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Halloween SEO 2013 - What is Your Greatest SEO fear? being eaten by Penguin, Panda or a New Piranha?

by Mike Anthony
22 replies
  • SEO
    • |
With animals like Penguins and pandas Google and SEO are certainly filled with lots of creepy things to make for a scary movie. So since its Halloween it had me thinking about things that really would make me afraid in SEO.

First I realized not that much. SEO is about evolving anyway so anything that changes you CAN adapt to . But anyway saying I feared nothing is no fun so here are a few that I probably wouldn't normally say I feared but would cause me some concerns

1) Well obviously for me if Private networks no longer worked. I can't see how that would happen but that would be concerning

2) If Google decided to expand the ads at the top of the organic column pushing down organic results two or three spots. Yeah that would lower conversions,

3) If negative SEO REALLY could bring down any site.

Thing is........ so much of what SEOs feared has already happened in the last two years that theres not that much left. Keyword data being shut off, PR not updating, all kinds of links not working etc etc.

But whats your SEO "fear"? and do you think its about to come true?
#2013 #eaten #fear #greatest #halloween #panda #penguin #piranha #seo
  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    They can kill the whole private network concept fairly easy if they really wanted to, so that's my number 1 fear.

    - Reset all link juice when a domain expired or dropped

    - Flag links as unnatural when the outgoing links don't relate in any way to the incoming links (as most of us buy domains that we re-purpose). Say yourself, how unnatural is is to use a site that used to be about a certain sport event and now it's redesigned to rank an insurance company. Even when it's about the same topic, insurance company that actually sells insurances let it expire and now it turned into a blog about insurances. Nothing natural about that.

    Solution would be of course to restore the old site so I think that's one of the things I'll be heading too in the future, restoring the site in the old state and only linking out to sites that can fit in. Sometimes you'll have to take a site down due to copyright issue's but so be it.

    Resetting link juice might seem unlikely cause people let their domains expire on accident some times but in that case they could add a verification method where you have to proof that you had it registered it before it expired.

    Last resorts:

    - Buy complete websites
    - Build complete websites yourself and do 100% whitehat SEO on them

    Good bye cheap SEO that would be for sure.

    WSOs would be booming, How To Find Complete Websites For Sale For Cheap
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    • Profile picture of the author seonutshell
      - Reset all link juice when a domain expired or dropped
      That already happens doesnt it? If i have a link on a site that goes down, i no longer get link juice from it.

      - Flag links as unnatural when the outgoing links don't relate in any way to the incoming links (as most of us buy domains that we re-purpose). Say yourself, how unnatural is is to use a site that used to be about a certain sport event and now it's redesigned to rank an insurance company. Even when it's about the same topic, insurance company that actually sells insurances let it expire and now it turned into a blog about insurances. Nothing natural about that.

      Linking out to unrelated sites for SEO is going to hold you back already. Its already ben confirmed that OBL to unrelated sites harm your on site seo.

      My worst fear is google updating the algo to a point where it can actually detect someone who knows what they are on about, as supposed to someone who is just talking shit. If that day comes, and the google spiders find out im not actually an expert on insurance im going to cry...
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by seonutshell View Post

        - Reset all link juice when a domain expired or dropped
        That already happens doesnt it? If i have a link on a site that goes down, i no longer get link juice from it.
        Nope..the juice comes back as long as the links stay in place and the link pages are crawled again. I used to think drops for example affected things but that isn't the case and has been confirmed by a number of sources not to matter. the person that woke me up on that one was the owner of registercompass that has data of millions of domains.

        Like Nik0 said though they could get around to it one day though although thy would end up hurting a number of legit sites. Some sites go offline for months and disappear from the index.

        My worst fear is google updating the algo to a point where it can actually detect someone who knows what they are on about, as supposed to someone who is just talking shit. If that day comes, and the google spiders find out im not actually an expert on insurance im going to cry...
        ROFL.... I love that one
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

      - Buy complete websites
      - Build complete websites yourself and do 100% whitehat SEO on them

      Good bye cheap SEO that would be for sure.
      Well before it comes down to that people will start approaching webmasters before the expiration. Only good thing will be watching the domain auction sites go out of business.

      Originally Posted by GGpaul View Post

      My biggest fear is definitely adding more ads along with google images results, etc. etc.
      and it certainly looks like they would like to take over certain keyword results.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Well before it comes down to that people will start approaching webmasters before the expiration. Only good thing will be watching the domain auction sites go out of business.
        Moving forward, I would see the entire PBN model changing into networks of very well established and independently monetized entities themselves. So many networks are so damn obvious.
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        and it certainly looks like they would like to take over certain keyword results.
        Google Store? WTF is that? Above the fold is beginning to look like the newspaper adult classifieds.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

          Moving forward, I would see the entire PBN model changing into networks of very well established and independently monetized entities themselves. So many networks are so damn obvious.
          You know the thing is, when you have a very well established, independantly monetized site that's making you a good amount of money.

          Why would you even bother with selling links and going through all the hassle of finding new clients and so on.
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          • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            You know the thing is, when you have a very well established, independantly monetized site that's making you a good amount of money.

            Why would you even bother with selling links and going through all the hassle of finding new clients and so on.
            Well I did mine the opposite way round. Got clients when ranking pages was easy, used the extra money to build out expired and dropped domains. Left them un monetized, and ended up with a very nice network to rank bigger clients. But sure as hell it takes time and costs money. Raising the financial bar for entry to SEO is not idea bad from where I'm standing though.

            So long as links rank sites, I'm all set.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

              Well I did mine the opposite way round. Got clients when ranking pages was easy, used the extra money to build out expired and dropped domains. Left them un monetized, and ended up with a very nice network to rank bigger clients. But sure as hell it takes time and costs money. Raising the financial bar for entry to SEO is not idea bad from where I'm standing though.

              So long as links rank sites, I'm all set.
              Kind of what I also planned with those new niche relevant sites, I got 20 in 8 niches makes 160 sites. Doing it the other way around, but 160 sites is one hell of a job, and that's just a part of my network.
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  • Profile picture of the author GGpaul
    My biggest fear is definitely adding more ads along with google images results, etc. etc.
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    RIP Dad Oct 14 1954 - Mar 14 2015.

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  • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
    Well it seems that some of your fears are becoming real:

    Since Google have been testing not just ad extension to the top 3 Adwords positions (using more real estate of the search results) but taking it as far as to test complete ad banners in the top results

    Here is a presentation about some of the ads that have been seeing and confirmed already by Google

    http://www.slideshare.net/marketing-...ner-ads-174927
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by patadeperro View Post

      Well it seems that some of your fears are becoming real:

      Since Google have been testing not just ad extension to the top 3 Adwords positions (using more real estate of the search results) but taking it as far as to test complete ad banners in the top results

      Here is a presentation about some of the ads that have been seeing and confirmed already by Google

      Which Brands Are Now Displaying Giant Banner Ads in Google Search R...
      I do not really see that as an issue. The banners they have been testing are for major brands and searches of those specific brands only. Somebody searching for an HP desktop computer is not going to get a SERP that has a Best Buy banner at the top of the page. It's only if you search for "Best Buy".
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        I do not really see that as an issue. The banners they have been testing are for major brands and searches of those specific brands only. Somebody searching for an HP desktop computer is not going to get a SERP that has a Best Buy banner at the top of the page. It's only if you search for "Best Buy".
        Google is nothing but a business. They initially promised ads like that would never ever appear over organic search results. If the test is successful it seems certain that the next step would be products not just brands, then services and then from there anything as long as the profit is right. maybe if you search for HP desktop computers best buy won't show up (but why not since they sell them?) but I would not rule out doing a search for desktop computers and seeing an ad in the future
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

          Google is nothing but a business. They initially promised ads like that would never ever appear over organic search results. If the test is successful it seems certain that the next step would be products not just brands, then services and then from there anything as long as the profit is right. maybe if you search for HP desktop computers best buy won't show up (but why not since they sell them?) but I would not rule out doing a search for desktop computers and seeing an ad in the future
          I don't think so, it would annoy the hell out of people when they go that road, Google isn't stupid.

          Sure if they search the brand name, they get what they're looking for with such huge ads, nothing wrong with, but when people search for broad terms they want to be able to chose, a few Google Store/shop whatever images above it, ok, we can handle that but one huge screen filling ad, nah, not gonna happen now or in the future. They would kill their reputation.
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          • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
            Bleh...I don't know about that size banner but the internet is full of much loved and used sites with banner ads at the top. To me you are all kidding yourself. Where was the great turn off that took place when they started selling the top three spots in the organic column? Google already has a bunch of serps where they push down the results for their own content. All of that has done nothing to their reputation.

            Plus as long as the ad results offer some value to the searcher like adwords at the top does the only Google users that will care are SEO marketers which Google cares not a rip for. I'd bet money you will see banner ads at the top in the next five years. Probably smaller but once thats out there for brand names the rest will eventually follow.
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  • Profile picture of the author Meckin
    That Google will start adding more to above the fold on all the serps.
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    My greatest (and only) SEO fear already happened... keyword data is no longer part of the header information, so you can't track organic keyword performance/CTR.
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    Ron Rule
    http://ronrule.com

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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by ronrule View Post

      My greatest (and only) SEO fear already happened... keyword data is no longer part of the header information, so you can't track organic keyword performance/CTR.
      Yeah that one was HUGE.
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      • Profile picture of the author ronrule
        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

        Yeah that one was HUGE.
        How are you coping? You're into the SEO game more than I am, at this point I'm basically estimating based on Bing/Yahoo data (roughly 15% of my traffic comes from those, so I can "guess" what keywords are also performing with G+) and getting conversion rates from PPC only. But I know it's nowhere near as accurate as having the real data. Is there a better solution yet or is that it? I even tried migrating a couple sites to HTTPS-only thinking it would preserve the header info going from https to https but still no dice.
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        Ron Rule
        http://ronrule.com

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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by ronrule View Post

      My greatest (and only) SEO fear already happened... keyword data is no longer part of the header information, so you can't track organic keyword performance/CTR.
      Google is still showing some of the incoming search phrases, it's hit & miss right now.

      I'm looking at 2 incoming search phrases from Google SERPs that happened within the last 1/2 hour, here's part of the Google search URLs:
      • &gs_l=mobile-heirloom-serp
      • &gs_l=heirloom-hp

      I'm not sure If that heirloom part of the Google URLs is what's making the incoming search phrases show up when search traffic lands on my pages. Both URLs are US traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dokemion
    Pumpkin Algorithm!!
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    Contact me for any SEO Services you need I'm glad to be of your service.

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