Weekly SEO news: 22 March 2011
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

This week, we're showing you how to get links from high authority sites. Links from high authority websites have a high impact on the search engine rankings of your site. There's also a plan B if high authority sites don't want to link to your site.

Also in the news: A Bing algorithm update leads to much better results, Matt Cutts talks about Google's further anti-spam plans for 2011, Google PageRank patents and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. How to get links from authority sites (+ plan B to get more links)

Links from high authority websites have the biggest impact on the position of your web pages in Google search results. If high authority websites link to your site with your keywords in the anchor text, the chances that your site will be listed in the top 10 results for that keyword increase dramatically.

What are high authority websites?

High authority websites are website that are trusted by Google. In general, high authority websites meet two or more of the following criteria:

  • they are old and established websites that are several years old
  • the websites did not contain spam in the past
  • they have many backlinks from other sites
  • they belong to the most important sites for a particular topic

Authority

Step 1: find high authority sites

Although the PageRank that Google displays in its toolbar is discussed controversially, it is still a good indicator to find authority websites (if the PageRank is 7 or higher).

To find authority websites, do the following:

  1. Use the "Add sites" feature in IBP's link manager.
  2. Use one of the search options (for example, "Find sites that link to your competitor").
  3. Let IBP add at least 500 new sites.
  4. Sort the list by PageRank by clicking the "PR" column header in the list.

Step 2: get links from these high authority sites

When you've found a high authority site, you should try to get a backlink from that site. Go through the list in IBP's link manager and contact the webmasters of the authority sites.

If you have a good website with quality content, chances are that the high authority sites will link to your site.

Plan B: what to do if the authority sites don't want to link to your site

Sometimes, an authority site links to many other websites but for some reason, the webmaster doesn't want to link to your site.

In that case, you can still benefit from the link power of that site by contacting the webmasters of the sites that are linked by the high authority site:

High authority site links to website B > Website B links to your website

These links are called second-tier links. Of course, they don't have the same effect as a direct link from a high authority site. However, they are still very valuable and it is likely that these links are more valuable than many other links that you can get on the Internet.

How to contact second-tier link providers quickly and easily

  1. Find a page on the high authority website that links to one or more external websites.

  2. Import the link page of the top-notch page in IBP's link builder: IBP > Links > Add Sites > Import links

  3. IBP will import the links and get additional information for each website.

  4. Use IBP's built-in email client and IBP's built-in web browser to contact the websites.

Links from high quality websites are important for high rankings on Google. The more links point to your website, the better. IBP helps you to get the links that will improve the position of your website on Google and other search engines.

If you want to find out if your web pages contain the right content and have the right links for high rankings on Google, analyze them with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.

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2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Bing Bing algorithm update UK March 2011

"Bing have been under fire recently for reportedly 'copying' Google search results – however, coincidence or not, it seems there has been a Bing Algorithm update. [...]

For all the smugness, accusations and gloating from Google – perhaps the giant search engine could take a leaf out of Microsoft's book by looking at some of their own results that are dramatically skewed due to the difficulty in serving up results from separate countries that have the same language, eg English."



Video: what are some of the projects that the Google webspam team might tackle in 2011?

Google's Matt Cutts talks about Google's anti-spam plans for 2011. He says that Google will take another look at keyword stuffing and blog comment spam. There will be another content based spam classifier this year and Google will also continue to analyze the quality of backlinks. Google will also work on hacked sites.

They are also working on a better information for webmasters. Webmasters whose websites have been penalized should get more information this year.



Matt CuttsMatt Cutts: the Greenspan of Google

"He's the public face to thousands of Webmasters and search engine optimization (SEO) marketers who practice the art of making sure Google's search engines take note of their clients' sites. [...]

Cutts has earned a reputation as a kind of Alan Greenspan of SEO—a dispenser of vague pronouncements that send online businesspeople the world over into paroxysms of scrutiny. 'He's mastered the art of talking without really saying anything.'"



The first PageRank patent and the newest

"The claims in the newest version of Stanford's PageRank Patent do seem to explain PageRank in plainer and more understandable language than the earlier patents, but I'm not sure if we will see the annotation system in action that it describes.

The most interesting discovery for me in researching this newest patent was the letter that I linked to which contains the very first PageRank provisional patent, Improved Text Searching in Hypertext Systems."



Search engine newslets

  • Yahoo will be closing AllTheWeb on 4 April 2011.
  • Google guesstimates release dates for movies and games.
  • Bing drops "Write a Review" link. Good move or bad?
  • Microsoft is more ethical than Google, Yahoo or Facebook.
  • Google now has an official court order removal form.
  • NY Times: The evolving mission of Google.
  • Does Google's Larry Page care about social networking?
  • Berlin court rules Google Street View is legal in Germany.
  • Hidden services on Google Social Search.

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3. Success stories

IBP



300,000 readers will read your success story!

Let us know how IBP has helped you to improve your website and we might publish your success story with a link to your website in this newsletter. The more detailed your story is, the better. Click here to tell us your story.

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4. Previous articles

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