Golden Speed SEO

Dangers of outsourcing web development: black hat techniques like cloaking hidden in your source code

Golden Speed SEO — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 03:30:07 +0000

It is common for small and medium sized businesses to outsource the development of their websites. This comes along with its advantages (mainly a low cost) and disadvantages (dependency on the provider when upgrading or changing functions on your website).

In some extreme cases, unscrupulous developers will take advantage of the inexperience of their clients and include some sneaky and fraudulent black hat snippets into the source code, like this example of cloaking I discovered recently. It was sitting comfortably in the customer’s source code for several years.

While conducting a 10 minute website SEO audit before a meeting with a prospective customer, I came across this piece of code. It would be funny unless it was your own site..

We see in a very prominent position within the code (just below the “” tag and practically in the first line after the “” tag), a paragraph entirely dedicated to one of the most blatant black hat techniques, cloaking: search engines will see this data but users will not due to the “hide” instructions (highlighted).

In this case, the code contains links promoting other websites for the keywords Viagra, Cyalis, Penis enlargment, Casinos, etc. Using this cloaking technique can seriously affect the client’s webstite’s rankings since it is a technique totally forbidden by Google and other search engines.

The website had many other issues and rankings were very bad but that could also be due to use of frames (one unique url for all the content) and other structural issues too.

Please share your own experiences of this kind if you have come across any.

Facebook likes, real or fake?

Golden Speed SEO — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:22:20 +0000

We’ve recently come across some interesting publications regarding some heavy suspicions that Facebook likes obtained through Facebook ads may be actually fake likes. If this were true, it would be another bad story for Facebook so we do hope they take action in eradicating this practice.

The main concern after the recent flop of their stock market adventure is all about their capacity to monetize their traffic, converting visitors into advertisement buyers. If these rumours (or initial suspicions) become widespread, most people will rather use a cheap fiverr gig than a paid advertisement on Facebook to get fake fans for their pages.

One interesting post relating a journalists test is available at the BBC site: Facebook “likes” investigated.

A more detailed analysis and set of conclusions can be read at Search Engine Journal’s: Facebook Ads: What Are You Really Paying For?

Google, judge and jury, what is your opinion?

Golden Speed SEO — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 03:25:48 +0000

At the beginning of this year Google was caught practicing the exact strategy that it forbids and sanctions with force. A Google Chrome paid-link scandal was uncovered by Aaron Wall.

Buying links is totally forbidden and that is what Google was doing to promote Google Chrome. Of course, the “mistake” was made by a third-party SEO agency contracted by Google. We do believe that this could happen in good-faith but doesn’t it also happen to webmasters around the world who might never recover from the sanctions they receive? That’s the point, getting the sanctions lifted for a small company is a long and costly process (revenues decrease while the penalty is in force, good faith is hard to prove) that some do not survive.

A 40 $ Amazon gift certificate for a sponsored blog post with a link to the Google Chrome page not only is a forbidden practice but it also led to a huge amount of junk content being indexed by Google…this is what many of the algorithm updates are trying to weed out.

The penalty was self-inflicted and has just been lifted: Penalizing Google Chrome in Google’s search results for 60 days.

The penalty is considerable but don’t you think this kind of sanction is easier to absorb when you have the corporate strength of this huge corporation? What about the small site webmasters? 60 days can take down your business.

50% of SEOs consulted consider that the penalty Google auto-inflicted penalty is sufficient.

What’s your opinion?

How to SEO Vietnam II

Golden Speed SEO — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:41:22 +0000

After Huê’s essay on how to SEO Vietnam, Phuong is giving it a go with what she has learned recently (she’s been on the team for two months).

We are definitely going to pave the road for search engine optimization in Vietnam. Our staff is young and hungry for success in the SEO world. With proper training, we will soon have the best SEO Vietnam team around.

KEYWORD

Keyword’s length:

- Short keyword has high level of competition. Besides, most customers who search for this kind of keyword are looking for information only.

- Some of your keywords will be shorter (2 words), while others will be longer (3-5 words long)

- For Vietnamese keyword, you should use less Vietnamese elements (unnecessary Vietnamese words like ‘cho, để, là,…’) to have a concise keyword.

Beside your main keywords, you should optimize long keywords. These longer keyword terms are called “long tail keywords”. Long tail keywords are not as in demand as the shorter keyword phrases, but as a consequence they are easier to rank for (because there is less competition) by writing articles. This can help you gain more traffic to your site because sometimes, people do search with weird, long terms, especially in Vietnamese.

====> Optimize short keywords on main page, category…. Then you can use the content, tag to optimize the remain keywords of the keyword list. Normally, short keywords can only appeal 10-15% traffic. Other long, weird keywords will draw the rest of the amount of traffic.

Keyword Research:

1. Make a list of keywords (the list should be about 20-30 words long)

- Words related to your product, or service,…

- Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and guess what keyword you’ll use if you want the kind of product or service your company offer.

- Words from keyword research

Write as much keyword as you can, don’t think about its value, just make a list.

2. Analyze and categorize keywords

Use:

Google Insight Search & Google Trends: compare searches and trends

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

http://www.google.com/trends

With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most.

Google keyword tools – Google Adwords: Competion level, monthly searches of a keyword

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Keyword Tools can be used to search (suggest) keyword. It shows how often the keyword is searched in a month, or a quater.. with the level of competition, estimated CPC.

Google search box -> suggest keyword

3. Refine keyword:

Eliminate keywords that have:

- Low searches

- Low conversion rate

- High competition level

ON PAGE SEO

Optimize URL
Try removing SessionIDs and other irrelevant items in your url.

Example:

http://webpage.com/viewforum.php?f=21&sid=60e5c6ee4e64a76262eaf4a1ae51b950

Better put it like this:

http://webpage.com/viewforum.php?f=21

Best option is to leave it like this:

http://webpage.com/seo-forum/

Meta title Tag

It should include your main keyword, and relevant to the content

SEO for beginners, SEO for beginers – #webpage Viet Nam, SEO forum

Keyword in H1 tag:

SEO for beginners

Meta keyword tags:

Meta description tag:

About folder and file name:

Not good:

http://vnwebpage.com/seo_forum/good_seo_method.html

“_” – underscore is not a good choice. It’s better to use”-” – hyphen

So it should be :

http://vnwebpage.com/seo-forum/good-seo-method.html

Internal Anchor Text

Not good:

To vnwebpage: clickhere

It should be:

To vnwebpage

Website content and keyword

Normal content:

You like our service

Good content for SEO:

I like your web hosting service

Normal keyword:
I like webpage club

Optimized keyword for SEO
Webpage club is well liked by many webmasters

Use bold
Webpage club is well liked by many webmasters

And italics too.

Webpage club is well liked by many webmasters.

LINK BUILDING

Building backlinks is also an important factor to increase relevance and authority for website.

Here are some suggestions to get backlinks:

Submit Web Directories
1. Yahoo! Web Directory
URL: http://dir.yahoo.com
2. Google
URL: http://www.google.com.vn/addurl/
3. DMOZ
URL: http://dmoz.org

4. Umdum
URL: http://www.umdum.com

Trade links
You can trade link with sites that have similar content in some topics or articles. Email the webmaster of a related site and ask to trade links. Offer to provide some content for another site in return for a link back.

Draw links
Create a directory page for user. Then you can ask them to connect with you

Articles

Write some good articles that can draw interests from people. Create compelling and perhaps even controversial content on your Website that people will want to link to. And don’t forget to put a link back to your website in the article. Each re-post is a free backlink for you

Blog & Forum
It is a simple and useful way to build backlinks but quite time consuming. You can put a backlink in your signature when you join a forum. Never use automated spamming tools.

Interview

Try an interview with people who has friends working as webmasters.

They will show their friends this interview, and of course they will remember the website that did this interview.

Use free hosting
Register a free hosting and upload a simple webpage contains keywords and backlinks. Be careful to put just a few keywords, or Google will detect you as spamming keyword. This technique has been abused and now has led to the term “splog” (blog used for creating your own backlinks), it is no longer useful unless it is done very carefully.

Buy Widgets
Create widgets and buy a spot to put them on other websites. Or you can program a useful tool or script that Webmasters will happily add to their sites.

Hold contests
It doesn’t cost much, however, you can look for sponsor. Publish the contest/event (like an auction or a give-away event) on your website, then it will be spread around the internet. This can help you get more anchor text link from bloggers.

Introduce your website to your friends
They will always be the loyal visitors of your site. And they can be the one who introduce your website to others in the fastest and most effective way

Google+, is it real?

Golden Speed SEO — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:46:23 +0000

Here is an interesting update on the use of Google+ and how it compares to other social media, coming from the Search Engine Journal.

By creating accounts automatically for all new Google users, Google has been accused of artificially boosting its Google+ numbers. The Wall Street Journal has even labelled it a “virtual ghost town”.

If you compare the average number of minutes per month a users spends on each social media, the gap is huge:

Facebook: 405 minutes
Pinterest/Tumblr: 98 minutes
Twitter: 21 minutes
LinkedIn: 17
MySpace: 8
Google+: 3

Still, for SEO purposes, we still cannot ignore Google +.

More information from SEO Vietnam…

How to SEO Vietnam

Golden Speed SEO — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:08:54 +0000

This is a post by Huê dedicated to the specific topic of how to SEO Vietnam. Enjoy it!

Nowadays there are a lot of methods which can help you improve your ranking in the internet. One of the most popular methods is SEO (Search engine optimization). That method is used more and more in Vietnam now. Today, I want to share with you the procedure that can assist you in SEO Vietnam.

The first step is research. We have to know the objective of the company to have right plan for your SEO Vietnam campaign. Then, we analyze the website we need to do SEO for: content, HTML standard, meta, title, description, footer, backlink, keyword, rank on Google, etc.

One important thing we need to do carefully is brainstorm keyword. How can we do that in the best way? We use Google keyword tool to evaluate keyword, track and analyze the competition of keyword, make a list of the competitors from our keyword. We also can use Yahoo Site Explorer to check our competitors’ back links (note that this service is no longer available but other options still exist, check out our favorite SEO tool, SEO Power suite and it’s Spyglass module).

The second step is about SEO On page. Regarding the website, we need to upgrade our hosting if it can’t adapt to our needs and create cache site on server: filecache, memcache, apc-cache, x-cache. If we want to increase web speed, we can install Gzip. It is better if you have a chance to create refer pages which are put on high-speed international servers.

To let customer know the result of SEO, you should install Google Analytics two weeks before beginning your SEO Vietnam campaign. The website will be more powerful if you optimize the HTML (h1, h2, b, strong, nofollow, alt …), meta, title tag, insert keyword, description, copyright tags, … Besides, you need to answer a question: “Does the content have Silo structure which makes internal linking more powerful?”.

The last step is about SEO Off page. Nowadays, social networks are a very powerful way to connect with everyone in the world, therefore you can consider creating accounts in Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, LinkIn, Twitter, BlogViet or create a blog in Yahoo, BlogViet, Opera, Blogger; update information; make friends; put links in your page and your friends’ pages, … It can help you get more visit to your landing pages. You also can create accounts in many forums and write posts with signatures which have back links. To make your website more popular, you can submit it to Vietnam or international web directories and publish related and contextual content in blogs, then bookmark this content to sites like Sig, Digg, Linkhay, Tagvn.com. Besides, you can also make some comments with your web link in other blogs but those comments need to be relevant to the post, not just thank you or say so much about your site because if you do not listen to my advice, you will be considered as spammer. Other useful way is link wheel but it is a little complicated way, so I will tell you more later.

These are just some basic steps. There are many other things you can do to improve your website rank in the internet. I hope these information be useful for your SEO plan in Vietnam.

Step 1: Research

- Objective of company

- Brainstorming keyword

- Evaluating keyword: use Google keyword tool

- Tracking keyword

- Analyzing the competition of keyword

- Making a list of the competitors from our keyword

- Using Yahoo Site Explorer to check our competitors’ back link

- Analyzing the web we need to SEO: content, HTML standard, meta, title, description, footer, back link, keyword rank on Google, …

- The present rank in Google, Alexa

- The indexed web page in Google, Yahoo, Bing

- The web optimization: speed, cache, traffic, …

Step 2: On page

- Upgrade server if server can’t adapt the need

- Create cache site on server: filecache, memcache, apc-cache, x-cache

- Install Gzip to increase web speed

- Create refer pages which are put on high-speed international servers

- Install Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tool (install Google Analytics 2 weeks before beginning SEO to let customer know the result of SEO)

- Check design, HTML standard

- Does the content have Silo structure which makes internal linking more powerful?

- Optimizing HTML: h1, h2, b, strong, no follow, alt …

- Does the link rewrite and keyword in url?

- Optimizing meta, title tag, insert keyword, description, copyright tags

- Submit sitemap to search engine, create sitemap xml for Google webmaster

- Use file robots.txt

- Adjust the crawl flow in Google webmaster tool

- Use keyword to make anchor text

Step 3: Off page

- Create accounts in Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter, BlogViet

- Avoid duplicate content

- Create blog in Yahoo, BlogViet, Opera, Blogger

- Update info, build friend network in Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, Twitter, make fanclub in Facebook

- Create accounts in forums, write posts with signatures which have backlink

- Submit link website to Vietnam or international web directories:

- Update content in blogs, submit these contents to Sig, Digg, Linkhay, Tagvn.com

- Create accounts in advertising webs: Rongbay.com, Enbac.vn, Timnhanh.com, Chodientu.com, Vatgia.com…

- Create a stall in Enbac, Chodientu, Vatgia

- Submit new advertisers in advertising webs

- Blog comment

- Linkwheel

- Link baiting

Panda infographic explaining each milestone and how to solve Panda related problems

Golden Speed SEO — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:00:12 +0000

This is a great infographic that was posted on Single Grain – A Digital Marketing Agency. Easy to understand and including the steps to take to solve a Panda related issue.

Blackout Wednesday, a new kind of revolution?

Golden Speed SEO — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:33:49 +0000

Blackout Wednesday has seriously hit the SOPA and PIPA bills.

These two bills, targeting online piracy have been widely perceived as a restraint on a free and open internet.

Due to the huge public outcry and the blackouts implemented by big and small corporations via their websites, it seems the original sponsors of the PIPA bill are now opposing it. Unless these bills are modified, they are unlikely to pass.

Here is an infographic against SOPA that was linked to by Google on it’s homepage, instead of it’s logo.

The homepage of Wikipedia was looking like this:

And Facebook posted a public informational page against SOPA/PIPA

Source: Search Engine Journal

An introduction to rich snippets (videos)

Golden Speed SEO — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:52:49 +0000

Here is a useful compilation of videos from Google commenting their rich snippets and how to implement them.

In hyper-competitive markets, these rich-snippets are certainly a way of taking a step further than your competition and making your page look more attractive in the SERPs. The variety and possibilities of rich snippets are rapidly evolving and can make your link in SERPs look much more attractive and informational.

It could turn out that people will click on a link that has rich snippets (customer reviews for example) rather than on another link which might be a bit higher in the SERPs…

This infographic makes it easy to understand how prices are set on Google Adwords

Golden Speed SEO — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:11:15 +0000

An infographic that will make understanding how Google Adwords Works, an easy and fun proposition. That’s quite a feat and we will certainly use this document to work with our clients on their PPC campaigns.

Note the importance of CTR in the algorithm used for calculating the price to pay per click. It shows the importance of permanently running competing ads and improving your CTR. This way you can pay less than your competitors for the same keyword and get a better position on the SERPs.

Adwords infographic

Source: How Does the AdWords Auction Work? [Infographic] | Search Engine Journal