HERE is what's working...

Thank you for the advice. I think they also care about your backlinks having backlinks of their own. Like if you buy/make 500 backlinks on "learn how to play guitar" then you should buy/make 4,000-7,000 backlinks to those backlinks with the words "how to play guitar". And then if you can make 10,000-20,000 backlinks to those. Just something I heard but I could be wrong.

How do you look up your brand?

I agree with what you are saying here.

It's hard to argue that G is looking towards the big brands in the search results now. Seems like everyone needs to just adapt.

-Omar

Certainly domain age makes no difference now.
100%, I have a 6 month old site that gets 2000 uniques from Google a month in a rediculously tough niche, and I did not build thousands of links to it either.

Content is king, I'm sure of that, plus the domain name helps a lot.

I'm not sure on the social signals or big backlinks to the homepage either, i didn't build much social media into that site, if any, nor any "big" backlinks, but that is certainly likely to be "niche" dependant I guess.

Do you guys think EMDs are something to avoid doing for long term purposes? (ie. howtoknowifimpregnantornot.com)

exactly, now Google care about unique content, high quality sites, social signals, high PR homepage links.

Sorry, but it's still all about the links. Spammy or otherwise. It shouldn't be, but it is:

How Google Makes Liars Out of the Good Guys in SEO | SEOmoz

Those are the facts.

Yup. Google is still full of obviously spam-link-ranked sites and pages. The only thing that appears to have changed is people's perception of what works. What's actually in the SERPs is pretty much the same.

I think with spam link and content, you can not make a permanent future for your site. Google also look on it now.

Who's seeing that? I'm not seeing that. I'm hearing that at forums, but I'm not seeing that anywhere in the SERPs. Go search Google for cheap cell phones. The #1 result is koobay.com. Go to OpenSiteExplorer.org and (if you have an account) run a backlinks report on the domain.

You'll find links from obvious link sharing directories, spam links on Squidoo lenses, links from fishing sites and insurance adjuster sites, links from forum profiles and other stuff that Google "doesn't count." What you won't find are links from sites that have much to do with cell phones or electronics at all (though there are a few stray .edu site links in there).

Go look at the koobay.com site. What you'll see is a very "thin" ecommerce site where virtually every page is just copy/pasted from a product description that came from somewhere else. Loads of "duplicate content" (you know, that stuff that you supposedly can't get ranked in Google anymore).

That's only one example. The SERPs are loaded up with sites that are ranked the same way, especially for keywords with strong commercial intent. When there's money involved, people will do what it takes to rank. And that's what it takes. Is it the only way? No, but it's the easiest and the fastest.

Nothing in the SERPs coincides with all of the rhetoric being spread like gangrene about how everything has changed, how Google only rewards quality, how spam links don't work... it's all bogus.

Perhaps one day it will be true. Perhaps it should be true. But as of right now, it's 100% verifiably false.

Those are the facts.

I always thought internet marketing was a large part of building your brand. Guess not?

I'm not saying that building a brand isn't important -- it's vital. I'm taking exception with your claims that backlinking doesn't work anymore. Google is still as loaded up as ever with spam-link-ranked pages and sites. They've shuffled the cards a bit, sure, but the stuff floating to the top isn't any better than what was there before -- and much of what was there before is still there.

I'm not sure what you were/are doing as far as backlinking goes, but open up an OpenSiteExplorer.org account and start examining the top ranked sites for most 3+ term commercial keywords and you'll see what I'm saying is true. Backlinks rule, spammy or otherwise.

I disagree that branding is the way to build traffic from Google, yes. In my opinion, branding is what you do so you don't have to rely on Google for traffic. Search traffic is a good place to start, but it's your brand that determines whether or not you make it long-term.

Branding can build links that can get you ranked for keywords like your product names, etc., but it's the anchor-text rich backlinks that get you ranked for search queries that don't involve your brand.

By the way, I have never once in this thread said that backlinks don't work anymore.

If by "brand" you mean "a large base of links gained from promoting yourself and your products without being concerned about things like anchor text" -- then we agree. A site with a good foundation of quality links is much easier to rank for non-brand keywords.

But it's not the "branding" that's making that happen. The "trust" comes from the links, not any nebulous social signals. It's all about the links. Google is an algorithm. It doesn't understand human interaction. It understands metrics, and the primary metric it uses to determine a site's value is link popularity. There are other lesser metrics, but they pale in comparison to the links.

You and I are in the same chapter, I think, just not on the same page.

what about static content? Everyone should convert their sites to blog and write unique content on regular basis?

As for branding, I think OP is referring to Amazon level brand. Amazon can publish a link and it will be ranked on top. Same goes for Wikipedia.

But in order to get tier 2 backlinks (backlinks to the backlinks ) u have to use spam- no??? and if u use spam it will damage your site - no? so what are the option???

Any 1st year computer scientist worth their salt knows that's not even remotely true

Do some research on computer algorithms. Judging by your posts, I'm willing to bet you'll be surprised.

Here's a simple example: You know all those people wasting their time buying Google +1s? You and I both agree they're wasting their time, but for different reasons... You see, Google's algo can easily pick the fake ones out from the real ones by simply looking at the pattern that the +1s are acquired. A bunch of +1s from random accounts with no social connection to each other? FAKE! A bunch of +1s from a bunch of people who saw it on their friends' Google+ feed and shared it with friends of friends. The real deal.

And that's just a really basic example of what I'm talking about. I can talk really nerdy to you if you want

I've been writing software for 20 years. I am well aware of what algorithms are (and aren't) capable of.

Let me ask you this: If Google is so good at telling the "real" from the "fake", then why do so many web sites rank because of obvious link spam that any human being with a modicum of experience could easily pick out?

And you don't think that kind of interconnectivity is easily faked? You need to get out more.

You are giving Google's algorithm way too much credit. As a wise man once told me, "Google's most powerful algorithm is the one people think they have."

I've always thought that the (you need to get links from related 'themes') idea is bogus. Never observed it in real life. And links overall are still important.

But I do think that in the long run, the net is moving to reflect the non-net reality.
Search will increasingly favor the Amazons, and other big brands.

If you're a small guy, your only hope will be "local".