Google Panda, Google Bowling, and How Bad SEO Can Kill Your Business

Google's: Watching from Above
Google's Panda: Watching from Above


Your search engine ranking efforts may be hurting your business a lot more than you think! Whether you are the person handling your search engine destiny, or you have hired a search engine optimizer to handle it, this is information you should know. I’ll start with some simple facts.

Google makes frequent changes to their algorithm (roughly 500 per year). Yes, algorithm … the mathematical methods used to determine which websites will rank higher or lower in searches. On occasion, the changes are quite significant, such as the “Panda” series of updates (most recently Panda 2.5). We should expect changes, and it is a very good thing.

Google has a lot at stake in continuing to deliver the most relevant results when we go searching. From a search user’s standpoint, it is excellent, because it helps us find what we are looking for, easier and faster than ever. From a business standpoint, it is a huge cause for concern to many people, and often rightfully so.

Should you worry about Google’s changes? Perhaps yes, and perhaps no. Let’s see if I can answer that question. I’ll address some changes in layman’s terms, including a blast from the past that seems to be making a resurgence, which is “Google Bowling”, and it is not to be overlooked. In fact, I’ll explain how the methods of link building which many SEO sell to their customers is the same tactic other companies use to negatively affect competing websites. Please don’t click away if some of this seems too basic, or too advanced. There is value here, and I’ll make it easy to understand.

In Google’s Own Words:
“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”
Source: The Official Google Blog

I often challenge search engine optimization providers for their abuse of people’s fears by telling them SEO requires constant technology changes to keep up. What the abused SEO-buying public hesitates to understand is that SEO is not a function of technology. It is generally very untrue that search engine changes will adversely affect rankings based on technology issues. I have extensive proof of this in competitive markets where I have ranked websites at the top of searches, but made absolutely no changes. Some have not been touched in a decade, but still rank in the top one to three positions for competitive searches. Of course, that only happens if you are doing things above board, and not trying to cheat your way to the top … or paying somebody else to do it.

The problem that is hitting many websites hard with the new Google changes is that they have, either knowingly or unknowingly, used practices which Google has recently cracked down on harder than ever before.

What Google Changed in Panda Update … In Simple Terms

Some of the most recent Google algorithm changes are making a broad impact across the Internet. Big change always sends the cockroaches of the search engine optimization industry scurrying for a new patch of darkness. This time, the changes are in a series of updates called “Panda”, with the latest to date being called “Panda 2.5”. The focus of the updates is to wipe out some of the most prevalent and slimy tactics companies use to try and trick their way to top search engine rankings. I’ll share some reasons this could affect your online business future.

Panda Update is Good News ... Unless You're the Bamboo!
Panda Update is Good News ... Unless You're the Bamboo!

Unique Content Matters: Copycats Don’t Have Nine Lives!

One hard-hit area is companies taking content from other websites and re-purposing it on their own website. This can be as simple as a retailer re-using a manufacturer’s description, or a lazy content producer stealing somebody else’s work. An extremely hard hit area is auto-blogging, which automatically scrapes content from other websites to increase blog content. The more “innocent” instance uses automated means to replicate product descriptions from a manufacturer or supplier database. It happens a lot, and has been widely accepted for years, but many companies are finally seeing the downside. If you are unsure whether this is being done with your website, you may soon find out … the hard way.

What’s worse, is that a lot of people are paying search engine optimizers who use links from this kind of reduced-quality website to link to theirs. These dirty SEO tell the client that more links are a good thing, so they create thousands of them, but they don’t tell the client the rest of the story. It is extremely common, and very destructive, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

A huge number of websites are hit by Google’s more hard-line approach with Panda updates. It is often because somebody opted for the easy way, instead of the right way. This is the way of the dark side of the SEO industry, but somebody keeps feeding the SEO monster, and it’s not me.

I cannot call anybody a victim if this hits them in the wallet, because there are no victims. There are only “willingly confused“. Due diligence and common sense often go out the window when it comes to marketing, and especially as it applies to the Internet. People really want to believe that “easy success” actually exists.

Many people previously decided that the easy way is the better way, but its not true, and Google is proving it. It takes a lot of work to create truly excellent unique content that will perform well in searches. A lot of companies fell for the notion of trying to save money by using cheap SEO tactics and taking shortcuts, but Google is fighting back. Now people are finding out that the cost of shortcuts is a whole lot more than doing it right in the first place. If you who want to know “How much does SEO cost”, I suggest searching Google for it … but be sure to look for this article while you are there: “How Much Does SEO Cost?” is The Wrong Question. It won’t be hard to find … I wrote it.

Links Are Not Created Equal!

A tactic that Google is aggressively punishing is buying or trading links from other websites to make your website falsely appear more credible and “important”. This has always been a sore spot for Google, but more today than ever, as the Internet’s growth accelerates. Google wants to judge the Internet by what people like and find useful, and not things which have been falsely inflated by “content farms” and low-quality link gathering. It is why I have always spoken out against such tactics. An example is my article titled “Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work!“. I don’t think I can be a lot more clear than that.

Acquiring links is something that most search engine optimizers will tell you is very important. What too many of them don’t explain is that doing it the wrong way will, with near certainty, cause more harm than good. Link building strategies are not created equal, and a huge number of SEO are doing it totally wrong! It is another in a long list of lies SEO tell.

Google knows who links to your website, and who links to the websites that link to your website. There are no secrets here … if there is a link in a public place on the Internet, it is Google’s intent and responsibility to know about it. From all of those links, Google creates and evaluates the website’s overall link portfolio. It is a primary factor in determining what will be listed in search results, and where it will appear on the list. If the links in a website’s overall portfolio of links are not relevant, or are not what Google can logically (algorithmically) expect as a natural conclusion, the website will suffer.

Google Bowling and Bad SEO

I touched on some of the things Google does not like, but now, let’s imagine reverse engineering this. What if somebody else tried to make it look like you used these tactics? One way that seems possible is “Google Bowling”. That is the practice of buying or otherwise acquiring low-quality links to a competitor’s website in hopes of affecting a penalty against them from Google.

Wait! It seems crazy if there is actually a value in this kind of links that they could be used for harm, right? Well, there is not a value in them, and Google Bowling is a real thing … just google it. Directing a high volume of those low-quality links that so many SEO are selling is actually often used against competitors. It is an old trick, but it appears to be making a resurgence since Google’s Panda updates.

That is a dirty tactic, but does it work? Many indications show that it can and does work. Before you worry, here’s the good news: It will generally only have an affect against websites with a weak link profile. The bad news is that if you don’t have a mature and high-quality link profile, it may include you.

This came to mind recently, as I discovered nearly 300,000 new links pointing to my blog, here at “SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog”. They all sprung up in only a few days, which is a bad signal to Google of somebody buying links. Some people would surely say “Wow, that’s great! Hundreds of thousands of free links!” To say the least, I was not so delighted. Somebody is trying to Google Bowl my blog. I discovered it because of excessive Google Alerts, and also signals in my Google Webmaster Tools. See the example screenshot below.

Note: A few days after I took this screenshot and wrote this article, the new link creation peaked at over 2.6 million new incoming links.
Screenshot of My Google Webmaster Tools Links Report
Screenshot of My Google Webmaster Tools Links Report

The good news is that I already had a baseline of over 150,000 incoming links. Some are good, while some are not so good, but it is a good balance. It is a mature link profile with a significant volume of high-quality links in the mix. If not for that, I would be worried, and with good reason.

With a good existing link profile, the worst scenario would be to file a reconsideration request with Google and explain the issue. With a link profile built on weak tactics, the challenge to recover becomes much more tedious, and emphasizes the value of being proactive.

Summary of Google’s Panda Update

When you have thousands … millions … billions, and even squillions of companies competing for the same space, it is pretty easy to see how trickery and fraud could flourish. It is easy for Google (and other search engines) to see this, too. They have billions of dollars at stake, and some of the brightest minds working to thwart that kind of trickery and fraud.

It should be no surprise why, as high search engine rankings became more challenging, the masses have scurried to try and figure out social media. Social media is an important signal which Google uses to measure a website’s value. In actuality, Google is the biggest example of social media there is. The links to and from websites are the most profound social measurement across all social media. It reflects what the people like and do not like. When that is faked, Google has a lot of ways to measure it.

As long as you are not sending false signals by trying to cheat search engines, you have little to worry about when they make changes. The sad fact is that many people are sending false signals, and they don’t even know it. They relied on search engine optimizers who offered a good pitch and a low price. The outcome is often far more costly than doing it right in the first place. Doing it right does not cost money, it pays money. Doing it cheap and haphazard is where the big cost comes in.

Search engine ranking holds many businesses’ success or failure in the balance. Where your website is ranked in search results, whether you accept this or not, can make a huge impact in your business. Most companies don’t fully recognize the degree of impact, because they have never been ranked very well. It is true … most … and that is because the space at the top of the list is very limited.

P.S. If you are the thumb-sucker behind trying to Google Bowl my blog, know this: People are sick of your kind of useless tactics. They already wasted their money trying it your way, and they are pissed. That’s why I often write about your type of SEO, and warn people. I suspect you are pouting like a wet toddler who never got enough love, but you won’t bump me from your favorite spot. Count on it!

Photo Credits:
Panda by geopungo via Flickr
Panda Floss by istolethetv via Flickr

Google Acquires Fridge, PittPatt, and PostRank, But What Does it Mean?

Google's New Data Prize
Google's New Data Prize


Google acquires many companies, but do you ever notice which ones, and do you ever speculate on why Google wants these start-up companies? I think it makes for some great water cooler gossip, but I also think it begins to form a picture of where our Internet is, and where it is moving.

Some of the recent Google acquisitions have been Fridge, which has a focus on security in social sharing, and PittPatt (Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition), a facial recognition developer. With only minimal creativity, one can imagine how these could each be useful to Google. I am confident that we will see influence from these technologies as Google continues to enhance the Google+ platform and other Google products.

In fact, if you have used Google+ at all, you can see some uncanny similarities between Google+ and Fridge.

Google and PostRank: An Obvious Match

I think perhaps one of the most telling of Google’s recent acquisitions is when they picked up PostRank in June. I wrote about PostRank back in 2010 in an article titled “Social Media Measurement Tools: What Do They Know About You?” Something I stated in that article was as follows: “PostRank pulls data from many sources, which makes it far less fallible than others which only measure single points of data.” It seems that Google noticed the value in this as well.

The image below shows an example of a PostRank score for a given article and indicates what PostRank knows about it. PostRank data can still be flawed, due to network restrictions and the sheer volume of data, but it does a good job.

Example of PostRank Measurement
Example of PostRank Measurement

We obviously know that Google has been very keen on social media for a long time. In fact, I have often said that Google is the ultimate king of social media. I do not mean because of their efforts with relative non-starters like Google Wave and Google Buzz, or the social feed in Google search results.

When I say that Google is the king of social media, I mean that because they have always made extraordinary strides toward measuring and delivering the information that is deemed important by social interaction. That social interaction has historically been in the form of websites linking to other websites. Google not only measures links from website to website, but they qualify it with the more popular websites providing amplification to the signal. This principle is not changing, but the methods and complexities of measurement are changing. In my estimation, Google is not missing a beat, and the acquisition of PostRank further adds to their reach.

People have tried to argue that Google’s measurement of links from one website to another is not social media, but let’s have a look at “social”. Social means, literally, “Of or relating to society or its organization” and it doesn’t just mean the microcosmic view of making buddies or socializing in the “let’s grab a beer” sense. By measuring website links, Google has used a social response from others to determine what people want, and what they are looking for.

So, let’s look at how the modern use of social media changed things. Google’s historical measurement of links is still just as social-based as what we see in modern social networks. The overall factors of separating the popular from the unpopular are similar. The difference today is that the simplicity of sharing those links is much easier for the non-technical “John and Mary Lunchbucket” type who don’t know anything about websites or HTML. Accordingly, it is much faster, and the amount of information to sort through is huge. There are a lot of factors to assimilate, and far more data points than ever before. Google is extremely efficient at this, but now Google has even more help gathering that data.

Since you may wonder how Google’s acquisition of PostRank really makes sense, or how it can help Google, here is a brief statement about PostRank in their own words:

What is PostRank?
The social web connects people where they share, critique and interact with content and each other. PostRank is the largest aggregator of social engagement data in the industry.

Our platform tracks where and how users engage, and what they pay attention to — in real-time. PostRank social engagement data measures actual user activity, the most accurate indicator of the relevance and influence of a site, story, or author.

PostRank provides useful data for publishers, and now that data will be useful to Google as well. I have heard a lot of people confused about how Google views the usage of modern social networks. I think it is absurd that a person could actually think they are not making efficient use of this information. For anybody who doubts the degree to which Google gives attention to modern social signals, the acquisition of PostRank should give a further indication that they are serious.

PostRank Engagement Activity Report
PostRank Engagement Activity Report

What Google Says About PostRank

According to an article on TechCrunch, Google made the statement about their acquisition of PostRank as follows:

“We’re always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we’re excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable. They have developed an innovative approach to measuring web engagement, and we think they can help us improve our products for our users and advertisers.”

As I said in my recent article about Klout, “I don’t think it is a good idea to become obsessed about statistics such as these, but I do believe it is valuable to be aware.”

If you are curious about how it works, or what PostRank knows about your presence on the web, I would encourage you to take a closer look and get familiar with PostRank.

This further emphasizes what I have always claimed, which is that SEO and social media marketing are entirely intertwined, and always will be. Through it all, I think it is important to note that Google wants to index your website, and they even go to great lengths to help you help yourself.

Please tell me what you think.

11 Humorous Answers to Dumb Google Searches

Google Search: How to Spell Duh
Google Search: How to Spell Duh

You may wonder how I will make this turn out to be both useful and humorous, but have a little faith, my Google searching friend. This is a list of my answers to some the dumbest Google searches I recently found in my server logs. Before I cut straight to my list of absurdities, allow me just a moment to set the stage.

I love SEO. There, I said it! I really do love my work, although it is usually much more fun to do it than to explain it to people. I am the first to suspect that, as I have often said, “When I Go to Hell, They Will Have Me Selling SEO“. Yes, fun to do it, but tortuous to explain it.

One of the reasons I love SEO so much is the great humor and insights to the human mind that it offers. This is also one of the reasons you may sometimes find me to be condescending and uppity, because there are truly some dumb people out there. Yes, saying that makes me a jerk, but actually more of a “PECKER” (Reference: “New SEO Acronym to Replace SEO by 2012“).

It takes all types to make a species, but wow … just “Wow!” I am a fan of people, but sometimes I have to feel just a little tinge of embarrassment for the floaters in our genetic pool.

The term “SEO”, for the uninitiated, is an acronym for “search engine optimization”, and as a practitioner in the field, it means that I can generally rank at the top of the list for damn near anything I choose. That is why companies pay me to provide this service for them. Yeah, can you believe it? Being ranked at the top of search results is actually worth paying for. That is totally crazy, I know!

Don’t hate me for it, because it comes with a touch of insanity, and a good dose of time. Like well over a decade of practice and studying SEO to know what works.

A good amount of this particular achievement comes down to having a squillion website links pointing to my blog from other websites, and having just a touch of Murnahan wit and charm. OK, you can call it “BS”, or whatever you like, but let’s face it, some websites will rank well in search engines, and some will never be indexed for popular searches. This one ranks particularly well, which comes with a great potential for humor.

I previously wrote about the downside of being obsessed with statistics and over-monitoring of user data, but it is also very important to know how people are finding a website. It tells us what we need to know, and how to make things even better. When you dig really deep, it can sometimes make hot coffee shoot uncontrollably from your nose as you laugh. This is especially the case when you try to picture what in the world those people were actually hoping to find in their online search.

NOTE: Although I am a huge proponent of targeting a market based on specific propensity of readers to become a customer or to refer business. Targeting is why I write things to attract specific searches from specific people. For example, I wrote about NASCAR start and park teams to reach the racing community, while offering good marketing thoughts.

With the good comes the bad, and sometimes it all goes wonky. If you rank well for the useful search terms, always it comes with unexpected absurdities. Although some of these may not seem so humorous on the surface, if you squint and look closely, there is something just a bit funny going on here.

Each of these searches have come in many variations of the search, and each is an actual verbatim quote taken from the top 5,000 searches in my website analytics within the past 30 days (typographical errors and all).

  • Dumb Google Search One: “icecream for sore bum

    OK, I hate to drop this little peach so early, but this one does set a certain tone. This is an actual search that has been repeated in many various forms, including some that were probably typed urgently like “what;s good for hemorrhoids” (Twitter, of course!). It leads users to an article that asks “Is Twitter Good for SEO?“. The article may actually be useful, but I didn’t write this one for bums. If your butt hurts, I really don’t have a lot for you, but dozens of people seem to think that ice cream may help.

  • Dumb Google Search Two: “can your testicals reconnect them selves

    I can forgive this fella for misspelling testicles, and for not realizing that “themselves” is actually just one word. This came from a Korean speaking individual in Burke, Virginia, USA. What I picture is a really frustrated little Korean guy sitting cross-legged at his computer screaming at his lover and murmuring “You betteh be right woman, oh I keow you!

    I actually took a screen capture of this one when it happened. My guess is that he did not want to call 9-1-1, just in case he actually ended up killing somebody. I hope that poor guy is alright! I also hope he does not come for my testicles for wasting his precious moment with my article titled “SEO, Social Media, and Marketing Balls“. In my defense, I did not use the word “testicles” in the article, even once, and there was no medical advice.

  • Dumb Google Search Three: “best hookers

    I suppose I kind of asked for this one when I titled an article “Hookers Write the Best Blogs“. What I didn’t realize at the time was just how many people would be performing Google image searches for pictures of hookers. I searched it one time, just to see what they were seeing. A few transsexual hookers and other creepy images later, I washed my eyes out with Listerine and vowed to never do that again!

  • Dumb Google Search Four: “buy termites online

    Who knew that termites were so in-demand? I see a lot of variations for the query of where to buy termites. Although I am sure a number of these are people seeking to study termites in their laboratory, it makes me wonder how many angry ex-husbands are dumping these voracious little monsters around the foundations of their former homes. For those looking for termites, I offer this article titled “Things You Cannot Sell Online“. Termites are not one of those things, and it is highly unlikely that what you sell is on the list, too!

  • Dumb Google Search Five: “blog trolls

    I wonder what they want with a blog troll. Yeah, I am sure that some people are just looking for a picture of a blog troll, but nobody I know has actually ever seen one. They sneak around in the shadows of the Internet. Here is what I had to say about them: A Few Words About Blog Trolls and Lurkers.

  • Dumb Google Search Six: “cheap sutures

    This one is really dumb for a couple reasons. Sutures are those things they use to stitch people up after surgery. They generally come at an extremely high cost to we consumers. I guess maybe there is not enough markup in the medical field, so they have to find their sutures cheap so they can earn an extra four dollars on a $40,000 surgery.

    The other reason this one cracks me up is that I was once contracted to place a client at the top of searches for cheap sutures. They still owe me many tens of thousands of dollars, but then, that is why I now hold five of the top ten search results for their company name, “Suture Express“, along with their coveted “cheap sutures” and the names of each of their executives. Oops! 😉

  • Dumb Google Search Seven: “what happens if i set up a facebook page and dont use it?

    This one should be simple. What else could a person logically expect would happen? Your computer will be infected with a virus that causes it to explode into a squillion pieces. I would not suggest this, especially with a laptop, but if it happens to you, just Google me when you need those testicles reconnected.

    In case you need to know more about Facebook or their computer-exploding virus, here is more information on the topic.

  • Dumb Google Search Eight: “SEO meta tags

    This one is actually a very popular search, and it blows my mind. I mean, seriously, just look at the source code on any one of my blog’s pages if you need a mental re-adjustment on the topic of SEO tips. I would like to give you a quote from the article these search patrons find:

    “As long as there are people who ask “do meta tags help with SEO” there will be plenty of people to con them out of their money.”

    I hope you are not searching for information about meta tags. If so, you really should stick around and read some more.

  • Dumb Google Search Nine: “what to do when your too good at your job

    My answer would perhaps be to quit the job and seek something better. Please just don’t make it a writing career until you at least learn the difference between your and you’re. Sure, maybe this is no big deal, but if “your too good at your job”, you’re probably going to need a better resume writer.

    This search landed the user on an article titled “Are You Too Good at Your Job?“, but what I think they really needed was to learn about Cousin Prolly in the article titled “Grammatical Reasons They’re Taking Their Business Over There

    Another idea for being too good at your job is to give it all up and become an SEO and social media expert. That seems to be mighty damn popular (in searches, too)!

  • Dumb Google Search Ten: “things people find

    My first thought here is “huh?” I am not so sure why, but a lot of searches just don’t make any sense to me at all. Apparently a limited few people are trying to find things people find. What they actually find is an article titled “Crazy Things People Search For” which addresses the ways people use search engines. It kind of goes well with this piece, so you may enjoy it.

  • Dumb Google Search Eleven: “how much does seo cost

    This one actually comes with a whole lot of related searches that are equally as ridiculous. Some of those are social media rates, seo hourly rate, how much does it cost for SEO, social media marketing cost, how much will a social media strategy cost, and literally thousands more.

    What these searchers are obviously completely terrified and confused about is that there is a vast difference from one SEO to another. Asking the cost without knowing what to expect or understanding that it is not about cost, but rather increased profit, is about as wasteful and dumb as any question ever asked.

    Have you seen the Grand Canyon? I would like to submit that the difference in good SEO and bad SEO makes that thing look like a crack in a sidewalk.

My Dumb Summary of Dumb Google Searches

I guess eleven is enough for now. I gave you a whole lot of truly useful links dispersed throughout this article. In fact, probably enough that if you sit there and read them all at once, it will make your bum hurt. So, please bookmark this page, get yourself some ice cream to sit in, come back, and take some time checking them out.

Also, please add your comments and tell me how you arrived here. If you are that poor Korean fella represented in this image, I’d love to know how things turned out.

If you are not that Korean guy, be sure you subscribe, because I’ve got a whole lot more where this came from!

Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work!

Reciprocal Link Exchange Bullseye
Reciprocal Link Exchange Bullseye


I decided to title this article “Reciprocal Link Exchanges Don’t Work”. Perhaps even more appropriately, what I really mean is that reciprocal link exchanges are fool’s work.

Of course, I also know what people are more likely to search for after some crooked or inexperienced SEO (search engine optimizer) runs off with their money and leaves them with worse results than they started. So that is what I am here to explain. Join in the discussion if you have the need to defend your reciprocal link exchange strategy after reading this.

I know this may put a huge bullseye on my forehead with the slimier side of the SEO industry, but I say “bring it on!” Show me your best reciprocal link exchange, and I will show you foolishly exhaustive efforts with lackluster results.

I am not saying that it is a bad thing to cross-link websites, because sometimes there can be a synergy created. It can be useful in a limited few cases, but reciprocal link exchange is a very weak link building strategy. In fact, it is far more common for reciprocal link exchanges to be counterproductive. I’ll bet the last SEO you talked to didn’t tell you that.

Why Reciprocal Link Exchanges Exist

Links are the single most important and effective means to help your website rank highly in search engines. The links pointing to a website are used by search engines to measure the authority of a website overall, and for a given topic.

There are a lot of important contributors to high search engine ranking, but incoming links are the biggest factor. The structure and content of a website is extremely important, but without links pointing to all of that greatness, it will never rank well for competitive search phrases.

Because of the importance of incoming links, link exchanges have become the focus for many novice search engine optimizers and website owners who just don’t know how much they don’t know. Link exchanges fuel enough failed SEO link building efforts that if we could turn that into electricity, we could light a small country.

There are at least a squillion people out there trying to sell you links and trade links with you. If they have not reached you yet, it is because you don’t have any links. Once you have links to your website, and especially if you have a high Google PageRank, they will come to you in droves! All I have to do is check my email spam folder to find at least a thousand requests to exchange links or to hire some self-proclaimed “expert” to handle all of those link exchanges for me.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Motivation

I told you a bit of the motivation behind people wanting to exchange links with you, but what motivated me to write this? Maybe you think I am just trying to stand my industry on it’s ear, or maybe you will just think I am trying to mislead you. Yes, perhaps I am just trying to fool you in order to keep the SEO mystique alive, and try to cover up the truth about SEO. Maybe this whole “reciprocal link exchange” thing really is the big secret to SEO.

Just in case you are truly skeptical about this, I offer you this quote directly from Google Webmaster Central.

Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

  • Links intended to manipulate PageRank
  • Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
  • Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
  • Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

Of course, there are a lot of people who will say that Google is lying, too. The complete failure of that logic is that it is contrary to Google’s own interest to lie about how to rank well in their search engine. Google wants to include your website in their results, and they work hard to try and help website owners to do the right thing. If you still feel skeptical, please read this article titled “Brandon’s Baseball Cards and Google SEO Starter Guide” which explains Google’s motivation, and their efforts to help you.

If you really want more links, do something useful, creative, or otherwise more like sex and bacon. Take it from Google’s head of webspam, Matt Cutts. Here is a video of Matt talking about building links.

Matt Cutts (and common sense) said this: the best links are earned and given by choice. Unless common sense is a totally worthless concept, what Matt said still holds true today, tomorrow, and always.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Foolishness

I will write more about link building soon, but I want to offer you some thoughts about links. If it was really as easy as just trading reciprocal links and submitting your website to search engines and directories, don’t you think the usefulness would wear off? If there was a way to cheat search engines, don’t you think they would fix the problem?

Maybe you heard that the magical fix is to use indirect, three way link exchanges. If you buy into that, you still have the wrong mindset of trying to shortcut the best practices. I mean the practices which work within the guidelines of a well organized system of both technology and people.

Consider that if you are seeking a link exchange with another website, who do you expect it to benefit the most … your website, or the other website? That’s right, you want it to benefit you more than the other guy. Now, when people come to you seeking a link exchange, don’t you think their answer is the same?

Links Are Not Equal in Value

According to Google Webmaster Tools, this blog you are reading has just a little over 50,000 links pointing to it. It is a small number compared to a lot of projects I work on, but large compared to a lot of one-person blogs. The number is not the part which matters the most, and not the point I want to make. They are not all “awesometacular” links from “amazinglicious” websites, but there is not a single one of them that comes by way of a reciprocal link exchange. These links exist because I concentrate on providing value to people first, and search engines second.

Not a Single Link Exchange!
Not a Single Link Exchange!

Links are not created equally. I could demonstrate this in about as many ways as I can chug a beer, and I am Irish, so that is a lot. Only a limited percentage of the links to any website will provide significant value. As an example of this, just compare the more than 50,000 links referenced in Google Webmaster Tools to the 8,774 which are measured by the respected SEOmoz Open Site Explorer. A huge number of the 50K links are not even visible by most measures. That is the same kind of links that comprise the vast majority of reciprocal link exchanges!

aWebGuy.com Links Measured by Open Site Explorer
aWebGuy.com Links Measured by Open Site Explorer

Consider the the ratio of quality links created “organically” because somebody saw value in your website, compared to “junk” links. If you can measure it, don’t you think a search engine such as Google can as well?

SEO Tip: Trailing Slash, Canonicalization, and Google

Google, SEO, and Trailing Slashes
Google, SEO, and Trailing Slashes


I am going to give you a helpful SEO tip that you can put to use fast and easy. It is a common error that can make a big difference in your search engine optimization efforts, and it has to do with canonicalization. Don’t let the big word intimidate you, because I will break this down and make it very easy to understand.

I could get really deep into the issues of your sitemap format, .htaccess files, rel=”canonical” tags, server configuration, and a squillion other things, but not this time. I want to give you the “low hanging fruit” that anybody can put to good use, starting immediately.

The Difference in a Slash or No Slash

Did you know that there is a significant difference between a web address that has a slash at the end and one that does not have a slash at the end of it? I don’t want to confuse anybody, so I will give a visual example of what I mean. I will show you two web addresses (URL) that look very similar, and will both land you in the same place, but they are actually very different. My sample web addresses are as follows:

http://www.awebguy.com/seo-lessons/
http://www.awebguy.com/seo-lessons

As you can see in my example above, one of these addresses has a trailing slash (“/”), and one does not. So, let’s examine the important difference that the slash at the end of a URL makes. For you technical folks, it makes the difference of returning a “200 OK” status code or a “301 Moved Permanently” (or other) status code when the page is requested. I will try to explain this a little better for the non-techie people, because I really want this to make sense, and I want it to help you.

Note: In order to know for certain what your web server is telling people, you need to know your server’s HTTP response headers. Don’t worry, I made you a handy little tool so you can see the difference. I will also show you how to tell the same thing with Google Webmaster Tools.

What you want to know is whether the header begins with a “HTTP/1.1 200 OK” response, or a different response such as “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently”. Only one of the versions will return the 200 OK, while the alternate version may return something else … and perhaps even something unexpected, like a “404 Not Found”. I made this really easy to check your server’s response headers here:

Enter a URL:

I am using Google in this instance, because we all care about Google, and I am using Google Webmaster Tools to illustrate the point. When search engines visit your website, they receive what is called an “HTTP status code” from your web server which tells them the status of the URL. A status code you have surely seen is “404 Page Not Found”, but there are a lot of other server status codes, too. The two which I am primarily addressing here are “200 OK”, which is the one you want search engines to see, and “301 Moved Permanently”, which tells the search engines that your page is not at that address, but your web server knows where to find it.

Below are screenshots from within Google Webmaster Tools to show what Google sees with my two sample addresses. The images below show the status codes that Google received for each of them. Note the address that Google fetched, and the status code in each of these images. In the instance with the trailing slash, the “200 OK” was returned, and Google continued with fetching the page. In the second image, Google was told that the page had “moved permanently”, and where to find it.

Googlebot Fetch with 200 Status Code
Googlebot Fetch with 200 Status Code

Now let’s look at the 301 status code. Notice the difference in how it tells Google that the page has moved, and where to find it.

Googlebot Fetch with 301 Status Code
Googlebot Fetch with 301 Status Code

A 301 status code is still better than having it return a “404 Page Not Found” error, but far worse than returning a “200 OK” status. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, but I have actually witnessed “webmasters” handle this with 404 and 302 status with a lot of websites as well. Notice that I used the term “webmasters” very loosely, and this definitely does not reflect the work of a “master”. Yes, even on the modern Internet of 2011, people still screw things up, horribly!

Slash or No Slash in URL and Duplicate Content

Either of the URL versions is “correct” to use, but you should choose one, stick with it, and configure your website and your links accordingly. I have seen a lot of cases where people have their website configured to return a “200 OK” status code for both versions, but that is a horrible idea. The reason is that if both addresses return a 200 status, you are telling Google that the content actually exists in two places. That would result in duplicate content, which Google deals with pretty well, but does not like. It also dilutes your efforts for building links.

The Easiest Novice Fix for Canonicalization

This is surely very confusing for a lot of people, or the problem would not exist. However, there is one small part of this issue which even a novice can work to improve. You may not get it all fixed with this, but it will be a good start to fixing a common mistake.

Whether it is a link from other websites, or links between pages on your website, you should always link to the version which returns a “200 OK”, because that is where the page actually resides. Google and other search engines can be quite accommodating, but there is a qualitative and quantitative difference in doing this right and doing it wrong. With all of the competition on the Internet, it is worth getting things right, as much as possible.

The right or wrong version to use depends on your website, and what the URL represents. You see, an address that ends without a slash is typically used for a file, while an address with a slash denotes a directory structure (but not always). The right version to use will vary, but the most important thing to know is to always use the URL which returns a “200 OK” status, whichever that is.

In the case of content management and blogging systems like WordPress, the trailing slash is often used, and the correct status code is returned. However, even in instances where it seems that it is all done for you, there are many cases where you, or others, may link to content manually and use the wrong format.

How to Fix Trailing Slash and Canonicalization Errors

Fixing your canonicalization errors does not need to be a huge headache. Since this can make a big difference in your search engine ranking, it is very worthwhile to fix it. The “Official Google Webmaster Central Blog” has a useful article about this issue, and it is titled “To slash or not to slash“. I think it is worth a read. Another, more effective, alternative is to hire a good SEO to help you to know what you didn’t know, and to fix the things which are holding you back from ranking higher in search engine results.

What I have described is an easy mistake, and one which may be costing you, big! I hope that you will give this your attention, and that you will use it to improve your search engine ranking effectiveness.

As always, your comments, questions, compliments, gripes, complaints, and bellyaches are all welcome here on my blog.

If you don’t like what I have to say about this, I welcome you to look at my HTML source code to see if that helps you any. 😉