Google Caffeine Update - Preferes On-Site SEO To Backlinks - PROOF!

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Hey Warriors,

As with everything seo related people are always asking for proof. So i did some digging and found some. Actually i didn't do alot of digging but just remembered what i use to show people who asked how effective backlinking was on search engine rankings!

So if you haven't heard about the new change that will come in some time soon (or late lol) then i suggest you check out matt cutts blog!

More info on the Caffeine Update

Then once you have checked that out for more 'information' about it (heck matt doesn't give away alot anyhow), then i will show you my proof!

Okay so you have google normal version:

http://google.com

and the new google caffiene:

http://www2.sandbox.google.com

Now what i want you to search is.... click here

Its an old time favourite of mine that in normal google shows up with adobe having top position yet without even the mention of the word on its page let alone optimized for the keyphrase, that ranking is obtained just from backlinks... and lots of them with the anchor text... click here.

Then if we look in the new google then we will see that instead of adobe being top we have some other sites, the most prominent being Click Here: A Full-Service Interactive Advertising & Marketing Agency who is obviously optimized for the keyphrase click here and is actually more related! Okay adobe is still listed high but not as high as it was!

So the way i see it instead of people concentrating on backlinks so much now... its going to be on-site seo and then backlinks! Which really it should have been like that all along but people seemed to forget all about onsite seo apart from their title and maybe meta, and maybe a article thats optimized too but then that was it!

So there you have it!

Backlinks arn't as imprortant as they use to be and now on-site seo is a leading factor! With the all important PROOF!

Tom Brite
#search engine optimization #backlinks #caffeine #google #onsite #preferes #proof #seo #update
  • The exact reason why I posted about 2 months back about people not even doing "basic seo" on their site.. Trust me many don't....

    I was laughed at when I posted that but guess who is going to have the last laugh ....

    James
    • [3] replies
    • James im glad that wasn't me saying that basic on site seo was a waste of time or just not doing it! It's always the first thing i ever do before wasting time on backlinks.... heck on site seo is much quicker than off site seo anyway!

      Tom Brite
      • [1] reply
    • I can't imagine people building a site and not concentrating on on page SEO! It's the first thing I do, I don't even think about it anymore, it's just part of the process...isn't it?

      • [1] reply
    • Basic/Advanced on site SEO has always been half the battle, at least for the most competitive terms.

      I guess now it's going to be even more important.

      Nevertheless, I don't buy the the whole backlinks being less important, at least not yet.
  • I think that just confirms that Google wants it's search results to show high quality and on target content.

    "Click Here" really has nothing to do with Adobe, but has something to do with a marketing company called "Click Here", so that is more of a targeted search result.

    I think that will help eliminate all the crap that comes up in search results that has a zillion (or a googleplex) of backlinks to it.

    (Not saying Adobe is crap, just making a general observation from some other high ranked sites)

    I think this is a positive move.
    • [1] reply
    • Yeah i think it too is a positive move and i imagine there will be alot more influence and help for the on-site optimization factors!

      I just wonder how google will treat wordpress and all in one seo plugins once they have finalized everything because some people who build their sites completely from scratch could argue that its a cheat and not many of the big authority sites are built around wordpress thats for sure!

      Tom Brite
  • Don't for a second believe this will be the end of it. I was telling people as far back as 2001 that Google had locked itself into a never-ending pendulum swing, with both extremes being on-page and off-page. Clearly they've been giving off-page more weight in recent years. I think it was inevitable that they'd have to return to on-page to balance it out.

    I'll bet you in a couple years or so, the pendulum will have swung back too far toward on-page, and Google will do another major overhaul (probably come up with a clever name like "Decaffeinated") and we'll all dance like puppets to start frantically building links non-stop again.

    Interesting, but very predictable. Google made this bed, but all of us have to lie in it.

    John
  • WordPress is a great platform with SEO built in, but you still need to write proper titles, quality content, on-site, off-site SEO yourself to rank high and that takes manual work...

    Mark
  • It's safe to say that both internal and external SEO are important, but thanks for pointing out that internal seems to have gained weight.
  • Based on the videos of Q&A from Matt Cutts at panels, interviews and such, over the last year or so, it seems to me that Google is pushing to neutralize SERPS manipulation through backlinking campaigns.

    Mark
  • Banned
    Is this a joke? You pull one page out of billions, and label it as proof positive that Google no longer cares about back links the way they used to?
  • I wouldn't be surprised if Google had a special case in their algorithm for the keyphrase "click here" since it's one of the highest profile examples of backlink manipulation of the SERPs.

    Focusing on either onpage or offpage seo to the exclusion of the other has been a mistake for years and will continue to be so for a long time to come.

    To rank effectively your pages have to be targeted and supported by a solid linking campaign. I will be *very* surprised if that doesn't continue to be the case with Caffeine.
    • [1] reply
    • The changes with Google's algo over the last 10 years has always been about improving relevancy and the quality of it's index period... Of course onpage SEO is as always important and I can't see that there are any major changes on that front. Page rank was their way of getting that relevancy and quality to be passed through the web naturally.

      We all know that page rank can and has been manipulated by webmasters so it seems that they are looking at other ways of blocking off this manipulation of passing link love around. I think that it is a little bit more complex than just saying that more emphasis is now going to be with on page SEO in fact I believe it has a lot more to do with visitor interactivity with websites..

      Why else have..

      1. Google been pushing webmasters to install analytics?
      2. Google been pushing webmasters to have webmaster accounts with them?
      3. Google introduced so many enhancements to user interaction with their search results? (sort options etc..)
      4. Google have their own browser that they are pushing hard(chrome)?

      I will tell you why.. All the emphasis on future google enhancements is purely about web searcher's experiences. It is about the behaviour of web searchers, what they like? what they don't like?

      I don't know how this is translated into their algo but trust me this is what it is all about. I don't have any proof and anyone who does is still just guessing or works in the hub of Google but it just all makes sense when you think about it.

      What does this mean for us? Stats like bounce rates, average time spent on certain pages etc.. are all things that add up to visitor experience. All Google analytics users received an email several months ago asking for permission to use the data from our accounts. I am convinced this data was used as a profile for building the picture for Google about user experiences along with their own data. I don't mean down to website level but just an overall picture of what sites rank for various keywords and what sites provide the best user experiences.

      The upshot of course is that the same guidelines hold absolutely true as always. Great content, easy navigation and good quality backlinks are the key to doing well. In essense nothing has changed except the way Google judge this quality via the people that matter.. The visitors to our sites.
      • [2] replies
  • Anyway, there's already a thread discussing this exact same topic, there's no point in making multiple threads about the same subjetct.

    Here it is: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...me-change.html
  • Just when I thought I was starting to understand this, they change it. Seems to be the story of my life recently. But like they used to say at my previous employer, "the only constant, is change".
  • I checked on "click here" this morning and adobe is the second listing, so it's not being discounted all that much, if at all.
    • Banned
      [DELETED]
  • Here is my take on this...don't sweat this "change." Just do what you should always do when you build and market a site - do on-site SEO and off-site SEO (i.e. backlinks) and you'll do just fine. I've been doing this since 2006 and despite all the "changes" Google has made over the years, all of my sites have performed just beautifully. Don't chase all these algo changes - just do your thing

    Travis
  • OK - no argument on the point that onpage seo is important.

    BUT this is NOT proof!

    Did you do backlink analysis? How many click here anchors for adobe vs clickhere.com.

    did you even look at the rest of the results page in the caffeinated version

    1. clickhere.com
    2. doubleclick.com
    3. cost of war
    4. senate.org
    The fact of the matter is all of these sites have backlink anchors that say CLICKHERE.

    6 out of ten are some type of reader or player.
    #7 50% of their BL anchors are CLICK HERE

    Looks more like a shuffle of the cards than new rules.

    So good advice on improving on page SEO
    BAD ADVICE on backlinks taking a back seat.
  • Way too early to be making those assessments. I don't see backlinks going away much at all - not across the board. More likely is a change in how certain backlinks will be counted. Basically what we have now is backlink spamming and my bet is that google will do all it can to remove that. Using results from the sandbox is iffy. A couple changes and things can be way different. No one knows yet.
  • Thanks Tom for the wonderful resources. When will the new Caffine version take effect?
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