Bing Talks About its Link-Building Policy

Hi Mike,

Interesting. I'm not knocking you or your advice, but I'd like to add something to what you said, based on my experiences and present an alternative way of consuming this information.

It can be quite helpful, but there are some other things to consider -

a) they have an agenda of their own

b) the size of the audience they are talking to

To elaborate on a) -

A search engine is balancing the messages it sends out between different markets. They have their 'users' - these people demand a quality experience, or they go elsewhere. They don't provide income directly to the SE, they make up the numbers which are used to provide direct income from advertisers. So you have the users and the paid advertisers. Also, you have those who don't pay them directly, but they build websites in order to gain organic traffic - these are the people (mainly) that you (they) are addressing with the advice here (although the information is always slanted towards keeping the masses (the users) happy - even though it doesn't appear to be aimed at them.)

So whenever a search engine makes an announcement about it's business, the information has to be prepared so that all parties are satisfied. There are other groups too, but the above three are probably the most important groups - users, paying advertisers, organic webmasters.

If they were to tell the organic ranking webmasters precisely how to manipulate their algorithm, any informed users (IE non-webmaster users - the public) would be put off - because they want to feel that THEY are the priority segment in the eyes of the SE and therefore that the SERPS rankings provide the most RELEVANT and helpful websites, neatly sorted purely for their benefit.

We (should) all realise that in fact the paying advertisers are the true priority in the eyes of the SE, as these people directly affect their profitability.

But the users are important too, because if they go elsewhere, everything else falls down - as you can see, it's complicated.

To elaborate on b) -

Not only do you have this difficult balance between all of the different segments of the SE's market which have to be considered when they release information.

But also you have the fact that each segment involves huge numbers of the earth's population.

Example - two different scenarios -

1. A search engine is holding a private seminar, where they are addressing their multi-million dollar advertisers, and these advertisers must pay a hefty fee to be there and must also sign an iron-clad NDA (non disclosure agreement.) Let's say (for example) there are 500 people there.

2. A search engine is giving out information to the organic webmasters in general (as in your original post above). They release it on their main website. Let's assume that their expected audience will be in the multi millions type of quantity.

Is it not safe to assume that the information given will be vastly different, BECAUSE of the quantity of people involved in example 2?

When you give information out to the masses, you can create mass movements. For example, if Google announced that it was altering it's algorithm so that backlinks were now totally ineffective - can you imagine the waves of influence this would cause across the internet for webmasters?

Millions of dollars would change hands in the IM market as people jumped on the opportunity and presented products that were designed to leverage 'Google's new algorithm.'

My point - therefore, search engines have to be VERY careful when they make public announcements about their business to the mass market. They must consider the consequences thoroughly, as anything that damaged their reputation with the users, or the paying advertisers, could have devastating effects on their profitability.

Anything that is put out in public will be examined to the nth degree - and if they make an error, those millions of people who's livelihoods might live and die by the SE's decisions would be sure to quote what they have said, and if necessary use it in class action lawsuits for example. Or paid advertisers could switch ALL of their business to a rival SE, based on one policy change.

My main point - the information provided by SE's to organic ranking webmasters about how to succeed in organic ranking is ALWAYS watered down, is always consistent across the different search engines, and if you look closely you will see that it is ALWAYS designed to make sure that the users and the paying advertisers are satisfied - it is NOT designed to actually help the organic ranking webmaster to do well - it is designed to keep him in line.

If you examine the advice it is always weighted so that it presents a picture of quality websites that will provide instant, free solutions to the seach engine users (searchers.) It will always be biased in order to nudge organic ranking seekers towards paid advertising instead.

Conclusion - it's important to put yourself in the shoes of the SE's in order to understand their challenges and their position. It's important to remember their priorities - users and paying advertisers - NOT organic ranking webmasters (who they might see as freeloaders).

It's important to read and observe what they say, but even more important to see the big picture and act accordingly - IE - do your OWN testing and find out what works best for you from these tests.

The webmaster masses (in general) will blindly follow what they are told.

The ones at the front of the pack trust no-one else to guide them, do their own tests, draw their own conclusions (based on the big picture) and look for an edge - because in search engine/internet terms, having an edge can be the difference between abject failure and more traffic/profits than most people can imagine.

The search engines know this (so they try to keep the edge and stop us from obtaining it) whereas we should always be seeking the edge.

Observe and analyse what they are saying. Read between the lines, test and find your edge.

One edge that every webmaster can capitalise on, is that there is more than one search engine to build a business around - therefore during our tests we can examine which of our ideas give us more of an edge in the different SEs, and can therefore optimise our strategy to get the most out of each different algorithm (a point which you highlighted in your OP).

Very true ExRat. I've always wondered why some people take everything that Matt Cutts says at face value. Most of the things he says have some truth in them, but your also being told things that make the SE's job easier are good things for you to do. They may or may not be. It's up to indiduals to figure out some of that on their own as you say.

Sometimes it pays to be a contrarian by nature. You don't automatically accept what the herd proclaims as the way, you take it under advisement and confirm on your own by testing it and testing the opposite in many cases. As I've said before, IM is a case of cutting the ends off the roast in many time. SEO is no different.

In othe words "why do you do that?" answer - because someone that knows more than me said to. When you finally get back to the original person that started doing it it turns out that "that" something is was done for reasons specific to their own individual case and not meant to be carried on blindly by everyone that followed them because many followers would not have the same circumstances.

In SEO today, a technique worked four years ago and is considered gospel as to how it needs to be done today, never mind that the method was exploited and the engines have discounted it and may actually penalize you for it, or the technique is still valid, but only under certain circumstances which may or may not apply to you.

Sometimes no optimization is your best optimization.