carlos's landing pagehad an opt in rate of 12.5%, which was much higher than mine, yet his overall conversion rate was lower.  Now, obviously people who read a few dozen pages of copy are much more committed to buying than people who simply look at a table.  What makes this more interesting, in my opinion, is the fact that… for “raw” traffic not logged into an SEOmoz account… my landing page redirected people to an “error” page (my fault).  Understand this: when the WANT within someone is stirred up, you would be amazed at how tolerant/savvy they will become in order to fulfil their desires.   By all logic, this error page should have been a conversion rate crusher, but it wasn’t (or at least didn’t seem to be) because people were already committed to the idea of buying at the time they clicked “Enroll”. Please also recognize that it is perceived to be less of a commitment signing up for a service when people have a money-back guarantee to fall back on: the idea is to get people thinking "I'll hand over my money now, check it out, and if I change my mind later I can always get my money back".  This works because people are much more likely to make a small commitment than they are a larger one, however the larger commitment follows naturally from the smaller one with astonishing regularity (as Cialdini’s work demonstrates).ScarcityOpportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited -- CialdiniVery few resources in this world are infinite (maybe none?) and I would argue that the same is true of the SEOmoz premium membership, because SEOmoz is made up of a small team and there will be a limit to the number members that can be serviced to a high standard (Q&A etc).  When I chose the number 7,000 it was fairly arbitrary… I tried to lean on the high side.  Scarcity is some very powerful “voodoo”.Closing ThoughtsAs I said to you before I’m happy to offer you full disclosure, so feel free to ask me any questions you want.  I’m not claiming I’ve been able to cover everything in this post.  But, wait a minute… when I made the offer of ull disclosure was I stating what I genuinely felt was the right thing to do (being truthful with you)?  Or was I trying to induce reciprocation within you?  Was I trying to increase your level of “commitment” to me by engaging you in dialogue?  Was I trying to make you like me?  Was I trying to pass myself off as an authority?  When I said that I would “vanish into the night” was I trying to make myself out to be a scarce resource?  Am I a good cop or a bad cop?  Have I been trying to persuade you all along?  Well, there are no easy answers… sometimes life can be “blurry” like that.  I’ll leave you all to draw your own conclusions.  All I will say is that it’s been my pleasure to try and help explain my landing page a little bit, and I hope you found this post to be of some value to your own endeavours!All the best,Paul Robbwww.crediblecopy.org Do you like this post? 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