Let me tell you a couple things about the position of your website in Google's search engine results.

• If you build lots of good links to a page on your site, and you notice a short-term spike in your SERP positioning, followed by a major, medium-term dip, don't fret. This is quite normal. Just wait while the new links build temporal equity*.
• Have you noticed an old page dropping a bit in the search results? There are a few things you can do to help counter-act this drop. First, work to decrease the "bounce" rate of visitors to the page while increasing the PageViews per visitor. Post a relevant and interesting YouTube video on the page so that people stick around and watch. Include clear "calls to action" for visitors to move to another page on your site: Examples: "See more Boston Terrier videos here" or "Check out our Mustang gallery." Second, aim to add one strong, editorial link with relevant anchor text back to your page each month.

*Temporal equity is value that links to your website gain over time. Google often applies a buffering algorithm to young links. If you've acquired good links, just be patient... your reward is around the corner.

Not that I really care very much about the green pixels, but there's a Toolbar PageRank update going on right now. You might care. You might make money off the green bar. So go ahead and check!

There's one thing I know: Performancing was penalized from a PR 7 down to a PR 4. Despite numerous requests for clarification, and numerous "I'm your slave" reinclusion requests, Google has neither responded in word or deed.

So what's the lesson?

Google is failing to reward the sites, even relatively big sites, that genuinely try to play by the rules. By neglecting our attempts to conform, I think that Google is unintentionally sending a message like this:

We don't really care. Go back to your old ways of taking sponsored posts, and doing text-link-ads. You'll make more money that way, and since you're already penalized, why not make money in the process.

Really, we want to do things by the book. We want to be on Google's good side. But psychologically, it's hard to justify a large cut in revenue when Google fails to reward you properly for doing things properly.

There's an uproar going on right now in the main stream media over the Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair photo scandal.

As a blogger, now's your chance to get some free attention by writing what SEO wizard Graywolf calls scandal bait.

The first step for writing scandal bait is to reject the idea that you're being spammy. Scandal bait normally only works when you offer a unique and interesting perspective on the topic.

You might ask "What does Miley Cyrus and her Vanity Fair photo shoot have to do with my site on raising kids?" Well, this is where scandal bait becomes fun and creative. It's basically a chance to do quick-paced brainstorming. How can I write about this topic?

Read the rest of this entry

This info was originally posted in Performancing's Hive Community (which you should join!)

What I usually do when I write a listbait is:

1) come up with headline (defines the concept)
2) brainstorm list until I'm exhausted
3) remind myself that this is not a mid-term exam
4) write 1 sentence per item in the list (the "justification" for each item)
5) remove any items I can't write 1 sentence for
6) pray that the sentence writing helped clarify my line of thought and jogs my mind for a few more items
7) Remove the chaff
8) Flesh out content with pics, videos, links
9) Identify a number
10) Refine the headline to fit the final content

In my view, the key to writing bait is not objectivity, but being comfortable with subjectivity and opinion. Strong, well-formed opinion that appeals to the emotions (or creates mental drama of some sort) is almost always the kind that performs the best.

In my opinion, Reddit is the most consistently interesting social media platform around today. Despite being ridiculously simple and having the least number of hoops to jump through to register and submit, I think it offers the most interesting stream of Internet news around.

In addition to the main page of Reddit, one of the places I hang out the most is the page where all my friends post their latest stories:
http://reddit.com/r/friends/new?sort=new

I visit this page about 5x per day and vote for all the stories that my friends have submitted. And many of my friends do the same for me.

Why not post your reddit username in the comment section so that I can add you as a friend and vote on your stories.

˙ssǝɔoɹd ǝɥʇ uı ʎǝuoɯ ǝɹoɯ ǝɯ ǝʞɐɯ noʎ ǝɔɐld ɹǝʇʇǝq ɐ qǝʍ ǝɥʇ ƃuıʞɐɯ ʎq ɟı ʎluo ʇnq ˙ǝɔɐld ɹǝʇʇǝq ɐ qǝʍ ǝɥʇ ǝʞɐɯ oʇ sʇuɐʍ oɥʍ ǝuoʎuɐ oʇ ʇuǝʇuoɔ ǝǝɹɟ ɹǝɟɟo oʇ ʎddɐɥ ɯ,ı 'ʇɔɐɟ uı ˙ʇuǝʇuoɔ ǝǝɹɟ noʎ ɹǝɟɟo oʇ ʎddɐɥ ɯ,ı puɐ 'ʎddɐɥ ǝɯ sǝʞɐɯ ʇɐɥʇ ˙sopnʞ os ˙˙˙ʇuǝʇuoɔ ǝǝɹɟ ɹnoʎ ɹoɟ ƃuıʞɹoʍ ǝɹɐ noʎ uǝɥʇ 'ʇsod sıɥʇ ƃuıpɐǝɹ ʎllɐnʇɔɐ ǝɹ,noʎ ɟı ˙ʇuǝʇuoɔ ǝǝɹɟ ɹıǝɥʇ ɹoɟ ʞɹoʍ ǝldoǝd ǝʞɐɯ oʇ ʇuɐʍ ı os 'sʞɹoʍ lǝpoɯ ʇuǝʇuoɔ ǝǝɹɟ ǝɥʇ ʞuıɥʇ ʇ,uop ı 'llǝʍ ¿ʇuıod ʇɐɥʇ sı ʇɐɥʍ ˙ʇuıod ɐ ǝʞɐɯ oʇ ˙ǝldɯıs ʎɹǝʌ sı ʇı ǝuop ǝʌ,ı uosɐǝɹ ǝɥʇ 'llǝʍ ˙uʍop ǝpısdn ʇsod sıɥʇ pǝddılɟ ǝʌ,ı ʎɥʍ ɹǝpuoʍ ʎɐɯ noʎ os

˙ʞǝǝɥɔ uı ǝnƃuoʇ ˙ʎɐp ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ unɟ ǝɯos

Anyone else notice that Alexa rankings shifted around BIG TIME?

I did. And you know what? I think the new algorithm they are using does a much better job of capturing actual traffic volume across niches.

Whereas in the past Alexa has been heavily weighted towards Tech and Internet niches (making many sites in these niches look more popular than they really are), I think the new algorithm actually allows for comparative analysis across niches.

That's a major breakthrough and one more reason I'll keep on keeping my eye on the Alexa graph for my sites as evidence of progress.

I'm sure there are many people out there like me who started off displaying the default number of tags on their WordPress 2.3+ blogs. After a month or so of posting, you maybe have starting realizing that tags are like cats; uncontrolled, they can just keep multiplying over time and crowding out the spaces where they live;-)

The default setting for the wp_tag_cloud function is 45 tags. But for many WordPress themes, this number is too large for the space allocated to your tag cloud. The good news is that there is an easy way to trim down the total number of tags that get shown.

Here's the code to display the 30 most popular tags on your blog, with the smallest font size at 8 and the largest font size at 22:

<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22&number=30'); ?>

If you want to show more or less tags, just change the number 30 to whatever you want. If you want the most popular tags to look bigger, just increase the number 22 to whatever you want. If you want the least popular tags to look smaller, just change the 8 (but don't go too small or else no one will be able to read).

So all you need to do to contain tag sprawl, is to spay or neuter your wp_tag_cloud function with the "number" variable.

Note: Eventually I do cover 4 steps to take when your content is the victim of an over-eager algorithm. But it's towards the end;-)

SEO mastermind Graywolf took a look at my post on the negative consequences of a front page Digg. He concluded that my original source article is getting hit by a duplicate content penalty. His inference is based on this search:

"This question got serious consideration for the top spot"

What this search shows is that Google drops the original source of this quote all the way to the very, very bottom of the search results. When an exact-match search of a unique phrase see your content drop to the very bottom of the search results, you can be fairly sure that your content been penalized by an algorithm... and in this case a stupid algorithm.

While Graywolf is probably right, it's very hard for me to think that something else isn't going on. After all, a billion dollar company should be able to see obvious clues like "100s of backlinks" and properly identify the source as the one article that all those scrapers and editorial references link back to. It seems other-worldly that Google, the billion dollar beast, would fail in such an obvious case, to identify the original source of the content.

Which leads me to this conclusion: Google is trying to crack down on "scramble scrapers" - scrapers who take content from lots of different sources and piece it together. Why do I think this? Because the original source of content, referenced above, received a steady stream of comments that probably looked to Google like a scraper piecing together more and more content from different sources.

I'm not 100% sure about this. But I really can't think of any other good explanation.

But that's not the point of this article!!!

Read the rest of this entry

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I'm relatively sure that I've identified a patterned mistake that Google's algorithm makes.

Here's how it goes:

• You write a really interesting article and it makes the front page of Digg
• Your article is provocative enough to draw a steady stream of comments for the good part of 1 week
• You gain dozens if not hundreds of solid, editorial backlinks to your article from reputable sites
• A week after publishing, your article disappears from Google's index, while many of the articles referencing yours remain

So I've noticed that with my last five articles to make the front page of Digg (i.e. a pattern), the article disappears from Google's index completely, even on an exact search for the article title:

http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Ten+Worst+Job+Interview+Questions+Ever

The interesting thing to note is that on such a search, 70-100% of the first 10 SERP results return articles that reference the original. In such a case, you'd think that Google would clearly know the source of the article.

But apparently some penalty filter gets applied. Now, you might think that it's a duplicate content penalty. But hear me out, I don't think so.

Here's my theory:

Read the rest of this entry

So what's going on in Performancing's Hive this week? Let's take a look at some of the topics discussed:

• How to easily get 10x more comments
• 7 Principles of Internal Linkbuilding
• How to dominate a niche
• The "library" method for maximizing old blog content
• 5 Steps for your Business to Make More Money
• Chris Garrett provides answers to "What's your biggest blogging challenge?"

Plus ...

• We gave away over $250 in cash and prizes
• Chris Garrett has released a free eBook called "Planning Successful Blogs - Hive Special Report"
• Jesse Nachtigal from Cigar Jack has released a free eBook called "Building Authority for Your Niche"

As you can see, Hive is an amazing community full of useful information and I encourage you to sign up and join the fun.

By default, most WordPress themes come out of the gate with really boring Category and Tag pages. Most of the time they are just bland lists of posts in temporal order.

Over at PopCrunch, thanks to the prodding of my good friend Ahmed Bilal, I've decided to spice up the category pages a bit to make them look more professional and presentable (yes, Ahmed, the new site design is coming soon;-)

So some of my friends noticed that the category pages over at PopCrunch were ranking for very popular search terms like "Britney Spears" but that the page that visitors were presented with was butt ugly and completely non-sticky. In other words, people might find the page, but there was nothing captivating about it at all to make people stay.

Read the rest of this entry

I've really been in a writing funk lately.

Part of this has to do with my notorious tendency to juggle ten too many responsibilities at once, but part of it is that I just haven't felt positive about my writing lately.

So what do you do when you're down on yourself? When you feel like you don't have anything worthwhile left to say?

Many of you have probably noticed that I've not been blogging much at Performancing over the last few months. The fact of the matter is that a few events have conspired together to bring me to a point where I need to step down.

First, and most importantly, I'm about to become a dad. My wife and I actually made a trip to the hospital the other day (false alarm). Because I'm becoming a dad, the second reason gets compounded. I really don't have the energy, even now, to put in 16 hour work days. So I've decided to start eliminating responsibilities.

James Mowery and Raj Dash will continue to make Performancing a great resource (they will do a much better job than I was able, with much more class and tact -> I've pissed a few too many people off).

I hope to stay in touch with everyone that I've met through Performancing and will continue to be a member of Hive (though now I will be a paying member).

Thanks for the great year everyone. I personally know that Performancing has many great things up its sleeve for the future.

I leave you all with this new video that I'm having produced over at RideLust (funny stuff):

There are only a handful of people on the Internet that I really pay attention to. Aaron Wall is one of those people.

He's a legend. When it comes to search optimization and marketing, A-Wall might just be the Michael Jordan of SEO. He's pretty much in a class by himself, and just like Drudge drives the news cycle, I don't think it's an understatement to say that Aaron Wall is the leading edge of the SEO industry, setting precedents, methods and standards that the rest of us will use for years to come.

In addition to his legendary status, Aaron Wall also hosts some of the industry's best free online seo tools and just recently he opened himself up to virtual apprenticeship (who wouldn't want to study with the master!) through his online training class. If you haven't visited SEOBook...let's just say you should. Just like every Wii owner MUST own Mario Galaxy and Smash Brothers, every Internet Professional MUST follow Aaron Wall.

So enough of the gushing;-) This past week I asked Aaron Wall a question that has been pressing on my mind for the last few months. He took the time to give a very insightful and thorough response. The moral of the story for the average blogger stays the same: create quality editorial content that differentiates and "thickens" your site and you'll most likely survive any major changes to search that occur in the future.

Pease enjoy.

Will the semantic web change search? Yes. Will it have much effect on the average blogger or small time webmaster? Probably not, IMHO. Will it have much effect on larger website? Yes.

The thing about semantic search is that if it is widely adopted, it keeps pushing more value away from end publishers and toward the central information aggregators. This, in turn, kills thin listing styled businesses by sending all of their value to the search engines. Just look at how Google local recently expanded to show 10 local results above the organic search results for local search queries. That expansion occurred AFTER traditional yellow page companies like RHD and IAR lost over 90% of their market value (by stock price) in the last year. So if you are running a thin listing type website make sure you thicken it up with unique editorial content and/or user reviews.

Google mobile recently quietly launched a mobile directory service ( http://www.google.com/m/lcb ). If you are a local business you can try your best to make sure that it is categorized properly in these databases.

Shopping related search queries are about 10% of all search queries. Where I see semantic search eventually heading is some of the larger merchants will plug their inventory into Google and tell Google to sell it at x price and to target ads which guarantee y % profit margin. That is perhaps 5 years down the road though.

So if semantic search keeps driving value to search engines which types of sites will withstand the gravity of such a move? Likely sites that are destinations themselves, which have great editorial content that people subscribe to, and thought leadership positions over important keywords.

Semantic search is all about tags and language. If you know your market well you can profit from the mutation of language and growth of new words. Give trends a meaningful idea worth spreading and when the ideas spread the value of your market position goes up. In addition you can register associated domain names to further cement your position as having some form of ownership over certain keywords.

Some independent entrepreneurs will create vertical search engines based on semantic web information. Most of them will fail, but perhaps a couple of them will win enough marketshare to get bought out by Google or another large web company. The ones that do gain enough marketshare to get bought out will likely have an embeddable feature that many other webmasters use to embed the content into their sites.

cheers
aaron