surely this theory has flaws - * as the mail contained in gmail is not contained in static pages for the crawlers to read and are only created dynamically when the user logs in, they can not be counted as viable links to other sites. the mails are held in a db which most probably holds the content as objects rather than straight strings, so the crawler would have to build the pages first before crawling. now, privacy being what it is, i dont think the crawler [an automated web script has access to the user/pass of every gmail account, because if it does have access to this, then i know many people who would be usurping this ability] and therefore it is hard to believe that the links or creds/keywords would be accessed. * as far as keeping your house 'untidy' is concerned, this is a bit vague. just keeping all of your things that have connection to or keywords from etc. all just stored in your [or other's gmail account] doesnt seem to me to be a fair way of gadging the worth of a site. basically the person or persons with the most gmail account names WIN. even when you consider the fact that some of the email will be put into spam, this operation can only happen after the mail has been veiwed and only then if the user identifies it as spam. all of this tells me that it would be possible to gain instant PR via one web send. IMHO this isnt something that google would allow. all in all - i think it is well interpreted by antonaf, but it seems unlikely as a valid tool for SEO. anyway it is back to the keyword board for me...
in looking in to what adsense comes up in the gmails, i can find many emails that have no keywords that have been drawn upon to filter and select content linked ads. to me this says that the mail has not been crawled - BUT - is there not a way that the adds are brought up on the fly. after the user has logged in and the mail is opened the db is accessed and as the mail content string is parsed - potential keywords are selected and ads collected on the fly. this would explain to me the reason for the ads selected seeming to be more relavant in coincidence of the placement of the keywords in the original text. in my example of this: a forwarded ticket booking confirmation email to gmail has brought up ads that link to the keywords choosen in the text. at the top - destination and flight info and the top add is lastminute [with a landing page - SAME DESTINATION]. however as i look down the content of the original email the ads change to baggage allowances as also represented in the original text on the flight confirmation. then finally at the bottom, the booking and airline tag lines and copywrite info in the original mail have brought up standard competitive cheap flights ads. ?coincidence?
yes i would imagine that the content is determined on the fly. i guess calling it spidering is not strictly acurate but google must have to analyize the content at some point. As for it counting the backlinks in google search index then im pretty damn sure thats complete rubbish
Use common sense for a minute guys. Google catches cloaking, sneaky redirects, and other black hat techniques. And you honestly beleive that they left a gaping hole into their index open? Send you and all your gmail buddies a keyword rich link and tell me how many of those emails show up as back links. Yes, the Adsensebot spiders your email. It looks for keywords and displays relevant ads. That in no way implies that links in the message are spidered any faster, granted anymore credibility, or will even count towards a sites PR. Again, apply some logic. If your argument were true, we could easily get google.com banned from its own index by linking to other banned sites in our gmail. If you want a better explaination, consider that a site that sends out lots of email will tend to be talked/blogged about more than a site that never sends a damn thing. Having a gmail used to be a matter of prestige, but now everybody and their dog has one, but its still cooler than hotmail. Besides, every good marketer knows that if you want to be successful, you associate yourself with success.
Matt Cutts has cleared this up in his blog, lol... nice fantasy http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/myth-busting-links-in-gmail/
For the record, I have nothing to do with the article, other than finding it out there enough for some entertaining. I actually blogged about why it wouldn't make any sense. If this was link bait, it's too bad Matt Cutts didn't include a link to the article.
This is nothing to do with link bait. I could really care less if anyone links to it or not, it was written as SEO advice for the intent for discussion with my audience. As an internet marketer, it is a great thing if someone links to the article, but it definitely was not written for link bait or to gain link popularity, it was written because my theory holds weight. This is my true theory and I stand by my theory despite Matt Cutts discrediting it, because my theory have been tested and proved by myself. Though, I do respect Matt Cutts and understand he is a powerhouse in Google and have a position in compiling the Google algorithm, but I feel he must not want this secret to be leaked. So I will keep quiet, going forward! I don't claim to be the SEO of the year, but I am definitely 2 steps ahead of the game!
Actually the theory has not been cleared up. It is very unclear at present, because Matt only said "a link sent to a Gmail account DOES NOT equal one link on one page" which is only a very small piece of the entire theory. So, the theory is holding more weight in my opinion.
Well since there are enough Gmail accounts out there, someone can show a single GMAIL backlink to any site on the internet in the Google index. Just one.
Why would you need to see a backlink?? Google already hides most normal website backlinks, but still credit your site even though you can't find the same amount of backlinks as you would using Yahoo!, so you really think they don't have the power to hide all backlinks coming from Gmail, but still use the data for value? The problem I am seeing is that most SEO do not have a technology view on this and only have a mechnical view. I come from a technical background, therefore I do not see anything as being impossible. Thinking Google cannot present PR value because an account must be logged into and uses cookies is crazy to me, the backend operates much differently than the frontend. This is a simple task for Google to accomplish, they own Gmail, therefore they have all rights to it as well as all power. They can simply create a master account which automatically and annonymously logs into Gmail accounts using a script without knowledge, collect data, and vaule/devalue links. Or they can have another method, which is unknown to anyone. It is surely not impossible. Another thing is when you look into your server web logs, email accounts are shown as referrers, many use web beacons or other methods to pass data so they can track how many emails have been opened, track clicks, etc. So, what is impossible about Google tracking data in emails (for the purpose of valuing/devaluing) and passing PR? Just because you can't physically see backlinks, doesn't mean Google doesn't have this capability internally.
I think this idea still has merit. Even after reading what Matt Cutts wrote. Forget whether Google spiders itself. Google has access to the contents of your email and the do some type of analysis on it. It seems very probable that Google would use the links contained in the email for something. Not giving them a PR9 link (that wouldn't make much sense), but using them in some way. In particular I think the idea of taking links that are in emails consistently flagged as spam and delisting those URLs makes a lot of sense. If no one wants the link in their email, they probably don't want to see it at the top of Google's results. If Google isn't using the data from links in Gmail right now, it is only a matter of time before it plays some type of role in influencing search results.
http://www.wmfieds.com/blog/index.php/archives/3 -- Is this guy for real. Am laughing my a.rse off, while reading this. May be he is too high on pot.
This is the most absurd theory i have ever heard. If google started giving credit for links in gmail then all the website responsible for spamming me every day with pills porn and casinos would be ranking very well. Funnily enough they don't. Why would google trust a link in an email anymore than they would trust a link in a comments section of a blog....
I think the point is not to trust links that get emailed around, because a lot of that is spam. The point is to take note of the gmail users who flag it as spam, and then maybe do a manual review of the most prominent cases of spam urls that are still in the index.
Do you guys remember how much fuss was made wen Google announced they were going to display contextual advertising in your email? (in case you don't http://www.google.com/search?source...GLJ:2006-32,GGLJ:en&q=google ads in gmail eff) Why do you figure Google would draw that kind of ire again just because it wants to use email for ranking pages? This is absurd.
