Google's PageRank Update and What Can We Do About It?

Google has recently updated the way it calculates PageRank. Because of this PR update many directories and content sites receiving deep penalties for brokering links, or having a large portion of their PR value derived from these types of programs.

I wanted to take a moment to share with you some interesting information I have found including what you can do if your site was negatively affected by this latest update.

In short, this latest update was designed to target the link selling industry. According to Google engineer Matt Cutts in an interview with WebProNews, "sites that sell links can lose their ability to pass PageRank."

The changes are not a huge surprise, but the ripple effect has had a major effect on an industry that some would argue Google helped create the linking economy. We know that purchasing links for the purpose of artificially inflating PageRank was against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. In this latest update you will find two major effects:
The first was the update to the PageRank algorithm that affected the link sellers. Essentially demoting these sites and negating their ability to pass PageRank.
The second wave happened several days later when Google updated PageRank for all the sites in their index. The new, lower PageRank values were used in this new calculation, and many sites that did not engage in link brokering were negatively affected.

Cutts says, "a lot of sites in the search and SEO space were a little more affected by this update than some other niches, just because maybe two or three hops upstream from a given site maybe that site isn't flowing page rank as much anymore." In fact, even the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) was lowered from a PR9 to a PR8
As they say, a rising tide lifts all ships. In this case, the effect was to essentially lower the water level. Most sites that experienced a one point drop in PageRank over the last couple weeks will not see a dramatic change in their search traffic from Google because the update will affect their competition about as much as themselves.

But no one wants to have a lower PageRank, so what can you do about it?
As with all updates, you can use the seo techniques to your advantage by responding before your competition does.

First, make sure your site is listed on the directories that Google has decided are still worth using. Not all directories were punished. In fact, some gained PR in this latest update.
Secondly, you should diversify your interests. As I often say, you should look at directory listings as the FIRST step in a linking program, but not the only step. Some directories are highly regarded, but in the end, they are all the same type of site. One thing that has become clear from this latest update is that Google is now looking at SEO-oriented sites as both a source of some great information on valuable websites, and also as a possible source of spam that they need to careful about.

That is why it is so important to work with the right database of directories.

SEO Techniques - Article Marketing

With the increased cost and competition for PPC advertising many people are turning their wheels for new marketing methods that are less expensive. One that has been around for many years is marketing through articles. Article marketing has been the back bone of the internet for decades. The Internet has always been content based. When your looking for information, put some keywords into the search bar and bam you have content.

Article marketing has taken on so much over the years. You'll sometimes find good content and other times find complete garbage. The difference between the two is how the good content will get around and stick. There are thousands of different seo techniques that successful Internet Marketers use. However when the basics, and methods are applied correctly, you will usually find a level of success. Many marketers will spend a great deal of there time creating good quality content. The quality content will lead to success.

The first and most important concept you'll ever need to remember "Content Is King!" Always remember those three words and you'll have 1/2 of your plan in place. The next thing you need to know are some of the basic things to get you started. Now article marketing, if done correctly, can drive lots of traffic to your site for free. Just remember some of the do's and don'ts, as we will discuss in this post.

Don't try to create articles and add affiliate or sales page links. Create an article with good content, interesting enough to drive the reading to a blog or a web website with more information on the topic. This is the friendly approach and you will get a lot more trusting visitors rather than weary ones.

Find a niche that interests you, where you can enjoy what you're writing about. Research the niche and make sure that it is not too competitive. Do some keyword research and see just how much competition is out there. From there decide on a website and begin writing your article. Many people will create blogs to post their articles to. Once you have a blog created and an article posted you can place links in your article to your blog and send it to ezines and article directories.

Write articles around your niche. Choose a keyword phrases to write your article around. Do not over stuff your article with the keywords for which you are aiming for. Your keywords should reflect a targeted search for words that you have already researched. Make it interesting provide good information that will keep them reading and make other sites want to use your article.

Submit your articles to as many ezines and article directories as you can. Post the article to your blog and start getting your traffic. Many websites are looking for content and may use your article. If they use your article they are required to keep your links imbedded in the article.

Now you will have links back to your site along with some possible traffic if the site is a good one. Writing articles clearly gives you a free, zero capital method to increasing your website traffic. So, start writing articles today!

Black Hat Pay Per Click Techniques

Black hat PPC is rarely discussed in the Search Engine industry, especially not as much as black hat SEO Techniques, but we should be aware of black hat pay-per-click methods as it's possible your competitors could be applying them. In this post you will get to know how you can duplicate a competitor’s ad text to replace their ad by outbidding them.

Pay-per-click is a competitive process simply by design. And that is the reason why the people choose to use dirty tactics rather than having to pay the higher bid prices which is also have some biggest risks. Black hat PPC mostly consists of using flaws and weaknesses in systems such as Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter to your advantage.


Non-Compliant Ads
One such flaw is the lack of pre-moderation on the AdWords system, allowing changes that meet a set of automated rules to go live instantly 24/7. Unfortunately, the human side to moderation doesn’t seem to work 24/7, giving a time period in which non-compliant ads can be published.

One of many reasons affiliates use this technique is that it allows them to show a different display URL to the actual click-through URL on the ad. This means that over the weekend, their affilaiteredirect.com site can now appear to be amazon.com/music - resulting in a substantially increased CTR from the brand recognition.

You can use this trick in many different ways, as long as it doesn’t hit an automated rule such as trademark infringement. Bringing this to an in-house scenario, you may want to outbid your competitors on their brand terms or use ad copy that a human editor would normally decline. The key to doing this is to test what times and days an editor declines non-compliant copy, plus re-instating the original ad before the end of your blind-spot timeframe. (Some bid management tools can do this for you.)


Same Search Term Multiple Ads
A big restriction on most PPC networks is the inability to have multiple ads from one company displayed for the same search term. You may want to do this in order to advertise multiple products or to flood the ad space and push your competitors off the first page of the search results.

Getting around this restriction is a little trickier, as a new PPC account will be needed for each additional advert you wish to display. This could be achieved by creating a number of phantom companies with a unique bank account, credit card, and address, or you could get a little help from your friends. In either case, it’s often a good idea to use pre-paid credit cards so your phantom company or helpful friend never gets into debt. You’re then ready to start bidding, although be careful not to leave any footprints that associate the accounts to one another.

It’s best to use the first trick I mentioned so you can link directly through to your main site out-of-hours without fear of getting caught. You can also flood the search results for your competitors’ non-trademarked brand terms so they don’t have a single brand name PPC listing.

Its best not to be too evil toward your competitors though, as someone will eventually find out, and you may get reported to Google. Your best line of defense when this happens is to use your existing affiliate program (or create a fake one) and blames it all on a maverick affiliate of yours. (Remember to use different affiliate IDs for each ad’s click-through URL.)


Copying Competitor Ads
A final example of playing dirty is to copy a competitor’s ad (title, copy, and display URL), and run it on your account with a different click-through URL. As Google AdWords doesn’t allow duplicate ads, you can wipe your competitor from the paid search listings simply by using the same display URL. As long as you bid more than the competitor’s maximum bid, your campaign should replace theirs.

The user will be expecting to land on your competitor’s site when clicking through, so it’s best to create a landing page mentioning the competitor, perhaps in the form of a damning review, e.g., “Product A has been proven to be inferior to Product B...” If doing this on a large scale, try to do it on weekends; once again, so it’s harder for your competitor to monitor and analyze.


Remember, all these examples could risk your PPC account and should therefore be used with caution.