I agree completely that the engines *should* look at content more. And they do, to a certain extent. On the second part of this "content is xml", content is whatever it is written in, be it html, plain text, flash, etc. in my opinion, and the opinion of probably 3 million webpage owners in google who do not use xml.
being around and in the game for over 8 years gives me the facts as I see them, and many others also see them the same. I have debated every single point I ever state many times with some of the bigger names in the industry, and been wrong several times. When I am wrong I correct my way of thinking and thus learn something new. Regardless tho, I know my topic. You didnt show what had been before. You stated things that had never been as if they had. And yes, I am a link broker. I personally think that because I specialize in links and have for some time and am quite avid at learning all I can about my chosen profession that I have a tad more experience with links and linking in general. You, of course, wont feel this way because you are typing misleading statements which can cause confusion to newbies.
Google has patented an algo (so called localrank) which in short limits the counting of more than one link to a site from any one Class C IP address. One of the interesting things about this patent is that it works with the old ranking system (whatever that is) and adds a localrank factor onto it to produce the final ranking. Even more interesting is that they have proposed putting variable multipliers in front of both the old rank and the new rank, so that either one or the other can be dominant in the final ranking results. Supposing that they could have started using such a system, it might produce results similar to what we are seeing now.
Mel, very possible, but I still think the results we are seeing now are more in line with new filters G is placing in their stated anti-linksales campaign.
Could be Will, but I can see using localrank running alongside the regular algo to achieve that filtering. Unless of course there are pages being downgraded because they are using links from known sellers, but so far I don't see that happening do you?
That I did not do. I'm not sure I would call them filters, but suppose IBLs are "downgraded in importance" what would that mean?
For being a 'link professional', your site is lacking in the whole, 'link' area. You'd think a professional that you claim to be wouldn't need to post in forums and attack people's ideas in order to get their back links...
Actually quite a bit of business does come from forums, DUE to the fact that I tell it like it is. At least I dont say things that are completely wrong and then post slurs against a type of business when someone in that line shows the truth about what they are talking about. I guess "only link sellers would think that, oh you are a link seller" somehow doesn't qualify for that. I posted known things to prevent people from being mislead. If the poster cant handle that, that is their issue to deal with.
Why would my sales site matter? It gets 1000+ unique visitors a day and does quite well for being a brand new sales site. The only sites that matter regarding PR and IBL's are the sites we sell links off I would say
Oh I can handle it OK it is you who can't No you don't say it as it is - you say it as you see it - which is biased. You keep on saying that I posted something completely wrong and yet you have not answered any of the questions I put forward - and I did not post a slur against a type of business - that is your interpretation. You did not post known things - you posted your interpretation of it - and, if anybody has any doubt that things are not good in this link industry go look at this link http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1432 and then come back and tell me that there has not been a change in the links. I do get a might tired with the "oh I've got loads of experience" routine expecting everybody to suddenly accept as the Gospel what you have said and kneel down at your altar. Spare me.
Foxy you are basing what you say as fact, when it is merely something you read from a forum thread in which there are hundreds of other forums threads showing the exact opposite. It is not my fault you fail to realize that i do not state anything as fact that I do not know from a certainty that has come from, yes, "experience", and also from reading "every" forum daily for the past several years. I can not help it if the facts get in the way of something you said. The fact is link popularity has been here as long as search engines have, and has been a controlling factor in their ranking algorithms. you do not have to believe that this did not just happen in February of this year, but it is a fact that most everyone here knows already. You said 2 things which I diagreed with and told it as it really is: When you said this, I actually thought you were joking to stir things up a bit in the thread. IBL's and their associated anchor text have always had a significant role in the SERPS. That is a fact and widely known. Not in the past 5 years has only on-page factors gotten good rankings for a competitive term. This is just another fact and also widely known. You dont have to like it, but when I have been wrong in the past, there are always oodles of people popping in to disagree with me. I do not see that happening here, do you?
If you're making the money, thats all that matters. I just would think that you want to prove you can get a decent PR before selling to other people. If I was going to buy links and I wanted a PR6 I'd be nervous to come to someone with a PR4 as their main site, just my personal opinion though.
schlottke, my main busines is brokering links between webmasters and seo's. The pr of my sales site is not relevant in the last.
OK Foxy I have waded through all 800 posts of the Grand Experiment, and so far no one seems to have drawn any conclusions as to what it means, it is an interesting bit of research, but there are lots of impoderables that one cannot simply evaluate based on that experiment. If you would care to summarize what you think has been the conclusions of that research I would be most interested. I have asked in the thread for a summary or conclusions, but so far no response. BUT Foxy if you want to be taken seriously you have to be able to back up your statements, and I think that trying to convince people who work with websites daily that inbound links are not important is going to be very hard to do, as is justifying the idea that you can get top rankings on competitive keywords based on page content alone. If that were the case it should be easy enough to demonstrate in your experiment, just provide a page with well optimized page content and let it rank highly for a competitive keyword with no IBLs and I will become a believer. While I agree that there is a lot of hype floating about the web concerning SEO the importance of IBLs is not among it IMO. It may well change in the future and google has indicated that it is not happy with purchased links, but the reality is that so long as there is an internet, there will be advertisements, and those advertisements will link to the sponsors page, so unless Google is going to attempt to destroy the entire web advertising business they will at least have to differentiate between paid links and advertisements. This is a very fine line to walk, and I suspect that google will not try to walk it.
"schlottke, my main busines is brokering links between webmasters and seo's. The pr of my sales site is not relevant in the last." Well you'd lose me as a client just by seeing you yourself cannot get a decent PR, so why should I trust that you even know what you're doing? - I am not attacking you, just trying to point out a potential clients perspective. Once again, Im not trying to be rude- just honest.
Understandable. But do a whois lookup and see when that site was started. To be honest I have not tried building links as it is just a sales site, and I much prefer to spend my time on the sites that actually have to show good stats. I can understand your point tho. I suppose I should work at least a little on that site.
Thanks for your imput Mel - the experiment is still ongoing so well done for reading it but as for I did respond by saying that we had talked about it and were considering doing so - however everybody was away at the moment. I agree, but what I put forward was that IBLs affected the PR and that had recently been downgraded so therefore the effect of the IBLs on the SERPS had also been downgraded. I said that it used to be the case that one could and I did not mention the word competitive. We have, with one real IBL, and so far that page, after one week, is 10 for allintext and 11 for allinanchor for a three word very competitive phrase and, 12 for allintext 13 for allinanchor and 7 for allinurl for a two word very competitive phrase. Not a bad start I would have thought! It has started me thinking differently. But don't expect miracles and there are quite a few of us putting in input into this - so it rests with all of us not just me what we do next - and that takes time.
How valid is PR these days anyway. I have seen PR 3/4 sites ranking in the first 5 out of 14 million hits.