Scritty
Elite Member
- May 1, 2010
- 3,019
- 4,707
Yandex has gone (partially) link less. Is this a look forward to the future, or a blast from the mid 1990's when SEO was alive and well, but links played little or no part in establishing your position in the rankings.
You might have read about this being new, the end of spam, the end of game-able SERPs.
Just goes to show how some people won't learn from the lessons of the past. Google have very recently said they tried a link free index, and it was (in their own words) poor. Despite the noise of link spam, they found it was better to establish which links mattered and which links didn't and refine their algorithm that way, than rely on either on site, technical (speed etc) or visitor metric measures alone.
Trouble is, all of those three can be bought, manipulated or gamed even easier than links can.
First, here piece by SearchEngineWatch that announced Yandex?s new paradigm of link-less ranking. If you haven?t heard of this Russian search engines recent changes It might be worth taking the time to read it. It gives a very good account of the situation as well as the reasons for this change, or experiment.
It?s a well written piece by an established and competent author. It gives the ?pro? side of the argument for change well.
Where I have an issue is that it leaves out three very important parts of the puzzle.
Techniques like spamming a sites keywords in the same colour as the site background, hiding data in images, over use of a sites META tags, self referential internal links and of course the popups and authority spoofing that marred just about any visit to any website that wasn?t an established brand name.
Thing is - It worked. It was ?gamed? it was easy ? and not a link was involved anywhere.
People called it SEO, people made money. Google hadn?t even launched.
Then there were ?link discovery? rings ? Sites would form their own ?rings? not self serving, self made link rings as we know now ? but specific interest and niche rings
You might remember these, some still exist today though they are few and far between and often only on sites that date back to when they had explicit benefit. See image below
?Go to the next site in this ring or a random site?..
.. was a common strip to be found at the bottom of pages. The sites were not owned by the same person, they formed a community that realised that value of sharing traffic.
WebCrawler?s also followed these links. These were maybe the beginning of the idea for the self created link rings that served link based SEO well until 2009. But at the time actual inbound links from 3rd party sites counted for nothing, or very little in actual search ranking terms
Along Came Google
Google changed all that, links were introduced as a primary metric for ranking and keyword spamming and all the other on page rubbish that went on in an attempt to ?game? relevance lost ground quickly. Even META data, that for a long time was considered a valuable addition to any site was first devalued and then made all but obsolete. Google?s attitude was
When Links Were Introduced As A Ranking Metric It Was Considered By Many To Be The End Of SEO.
Thousands rage quit the industry after links were introduced as a primary ranking metric. It was suggested that Google had invented an all but un-gamable way of ranking sites. ?That?s it? they moaned, ?SERP?s will be dominated by the big boys now.?
That was about 15 years ago
You read that right ? at one time the idea of requiring 3rd party links for SEO benefit was thought by a large minority in the business to spell the end of SEO.
There were no tools to get links, at all ? nothing ? not even desktop applications that searched the web to suggest potential link partners to send emails to begging for link exchanges ? they were years away ? there was nothing.
Now the opposite is true. The end of links is thought to spell the end of SEO. Nay-sayers will cling on to anything ? esp. those inexperienced with the way things change or those with short memories.
Let?s not be so naive. Let?s not make the two assumptions that even normally smart IM commentators are either making or overlooking in their ?this spells the end of spam and rank gaming? rhetoric.
Using Visitor Behaviour As A Key Metric? Really?
Fake traffic ? fake traffic that is almost undetectable as fake by any search engine ? is stupid easy to mimic now. Here?s what will likely happen.
Black Hat automation will simply adapt. It won?t be ?Buy this link product? ..it will become ?Buy this fake traffic product?. ? Imagine the tag lines.
The End Of Spam?
Yeah right!
Email spamming will almost certainly be ramped up should the value of link spam be lost. Expect massive email blasts for those in the darker recesses of IM who want to sell. Email scraping and sending tools will become more commonplace. ?Anti spam? and ?Can-spam? rules are practically unenforceable in 85% of the world. Got a problem with spam from Uganda, Bolivia, former Soviet states and any of the hundreds of areas of the world?
Two choices. Ban emails from 85% of the world, or prepare for massive server blocks in those countries to turn their email spam cannons on and commence spraying. I find it unlikely that either of those options is acceptable. It would mean accepting massive spam ? or accepting that 85% of your global audience are ?dumb? and you can only speak to them down a one way channel. A likely end result being that the WWW becomes a fragmented local market web with big corporations losing access to massive areas of the global market as newly industrialized but poorly policed nations take offence at being communicated to in one direction and form their own communities.
Swap World Wide Web for the Fragmented Local Markets ? cliques if you prefer.
The Ungamable Ranking System?
Don?t make me laugh!
Here?s the thing. The web is massive right?
To operate an effective indexing of something this massive is not in the capabilities of real people to do on a URL by URL basis. It?s just not possible and never will be.
An automated algorithm will always be used. While an algorithm is used there will always be methodology and a general rule set applied.
Any rules set ? in any sphere can be gamed or leveraged. That?s the nature of rules, especially those governing something as massive as the internet.
Also consider that Google, despite their protestations are not primarily there to ?enhance a visitors experience on the internet? they are there primarily to ?make money for shareholders?
Up to the point where improving visitors experience also improves their bottom line ? then Google will do it. The minute it costs more than it returns? They won?t.
They aren?t an altruistic web clean up charity, nor are they the ?web police? with any federal or international powers to do anything to anyone ? other than decide where to put a site in their directory. That?s where Google?s power starts and ends. That?s it.
The End Of Links?
People will still move from one site to another via links. That is their prime purpose.
Links and offsite SEO are not synonyms. Links move traffic. Google piggybacked the idea and saw how links could be used as a measure of popularity, but links existed for their primary purpose long before Google decided to use them as a KPI for popularity, and will continue in this primary purpose if Google ever decide to drop this measure.
Links will continue to perform their initial and primary function of moving traffic long after (or IF) the idea of links as a SERP factor is gone.
Final Thought?
Having easily visible links from authority sites to move traffic will always be of huge benefit to webmasters. Always was, always will be
Scritty
You might have read about this being new, the end of spam, the end of game-able SERPs.
Just goes to show how some people won't learn from the lessons of the past. Google have very recently said they tried a link free index, and it was (in their own words) poor. Despite the noise of link spam, they found it was better to establish which links mattered and which links didn't and refine their algorithm that way, than rely on either on site, technical (speed etc) or visitor metric measures alone.
Trouble is, all of those three can be bought, manipulated or gamed even easier than links can.
First, here piece by SearchEngineWatch that announced Yandex?s new paradigm of link-less ranking. If you haven?t heard of this Russian search engines recent changes It might be worth taking the time to read it. It gives a very good account of the situation as well as the reasons for this change, or experiment.
It?s a well written piece by an established and competent author. It gives the ?pro? side of the argument for change well.
Where I have an issue is that it leaves out three very important parts of the puzzle.
- Firstly, that for the first 5 years of internet marketing (or slightly longer depending on when you consider pure SEO based IM started) links were 100% irrelevant to search engine ranking. They had nothing to do with SERPs. Ignoring links as a ranking factor isn?t a ?new? thing. if it happens, it?s a return to the mid 1990′s
- Secondly, that link-less ranking will not be the end of spam, just the end of a particular form of spam.
- Thirdly, that the ability to ?game? just about any new method of ranking will not take more than a matter of weeks to emerge from anything that replaces link based ranking. Weeks? That?s being optimistic. Days more like.
My own caveat here. I?m not suggesting that this is a good thing. I?m not advocating spam ? just pointing out that those that prosthelytize any new ideology often evangelise the positive aspects of a new idea while not considering the other side of the situation.
From my own experience, this sort of announcement is almost a ?face palm? moment. How short people?s memorys are. Links were not a ranking factor in any way shape or form when I started in IM in the 1990′s. SEO was almost 100% on site content optimization.
Techniques like spamming a sites keywords in the same colour as the site background, hiding data in images, over use of a sites META tags, self referential internal links and of course the popups and authority spoofing that marred just about any visit to any website that wasn?t an established brand name.
Thing is - It worked. It was ?gamed? it was easy ? and not a link was involved anywhere.
People called it SEO, people made money. Google hadn?t even launched.
Then there were ?link discovery? rings ? Sites would form their own ?rings? not self serving, self made link rings as we know now ? but specific interest and niche rings
You might remember these, some still exist today though they are few and far between and often only on sites that date back to when they had explicit benefit. See image below
?Go to the next site in this ring or a random site?..
.. was a common strip to be found at the bottom of pages. The sites were not owned by the same person, they formed a community that realised that value of sharing traffic.
WebCrawler?s also followed these links. These were maybe the beginning of the idea for the self created link rings that served link based SEO well until 2009. But at the time actual inbound links from 3rd party sites counted for nothing, or very little in actual search ranking terms
Along Came Google
Google changed all that, links were introduced as a primary metric for ranking and keyword spamming and all the other on page rubbish that went on in an attempt to ?game? relevance lost ground quickly. Even META data, that for a long time was considered a valuable addition to any site was first devalued and then made all but obsolete. Google?s attitude was
?Don?t bother with META data ? we aren?t interested in you telling us what your site is about, we will work it out for ourselves with our relevance algorithms thank you very much?
When links were first announced as a SERP metric many in IM gave ?We?ll have to spend all out time writing and begging our competitors to link to us ? never going to happen ? this is the end of SEO?
When Links Were Introduced As A Ranking Metric It Was Considered By Many To Be The End Of SEO.
Thousands rage quit the industry after links were introduced as a primary ranking metric. It was suggested that Google had invented an all but un-gamable way of ranking sites. ?That?s it? they moaned, ?SERP?s will be dominated by the big boys now.?
That was about 15 years ago
You read that right ? at one time the idea of requiring 3rd party links for SEO benefit was thought by a large minority in the business to spell the end of SEO.
There were no tools to get links, at all ? nothing ? not even desktop applications that searched the web to suggest potential link partners to send emails to begging for link exchanges ? they were years away ? there was nothing.
Now the opposite is true. The end of links is thought to spell the end of SEO. Nay-sayers will cling on to anything ? esp. those inexperienced with the way things change or those with short memories.
Let?s not be so naive. Let?s not make the two assumptions that even normally smart IM commentators are either making or overlooking in their ?this spells the end of spam and rank gaming? rhetoric.
Using Visitor Behaviour As A Key Metric? Really?
Fake traffic ? fake traffic that is almost undetectable as fake by any search engine ? is stupid easy to mimic now. Here?s what will likely happen.
Black Hat automation will simply adapt. It won?t be ?Buy this link product? ..it will become ?Buy this fake traffic product?. ? Imagine the tag lines.
- Great retention metrics
- Low reported bounce rate.
- Auto search pages.
- Follows your on site links just like a real visitor.
- Fake referrer.
- Undetectable by search engine analytics.
- Can spoof IP address or use private proxies
- Full randomization included
- 100% Realistic traffic
The End Of Spam?
Yeah right!
Email spamming will almost certainly be ramped up should the value of link spam be lost. Expect massive email blasts for those in the darker recesses of IM who want to sell. Email scraping and sending tools will become more commonplace. ?Anti spam? and ?Can-spam? rules are practically unenforceable in 85% of the world. Got a problem with spam from Uganda, Bolivia, former Soviet states and any of the hundreds of areas of the world?
Two choices. Ban emails from 85% of the world, or prepare for massive server blocks in those countries to turn their email spam cannons on and commence spraying. I find it unlikely that either of those options is acceptable. It would mean accepting massive spam ? or accepting that 85% of your global audience are ?dumb? and you can only speak to them down a one way channel. A likely end result being that the WWW becomes a fragmented local market web with big corporations losing access to massive areas of the global market as newly industrialized but poorly policed nations take offence at being communicated to in one direction and form their own communities.
Swap World Wide Web for the Fragmented Local Markets ? cliques if you prefer.
The Ungamable Ranking System?
Don?t make me laugh!
Here?s the thing. The web is massive right?
To operate an effective indexing of something this massive is not in the capabilities of real people to do on a URL by URL basis. It?s just not possible and never will be.
An automated algorithm will always be used. While an algorithm is used there will always be methodology and a general rule set applied.
Any rules set ? in any sphere can be gamed or leveraged. That?s the nature of rules, especially those governing something as massive as the internet.
Also consider that Google, despite their protestations are not primarily there to ?enhance a visitors experience on the internet? they are there primarily to ?make money for shareholders?
Up to the point where improving visitors experience also improves their bottom line ? then Google will do it. The minute it costs more than it returns? They won?t.
They aren?t an altruistic web clean up charity, nor are they the ?web police? with any federal or international powers to do anything to anyone ? other than decide where to put a site in their directory. That?s where Google?s power starts and ends. That?s it.
The End Of Links?
People will still move from one site to another via links. That is their prime purpose.
Links and offsite SEO are not synonyms. Links move traffic. Google piggybacked the idea and saw how links could be used as a measure of popularity, but links existed for their primary purpose long before Google decided to use them as a KPI for popularity, and will continue in this primary purpose if Google ever decide to drop this measure.
Links will continue to perform their initial and primary function of moving traffic long after (or IF) the idea of links as a SERP factor is gone.
Final Thought?
Having easily visible links from authority sites to move traffic will always be of huge benefit to webmasters. Always was, always will be
Scritty
