MayDay - What Are the Quality Signals?

[MisterGemini]

LOL.

Google did not say it's the end of micro sites. The guy said it's the end of spammy sites that were built only to dominate SERP.

"Microsites were originally created to dominate search results. It was originally kind of a spammy technique."

She said the technique was spammy in regards to microsites. That means they regard microsites as SPAM. Read the quote above from exactly what she said. How you interpreted it is the opposite of what is written.

I know it's hard to say good-bye, but this is where things are at and where they are going.

 

[chockomonkey]

Thanks for that update MisterGemini. Been frollowing this thread since the get-go, and i'm feelin' ya... i'm more stoked about these changes than scared.

 

[WyzoMarketing]

MisterGemini: excellent summary, I just gave you Reputation. Please continue with your contribution to this forum!
Btw. based on these new findings what do you guys think people should add to their seo efforst? More social web activity? Upload videos to youtube and other sites? Screw G and get alternative traffic sources?

 

[MisterGemini]

MisterGemini: excellent summary, I just gave you Reputation. Please continue with your contribution to this forum!
Btw. based on these new findings what do you guys think people should add to their seo efforst? More social web activity? Upload videos to youtube and other sites? Screw G and get alternative traffic sources?

All of the above.

I think the primary focus as far as SEO goes means gearing content to the intent of the searcher. If you don't know the intent, then throw everything you got at them - article, video, image, wiki, comments, forums, blogs, tweets.. until you figure it out, then build to match.

This is a preamble to the upcoming Web 3.0.

 

[ipopbb]

"Microsites were originally created to dominate search results. It was originally kind of a spammy technique."

She said the technique was spammy in regards to microsites. That means they regard microsites as SPAM. Read the quote above from exactly what she said. How you interpreted it is the opposite of what is written.

I know it's hard to say good-bye, but this is where things are at and where they are going.

That's why I use macrosites... I want my link structures to have at least 500 pages to them.

Now I just need to code the following into my sites:

* URL footprints that are variant and look human managed. Long live my unholy army of SLUGS!

* Variant HTML footprints that prevent my page types from being discerned and counted... I want them all to look as unique and handmade as possible.

* Hosted Multimedia Files this makes sense... last year the trick was adding an apple-touch icon... this year it's hosting your own mp3 and videos and large image files.

* Alternative Representations PDF and Word site catalogs with embedded linking. Product feeds revisited too.

* Microformats & microdata & RDFa this is what Caffeine was mostly about...

etc...

 

[thestig]

All of the above.

I think the primary focus as far as SEO goes means gearing content to the intent of the searcher. If you don't know the intent, then throw everything you got at them - article, video, image, wiki, comments, forums, blogs, tweets.. until you figure it out, then build to match.

This is a preamble to the upcoming Web 3.0.

All i can say MR G is that we were both right, micro sites are dead because you now have to add value, mfa sites are designed for the searcher to click on your ad so they can find what their looking for and if some one clicks on the adsense ad and stays on that site for 5 to 10 seconds then the advertiser has lost money because the user did not find what they wanted, google owes it to the advertiser that they will get the right buying customers onto their sites. My advice is to build large sites so you can focus your energy on the products your promoting, find a keyword, look at whos in the top 10 and look at the way their site is constructed, amazon kicks ass because of the content that relates to the product , its not just about the number of backlinks that a site also has, its about site construction, speed and how useful the site is to that searcher. Read the google guidelines for some signs as well as the post that Mr G has done, keep google happy and your reap the rewards...

 

[albertb]

How are they classifying a site as a micro site though? Could it be any site that has less than 5-10 pages of content? I think a large percentage of such sites would be worthless. Though what about the odd case in which such a site is actually relevant and useful. Or are they targeting static sites which haven't been updated for a long time and have no backlink activity? I notice that almost all the categories they have on their sidebar are related to dynamic content.

I wouldn't trust everything Google representatives say. Its in their interest to confuse the SEO people as much as they can so that they are unsuccessful in manipulating the results. We need to mostly rely on our own research.

 

[MisterGemini]

How are they classifying a site as a micro site though? Could it be any site that has less than 5-10 pages of content? I think a large percentage of such sites would be worthless. Though what about the odd case in which such a site is actually relevant and useful. Or are they targeting static sites which haven't been updated for a long time and have no backlink activity? I notice that almost all the categories they have on their sidebar are related to dynamic content.

I wouldn't trust everything Google representatives say. Its in their interest to confuse the SEO people as much as they can so that they are unsuccessful in manipulating the results. We need to mostly rely on our own research.

It's not very hard honestly. Just off the top of my head:

1. Their domain matches the long tail keyword phrase
2. Their sites are composed of no more than 5-20 pages
3. Page content is all the same. Just 500 word articles
4. No user inputs
5. No link outs to other sites
6. Adsense
7. Almost never updated
8. Almost no sites linking to them
9. Poorly coded, ugly as sin design

These are pretty common trates with just about every minisite I ever encountered.

The thing about this Q&A is that it confirmed a lot of what we had already suspected from our own research. I can tell you myself that searching out various terms that this whole domain keyword matching stuff doesn't appear to be working anymore. Partial matches were showing up much more.

So the summary message from Google now is 'Go Big or Go Home' :slomo:

 

[thestig]

How are they classifying a site as a micro site though? Could it be any site that has less than 5-10 pages of content? First of all you can still have a micro niche site but its go to be useful. No links out to other resources and the same theme sends one message? I here to make money. Nothing that realy is useful, i can stand brian johnson the guy who done seo pressformula, but he's been barking up this tree for some time. If your smart you can use use micro niche sites to your own advantage, but the old tell tell signs will have to stop.

I wouldn't trust everything Google representatives say. Its in their interest to confuse the SEO people as much as they can so that they are unsuccessful in manipulating the results. We need to mostly rely on our own research.

I wouldn't trust them as well but look at whats happen by the new look search results. Answer a question everyone, when you shop for a new for a new tv or any item, dont you look to make sure that its got all the functions that you need? this is what google is saying to all of us, forget about making money, build sites that offer value and the benefit is high rankings, making money from seo is a numbers game and nothing is guaranteed with seo. you can have the best looking site or niche, if people dont want to buy from you then they wont but if you give them options where they have to buy then your onto winner.

 

[rebornishard]

mister gemini, i'm new here, can i get some advice ?
thanks
since it is too much, i will using google translate to read this thread
nice info

 

[thestig]

mister gemini, i'm new here, can i get some advice ?
thanks
since it is too much, i will using google translate to read this thread
nice info

Dude read the thread which has all the answers, then do some research, guy cant give you everything on a plate, sorry but no spoonfeeders welcome here....

 

[SebastianJu]

All of the above.

I think the primary focus as far as SEO goes means gearing content to the intent of the searcher. If you don't know the intent, then throw everything you got at them - article, video, image, wiki, comments, forums, blogs, tweets.. until you figure it out, then build to match.

This is a preamble to the upcoming Web 3.0.

Rep + Thanks added...

If you want to go after a keyword do you think its better to place all of this at one page or is it better to make a page for each of them? For example one page with shopping and description, one with vids and so on or all together on one page.

Does it really matter if you host multimedia on yourself? I mean i dont see why it should be a difference to using embedded youtubes...

You mentioned that probably triggerwords are used. For example shopping. Where do you think are these words best placed to get the maximum placement in serps?

 

[Fwiffo]

1. Their domain matches the long tail keyword phrase
2. Their sites are composed of no more than 5-20 pages
3. Page content is all the same. Just 500 word articles
4. No user inputs
5. No link outs to other sites
6. Adsense
7. Almost never updated
8. Almost no sites linking to them
9. Poorly coded, ugly as sin design

Great info. 110%

I've sometimes wondered, from an algo perspective, how easy / difficult would it be to include good spelling / grammar in this list?

Could verbage quality be in the list of their indicators as well, or is that something that's "too complex" from an algo perspective? (for those of us who outsource writers fairly heavily)

 

[SebastianJu]

Regarding Websitespeed I have a tip.

You can simply compress your websites. Only browser that support that will use the compression. The other will get normal result. But most do support. So you can make your website faster.

Its simple. Test here your loadingspeed: http://webwait.com/ (It really loads the site and doesnt only calculate the loading speed like most sites do.)
Then do like here described: http://www.desilva.biz/php/zlib.html
After that you can test if compression is enabled and how small it became: http://www.gidnetwork.com/tools/gzip-test.php
Test Speed again.

This works the better the bigger the page is but its one way to make the speed faster.

 

[rebornishard]

Dude read the thread which has all the answers, then do some research, guy cant give you everything on a plate, sorry but no spoonfeeders welcome here....

sorry for my direct asking,
i already reading thread one by one
but i still don't know when to starting it
i even don't know googe sandboxed or what is it
now i read this thread to get a new lesson

 

[MisterGemini]

sorry for my direct asking,
i already reading thread one by one
but i still don't know when to starting it
i even don't know googe sandboxed or what is it
now i read this thread to get a new lesson

If you don't understand the basics then go learn these two starter threads:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ch-engine-optimization-practices-newbies.html

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ne-optimization-understanding-simulation.html

These give you some of the basics of what SEO is about.

 

[MisterGemini]

Regarding Websitespeed I have a tip.

You can simply compress your websites. Only browser that support that will use the compression. The other will get normal result. But most do support. So you can make your website faster.

Its simple. Test here your loadingspeed: http://webwait.com/ (It really loads the site and doesnt only calculate the loading speed like most sites do.)
Then do like here described: http://www.desilva.biz/php/zlib.html
After that you can test if compression is enabled and how small it became: http://www.gidnetwork.com/tools/gzip-test.php
Test Speed again.

This works the better the bigger the page is but its one way to make the speed faster.

That is one nice load speed tool! Gave you thanks for that!

Compression is an important element to help in optimization of load you are right. Wordpress plugins like W3 Total Cache support compressions like these to help speed things up.

Compression/Cache plugins for Wordpress are no longer optional, they are a must have.

 

[MisterGemini]

Great info. 110%

I've sometimes wondered, from an algo perspective, how easy / difficult would it be to include good spelling / grammar in this list?

Could verbage quality be in the list of their indicators as well, or is that something that's "too complex" from an algo perspective? (for those of us who outsource writers fairly heavily)

They cannot account for spelling. English and all languages are not a mathematical constant. An algo cannot tell the difference between a mispell and a brandname, or a popular slang phrase etc.

I think in certain context it might have an impact, but in things like tags I don't think it does. Anything where there is user input is prone to mispells.

 

[MisterGemini]

Rep + Thanks added...

If you want to go after a keyword do you think its better to place all of this at one page or is it better to make a page for each of them? For example one page with shopping and description, one with vids and so on or all together on one page.

Does it really matter if you host multimedia on yourself? I mean i dont see why it should be a difference to using embedded youtubes...

You mentioned that probably triggerwords are used. For example shopping. Where do you think are these words best placed to get the maximum placement in serps?

I think it's a good idea to have a section of videos/images etc in a separate area just for the page load. I have seen pages become devastatingly slow while trying to load a youtube video. This would be the advantage of local media, if not your own local player. I would venture that having one of each is ok with links to the rest. So have one video available and images etc.. then have links that will go to the section with more info. You internal linking will surely give the primary page a boost.

It's not just shopping that is a trigger word, google now understands keywords in their categorical meaning. 'Guess Jeans' will bring up shopping sites for example. I didn't have to say shopping, it's a product, and thus calls for shopping. Similarly if I search for 'health information' I am going to get just regular content sites that provide health information. If I said 'health plus vitamin' instead of content sites, I'm going to get shopping. If I said 'healthy image' I will start getting pictures.. if you said 'health video' you get video results. Notice that the core keyword is the same, but the type of content equal to the request is being presented each time. This has happened to long tail terms, and pretty much all search now for every sector. All of the Internet has now been categorized.

So basically my answer is, there is no placement that will help, it entirely depends on the content of your page and what you fill it with. Google is going to look at all the snippets and determine if your site is a match for the intended search query. If it's a shopping keyword, page should have product, if it's an image keyword, page should have pictures.. etc.

 

[thestig]

What are your thoughts on getting better links to your website?

When you create a site, unique and compelling products or services content is what matters most. How can you make yours different from all the other sites on the web? Your customers will link to you when they think it?s great and that will happen naturally. But, you can also look for opportunities for links too ? not just by emailing a webmaster asking for links but expanding in the same way you?d expand your business. I.E., forging partnerships and adding value to others.

Links are a big part of our PageRank algorithm which is a major component on the 100?s of items in it. Links are not just based on quantity but more so on quality. We know on a link by link basis what is valuable to what and we value them all differently. It is done algorithmically and we also have a manual spam-fighting team. Just because you have a lot of links doesn?t necessarily mean you are getting value. Look for quality links not quantity.

What this says to me is that you really should balance out the type of links that you get, dont go after lots of profile links to all of your sites, use article, videos, podcast, rss, press realease's, hub pages, squidoo, flicker, ehow and any large well know site and base the links on topic because it offers more to the searcher who is more likely to link to your site. And if you do have profile links fill out the profile and add some content about you site just in case the manual spam team have a look at your links.