The Angela Experiment: aka Let's gang up on Angela thread

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by djbory

Hey Steven,

I’ve been following your posts; you seem to be a very knowledgeable and experienced guy. What would you do if a website is in page one of Google for a few KW’s and one good day it just disappeared? It is any way to get that site back to first page? Or is it done for good?

DJBory

It happens. I had one site go off for about 10 days to two weeks, then it came back and was ranked higher after that.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

There can be many reasons for this condition and it almost always has to do with content -- such as keyword stuffing -- and things other than backlinking.

That is what people don't seem to understand. I test every, single, site with my Angela page and my Backlinks article. Every site. If Google was actually banning sites for some of those backlinks, or if Google was "noticing" that some of the links were being removed and then banning people, then why are my two things still at the top of Google out of MILLIONS of competing sites??? And yes, I'm on the "list" created by some of the websites too...of people not to allow into their sites. And I'm on Ufaq's "blacklist".

All of the same things happened to me that may have happened to you as you are doing your backlinks, and my stuff is still at the top!

And my links are still somewhat "diverse", too. Although I have to only put sites where links can be added 'under the radar' now, they are NOT all one type of site or one method of placing the link. Only a HUMAN would know that they are 'profile' links. And technically, they are NOT all "profile" links; go back into July's packet and take a look...you'll see. Thousands of people sign up on sites and only lurk. Thousands. On many sites, more people lurk than actually post. Ask any forum owner. This has been a well known fact since forums and "community type" sites began.

Not to mention that pretty much everyone who has posted on this thread has a sig file to add to their backlinks which blows the "the only backlinks you have are profile links" right out of the water.

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by geosandler

Yes, I bought their stuff. I´m telling my experience because in my sites I didn´t use nothing more for baclinks only their packages. And I´m sure that my site was banned because when I review it in google webmaster center this text appears in a red box: "This site may be in violation of Google's quality guidelines. More Details". When I click in more details this appears: "Pages on your site may not appear in Google search results pages due to violations of the Google webmaster guidelines. Please review our webmaster guide lines and modify your site so that it meets those guidelines. Once your site meets our guidelines, you can request reconsideration and we'll evaluate your site. Submit a reconsideration request" For this is that I think that my site was banned.
My site is only a simple blog with original text and nothing more and I didn´t use any other technique of backlinks. Maybe for others their packages were useful but for me don´t.

Geo,
Firstly, that right sucks. Sorry to hear it mate. However Steve is right, there are many other factors that may have contributed to this happening. Maybe once you get your post count up you can PM the site URL to someone that can pinpoint exactly why it happened. There are plenty of cats around here that I'm sure would help you out. I would be willing to look at it myself, but there are likely others around here more adept at that sort of thing.

I can only tell you that in my experience with Angela's and Paul's packets, I have seen nothing but positive results. Thankfully even my "dances with Google" only lasted a few days to a week.

Keep us posted.

[4morereferrals]

Dude ...

Where do you come up with this stuff ?

Its a database and an algo ... not a living breathing ... reasoning human being with LIFE experience. C'mon.

Originally Posted by Joe118

OK, while I agree that a signal from a single website is not going to affect your ranking, however, a signal from a set A of significant authority sites, about removing links from another significant set of sites B, may or may not affect your ranking. Especially if the link creation and link removal times follow a common pattern.

It'd have to be on a really huge scale though, something that google could believe didn't represent the manipulation of any one website owner or even a group of website owners. I don't have any idea whether losing 20-30% of your backlinks from (just as an example) Angela's backlinks packets, when it happens to hundreds of other sites at the same time, and when the links were originally *all* on profile pages, is significant for google.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Dude ...

Where do you come up with this stuff ?

Its a database and an algo ... not a living breathing ... reasoning human being with LIFE experience. C'mon.

Actually, what he says makes some sense and a lot of HEAVY hitting SEO guys subscribe to that exact thinking.

Google Caches the pages and them comes back and your links aren't there...

I'm not sure whether it is fact or not, but I do know that I have heard this reasoning from some people that I would definitely trust about SEO.

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Dude ...

Where do you come up with this stuff ?

Its a database and an algo ... not a living breathing ... reasoning human being with LIFE experience. C'mon.

Its a constantly maintained and continually modified algorithm that gets adapted for new situations by humans.

H-U-M-A-N-S programmed that machine and make it do what they want.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Actually, what he says makes some sense and a lot of HEAVY hitting SEO guys subscribe to that exact thinking.

Google Caches the pages and them comes back and your links aren't there...

I'm not sure whether it is fact or not, but I do know that I have heard this reasoning from some people that I would definitely trust about SEO.

The internet is in a constant state of change. Every second, hundreds of thousands of sites change things. New sites are born and old sites die away. Anyone who was on the old Warrior Forum knows that the links they had on that site are gone now. So is Google going to "notice" that and penalize all of us because of it? Google would have to know WHY every, single link was removed in order to create a penalty.

People don't realize the scope of the Internet. Bank Robbers often have a car outside the bank with a "getaway driver" inside of it with the engine running so they can get away fast. Pretty common. So I think the police in EVERY country in the world should arrest EVERY driver of EVERY car parked outside of a bank with the engine running. Forget the idea that sometimes the passenger simply needs to run into the bank and make a quick transaction or make a quick deposit in the night depository; I KNOW that every car that's parked outside of a bank with a driver inside with the engine running is a bank robbers' "getaway car" and I am going to call the authorities every time I see it.

See how ridiculous that is?

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Angela,

You crack me up

Everyone has OPINIONS about SEO, but you kind of take the cake when you make statements like you do..

You are NOT an SEO expert and trying to put yourself off as one isn't right.

The fact that you refuse to even consider other reasons for why things happen shows just how much you have to learn.

I could quote a bunch of things that you have said in this thread and intelligently dispute them, but at this point, trying to debate SEO with people that know everything is a waste of time

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Dude ...

Where do you come up with this stuff ?

YouTube - Cargo Cult

One day the Google bird will bring gifts from on high and bring us wealth and riches.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Angela,

You crack me up

Everyone has OPINIONS about SEO, but you kind of take the cake when you make statements like you do..

You are NOT an SEO expert and trying to put yourself off as one isn't right.

The fact that you refuse to even consider other reasons for why things happen shows just how much you have to learn.

I could quote a bunch of things that you have said in this thread and intelligently dispute them, but at this point, trying to debate SEO with people that know everything is a waste of time

I debate what I test and what works. Like I already said, I tested EVERY site with my Angela page and my Backlinks article and those are still at the top!!

I'm not trying to "put myself off" as anything. I am simply pointing out the results of my OWN testing. People keep saying all sorts of things either ARE happening or WILL happen without any tangible evidence whatsoever.

I'm here WITH hard, fast, provable evidence that you can see and people are STILL debating about it.

Those of you who are worried about sites that a bunch of people are going to at the same time, think about this point:

Digital Point has over a hundred THOUSAND members and people post list of sites there ALL the time for people to get links from. If a bunch of people going to sites and getting a link was going to "shut down" backlink capability forever, it would have happened years before I ever started my program.

[Sam101]

Originally Posted by geosandler

Yes, I bought their stuff. I´m telling my experience because in my sites I didn´t use nothing more for baclinks only their packages. And I´m sure that my site was banned because when I review it in google webmaster center this text appears in a red box: "This site may be in violation of Google's quality guidelines. More Details". When I click in more details this appears: "Pages on your site may not appear in Google search results pages due to violations of the Google webmaster guidelines. Please review our webmaster guide lines and modify your site so that it meets those guidelines. Once your site meets our guidelines, you can request reconsideration and we'll evaluate your site. Submit a reconsideration request" For this is that I think that my site was banned.
My site is only a simple blog with original text and nothing more and I didn´t use any other technique of backlinks. Maybe for others their packages were useful but for me don´t.

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

There can be many reasons for this condition and it almost always has to do with content -- such as keyword stuffing -- and things other than backlinking.

Check your own site geosandler, it may have got hacked! I am serious, not kidding. It happened to me once. Check your site files for any that you have not uploaded or shouldn't be there in the first place, check your pages for hidden text (or text in white font). Googlebot can easily detect these and classify your site as spammy and/or even dangerous.
Best is to do a cleanup of all pages (if possible) and re-upload. Then use the Google Webmaster forum to ask for help and request reconsideration. They will re-index your site within a few days.

[zerofill]

The Google Dance - As it is referred to in this thread is the processing of a site after it's initial review to see where it really fits into the serps. At what position it belongs.

When a new site is placed say on the first page, the entire history of data collected for that site is taken into consideration along with backlinks etc.

When a backlink is removed does it hurt the site? No it doesn't place a negative flag on the site unless it has had A LOT of backlinks removed. However the site is reevaluated based on the current status along with what votes were cast and a lot of other information that people don't realize that Google collects.

So the short answer is no it doesn't give your site a negative slap on the hand as far as a penalty. However in reality you are penalized because you lost a good backlink. So overall it does affect you. Now if you start to get tons of votes (Backlinks) and tons of them are removed...You will be noticing your rankings slip sliding away...Why? Because Google takes into consideration the fact that you are losing votes like a madman. There must be a reason...Time to reevaluate you.

Frankly we build our own network of sites so we have some control over how they are linked together, how PageRank is shared, and how the sites are crawled... Which is really what most people should be doing. Instead of just spamming back to their main site over and over. That is the difference between flash in the pan SEO and longevity. That is also the difference between consistant money you can walk away from a day job for, and a month to month battle to stay afloat.

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

YouTube - Cargo Cult

One day the Google bird will bring gifts from on high and bring us wealth and riches.

Fun video to watch!

If you're implying that I believe Google is some kind of cargo cult god, then you've missed ENTIRELY what I was saying. Quite the opposite. Google's search engine is a creation of humans and it does what those humans intend it to do. If at any time those humans want to make it not show profile spam -- to call the baby by its name -- then they can change it to do so.

And Angela -- the example of the getaway car cracks me up. There are in fact laws about loitering and disruptive public behavior which are *very effectively* used by police to arrest drug dealers and public drunks and whores, respectively. The existence of these laws does not imply that the police will (or even *can*) arrest you just for standing on the street corners with a trench coat with bulging pockets The police are a lot smarter than that, and so is the machine that google engineers created.

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by zerofill

Frankly we build our own network of sites so we have some control over how they are linked together, how PageRank is shared, and how the sites are crawled...

Halleluya. Finally someone said what I was referring to yesterday by saying "the answer is right in front of your nose".

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards

Digital Point has over a hundred THOUSAND members and people post list of sites there ALL the time for people to get links from. If a bunch of people going to sites and getting a link was going to "shut down" backlink capability forever, it would have happened years before I ever started my program.

This is completely disingenious.

1. Search engines have cracked down on buying links. Buying a bunch of links -- noone knows the trigger threshhold -- *WILL* penalize your site.
2. The fact that something works now does not mean it will work tomorrow. Search engines are improving constantly. With better analysis, they could, if they wanted, start taking into account only links from relevant sites.

[Gabby12]

Angela has probably used more of these links than any of us and her "angela" site is still #2 out of 77mil with thousands of backlinks. I'm sure it has had many profile links deleted and it still ranks high, pr5 also. I hope losing a few of these links will not affect our sites. Will have to wait and see.
Mark

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Originally Posted by Gabby12

Angela has probably used more of these links than any of us and her "angela" site is still #2 out of 77mil with thousands of backlinks. I'm sure it has had many profile links deleted and it still ranks high, pr5 also. I hope losing a few of these links will not affect our sites. Will have to wait and see.
Mark

Her domain is also 2 years old and has little to no competition for the keyword "angela".

Again, I think Angelas packet is a good product, as I have said in this thread a couple of times. I just think that some of the things that are stated in this thread as FACT when it comes to SEO it would be irresponsible to not try to chime in a little bit.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Joe118

This is completely disingenious.

1. Search engines have cracked down on buying links. Buying a bunch of links -- noone knows the trigger threshhold -- *WILL* penalize your site.
2. The fact that something works now does not mean it will work tomorrow. Search engines are improving constantly. With better analysis, they could, if they wanted, start taking into account only links from relevant sites.

Yes, but they'd have to know what is "relevant" and that will take a LOT of human interaction. A site for parents might link to a veterinarian's website because the site has a warning about a certain flea medication being poisonous to children, Yellow Pages websites might link to businesses in the area, the Fire Department's website might link to the PUD (Electric Company) because of a warning about electrical sparks, the Food Bank might link to the local High School because of a huge food drive the kids did...see what I mean? To determine "relevance" would take CONSTANT human interaction on all the TRILLION webpages on the Internet. Many Web 2.0 sites' only "relevance" to anybody is the 'community factor' that they provide. Theme-wise, many of those sites aren't "relevant" to most niches.

You are correct in that the search engines are in a state of "continuous improvement". But joining Web 2.0 sites is NOT a negative thing, anyway, so there's no reason to penalize it, even if people DO have links on those sites. Again, millions of people have been putting their stuff on Social Bookmarking sites for a long, long time now and that hasn't gone away.

My point in bringing up Digital Point is to show that even if a whole bunch of people DO get a list of sites to get backlinks from, that doesn't mean this will ruin them all, or that Google is going to notice that sort of thing and prevent all backlinks from all of these types of sites. How do you think this site got 20,000 spam posts in one week? I can assure you it's because it was on SOMEBODY'S "list of sites to get a link from"; maybe even the Digital Point forums.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Her domain is also 2 years old and has little to no competition for the keyword "angela".

Again, I think Angelas packet is a good product, as I have said in this thread a couple of times. I just think that some of the things that are stated in this thread as FACT when it comes to SEO it would be irresponsible to not try to chime in a little bit.

I only state what I have tested and can show to be true.

[Joe118]

Changing Title Meta Tag can hurt Google Rankings | Google Success SEO SEM Tips

Example of how easy it actually *is* for google to shut down anything they dont like. Granted, this is on-page SEO, not off-page, so it's a lot easier to determine what's happening.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Thank you for posting that, Joe. However, all I see is a blog post and some comments. I don't see any type of evidence, showing that what this person is saying is true. He hasn't linked to anything or shown any kind of proof that what he's saying is right. So once again, all we have is "someone said". Just like most of the things we keep hearing about backlinks and SEO.

My friend Rick, who is number one for Star Trek Computer Sound (he's a big "trekkie" and he wanted to rank for this particular keyword) didn't have a title Meta Tag on that page for a WEEK after it became number one. It was only with my prompting that he even added the title Meta Tag. The titles are important for the searchers; not for the SERPS. We want people to see that our site is about what they were searching for, and that's what the title tag does for our sites. But it didn't do anything to Rick's ranking when he added the Meta Tag. It was number one before he added it and it is number one today.

P.S. I changed my "Angela" page title tag to Angela/Angela from Aberdeen and then back to Angela from Aberdeen. None of that hurt my rankings.

[axleman]

Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards

Thank you for posting that, Joe. However, all I see is a blog post and some comments. I don't see any type of evidence, showing that what this person is saying is true. He hasn't linked to anything or shown any kind of proof that what he's saying is right. So once again, all we have is "someone said". Just like most of the things we keep hearing about backlinks and SEO.

My friend Rick, who is number one for Star Trek Computer Sound (he's a big "trekkie" and he wanted to rank for this particular keyword) didn't have a title Meta Tag on that page for a WEEK after it became number one. It was only with my prompting that he even added the title Meta Tag. The titles are important for the searchers; not for the SERPS. We want people to see that our site is about what they were searching for, and that's what the title tag does for our sites. But it didn't do anything to Rick's ranking when he added the Meta Tag. It was number one before he added it and it is number one today.

Well, if he is already #1, then obviously nothing else he does will improve his rankings. That doesn't mean search engines don't use title tags in their ranking algos though.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Yes, but the post was all about how changing your Title Meta Tags can HURT your rankings:

Changing Title Meta Tag can hurt Google Rankings


not about how it can help. My friend added a Meta Tag to a page that didn't have it in the first place and I changed mine and then changed it back again and none of that hurt my rankings.

People say a LOT of things about SEO and backlinks. And a lot of it has no basis in truth. Unless the person can prove to you that what they are saying is true (even if they are "Experts" like this blogger claims to be), then you should take it with a grain of salt.

[Joe118]

That's correct Angela. At this point its he-said-she-said

Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards

Yes, but the post was all about how changing your Title Meta Tags can HURT your rankings:

Changing Title Meta Tag can hurt Google Rankings


not about how it can help. My friend added a Meta Tag to a page that didn't have it in the first place and I changed mine and then changed it back again and none of that hurt my rankings.

People say a LOT of things about SEO and backlinks. And a lot of it has no basis in truth. Unless the person can prove to you that what they are saying is true (even if they are "Experts" like this blogger claims to be), then you should take it with a grain of salt.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Joe118

If you're implying that I believe Google is some kind of cargo cult god, then you've missed ENTIRELY what I was saying.

I was just implying that there's a lot of 'cargo cult' SEO around. Most of it is as effective as building an airplane out of bamboo and fashioning your own mike out of sticks.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Originally Posted by Franco Mocke

I really wish that people could stop using the "out of seven billion" argument, it is NOT a valid method of testing the competition. The keyword "is am are the they" has 3,450,000,000 results, but I can bet you that no one competes for it.

The fifth result is a myspace page! Don't tell me "angela" is competitive it is not

DING DING DING DING

Holy Crap!!!

We have a winner!

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

I was just implying that there's a lot of 'cargo cult' SEO around. Most of it is as effective as building an airplane out of bamboo and fashioning your own mike out of sticks.

Thanks for that.

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

DING DING DING DING

Holy Crap!!!

We have a winner!

Actually I have a website specifically built for that search term. It's getting thousands of hits per month, and it's raking in millions, man! Don't ding this freakin money maker...

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Originally Posted by Joe118

Actually I have a website specifically built for that search term. It's getting thousands of hits per month, and it's raking in millions, man! Don't ding this freakin money maker...

lol....Yeah

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Franco Mocke

I really wish that people could stop using the "out of seven billion" argument, it is NOT a valid method of testing the competition. The keyword "is am are the they" has 3,450,000,000 results, but I can bet you that no one competes for it.

The fifth result is a myspace page! Don't tell me "angela" is competitive it is not.

Rather say to me that the fact that she ranks for "backlinks" on the first page is an achievement.

There's actually a movie named Angela; the IMDB site (Page Rank 8) is right below my page. There is also someone on MySpace (Page Rank 8) who worked HARD to compete for the name Angela (she has almost 50,000 friends) who is also not very far below my page in the listings. And then you have the Wikipedia user (page rank 8) named Angela and the book Angela's Ashes on Amazon (Page Rank 9) that are also competing on Page One for that keyword. And you also have the New York City photographer named Angela who's in the Page One lineup for the keyword. People "assume" that 'no one competes' for the Angela keyword, but again, that is speculation and conjecture from people who wouldn't try to compete with that keyword themselves. Angela has over a thousand searches a day and there are very good reasons to compete for that particular keyword.

With all those Authority Sites on Page One of Google ranking for the keyword Angela, I would have to say that the competition for that keyword is actually pretty fierce; it's especially so if you're in the camp that believes your real competition for any keyword are the sites on Page One only.

[axleman]

Just for fun, I ran "angela" through Micro Niche Finder and checked the SOC. Very high (1,690,000 for those whom this number will mean something).

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Too much misinformation, too many assumptions, and too much voodoo thinking. Sometimes I have to bite my tongue. I think much of it comes from an over-inflated sense of ourselves and our own misguided belief in exactly how important our own little sites are in the scheme of the Web, and perhaps from a guilty conscience over some of the tactics we may use to try and get our sites well-ranked.

"Oh, my site fell off the front page today, Google must have noticed that I added 26 backlinks last month and they're all links inside profiles on sites that don't relate to mine!"

The Google conspiracy is fun, too:

"Oh, I added GWT to my site and that's why it took a dump in the rankings, Google must be scared of competition!"

Yeah, Google's trembling in fear and is looking to snag your $170 in eBay commissions. And Google only noticed your site because you added it to GWT, they had no idea it even existed before that.

The best one of all is the old "but that's the only thing I've changed" argument. "Oh, my site was ranked #3 overall for my keywords last month and this month I only changed XYZ and now my site fell off the front page, Google must be penalizing me for XYZ".

And when you hear a creak in the middle of the night, it absolutely must be a ghost, there's no other explanation, right?

Sorry friend, that's NOT all that changed. It isn't "all about YOU," it's all about the index. While you may have only changed XYZ, don't you realize that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of others out there changing their sites to try an out-rank YOU? Don't you realize that sites age, new links are added to competing sites, that ranking algos change, that links get deleted, that crawl rates change, that new sites come online and old sites go away, that PR gets adjusted, that content gets modified, that new content is added, that meta data gets modified, that... well you get the picture. And the common thread among ALL of those things is that they are happening OUTSIDE of your site.

Every day, all day long.

Remember this: if YOU can take action on your own pages to improve it in the rankings, then other site owners can do the same for their pages as well. You haven't been granted exclusive special powers to move your site up and down in the rankings based on your own whim. If you're in a NASCAR race I can assure that the other drivers on the track are not sitting still, allowing you to drive your car in and around them and in front of them just because you want to.

That's right, friend: you may be sitting idly, clinging to your #3 ranking for a particular keyword and you may have added a few backlinks. But the rest of the world isn't just sitting still, they're working to get ahead of you. Everybody wants to be on the front page of Google, friend. So next time you say "I only changed XYZ and now my site got knocked down 20 pegs by Google" stop for a second and remember: it isn't all about you and your 5 page Clickbank affiliate site and some small changes you may have made to it.

Google has over 1 trillion URL's in their database. Over one TRILLION. Google handles over 9 billion search queries per month. 9 BILLION.

Sites rise, sites fall. Every single day. Hell, thanks to distributed data, we all aren't even searching the same Google when we search.

Come on, people.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by axleman

Just for fun, I ran "angela" through Micro Niche Finder and checked the SOC. Very high (1,690,000 for those whom this number will mean something).

I have that software but I am VERY "untechie" and I wish I knew how to actually use it.

Steven: that was an excellent post and you are 100% correct. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it.

[Kurt]

First, the title tag is not actually a meta tag. The title tag is a required html tag, meta tags are optional. You can tell a meta tag because it says "meta" in the tag.

Your advice saying that the title tag doesn't matter to SEs is the WORST advice I've heard in a long time, to the point of being dangerous and harmful.

The simple truth is, your friend's keywords "Star Trek Computer Sound" are only competing against 3 other sites, using my "inz" method of SE competition, which is using the following special Google search parameters at once:

intitle
inanchor
intext

This means a webpage must have the keywords in ALL three places in order for it to count in the results. I would add the inurl command, but it doesn't (didn't)work with the other three elements.

These results can be verified here:
intitle:"Star Trek Computer Sound" inanchor:"Star Trek Computer Sound" intext:"Star Trek Computer Sound" - Google Search=

See how there's only four results? Assuming your friend's site is included, it really only has three other competitors that have any type of basic on-page SEO. I wouldn't be so bold as to claim title tags don't matter to the SEs based on the lack of competion for these keywords.

The page title is, and has been, the most important element of on-page SEO for my entire 13 years of doing SEO. If you get one thing right, its include the keywords in your page title. This is the FIRST step in on-page SEO. And if you're going to dispute this, you better provide better evidence than one observation based on keywords with virtually non-existent competition.

Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards

Yes, but the post was all about how changing your Title Meta Tags can HURT your rankings:

Changing Title Meta Tag can hurt Google Rankings


not about how it can help. My friend added a Meta Tag to a page that didn't have it in the first place and I changed mine and then changed it back again and none of that hurt my rankings.

People say a LOT of things about SEO and backlinks. And a lot of it has no basis in truth. Unless the person can prove to you that what they are saying is true (even if they are "Experts" like this blogger claims to be), then you should take it with a grain of salt.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Franco Mocke

That is because the google results without quotes are about 70 million. SOC is calculated using allinacnhor, allintitle, allintext to calculate the value, and because the allintext is extremely high the SOC will be very high.

The results WITH quotes are also over 70 million.

[Angela V. Edwards]

Originally Posted by Kurt

First, the title tag is not actually a meta tag. The title tag is a required html tag, meta tags are optional. You can tell a meta tag because it says "meta" in the tag.

Your advice saying that the title tag doesn't matter to SEs is the WORST advice I've heard in a long time, to the point of being dangerous and harmful.

The simple truth is, your friend's keywords "Star Trek Computer Sound" are only competing against 3 other sites, using my "inz" method of SE competition, which is using the following special Google search parameters at once:

intitle
inanchor
intext

This means a webpage must have the keywords in ALL three places in order for it to count in the results. I would add the inurl command, but it doesn't (didn't)work with the other three elements.

These results can be verified here:
intitle:"Star Trek Computer Sound" inanchor:"Star Trek Computer Sound" intext:"Star Trek Computer Sound" - Google Search=

See how there's only four results? Assuming your friend's site is included, it really only has three other competitors that have any type of basic on-page SEO. I wouldn't be so bold as to claim title tags don't matter to the SEs based on the lack of competion for these keywords.

The page title is, and has been, the most important element of on-page SEO for my entire 13 years of doing SEO. If you get one thing right, its include the keywords in your page title. This is the FIRST step in on-page SEO. And if you're going to dispute this, you better provide better evidence than one observation based on keywords with virtually non-existent competition.

Yes and you have a lot of great points. The Title Tag is usually in the same area as the Meta Tags; whether or not the tag is actually a "Meta Tag" or not is splitting hairs. My friend did NOT have a Title Tag on the page at all until I prompted him to put it there. Don't get me wrong; I think title tags are VERY important; however the blog post said that if you change them, this will HURT your rankings. I changed mine twice and my friend added his for the first time and neither site was affected in the rankings. Remember, I am only stating what I've personally tested and seen with my own eyes.

There actually weren't ANY sites with all this criteria at first, if I remember right. But the people searching for that keyword don't know all that stuff and what they see when they DO search doesn't show those types of results. My friend, who is a big trekkie, carefully chose those particular keywords because of the heavy daily search volume for them. And they are working beautifully for him, too...he doesn't have a site that has to "convert" traffic into sales for a particular product. His site is different and the heavy traffic he is getting from being at the top for those heavily searched-for keywords is bringing a lot of folks to his site who are looking at and listening to many other things, as well. And that's what he wanted.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

Sorry friend, that's NOT all that changed. It isn't "all about YOU," it's all about the index. While you may have only changed XYZ, don't you realize that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of others out there changing their sites to try an out-rank YOU? Don't you realize that sites age, new links are added to competing sites, that ranking algos change, that links get deleted, that crawl rates change, that new sites come online and old sites go away, that PR gets adjusted, that content gets modified, that new content is added, that meta data gets modified, that... well you get the picture. And the common thread among ALL of those things is that they are happening OUTSIDE of your site.



Sites rise, sites fall. Every single day. Hell, thanks to distributed data, we all aren't even searching the same Google when we search.

Come on, people.

This seems to contradict your keyword research advice that we are only competing with the top 10 keywords for a particular search?

To be honest, this post is the most accurate, IMO. The idea about your competition only being the Top 10 in the SERPs has been disproven by this recent post of your own. EVERYONE trying to gain SE traffic for a particular keyword phrase is your really competition, even if they aren't in the Top 10 now.

As you said, there are many "googles". There are also personalized results and regional results, maybe even for each "google". The Top 10 theory may have been fairly accurate a couple of years ago, but nowadays, which Top 10 do you check? Are you checking my personalized results? My regional results? His? Hers? Their's?

We can debate this on another thread if you prefer, as it's way off topic for this thread. But be prepared to explain why you say there are only 10 competors, then say there are many googles and many more competitors in this thread.

[axleman]

Originally Posted by Franco Mocke

That is because the google results without quotes are about 70 million. SOC is calculated using allinacnhor, allintitle, allintext to calculate the value, and because the allintext is extremely high the SOC will be very high.

You sure about that? I see inanchor, intitle, & inurl. Nothing about text.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by Kurt

This seems to contradict your keyword research advice that we are only competing with the top 10 keywords for a particular search?

Not a contradiction at all. We (as online marketers) are "competing" with the top 10 sites in Google because that's where the bulk of the traffic is. The competition for the REAL traffic is all on page one. That's why my advice is to focus on those pages, not the other hundreds of thousands that will surpass to be on page one.

If I'm ranked #220 for a keyword phrase and as few sites out-SEO's me and I get knocked down from #220 to #228, how much traffic have I lost to my site? But if I'm ranked #2 overall in Google and get knocked down those same eight slots, THEN how much traffic have I lost?

Originally Posted by Kurt

To be honest, this post is the most accurate, IMO. The idea about your competition only being the Top 10 in the SERPs has been disproven by this recent post of your own.

Incorrect. You should be shooting to be on the front page of Google, period. In fact, you should be shooting to be #1 overall for your keyword phrase. Therefore, the pages you must outrank are right there on page one. You need not look any further. If you're not shooting for page one, then you're not serious.

Do you go into SEO hoping to land on page 5? Is your work a success when you get your pages ranked #47 overall? Does an Olympic athlete go into the games, training to hopefully finish #8th overall in their event? Clearly not, I would hope.

The point of the ten competitors concept is that this is where your focus must be, and the number of resulting pages for a particular keyword phrase is completely irrelevant as to whether you are able to rank in the top ten or not. Whether there are four thousand or four billion pages for your keyword phrase, the pages you SHOULD be trying to beat are all on page one.

In this thread I'm talking about the idea that some people believe that they are trying to move their sites in vacuum, and it simply isn't the case. My point is that others are trying to do the same, for the most part. Therefore, you must realize that your sites ranking is not only affected by what YOU do, but by a myriad of forces outside of your control.

That's why the "Top 10" competition idea is even MORE important. Outrank sites in the top ten and you don't need to worry about the other 990 sites Google will return for a search query. It's a mindset, mentality: "top 10 or bust".

THAT'S your competition, because from page two on down there ain't a whole lot of traffic by percentage of the overall.

Originally Posted by Kurt

EVERYONE trying to gain SE traffic for a particular keyword phrase is your really competition, even if they aren't in the Top 10 now.

But you can't identify those people or their efforts. You CAN identify those sites that are already ranked in the top ten.

Originally Posted by Kurt

As you said, there are many "googles". There are also personalized results and regional results, maybe even for each "google". The Top 10 theory may have been fairly accurate a couple of years ago, but nowadays, which Top 10 do you check? Are you checking my personalized results? My regional results? His? Hers? Their's?

That's why you don't stop. You can't say: "Whew, I'm #2 overall, I'm done. Glad that's over, time to retire!"

Originally Posted by Kurt

We can debate this on another thread if you prefer, as it's way off topic for this thread. But be prepared to explain why you say there are only 10 competors, then say there are many googles and many more competitors in this thread.

See above, fully explained.

[belgirl]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Angela,

You crack me up

Everyone has OPINIONS about SEO, but you kind of take the cake when you make statements like you do..

You are NOT an SEO expert and trying to put yourself off as one isn't right.

The fact that you refuse to even consider other reasons for why things happen shows just how much you have to learn.

I could quote a bunch of things that you have said in this thread and intelligently dispute them, but at this point, trying to debate SEO with people that know everything is a waste of time

Sigh...can we please stop being condescending and get back on point? Everyone has varying opinions on SEO, and it does not elevate the conversation by being arrogant. As I have stated before, no matter how much experience everyone thinks they have, SEO can never be fully mastered and we can all learn something from other's experiences....

Back to the original post: I am curious as to why you all think my experiment did not work--although it has worked for others...here are some possibilities..

1. Weird long tail keyword
2. Not enough backlinks (did over 30)
3. Backlinks were removed by site owner
4. Changing link from affiliate link to GoArticle.com link killed it

Let's keep it to constructive criticism please! Thanks!

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Originally Posted by belgirl

Sigh...can we please stop being condescending and get back on point? Everyone has varying opinions on SEO, and it does not elevate the conversation by being arrogant.

Who is being condescending and arrogant?

The only thing I was trying to do was to help people in this thread to not get sucked into ideas and statements that were and are being made that can be damaging to their SEO efforts.

I have enough sites out there that rank very well for money words that If I wanted to be arrogant, there would have been no question that I was doing so.

Originally Posted by belgirl

As I have stated before, no matter how much experience everyone thinks they have, SEO can never be fully mastered and we can all learn something from other's experiences....

Which is exactly what I have stated in this thread more than once.

Originally Posted by belgirl

Back to the original post: I am curious as to why you all think my experiment did not work

I guess I will just leave this question for Angela since hers seems to be the only view point you seem to think is correct.

[axleman]

Originally Posted by belgirl

Back to the original post: I am curious as to why you all think my experiment did not work--although it has worked for others...here are some possibilities..

1. Weird long tail keyword
2. Not enough backlinks (did over 30)
3. Backlinks were removed by site owner
4. Changing link from affiliate link to GoArticle.com link killed it

Let's keep it to constructive criticism please! Thanks!

I'm not an expert, but I'll take a crack at it.

1. No idea

2. Depending on your competition's links and assuming that phrase was uncompetitive to begin with, I would think 30 would be plenty for that(just basing this on my own site's performance.) Assuming Google knew about your links. You can have a billion awesome links, but if Google doesn't know about them, what good are they?

3. Possible, if they were ones that Google had used previously to calculate your rank.

4. I'm sure this didn't help any

[jdmeg6warriror]

Not meant to Hijack this thread or change subjects, but what is everyone using to Automate Angelas and pauls backlink packets. its taking me like 5+ hours to do 50 sites . ill like to speed things up a bit

[Angela V. Edwards]

No one is saying that my viewpoint is the only one that Belgirl thinks is correct.

The only thing I was trying to do was to help people in this thread to not get sucked into ideas and statements that were and are being made that can be damaging to their SEO efforts.

And I'm doing the same thing. Once again, I am stating concepts that I have empirical evidence that I can show you to prove. Very little of what I see repeated here and in other places has evidence to prove that it's correct, including the blog post that was posted here just today about how changing your Title Tag can hurt your rankings. So someone who calls himself an "SEO Expert" says something is true? Where is the evidence? Where is the proof? Just today, you said:

Actually, what he says makes some sense and a lot of HEAVY hitting SEO guys subscribe to that exact thinking.

Google Caches the pages and them comes back and your links aren't there...

I'm not sure whether it is fact or not, but I do know that I have heard this reasoning from some people that I would definitely trust about SEO.

and yet~absolutely zero proof has been offered as to where people got this idea from. Nothing, nada, zip. It's a hypothesis; nothing more.

It doesn't matter if you think that I am NOT an SEO "expert" or not. I actually offer proof to back up what I say.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Angela,

Your "I offered proof" argument is getting pretty old.

You've shows a couple of sites and keywords that noone else on this forum would want to rank for.

You've shown that you can rank for keywords that have Zero monetary value in the eyes of MARKETERS.

So, your proof means nothing to anyone that isn't glassy eyed and wet behind the ears.

On top of that, another one of your subscribers has been threatened with a lawsuit for posting links to your packet.

Just sayin...

[Angela V. Edwards]

It doesn't matter if anyone else on this forum wants to rank for my keywords. The truth is, I'm beating out IMDB, Wikipedia, MySpace, and Amazon for my keyword. Those are major, "Authority" websites.

The "lawsuit threat" also did NOT come from any site in my packet, but once again if a site doesn't like our links there, it's only right to remove them and move on, but backlinks are not illegal and there is no law, criminal or civil, that a website can win a lawsuit with over someone putting a simple backlink on their site...unless they were hacking the site or something.

[Angela V. Edwards]

I also think it's pretty low class to send the following email to your list:

Subj: Important Message From Jeremy - Please Read


Hello Everyone,

I know it's not common for someone to tell you NOT to
use or buy a product, but as current members or previous
members of our coaching program, I feel it is my responsibility
to alert you guys when in the past I recommend something to
you that could be potentially dangerous to your sites and rankings.

In the past, I have HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Angelas backlink package.
However, recently things are not going so good. Due to the large number
of people that get these links the site owners are switching from follow to
Nofollow, deleting profiles, making legal threats for spamming, and in some
cases reporting your URL to the search engines as SPAM.

If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to ask,

Jeremy

That's REALLY low class for a "marketer", don't you think? It wasn't even a site in MY packet that claimed to "report your URL to the search engines as SPAM", and you still sent it out to your list in order to cause me damage.

Digital Point has over a hundred THOUSAND members and people post list of sites there ALL the time for people to get links from. If a bunch of people going to sites and getting a link was going to "shut down" backlink capability forever, it would have happened years before I ever started my program.

[Joe118]

Originally Posted by Angela V. Edwards

I also think it's pretty low class to send the following email to your list:

That's REALLY low class for a "marketer", don't you think? It wasn't even a site in MY packet that claimed to "report your URL to the search engines as SPAM", and you still sent it out to your list in order to cause me damage.

Everyone runs his list to maximize his/her profit. I don't expect you to recommend my free packets. If you do, great. If not, then tough. At one time he recommends your product, now he doesn't anymore. That's life.

And are you saying that Jeremy should also dis-recommend Paul's product because he's the one who posted that site that threatened Paul with hauling him into the FBI? At least that's what I understood

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Angela,

I'm not really that interested in other marketers liking me when it comes to how I handle my list...

I recommended your service to hundreds of people in my bootcamps and via my list and I wasn't even an affiliate.

I tried to talk to you about my concerns about a month ago privately through PM and you dismissed me. Your attitude here shows that you are going to keep pimping your packet to as many people as possible regardless of the fact that they could cause harm to peoples sites.

My loyalty is to my customers and subscribers. I didn't tell them to cancel your subscription, I was simply making them aware of what was going on as they have a right to know.

And just to be clear...your list of sites has produced threats of legal action and reporting sites to the search engines as spam...

[Joe118]

Jeremy

The only site I know that has made threatening noises is urbis.com. Since I'm not a customer of Angela's I don't know if this site was in one of her packets or not.

If you know of other site(s) that threatened legal action, I'm sure noone -- least of all Angela -- should object to mentioning them here explicitly, since everyone's best interests are served by avoiding those sites.

Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall

Angela,

I'm not really that interested in other marketers liking me when it comes to how I handle my list...

I recommended your service to hundreds of people in my bootcamps and via my list and I wasn't even an affiliate.

I tried to talk to you about my concerns about a month ago privately through PM and you dismissed me. Your attitude here shows that you are going to keep pimping your packet to as many people as possible regardless of the fact that they could cause harm to peoples sites.

My loyalty is to my customers and subscribers. I didn't tell them to cancel your subscription, I was simply making them aware of what was going on as they have a right to know.

And just to be clear...your list of sites has produced threats of legal action and reporting sites to the search engines as spam...