does google really care about onpage seo?

Hi Guys,

Just wanted your thoughts on this?
Im fighting for a very competive keyword for my site ...
Im on page 3 of G.


On of my competitors is on page 1 (position2)
I know they have been spending 'off page' advertising like paid links but when i analyse the page that ranks so well for the term im chasing you would say there seo is poor.

- they have 3 x <h1> tags , none use the key word.
- they do not place the key word anywhere on the page
- the only place the key word appears in the source is in meta description and meta key words

So my question is ... does google rank 99% of your site from offpage seo?

 

Oh, and just to add a little more to the mix ...

I always beleived YAHOO gave more weight to onpage seo ... how ever the site i detailed above is on page one of yahoo too (at the very bottom 10th place)

Also the url does not have any of the keyword in it.

 

Onpage SEO is one of many factors that determines the SERP ranking. I have had 10+ keywords go on top 5 doing onpage SEO.
Link building is another thing you may consider.

 

I wonder if that keyword actually is a "very competive keyword". does not sound like that from your desc. on how the other site is ranking.

 

Sounds like the text links to thier site use the keyword and they have alot of them from related sites.

 

I forget where I read it, basically a bunch of university students tested Google for on-page and off-page. They concluded that Google still put 60% of ranking weight to on-page.

Sorry, can't find the link.


H

 

Content is king they say and thats true.

 

It's very possible to rank well with poor onpage, i done a test and got my site to page 1 for "SEO Company" and didn't have the term in the Title, URL, H Tags, Metas etc.

Basically the term occured just once on the page with no bold or emphasis added and the rest was due to anchor text.

However, onpage does play a big part.. I probably could of achieved the same rankings with 50% less links and perfect onpage optimization.

So do both, it's not that much effort to create an optimized and spider/human friendly webpage.

 

well the industry i work in its the biggest ... not saying its massive to everyone but to me its very important.

thanks for all the advice/comments

 

Backlinks as well. A well optimized site with on-page seo isn't worth anything if it doesn't have enough backlinks to continue to rank.

 

Actually, I used to support that theory. I am now leaning more towards context is king.


H

 

Relevant Content is king

From here you can get the idea of factors that effect google ranking
http://seomization.blogspot.com/2007/09/google-yahoo-msn-ranking-factors_28.html

 

That sounds good, but what do you mean by "context"?

 

<IMO>
Having the greatest content isn't enough to get good ranking. I think you need well structured on-page, proper use of Kw's (not too much), proper selection/use of themed keywords and a good website architectural linking.

Google also measures trusted documents to create a benchmark of what content under a topic should look like. There is a little more on my blog about this.

By combining the right formula together it will result in better ranking at Google. Basically by Google following your site structure through to articles a complete snap shot is taken. Remember Google is using LSI - co occurring term matrix. This means that they can understand a concept.

</IMO>

 

Thats what I call content

So Google is rewarding special structures. Thats not necessary good for google because good content (content that google want to rank high) is not always on sites that has a good structure, its often the opposite. That means that Google are risking to not show the most relevant search result. And that is not what google want so in shed of that light your theory does not comprehend. I dont say you are wrong though, thats just my first thoughts on that structure theory.

 

In my experience on-page SEO still carries alot of weight... I'd agree with the 60% someone said earlier. BUT its also apparent from the various examples of Google bombing (the famous George Bush one for example) that by pushing out tons of links with unrelated anchor text can actually rank you well for a term that doesn't appear on the target page at all! I'd say its still relative though to how well the other top results for the same term are optimised on and off page being as G will still take into account all the factors and not just off page links.

 

I thought we had stuck a fork in this myth and killed it?

- Michael

 

For commercial or competitive terms, offpage is king.
For everything else, you can get by with onpage (as long as you have at least 1 backlink).

Note that if you're doing offpage, you don't need any onpage, in order to rank (although I'd never advise leaving out onpage).

But it is true, all the same. How else can a Flash site get to No.1 for a commercial 2 word phrase ?

 

You can achieve your goals with offpage SEO even though onpage will help you get there quicker.

 

Algos never sleep, they are constantly being changed to improve serps and combat spam

Gone doesn't work anymore, Google fixed it. Also when's the last time you saw supplemental results? Gone? Nope still there, just hidden.

Nothing really special. In fact "silo" structuring has been around for a long time. Put the apples in the apple basket and oranges in the orange basket. Keep your linking nice n tight in each basket.

Well in 2003 they bought Applied Semantics (edit spelling, thanks Michael) for this reason. Originally LSI was intended to be used for Adsense to determine page concept quicker so ads would display relevant to page context. Sometime in 2004 Google started using it in their organic search results. I am sure you've already seen the ~tilde thang so I won't post it. Although it does not confirm the use of LSI, it does confirm Google understands synonyms.

I personally have no doubt that this technology is being used and has been for 3 years. Google engineers are working to improve it all the time. It makes all the sense in the world. It is a way to almost humanize result pages. As an SEO professional I am sure you have queried something before, found top ranked sites and noticed that the keyword or phrase you entered as a search query is not mentioned on the page Google served in the top. This is because Google can understand what concepts may relate to queried terms.

Most SEOers that are still using yesterday's techniques (keyword stuffing) realize it ain't working anymore. That is because you cross the threshold that Google determines from trusted sites. Authority site articles are measured and compared against others. I find today...less is more when presented as an expert using terms only an expert would know. Google is looking for trusted experts. Pages are analyzed to become the benchmark.

In my opinion LSI-co-occurrence matrix is here to stay. One of my heroes Dr Garcia is arguably one of the most knowledgeable people on this topic. I think he is also DP member. There are many other resources you can check to confirm it's presence in Google's search technology today.

Myth? Me-no-thinks

H