So how do SEs want us to develop our backlinks?

We are getting a bit offtopic here. The point of my thread was to discuss the relationship between SEs and Webmasters. Because most common link development techniques (eg mentioned in the first post) no longer perform as well as they used to, i had a thought that may be SEs dont even want wembasters being able to effect SERPs in any way (eg via directory submissions). So there are two main points:

1) Im am right. SEs dont want any SEO from webmasters. Instead they will give most weight to natural links. This is logical because their aim is to give most relivant/quality results and webmasters can artificially effect these through SEO.

2) Im wrong. SEs dont mind webmasters doing their SEO. Therefore if directories/articles/link exchanges etc no longer work like they used to; what does? How SEs actually want us to SEO?

 

I think I hear what you are saying, mightyb, and I've been wondering about this myself. It seams that you are asking: What is the role of SEOs in an environment where SEs are picking up on the tricks of SEOs, potentially making SEOs obsolete in their current approach.

I wouldn't go with 1 or 2 but something more in between. I think SEs like white-hat SEOs in the sense that they make a more valueable and user-friendly site. SEs are laying down the guidelines for what is a user-friendly site such as having good internal linking, informative page titles and filenames, lots of unique content, etc. Ideally, SEs would probably want the SEO to be motivated by the SEs' algorithms to avoid spammy linkbuilding and create great content which acts as link bait, as people mentioned earlier.

At the same time, I don't think any legitimate search engine should have a problem with getting the word out about your site by means of emails, submissions to directories, press releases, forums, blogs, etc. This is a legitimate advertising practice to make people aware of your site and then leave it up to them to decide to link to your site because of the site's value and not because you are offering them money or a link in exchange which is what the SEs are trying to differentiate and devalue.

I think if the SEs are successful, it will force SEOs to think more of what is a legitimate marketing approach. On a large scale, I think this will be good overall since it will force SEOs to think more creatively in enhancing the value of a site thereby increasing the creativity of the internet as a whole. On the downside, us SEOs will probably have to think harder and enter a more creative realm that is less certain which no one really likes to do.

 

I have been able to achieve very good rankings in se's including #3 in MSN and #10 in google for the competitive 'photo hosting' search, with very few natural links. (I was #9 in yahoo until they had a wacky update and completely wiped my site from their serps, this has been discussed in another thread). Mainly using directory submissions, exchanges, forum postings, and a few articles. So, I would say that these link building techniques still hold quite a lot of weight in my opinion. How long they will hold weight is anyones guess.

ps. I get a lot of traffic from my link exchanges so regardless of what the se's think of them, I will always do them.

 

Actually, search engines never ever wanted Webmasters to manipulate their results. And it's not like it's a "Webmasters vs. G or Y!" game. It's search engines' game alone. They can change the rules and can do whatever they want, as long as their users get accurate, valuable results. Their technology, their rules, their game.

Warkot

 

Workot's right, Search engines don't want SEO's. They put up with us and work with us (to an extent) as a nessacary evil.

 

To say they don't want SEOs is a bit of an over-generalization I think. Maybe it's better to say they don't want grey-hat or black-hat SEO but white-hat SEO is good for everyone. I don't think SEs have any problem with white-hat seo, like creating proper site architecture and creating good content with well-formed html coding, etc., and links to help the SEs find and index a site. I'm sure white-hat SEOs are a rare breed and I can't say I don't venture into the grey area but the SEs are forcing SEOs to give up some of their grey- and black-hat techniques.

 

Creating good content should be the job of the website owner.
Creating a HTML compliant site with good navigation should be the job of the designer.
It's an SEO's job to artificially inflate the rankings of a site, granted search engines don't mind white hat SEO, but I'm sure their jobs would be much easier without us all. People would only link to the best content and therefore the best sites would naturally come at the top of the SERPS.

 

I think it is important to look at the whole picture. ALL OF THESE STRATEGIES are important. As time goes on, and as more and more site appear on the internet all competing for the same keyword, the search engines look at more and more criteria to determine who is ranked well.

Signature lines may not have the importance that they once had, but they still help. Directories may not be as important as they used to be, but they still help. Reciprocal links may not be as good as pure backlinks, but they still help. To develop GOOD backlinks, there is no easy shortcut. Just lots of hard work.

 

If i had a SE i would not want any kind of SEO. Think about it. I want relevant results. Some guy creates a "made for ads" Mesothelioma site. Driven by cash he does a lot of SEO. On the other side of the world a small Mesothelioma research lab publish their website and gets nowhere due lack of SEO knowledge/finance.

I guess it does depend on quite a few things. Things are not as easy as they look.

 

Exactly my point. And it's cash-driven too -- Google depends on relevant searches because they sell ads whose effectiveness depends on the accuracy of the SERPs.

Yep. As an SEO I'd naturally want my site to rank well no matter what, but as a surfer I want relevant results. I'm sick and tired of SERPs overloaded with sales pitches when I merely want some valuable information -- which I can't find because it's buried down the 99th page, because all the others did some SEO and got to the top.

Warkot

 

A repeat visit is just as valuable as another unique visitor. Make your site more building quality content. A little extra effort into content can go a long way. You could get a lot of free world of mouth advertising if your site stands out.

 

I agree with your first 2 points, ideally. Unfortunately, website owners and designers don't have the knowledge or motivation that SEOs have to make their website 'talk' to the search engines, in my experience. They often use filenames and titles that are cryptic or they use javascript drop-down menus or sites composed entirely of flash without any alternate linking structure or dynamic pages with problematic query strings, etc., etc.

If you have a SE, wouldn't you want to be able to index the content of these sites? That's one of the roles of the SEO; to improve 'communication' between a site and the search engines. As an SEO, I have added lots of good articles to sites that didn't have any which are informative and help the user, added informative titles and directory/file names and created backlinks which help the SEs to find the site and know what it's about. You may say that the webmaster wasn't doing their job in not having lots of good articles but in all practicality, an SEO can help make the site better in many ways. Of course there is a flip side to this because if I had a SE, I wouldn't want some of the tactics employed to artificially inflate the rankings but without any SEO, that small research lab may never even get found. If it does, it's either by accident or because of some SEO done by the webmaster or whoever.

So, I don't think the answer is: 'SEs hate SEOs' or 'SEs love SEOs.' I think that the answer is somewhere in between.

 

I know what you mean. I've managed to train the web designers where I work to keep as much code off of the page as possible, name files with good logical keywords etc etc. I was impressed the other day when I caught a designer putting a Google analytics code in seperate file!
Hopefully more and more designers will have to learn this or they'll get a bad reputation.

 

Yep. The guys I work with on a PHP site use Apache rewrites to create static pages with html extensions, instead of garbage PHP full of stop characters SEs hate.

So yes, with SEO going mainstream designers are also getting savvy.

Warkot

 

SEs want you to do one thing and one thing only, develop your websites!

SEO/link building/etc is like trying to cheat the SEs, they don't like it.

 

Well, I like the way Google puts it:

"Focus on the user and all else will follow."

(Although they said it with regard to advertising )

Warkot

 

"Focus on the user and all else will follow."

First....to get users...

 

Agree, it is a catch 22 situation. The best possible way to develop backlinks is to get some seriously good linkbait. Dis anyone see the virtual bartender thing on beer.com? That spreadt all over the world in days though email blogs and forums and picked up thousands of natural backlinks to the site. You just have to find something similar that fits your niche. Mortgages calculators were another good one for mortgage companies, though that's a bit old hat now and everyone has one...

 

About getting the users:

The Internet is so full of garbage similar-looking auto-generated sites now, it really takes some standing out of the crowd to grab the users' attention. On the other hand, exactly because there's so much garbage around, a sure-fire way to be successful online is to offer carefully researched niche content no-one else offers.

So it's a problem on the one hand, and an opportunity on the other.

If you own a blog, for instance, I can't imagine a blog with awesome content that no-one knows about. Word of mouth will spread quickly, with little or no SEO effort on your part. I know enough examples.

So ultimately, I do believe that you have to market your online biz just as you would your offline biz. Act like Google doesn't exist, and focus on what you have to say, not on "I've no traffic, even though I've been online for almost 3 days now!"

But I digress

Warkot

 

I agree here. Always remember the human element. If you're only developing for SE's you may miss the human element in the process. I recently launched a site that isn't high in SERP yet because the SEs take awhile sometimes. However, I've been promoting it by talking to the people. Where? Right here, on the internet. The result, more people have come to the site by my talking to them and informing them, than they have through SE. Hopefully, they like the site and are bookmarking it, telling friends, etc.
Not much more can be said from me than what Janet has said here.