Recent content by hatcheck

It always works, even when you don't want it to work! Many people think that it doesn't work at least some of the time, but they forget that it's possible to contradict yourself in what you're trying to attract. It's also quite possible to attract things you don't want. In fact, that's what most...

This past summer, Leslie Rohde of SEO Braintrust asked his subscribers, "What is your big-ass problem?" He was asking what is the one thing, more than other thing, that is holding them back from reaching their dreams, from taking their businesses to the next level. I thought it was a pretty...

You mean Mr. xrumer could or would only do this if you're white hat? Seriously? Also, can you point to an actual, live, checkable example where this has happened to a white hatter? Because I cannot.

Get links by attracting them, rather than by going out and manufacturing them. Even a new site can do that. If a new site puts up an infographic or a video or something that goes viral, it can get a lot more than just 20 links in a day. There's no way Google would consider that to be unnatural...

Google is already able to distinguish which is which. They already know which links are the good ones and which ones are the junky ones. See the Panda and Penguin updates for details. Further, forum links don't count for much anyway. However, that's not the main question. The main question is...

Google is already catching spun content. See Penguin. I agree with the others. Spun content is out. Original, useful content is in.

We now live in an age where authority trumps link reputation. Recent changes in Google rankings confirm this over and over again. In such an environment, keyword research isn't terribly important after you've identified your niche and the main keywords that obviously go with it. Create lots of...

I have yet to see a white hat hit by Panda or Penguin who wasn't doing something Google doesn't like. For instance, Panda is mostly (not solely) due to content duplication, particularly title duplication. Granted, many CMS systems create this duplication, but does that mean the white hatter...

One example disproves what I'm saying, but you don't need evidence to support what you're saying? And you call me hard-line?

My recommendation would be to spend it on building more content. I'd focus on trying to get involved in online conversations that already exist in your niches. I like to use Google Alerts to give me, either via email or via RSS reader, information about the latest articles and related...

Well, first and foremost I base it on what Google tells us. It's remarkably easy to do internet marketing that Google likes if you actually pay attention to what they say, and they've been very clear about this stuff. Since this particular forum is a white hat forum, I figure that must be...

They're becoming more and more spammy-looking to Google.

OP was specifically talking about back links you create for yourself, and I agree about his conclusion regarding such back links. Such links are, by definition, unnatural. Google is demonstrating that they are becoming more and more skilled at detecting and defeating such linking schemes. OP...

OP: If your site is white hat, Google recommends that you protect it using author attribution. See http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986

You're talking about EMD, or exact match domains. EMDs only work (to the limited extent they work) when you match them to the exact keywords. Order only matters if users only tend to enter the words in a particular order. If they do, then your reverse match won't be considered an exact match. If...