| Weekly SEO news: 24 February 2015 |
| Welcome to
the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter. "Link building is dead" is something that you might have heard from several SEOs during the last few weeks and months. It's true that search engine optimization has changed a lot. But are links really not important anymore? Or are some people just drawing the wrong conclusions?
In the news: Google's close exact match variation has a
lower conversion rate, how to fix hacked sites, why reviews are hard,
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, |
| 1. Backlinks are dead, or are they? |
| "Link
building is dead" is something that you might have heard from several
SEOs during the last few weeks and months. It's true that search engine
optimization has changed a lot. But are links really not important
anymore? Or are some people just drawing the wrong conclusions?
Links are a very important
ranking signal for Google. Links are so important that Google puts a
lot
of effort into detecting bad backlinks. If you hear someone saying
"link building does not work anymore", the person actually says "link
spamming does not work anymore."
The automatic links that might have helped your website in the past will get your website penalized today. Automatically creating backlinks in bulk does not work anymore. Faking social network profiles to get backlinks does not work anymore. Spamming forums and article websites with fake or low quality content to get backlinks does not work anymore. Automated link networks do not work anymore. To make things clear: spamming does not work anymore! However, this has nothing to do with real backlinks. Real backlinks from good sites are the best thing that can happen to your rankings. Things, not strings: what does Google mean with that? Google's ranking concept is
"things,
not strings". That means that the context of a link is important. The
links that point to your website should come from
pages that are related to the topic of your own website. Google has
been saying this for years but now they are serious about it.
If all of the links that point to your website contain exactly the same keyword, you can be sure that this will trigger an 'unnatural links' filter. If the links to your website contain keywords that are related to the topic of your website, Google will find your website relevant for that topic. Google is serious about this and that's good news for you Some
people still think that they can trick Google's algorithm with the
'brand new secret method that will get your site on Google's first
result page with just a few mouse clicks.' These spam tools do not work
anymore and it is very likely that your website will be penalized if
you fake links and other things.
Links that require human intervention are the links that Google considers in the ranking algorithm. Quality is much more important than quantity. A handful of high quality links are much better than hundreds of automatically created backlinks. The tools in SEOprofiler help you to build backlinks as efficiently as possible. While it is not possible to automate the link building process, the tools can make your life much easier:
Try
SEOprofiler now risk-free!
|
| 2. Search engine news and articles of the week |
Google close variant exact match conversion rate 52%
lower than true exact match"In late-September last year, Google rolled out mandatory close variant matching (CVM) to all phrase and exact match keywords. The change forced phrase and exact match keywords into auctions for queries that were deemed to be closely related to each keyword, such as plurals and misspellings. [...]
"Hacked sites can harm users by serving malicious software, collecting personal information, or redirecting them to sites they didn't intend to visit. Webmasters want to fix hacked sites quickly, but unfortunately recovering from a hack can be a complicated process." "Reviews are hard. Particularly at Yelp. Most Americans have no desire to leave a review. When you combine that fact with fragmented market share and review site policies it becomes even more difficult."
"Google has acted as judge, jury and executioner in the wake of Europe’s right to be forgotten ruling. But what does society lose when a private corporation rules public information?" Why won’t Google talk about mobile [ads] like everyone else? "Google has remained relatively cryptic in the way it discusses mobile advertising performance, and unlike its competitors, has refused to break out mobile ad results. [...] Why doesn’t Google tell the market what’s going on in its mobile ad business? Perhaps no good can come of it." Search engine newslets
|
Google case studies: fixing hacked sites 
| 3. Recommended resources |
|
SEOprofiler is a full featured web-based SEO tool that offers everything you need to get high rankings on Google:
Create a free trial account now or test the full version. |
| 4. Previous articles |