‘Noooo’ I can hear everyone crying in the distance. But don’t worry, this isn’t just another rambler about the future of the industry. Check out the Bloom Media blog for an in depth look at agency structure, and how SEO fits in to your proposition.
"OMG! SEO agencies have no future? But I just started!"
1. User types in a website URL.
2. User watches screen for a few seconds while the page loads
3. User starts to move the mouse to an appropriate link
4. Suddenly a pop up appears asking if the user would mind filling in a survey on the website/an aspect of the service/product range
5. The user sees a red mist descend over their field of vision
6. The user comes to naked, standing on their dining room table with a tie wrapped around their forehead like a bandanna, screaming, surrounded by the shattered remains of their PC.
Annoying survey - I have not even moved the mouse before this f*cker pops up
Perhaps you should consider the following before spraying these all over your homepage:
I don’t know about you, but asking me to fill in a site survey before I have even used the site in question is a usability FAIL.
Everyone is getting extremely excited about the canonical tag, which Rand (of SEOmoz) is heralding as ‘the most important advancement in seo practices since sitemaps’.
The tag itself works very much like a 301 redirect, but instead of permanently redirecting pages it simply tells a search engine bot which is the most important version, allowing them to index accordingly.
Rand has provided an excellent summary over at the moz with all the relevant references so I won’t repeat it here.
What I will say however is that I don’t agree with the level of excitement about this tag. Yes it will be useful for large, dynamic websites producing multiple versions of the same page/URL/content but other than removing the need for 301 strategies, what’s all the fuss about?
There seem to be a number of potentially large problems looming, most notable of which are:
Patrick Altoft has had some similar thoughts (beat me to publishing them damn him!) and as usual comments are welcome!
This is so lazy – come check out my latest post at…
That’s right, sacrificing my own beautifully themed blog home I have posted my words of wisdom and comments over on YOUmoz instead, because it’s desperate times over there, and it will totally get read more. And because I love YOUmoz – definitely that reason the most.
After reading an extremely interesting post by Will Critchlow on mobile search, how a mobile searcher might differ from a non-mobile search (what may become mobs and a nomobs if Rob has anything to do with it) and the potential criteria for producing a mobile search friendly site I got to thinking.
I called David Attenborough to narrate and Bill Oddie to study but then funding fell through for my series on BBC so here is the write up instead…
I tracked down some actual iPhone and Windows mobile users in their natural habitat. Approaching these people in the wild is a dangerous business, so I would urge you all to be extremely cautious if you wish to attempt it yourselves. Once I’d appeased them by praising their phones (good compliments include ‘how shiny’ and ‘my I do love the iPhone’) I asked them some questions.
My main find from this fairly limited study (like I said mobile internet users are a rare and furtive breed still, apart from the growing population of iPhone users destroying the habitat of the indiginous WAP and Windows mobile fans) was something that neither Will nor Patrick at Blogstorm noticed – laziness.
One of the main reasons stated for use of mobile rather than your garden variety search is because your mobile is right there. It’s in your pocket, on the arm of your chair, in your hand already even.
Two of my subjects stated that it’s much quicker and easier to do a preliminary mobile search before resorting to the laptop/pc – after all your laptop could be anywhere, you might have to sit up to reach it, your pc is in the office…
Convenience could be one of the driving factors behind growth in mobile search, as well as the mobility itself which Will noted. This means if you want to get your site to the forefront of search, you are going to need to start seriously thinking about mobile SEO.
I signed in to Gmail this morning to check my email, and received a chat request from “linkbrain1984″. This was unexpected as I had no recollection of dealing with this person, however I email a lot of people, people change their addresses or I forget what they are so I allowed it thinking it was someone I knew.
The following bizarre conversation ensued:
Unexpected linkbuilding work request
While I’ll give him full marks for effort, an unsolicited, semi-literate request for link building work is not something I relish. Especially after finding that my email address has been found on ‘a website’ which he has ‘forhetton’.
In light of the fact that Google’s position on directory submission is changing the last thing I need is a load of spammy links from India. Now I’m not suggesting that this is illustrative of all SEO work in India, but people like Linkbrain1984 are certainly not helping improve the reputation.
So thanks sir, for you kind offer, but I think I will continue to give my own good work report.
There has been one hell of a contraversial post on SEOmoz regarding link directories this week, and Rand Fishkin’s attitude toward certain companies who have used them to rank on the term ‘SEO Company’.
You can read the post here: SEO Company Search Results: An Embarrasment to Google and the Other Engines
Rand seems to be suggesting that because Google has removed the ’submit links to relevant directories’ bullet point from it’s Webmaster Guidelines that this is now bad practice, and Google should not reward behaviour that goes against the ideal ‘good, relevant content + natural links’ dream.
While I agree that Google should not reward behaviour which contradicts it’s guidlines, I think this post is a bit of an over reaction. Google removing that point from the Webmaster Guidelines does not mean they have flip-flopped on directory submission, and are now discouraging it. Yes, it may herald a change in the way they value links from directories, but it does not immediately mean they will poo poo them.
Ultimately the example picked is a bad one, as while the company in question has fairly uniform anchor text, and have used poor quality directories, the links are relevant (as they are an SEO company). It seems that this has been made into a moral issue, rather than a technical one, which has muddied the waters.
The post even admits:
“Sadly, while what they’re engaging in may not technically be black hat, it is certainly not the kind of SEO I’d like to see rewarded”
And yet this post has been added to the ‘Spamming and Black Hat’ category on the blog?
Ultimately Rand believes that the company has behaved innapropriately, which is fine. However I think it is wrong to turn that into a tirade against them, becuase ultimately they haven’t done anything wrong.
Follow Up Note 30.10.08:
After the mad controversy of this post Scott has moved it into the ‘Google’ category, as the main point of the post is the inconsistency; highlighting the difference between their guidelines and the actual behaviour of the search engine. There is also a clarification/apology from Scott as well, which is appreciated. All in all I think enough’s been said on it the subject now!
