[Step by Step Guide] I will show you how I do my SEO (Part 1 – Keyword Research) | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

10 years ago

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10 years ago

Hi

The keyword phase sounds pretty comprehensive - just wanted to know if you rate or utilise commercial intent in your extended process?

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

Thanks
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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Bronwyn and Keith

Hi

The keyword phase sounds pretty comprehensive - just wanted to know if you rate or utilise commercial intent in your extended process?

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

nope, I'm only writing this post so others can contribute and we can all learn something from it. If this thread gets enough attention, then I'll keep writing the rest of what I know. Cheers!

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Your way for calculating competition is completely screwed up. It uses the competition number provided in the Google Keyword Planner which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword.

You also are falsely assuming that if a keyword has a high search volume and low competition that your ROI will automatically be higher. As Bronwyn and Keith mentioned, you are doing nothing to measure commercial intent. There are lots of easy keywords to rank for with decent traffic, but they are not all buying keywords.

For example, something like "How tall is Mount Everest" probably gets a lot of searches and is not all that competitive to rank for, but it is not likely to make you much money no matter how you monetize it.

The whole PA/DA thing... Well, if it works for you, fine. I think it should be mentioned though that PA and DA are horribly unreliable metrics by themselves. I have seen plenty of domains with a DA over 60 that is not ranking for anything and has nothing but crappy links. I have also seen plenty of domains in OSE that have a DA well over 30 and have zero links in the database, which makes no sense at all.

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online only

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Your way for calculating competition is completely screwed up. It uses the competition number provided in the Google Keyword Planner which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword.

You also are falsely assuming that if a keyword has a high search volume and low competition that your ROI will automatically be higher. As Bronwyn and Keith mentioned, you are doing nothing to measure commercial intent. There are lots of easy keywords to rank for with decent traffic, but they are not all buying keywords.

For example, something like "How tall is Mount Everest" probably gets a lot of searches and is not all that competitive to rank for, but it is not likely to make you much money no matter how you monetize it.

The whole PA/DA thing... Well, if it works for you, fine. I think it should be mentioned though that PA and DA are horribly unreliable metrics by themselves. I have seen plenty of domains with a DA over 60 that is not ranking for anything and has nothing but crappy links. I have also seen plenty of domains in OSE that have a DA well over 30 and have zero links in the database, which makes no sense at all.

I agree with you, but PA/DA are still very good indicators when valuating authority site page strengthness on SERP. Obviously it's pointless to use such metrics on buyindianfollowers.in type of sites. Such sites don't rank much anyway nowadays.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by online only

I agree with you, but PA/DA are still very good indicators when valuating authority site page strengthness on SERP. Obviously it's pointless to use such metrics on buyindianfollowers.in type of sites. Such sites don't rank much anyway nowadays.

I agree with you! PA/DA is at the very least a better indicator than PR.

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Bronwyn and Keith

10 years ago

Hi Mike

Great response.

The thing is all of us can "assume" anything from the info that Google provide or the various tools we use.

The secret sauce is in the fuller analysis rather than "picking a winner" that a Million other people have also jumped on.

The best chance you have is to do what others aren't prepared to do - use all the metrics you can, use them properly and take your time doing it rather than rush through and hope like hell that you got the "magic" keyword.

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Your way for calculating competition is completely screwed up. It uses the competition number provided in the Google Keyword Planner which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword.

You also are falsely assuming that if a keyword has a high search volume and low competition that your ROI will automatically be higher. As Bronwyn and Keith mentioned, you are doing nothing to measure commercial intent. There are lots of easy keywords to rank for with decent traffic, but they are not all buying keywords.

For example, something like "How tall is Mount Everest" probably gets a lot of searches and is not all that competitive to rank for, but it is not likely to make you much money no matter how you monetize it.

The whole PA/DA thing... Well, if it works for you, fine. I think it should be mentioned though that PA and DA are horribly unreliable metrics by themselves. I have seen plenty of domains with a DA over 60 that is not ranking for anything and has nothing but crappy links. I have also seen plenty of domains in OSE that have a DA well over 30 and have zero links in the database, which makes no sense at all.

Thanks

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Your way for calculating competition is completely screwed up. It uses the competition number provided in the Google Keyword Planner which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword.

You also are falsely assuming that if a keyword has a high search volume and low competition that your ROI will automatically be higher. As Bronwyn and Keith mentioned, you are doing nothing to measure commercial intent. There are lots of easy keywords to rank for with decent traffic, but they are not all buying keywords.

For example, something like "How tall is Mount Everest" probably gets a lot of searches and is not all that competitive to rank for, but it is not likely to make you much money no matter how you monetize it.

The whole PA/DA thing... Well, if it works for you, fine. I think it should be mentioned though that PA and DA are horribly unreliable metrics by themselves. I have seen plenty of domains with a DA over 60 that is not ranking for anything and has nothing but crappy links. I have also seen plenty of domains in OSE that have a DA well over 30 and have zero links in the database, which makes no sense at all.

How is it that a lot of people are buying a keyword has absolutely nothing to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword?
If the competition is high, a lot of people buying the keyword, couldn't I assume that it is a somewhat competitive to rank for?

At the same time, competition is low and no one is buying the keyword, couldn't I prequalify the keywords with decent traffic?

Monetizing and considering the commercial intent is a whole new topic. If a person's website is related the Mount Everest, then he better figure out a way to monetize traffic with people coming in from "How tall is Mount Everest." Could be using adsense, CPM banners, pop up, optin, upsell, anything. If you are so certain that a keyword that can get lots of searches and easy to rank for but not likely to make much money from it, then don't blame the keyword, blame his website/niche.

I agree with you with the PA/DA that it is somewhat unreliable. When we go through the top 20 SERP competitiors, we could go and spend more time to look at their backlinks and see who are linking to them, and dig deeper like using Ahrefs, Majestic Seo. But, that's just more time invested and how reliable are those stats when what they have in their database is on a fraction of what Google has. So PA/DA is just another metric we could consider using to quickly get a feel of their competition.

Thanks
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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

How is it that a lot of people are buying a keyword has absolutely nothing to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword?
If the competition is high, a lot of people buying the keyword, couldn't I assume that it is a somewhat competitive to rank for?

It doesn't work that way.

A lot of people that buy PPC suck at ranking pages in organic SERPs, so they have no choice than to pay via PPC If they want to manage their own site/traffic.

Each organic keyword has unique competition, that even goes for singular & plural keywords.

If your serious about SEO you need to dig in & research the already ranked organic pages.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

It doesn't work that way.

A lot of people that buy PPC suck at ranking pages in organic SERPs, so they have no choice than to pay via PPC If they want to manage their own site/traffic.

Each organic keyword has unique competition, that even goes for singular & plural keywords.

If your serious about SEO you need to dig in & research the already ranked organic pages.

That's true! So, this process will lose some potential keywords that could have been doable but got filtered out by the high competition. What if we skip this step and keep those high competition keywords and look at their top 20 competitors to see if they are doable?

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

That's true! So, this process will lose some potential keywords that could have been doable but got filtered out by the high competition. What if we skip this step and keep those high competition keywords and look at their top 20 competitors to see if they are doable?

You only need to look at the competition at the top of the first page of organic SERPs.

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IMmonkey 10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

You only need to look at the competition at the top of the first page of organic SERPs.

Yukon, that's what I was considering too but just wanted to go over the top. I guess the top 10 will do and will save me 50% of my API credits! Thanks!
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whawk57 10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

You only need to look at the competition at the top of the first page of organic SERPs.

Use Seoquake browser plugin to help you out with that one!
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- yukon Banned 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by whawk57
  
  Use Seoquake browser plugin to help you out with that one!
  
  I already have SEOquake.
  
  Thanks
  
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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

How is it that a lot of people are buying a keyword has absolutely nothing to do with the level of competition for ranking a keyword?
If the competition is high, a lot of people buying the keyword, couldn't I assume that it is a somewhat competitive to rank for?

At the same time, competition is low and no one is buying the keyword, couldn't I prequalify the keywords with decent traffic?

Monetizing and considering the commercial intent is a whole new topic. If a person's website is related the Mount Everest, then he better figure out a way to monetize traffic with people coming in from "How tall is Mount Everest." Could be using adsense, CPM banners, pop up, optin, upsell, anything. If you are so certain that a keyword that can get lots of searches and easy to rank for but not likely to make much money from it, then don't blame the keyword, blame his website/niche.

I agree with you with the PA/DA that it is somewhat unreliable. When we go through the top 20 SERP competitiors, we could go and spend more time to look at their backlinks and see who are linking to them, and dig deeper like using Ahrefs, Majestic Seo. But, that's just more time invested and how reliable are those stats when what they have in their database is on a fraction of what Google has. So PA/DA is just another metric we could consider using to quickly get a feel of their competition.

The competition in adwords is an indicator of the commercial intent of the keyword. It's just coincidence that some keywords with high competition in adwords are also competitive in the organic search. But some keywords are not.

To analyze the competition for ranking that keyword, of course you should analyze the link profiles of the top10 competitors in order to find out if any of them are using blackhat or have some very powerful backlinks.

If some website are using blackhat techniques, you know you can beat them even though the PA is very high(in fact,google beats them). If the website has some very powerful backlinks such as NewYork times backlink, .edu backlink, you know it can be very hard to beat them. So it's not enough to just check the PA&DA, it's a must to analyze the link profile.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

I believe if people continue to spend money to buy keywords PPC, the odd is that they are making money. And in that case, it is in direct relation to how competitive the keyword is in the organic result. If people need to pay to get traffic, imagine how competitive it would be to get free traffic to rank high with those keywords. The extreme example would be "credit cards, loans, domain names."

If you have the time and the skill to analyze the link profile of each ranking competitor, I'm all for it.

But if you don't, looking at the DA/PA could be a quick indicator.

Why not trust Seomoz, they are the big guy in the industry, they might not be perfect, but I'm sure they have more resources and a larger database than what many of us have. So, why reinvent the wheel and go through the trouble of over analyzing each competitor when Google already filtered out some of the blackhat spammers from the SERP and SEOmoz already gave an indicator of how good each url is.

And ever since Google and its animal updates, you can't just focus in that one magical keyword you find after spending countless hours link profiling. It's about not just having one keyword that's money but a bunch of related keywords to diversify your anchors.

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

I believe if people continue to spend money to buy keywords PPC, the odd is that they are making money. And in that case, it is in direct relation to how competitive the keyword is in the organic result. If people need to pay to get traffic, imagine how competitive it would be to get free traffic to rank high with those keywords. The extreme example would be "credit cards, loans, domain names."

Of course it is in relation to how competitive it is, on one denies that.

But keywords with LOW competition according to Adwords have close to zero commercial value so you can almost say that you should ignore those.

So then we end up with med/high competition ones and then you need another way to determine the competition of those. DA/PA of the top 10 is a reasonably well strategy, it's what Moz competition checker does.

Sure there are exceptions of massive spammed sites, as it's real easy to inflate DA/PA, and in certain niches that only get spammed it would be worthless. However in most "normal" niches it's pretty reliable as PA takes internal links also into account while tools like LongTailPro and such completely ignore that and only look at the external links.

Ever saw some PR n/a Amazon page ranking for a somewhat competitive keyword with not a single link pointed at that page? Now run that page through Moz and see what's the outcome, most likely you're looking at a PA40+ page, where Market Samurai or the other ones would have probably classed it as dead easy.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

If the website has some very powerful backlinks such as NewYork times backlink, .edu backlink, you know it can be very hard to beat them. So it's not enough to just check the PA&DA, it's a must to analyze the link profile.

.edu links mean nothing.

Originally Posted by nik0

Of course it is in relation to how competitive it is, on one denies that.

But keywords with LOW competition according to Adwords have close to zero commercial value so you can almost say that you should ignore those.

So then we end up with med/high competition ones and then you need another way to determine the competition of those. DA/PA of the top 10 is a reasonably well strategy, it's what Moz competition checker does.

Sure there are exceptions of massive spammed sites, as it's real easy to inflate DA/PA, and in certain niches that only get spammed it would be worthless. However in most "normal" niches it's pretty reliable as PA takes internal links also into account while tools like LongTailPro and such completely ignore that and only look at the external links.

Ever saw some PR n/a Amazon page ranking for a somewhat competitive keyword with not a single link pointed at that page? Now run that page through Moz and see what's the outcome, most likely you're looking at a PA40+ page, where Market Samurai or the other ones would have probably classed it as dead easy.

It's not just spammed sites inflating DA/PA. You can also find plenty of sites that have a DA/PA over 30 or 40 with zero links, which makes zero sense.

The problem with DA/PA is that Moz's link database sucks. It's horrible. If anyone is making keyword decisions based on DA/PA, they are probably throwing out a lot of good keywords. It's also possible you are taking on keywords that are much more difficult than you think.

As for the AdWords competition thing, NO it is not an indicator of SEO competition. Not at all. You can find plenty of keywords where there is no correlation between the two. Again, you are probably throwing away good keywords.

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

It's not just spammed sites inflating DA/PA. You can also find plenty of sites that have a DA/PA over 30 or 40 with zero links, which makes zero sense.

The problem with DA/PA is that Moz's link database sucks. It's horrible. If anyone is making keyword decisions based on DA/PA, they are probably throwing out a lot of good keywords. It's also possible you are taking on keywords that are much more difficult than you think.

As for the AdWords competition thing, NO it is not an indicator of SEO competition. Not at all. You can find plenty of keywords where there is no correlation between the two. Again, you are probably throwing away good keywords.

I've seen some cases of DA25 and not a single link indeed so where they pull that number from is quite amazing.

Still I have the feeling these are exceptions, same like LOW competition keywords with high commercial value are an exception and vice versa will happen more often of course but it only takes a quick look to determine for yourself whether it's a money making keyword or not.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

.edu links mean nothing.

.edu link means nothing? So if I have a contextual link on a pr7 page of an university website and the content on the page is relative and high quality, this link means nothing? Are you sure? And this page doesn't sell links, doesn't have any spammy comments on it.

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dennis09

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

.edu link means nothing? So if I have a contextual link on a pr7 those byf an university website and the content on the page is relative and high quality, this link means nothing? Are you sure? And this page doesn't sell links, doesn't have any spammy comments on it.

I hear they sell those by the thousands over on fiver. All pr7 links son.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by dennis09

I hear they sell those by the thousands over on fiver. All pr7 links son.

That must be spammy comments links which is totally different from the link I mentioned above. You have no idea about what is quality backlink, what is not

.

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dennis09

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

That must be spammy comments links which is totally different from the link I mentioned above. You have no idea about what is quality backlink, what is not

.

Hey hey now don't get mad at me because you just got put in your place and then tried to slip in pr7 so you could validate an incorrect assumption about a rumor you heard from bubba. Yeah i saw that.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

.edu link means nothing? So if I have a contextual link on a pr7 page of an university website and the content on the page is relative and high quality, this link means nothing? Are you sure? And this page doesn't sell links, doesn't have any spammy comments on it.

It means nothing more than a contexual link on PR 7 page of a .com site with relative and high quality content.

There is no extra weight given to .edu links. Anyone telling people otherwise is either clueless or selling .edu links.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

It means nothing more than a contexual link on PR 7 page of a .com site with relative and high quality content.

There is no extra weight given to .edu links. Anyone telling people otherwise is either clueless or selling .edu links.

Maybe the link juice is the same as a pr7 .com link. But it influences the trust rank of the site which gets that link. That's the extra weight of .edu link. Google likes to rank the trusted websites higher. I know pr7 .com link also increases the trust rank. But I think a "vote" from university professor is quite different from a vote from a authority webmaster.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

Maybe the link juice is the same as a pr7 .com link. But it influences the trust rank of the site which gets that link. That's the extra weight of .edu link. Google likes to rank the trusted websites higher.

There is no added trust because one site says .edu and one says .com.

That is a myth that has been around for ten years.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

There is no added trust because one site says .edu and one says .com.

That is a myth that has been around for ten years.

Of course there is more trust. How can you say a vote from a professor is the same as a vote from a webmaster? Essentially,backlink is vote.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

Of course there is more trust. How can you say a vote from a professor is the same as a vote from a webmaster? Essentially,backlink is vote.

How many professors are buying .edu links? I know there's a few people around here selling those types of low budget links. I wouldn't trust them a bit.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

How many professors are buying .edu links? I know there's a few people around here selling those types of low budget links. I wouldn't trust them a bit.

I don't trust some of the professors either. But google trusts. And I think the majority of professors don't sell links.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

I don't trust some of the professors either. But google trusts.

There's nothing special about an edu/gov link just because of the TLD.

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

And I think the majority of professors don't sell links.

That's my point, only knuckleheads are selling edu/gov links to people that don't know any better.

intitle:"edu" site:www.warriorforum.com/warriors-hire

Would you trust a site that can be blasted with backlinks?

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

There's nothing special about an edu/gov link just because of the TLD.

That's my point, only knuckleheads are selling edu/gov links to people that don't know any better.

intitle:"edu" site:Warriors For Hire

Would you trust a site that can be blasted with backlinks?

Some gov websites also sell backlinks, so you don't trust any gov sites? Some newspaper also sell ads or something else, so you don't trust any newspapers? I don't know why you still say there is nothing special about edu link. Of course the paid edu links are bad, but there are more natural editorial edu links. Those are better than normal links.

And it's not true that one page or maybe some pages are spam, then the whole website is spam. Google may not trust the spam page of an education website, but it still trusts other pages of that website, no doubt about that.

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

Some gov websites also sell backlinks, so you don't trust any gov sites? Some newspaper also sell ads or something else, so you don't trust any newspapers? I don't know why you still say there is nothing special about edu link. Of course the paid edu links are bad, but there are more natural editorial edu links. Those are better than normal links.

And it's not true that one page or maybe some pages are spam, then the whole website is spam. Google may not trust the spam page of an education website, but it still trusts other pages of that website, no doubt about that.

Never mind.

I'm tired of trying to explain.

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nettiapina 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

I don't know why you still say there is nothing special about edu link.

Because there's no indication that there is anything special about them. You didn't present any worthwhile data or even good arguments to that debate. "But they look so legit" seems to be the strongest argument.

So the tld might be controlled, and not everyone can get one. Scarce maybe, but doesn't say anything about quality.

Some backlink checkers tend to show them separately. And yes, I'd agree that it's an interesting sign that a site has gov or edu backlinks. If they're legitimate it's something that you may want to investigate. But that doesn't really say anything about the properties of those linking sites either.
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RandySwanston 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

I don't know why you still say there is nothing special about edu link.

.EDU and .COM both are same in the eyes of Google. What matters is the authority of the Domain, be it any, the weightage is always same. TLDs doesn't matter to Google. I don't know why some link sellers are misleading innocent folks by hyping edu links. sick and tired
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nik0 Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

How many professors are buying .edu links? I know there's a few people around here selling those types of low budget links. I wouldn't trust them a bit.

Yeah it's the same like any blog comment or PR n/a sub domain blog.
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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

Of course there is more trust. How can you say a vote from a professor is the same as a vote from a webmaster? Essentially,backlink is vote.

Most links on an .EDU site are not setup or approved by professors. There is administrative staff at the university that handles the majority of their website.

Google does not look at it as a link "approved by a professor" versus a link "approved by a webmaster". I have no idea who has been filling your head with such crap, but you should stop listening to them.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Most links on an .EDU site are not setup or approved by professors. There is administrative staff at the university that handles the majority of their website.

Google does not look at it as a link "approved by a professor" versus a link "approved by a webmaster". I have no idea who has been filling your head with such crap, but you should stop listening to them.

You have already admited not all the links are not approved by professors.

For example, if I have made a helpful resource and a professor recommends the resource in his class. Then the content of that class is uploaded to the website of the university. A backlink to my resource is included in the content.

Isn't this a vote from a professor, isn't this link more powerful than a normal link?

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

For example, if I have made a helpful resource and a professor recommends the resource in his class. Then the content of that class is uploaded to the website of the university. A backlink to my resource is included in the content.

Isn't this a vote from a professor, isn't this link more powerful than a normal link?

Cool story, bro. You just left out the plot twist where it somehow connects to the Google algo.

Maybe it's a "vote" from a professor, or maybe from a postdoc, secretary or a kindergardener. Can you prove that it makes a difference for SEO? Just being able to tell a story or come up with a scheme doesn't mean that it's true.

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fearlesspioneer 10 years ago

Originally Posted by nettiapina

Maybe it's a "vote" from a professor

"The professor recommends the resource in his class." Can you understand this sentence?
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- nettiapina 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer
  
  "The professor recommends the resource in his class." Can you understand this sentence?
  
  Can you understand "that has got absolutely nothing to do with Google algorithms"?
  
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  1 reply
  
  Signature
  Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
  Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.
  
  What's your excuse?
  
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  fearlesspioneer 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by nettiapina
  
  Can you understand "that has got absolutely nothing to do with Google algorithms"?
  
  So you know all about Google algorithms? You think Matt cutts told you everything about Google algorithms? Do you know Matt never does that?
  
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  nettiapina 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer
  
  So you know all about Google algorithms? You think Matt cutts told you everything about Google algorithms?
  
  Added: Nope, but there's no good link from the "professor argument" to anything happening online. And it's a weak one in any case, because not all .edu institutions are equal.
  
  I'm not claiming to be an authority on this stuff, just asking for some evidence. Yes, these things are hard to prove and even Cutts himself has been surprised on how little the SEOs seem to know about Google's algorithm changes, but that just means that we need to stop repeating rumours and investigate the claims if we can.
  
  If there's good information or theories that respected SEO practitioners find plausible, do point out where.
  
  If you want discuss authority some of the other commenters know this field pretty well. They've repeatedly told you what they think of it.
  
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dennis09 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

Isn't this a vote from a professor, isn't this link more powerful than a normal link?

Ummmm, no. Not unless you have "powerful" links going to that page. Besides, aren't all links normal? :confused: Thread derailed like a pro.
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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

For example, if I have made a helpful resource and a professor recommends the resource in his class. Then the content of that class is uploaded to the website of the university. A backlink to my resource is included in the content.

Isn't this a vote from a professor, isn't this link more powerful than a normal link?

Google is not ranking content based on the occupation of whoever published it. This is one of the most asinine (but creative) ideas I have heard around here.

So according to your completely baseless theory, are professors at the top of the food chain? Or is is physicians? What about astrophysicists? Where do accountants, dentists, and lawyers fit in?

Besides it being complete nonsense, there is another problem with your theory. Google would never factor in occupation to the ranking algorithm because not everyone in an occupation is equal. There are tons of awful professors in the world. They are not all equal.

As for your story about a professor publishing content to be used in class, it would not be an awful link except for a few problems. It is on a PR n/a page that is not likely to get many links, if any, and most likely would stay a PR 0 at best.

Second, course curriculums change all the time. There is a good chance the link won't last more than 1-2 years.

And third, if the content is specifically for a class, then search engines would never find it. The students most likely have to login to a section of the website in order to see the content. That means it is not accessible to search engines.

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Kevin Maguire

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

So according to your completely baseless theory, are professors at the top of the food chain? Or is is physicians? What about astrophysicists? Where do accountants, dentists, and lawyers fit in?

OH YEAH ???

Well how come this guys ranking pages like a BOSSSSSS!!!!

About SEO by Professor Puppet - YouTube

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Google is not ranking content based on the occupation of whoever published it. This is one of the most asinine (but creative) ideas I have heard around here.

So according to your completely baseless theory, are professors at the top of the food chain? Or is is physicians? What about astrophysicists? Where do accountants, dentists, and lawyers fit in?

Besides it being complete nonsense, there is another problem with your theory. Google would never factor in occupation to the ranking algorithm because not everyone in an occupation is equal. There are tons of awful professors in the world. They are not all equal.

As for your story about a professor publishing content to be used in class, it would not be an awful link except for a few problems. It is on a PR n/a page that is not likely to get many links, if any, and most likely would stay a PR 0 at best.

Second, course curriculums change all the time. There is a good chance the link won't last more than 1-2 years.

And third, if the content is specifically for a class, then search engines would never find it. The students most likely have to login to a section of the website in order to see the content. That means it is not accessible to search engines.

You are so conceited that you think you know everything about google algorithm. Remember you are not Matt Cutts! It's a waste of time to talk with such a person like you. OK all you said are right! Google should hire you to work for them! I won't waste my time posting here any more.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

You are so conceited that you think you know everything about google algorithm. Remember you are not Matt Cutts! It's a waste of time to talk with such as person like you.

I'm not conceited. I'm just pointing out the obvious flaws with your theory.

Show us proof, any proof, of your theory. That is all anyone has asked for.

Now the idea that the author of content can influence rankings is not new, and might be very viable. However, Google is tracking that through Google+ and Google Authorship, not by ranking content publishers post based on their implied occupation.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

I'm not conceited. I'm just pointing out the obvious flaws with your theory.

Show us proof, any proof, of your theory. That is all anyone has asked for.

Now the idea that the author of content can influence rankings is not new, and might be very viable. However, Google is tracking that through Google+ and Google Authorship, not by ranking content publishers post based on their implied occupation.

You want proof? Check out here: MozTrust - Learn SEO - Moz Maybe edu link doesn't pass more link juice, but it increases the trustrank of your website. That's the extra value of edu link!

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nik0

Banned 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

You want proof? Check out here: MozTrust - Learn SEO - Moz Maybe edu link doesn't pass more link juice, but it increases the trustrank of your website. That's the extra value of edu link!

I don't think so.

Let's say the .edu site is a PR6, why would it have more trust then another PR6 domain with a similar back link profile?

Just because it has the extension .edu?

Sure you can argue that it's likely that an .edu domain has more links from other .edu and .gov sites but nothing that a .com domain couldn't achieve.

In short it's just an overhyped thing.

Maybe you should read that article on Moz again:

"Receiving links from sources with inherent trust—such as the homepages of major university websites"

Good luck with getting a homepage link from them!

Besides, they only used universities and government sites as an example to explain it in an easy way to the noobs.

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fearlesspioneer

10 years ago

Originally Posted by nik0

I don't think so.

Let's say the .edu site is a PR6, why would it have more trust then another PR6 domain with a similar back link profile?

Just because it has the extension .edu?

Sure you can argue that it's likely that an .edu domain has more links from other .edu and .gov sites but nothing that a .com domain couldn't achieve.

In short it's just an overhyped thing.

Maybe you should read that article on Moz again:

"Receiving links from sources with inherent trust—such as the homepages of major university websites"

Good luck with getting a homepage link from them!

Besides, they only used universities and government sites as an example to explain it in an easy way to the noobs.

Did you read the moz article I mentioned above? Moz said edu and gov site are more trusted! I don't think you understand what is trustrank. Because edu and gov site are trusted seed websites. So they are different from other .com sites. Or we can say that the reason why some .com sites are trusted is that they got some edu and gov links. But those sites are 2nd tier trusted sites, they are not the 1st tier seed sites.

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nettiapina 10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

Did you read the moz article I mentioned above? Moz said edu and gov site are more trusted!

That page is only talking about MozTrust, their own proprietary algorithm and their method of using seed sites. That's got very little to do with Google. Sure, we can talk about other methods of ranking websites, but after your remarks about Google's algo I don't really see any worthwhile argument here.

Also they didn't say what you think they said. It's just a way of explaining a good link as was pointed above. The operative word there is "major", as in major university websites. They didn't say a word about TLDs there, but later in the article casually dropped "media websites" to the same pile. That seemingly minor addition effectively destroys your "TLD behind MozTrust" argument.

.edu has been for US-affiliated institutions of higher education since early 2000s. There's university websites all over the world. The one closest to me is .fi and has homepage PR of 7.

Several major universities were among the first to get a website back in the 90s. They're trusted academic institutions, which brings them backlinks from students, affiliates and ordinary laypeople. This is all perfectly fine as an explanation for the high PR and trust scores on those sites, but it simply doesn't translate to .edu having any particular power.
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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by fearlesspioneer

It's a waste of time to talk with such a person like you. OK all you said are right! Google should hire you to work for them! I won't waste my time posting here any more.

I do appreciate the level of irony you've achieved. You've not only completely hijacked a thread, but have kept repeating a weird claim that Mike F. summed up well.

You're not doing any favours to your own "theory" here. About the only thing you seem to be able to do is attack people instead of their ideas.

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nettiapina

10 years ago

The approach is relying on Excel quite a lot, which means that the results are not terribly useful if the calculations are based on incorrect data. I had the feeling that there might be some weird assumptions in there, but couldn't place my finger on it before reading the comments above. Indeed the Competition score in Keyword Planner isn't reliable for this purpose. I guess it might be more obvious for my home market that has only a couple of million potential internet users and much less advertisers. The number is often just completely random.

I didn't understand the bit about keyword density and PHP script.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by nettiapina

The approach is relying on Excel quite a lot, which means that the results are not terribly useful if the calculations are based on incorrect data. I had the feeling that there might be some weird assumptions in there, but couldn't place my finger on it before reading the comments above. Indeed the Competition score in Keyword Planner isn't reliable for this purpose. I guess it might be more obvious for my home market that has only a couple of million potential internet users and much less advertisers. The number is often just completely random.

I didn't understand the bit about keyword density and PHP script.

Yeah, lots of Excel because I'm new here and don't know how much IM people know about programming. I actually have to go through my php code and translate some of them to excel.

For the keyword density part, I don't know how I can go into detail with words. What I do is to check if those keywords are on the page. I guess, people can just glance at those main and secondary keywords and see if they are related to their page. Because Google sometimes recommend really weird related keywords.

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whawk57

10 years ago

Why all this confusion? Here's my KISS to this (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Forget Adwords tool, it's data is usually over six months old. Here is a fresh way to do it.

1 Open the Google search page, search something and in the results page continue below

2 Type keyword slowly and take note of the suggestions. Jot them down on paper.
(works great with phrases)

3 Check out the competition with and without quotes (more tricks to that like with the squared brackets).

4 Add 'synonym' without the quotes after a single keyword in the search box and you' get all the synonyms !

That's it!

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whawk57

10 years ago

Why all this confusion? Here's my KISS to this (Keep It Simple Stupid).
Forget Adwords tool, it's data is usually over six months old. Here is a fresh way to do it.

1 Open the Google search page, search something and in the results page continue below

2 Type keyword slowly and take note of the suggestions. Jot them down on paper.
(works great with phrases)

3 Check out the competition with and without quotes (more tricks to that like with the squared brackets).

4 Add 'synonym' after a single keyword in the search box and you' get all the synonyms !

That's it!

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MikeFriedman 10 years ago

Originally Posted by whawk57

3 Check out the competition with and without quotes (more tricks to that like with the squared brackets).

Checking the results with quotes tells you nothing. Unless you are trying to rank for song lyrics or something like that, rarely does anyone search for anything with quotes.
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internet marketing tools

10 years ago

it still confusing for noobs.just take the main idea.yeah you good for keywords planner but.just take a while on keywords and get the best.the rest of it just make an articles and design your templates.don't be too long for keywords research.
just do the actions..don't calculate too long.
noobs always want the simple.

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whawk57

10 years ago

The quotes are useful for the exact search term phrases.

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MikeFriedman 10 years ago

Originally Posted by whawk57

The quotes are useful for the exact search term phrases.

Like I said, people almost never search for exact search phrases.

People search for

affordable auto insurance

not

"affordable auto insurance"
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- whawk57 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman
  
  Like I said, people almost never search for exact search phrases.
  
  People search for
  
  affordable auto insurance
  
  not
  
  "affordable auto insurance"
  
  Yes you're right, but what I meant was for your own sake (in research) to see which sites are using the same exact term in competition wise.
  If too many sites are using the exact same term, then the competition could be too high.
  
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  MikeFriedman 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by whawk57
  
  Yes you're right, but I what I meant was for your own sake to see which sites are using the same exact term in competition wise.
  
  And again, searching in quotes is completely and utterly useless for judging competition.
  
  Put your search term in the search bar. You see the top 3 results? That's your competition. That's it.
  
  Stuff like searching in quotes, looking at how many results are in the index, looking at the PR of the sites on page one... all of that is old rehashed advice from 10 years ago. It was never that good of advice to begin with, but somehow it keeps hanging on.
  
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  jxam69 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman
  
  And again, searching in quotes is completely and utterly useless for judging competition.
  
  But what if I want to rank for: "
  
  Should I put it in double quotes such as: """
  
  Or would single quotes be better: '"'
  
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  Kevin Maguire 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by jxam69
  
  But what if I want to rank for: "
  
  Should I put it in double quotes such as: """
  
  Or would single quotes be better: '"'
  
  It's more like
  
  """ intitle:"""+intext:"""+inurl:""" :p
  
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- syedqurat 10 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman
  
  Like I said, people almost never search for exact search phrases.
  
  People search for
  
  affordable auto insurance
  
  not
  
  "affordable auto insurance"
  
  No one search but we need to search with quote if we need to search exact string/text on page.
  
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IMmonkey

10 years ago

so the questions here are

1. should we consider using the competition factor Google gives to prequalify keywords?

2. should we consider using PA/DA to analyze competitors that are ranking?

I will do a a specific example tomorrow and we can all give our inputs as to which keywords should have been included and which shouldn't and why? This is going to be interesting, and if we can come to a somewhat consensus, everyone wins!

Nite and cheers!

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yukon

Banned 10 years ago

I use double quotes on a keyword phrase for the competitions site, just to get an idea how serious they are about the exact phrase, example:

site:www.warriorforum.com intitle:"keyword research"

That would assume warriorforum.com ranked #1 for keyword research in Google SERPs, or whatever SERP position I was aiming to rank for.

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Ghoster

10 years ago

Not a big fan of spinning—I think it's usefulness is over— but it's nice to see someone sharing info so openly.

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aspic791

10 years ago

Great method, although about link building, I always vote for social bookmarking method as it was always trusted by search engine and the high page rank social websites got that will help your sites get fast indexed and get you a higher search result position.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by aspic791

Great method, although about link building, I always vote for social bookmarking method as it was always trusted by search engine and the high page rank social websites got that will help your sites get fast indexed and get you a higher search result position.

for link posting, I use everything. And I love to do a blast like a sudden news, huge blast and see my site fly up the SERP, have to make it look natural though like the percentage of the links coming in from diffferent properties. And at the same time have the right percentage of social (Tweets, FB, G+, etc) and comments (noise) to back it up. It's kind of like those product launch blast. It still works. I'm actually doing it to 23 of some of my old sites that were collecting dust!

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

wow my post is about edu link now! haha

well, I think everyone got a point here. It is pretty much the same if it's .edu or .com. or even .gov. Every page is an entity of itself. But, if domain extensions were to have a slightly different weight, I would have to vote that .gov would be heaviest, then .edu, then the rest.

The reason being is because .gov and .edu are closed networks where the other extensions, anyone can buy and do whatever to. And since it's a closed network, it's usually maintained by someone. Of course there are a lot of .gov and .edu sites don't get updated and are pretty much dead but comparing that to the amount of dead/parked .com sites, the difference is big.

So fearlesspioneer, I think I agree with you more. The word absolutely nothing is a bit extreme, supply and demand, basic economic, if it's worth nothing, then maybe you guys can sell me some .edu and .gov domains! On the contrary, there are ways to get .edu backlinks easily. I do it all the time, anytime. Just not as easy as the other extensions, again "supply and demand"

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

The reason being is because .gov and .edu are closed networks where the other extensions, anyone can buy and do whatever to. And since it's a closed network, it's usually maintained by someone. Of course there are a lot of .gov and .edu sites don't get updated and are pretty much dead but comparing that to the amount of dead/parked .com sites, the difference is big.

They're not "networks". For sure some .edu institutions are linking to each other, but for most part it's just random pile of addresses like any other TLD.

Sure, legal limits make TLDs seem a bit more high-value by keeping lots of people out, much like our own .fi has been for ages. They've eased the limitations in recent years, but it's not completely free-for-all even today which makes a Finn trust a .fi a bit more. On overall the sites have been more legit that their counterparts with other TLDs. That doesn't really say anything about the quality of backlinks.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by nettiapina

They're not "networks". For sure some .edu institutions are linking to each other, but for most part it's just random pile of addresses like any other TLD.

Sure, legal limits make TLDs seem a bit more high-value by keeping lots of people out, much like our own .fi has been for ages. They've eased the limitations in recent years, but it's not completely free-for-all even today which makes a Finn trust a .fi a bit more. On overall the sites have been more legit that their counterparts with other TLDs. That doesn't really say anything about the quality of backlinks.

Which part of it is random? extensions exist for a reason. .edu and .gov classify the type of sites, not that random to me.

And yes the legal limits making it not easily accessible to spam and abuse, thus an overall a bit more trust. I'm not saying .edu/.gov will give you all the trust/juice you get, but if a feather heavier, it's heaver.

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

Which part of it is random? extensions exist for a reason. .edu and .gov classify the type of sites, not that random to me.

And yes the legal limits making it not easily accessible to spam and abuse, thus an overall a bit more trust. I'm not saying .edu/.gov will give you all the trust/juice you get, but if a feather heavier, it's heaver.

I was referring to the part about "network". Most sites have no links between them, and in fact they can be competitors on many levels. As far as I know nobody is linking .edu together.

So... you're not saying that .edu links are any better, but you're saying that .edu links are better. Either I just don't get what you're saying or it doesn't make much sense.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

So fearlesspioneer, I think I agree with you more. The word absolutely nothing is a bit extreme, supply and demand, basic economic, if it's worth nothing, then maybe you guys can sell me some .edu and .gov domains! On the contrary, there are ways to get .edu backlinks easily. I do it all the time, anytime. Just not as easy as the other extensions, again "supply and demand"

Then, unfortunately, you are just as clueless as your buddy.

Links get no added value based on just the TLD. NONE.

Do you know how easy it is to get .edu links? I could have a thousand of them by tomorrow if I wanted.

Hell, I could pay a few college kids $20 to give me my own .edu blog.

Google is much smarter than that. It is a shame there are so many people pushing this myth still today.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Then, unfortunately, you are just as clueless as your buddy.

Links get no added value based on just the TLD. NONE.

Do you know how easy it is to get .edu links? I could have a thousand of them by tomorrow if I wanted.

Hell, I could pay a few college kids $20 to give me my own .edu blog.

Google is much smarter than that. It is a shame there are so many people pushing this myth still today.

Did you not read what I wrote about easily getting .edu links？Yeah, go ahead and buy a .edu blog for $20, that's easy right? or getting a .com blog easier? So what is Google going to think, getting a .edu is easier?

One simple question, more spam and junk out there with other TLDs or more spam on .edu/.gov site?

I'm not saying .edu/.gov are almight powerful, and we all know that getting a link on CNN homepage will give more juice than a kid's .edu blog without needing Google to confirm it.

So when a professor's personal .edu blog vs. a nobody's .com blog where they have the exact same backlinks, content, andeverything, who would win under a Google manual review? Just answer this.

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

So when a professor's personal .edu blog vs. a nobody's .com blog where they have the exact same backlinks, content, andeverything, who would win under a Google manual review? Just answer this.

You're asking for answer to a hypothetical question regarding an opaque process that's been used by salaried employees of a giant monopolistic corporation. Surely you must realize that it's impossible to answer.

I guess we can all agree that .edu has less abuse than other extensions, but that doesn't really translate to backlinks being automatically more valuable.

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IMmonkey

10 years ago

I'm just saying that .edu are not as valuable as they are advertised by some people, but if it comes down to the penny value, it does have some.

The question above is simple and we all know the answer to it. And if Google manual review would agree that .edu will win the fight, then maybe that's when the penny value kicks in. Agree?

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nettiapina

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

The question above is simple and we all know the answer to it. And if Google manual review would agree that .edu will win the fight, then maybe that's when the penny value kicks in. Agree?

No. Claiming that you know something that specific about Google's internal workings seriously erodes that argument, but in my eyes also every other SEO-related claim you make. You presented it clearly as a hypothetical question ("where they have the exact same backlinks, content, and everything") which I find quite fruitless in this context.

If there were two sites that had to be manually reviewed, and had equally shitty content and link profile, it's very likely that both were to receive communique via GWT and, failing to react, excommunication from Google.

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MikeFriedman

10 years ago

Originally Posted by IMmonkey

Did you not read what I wrote about easily getting .edu links？Yeah, go ahead and buy a .edu blog for $20, that's easy right? or getting a .com blog easier? So what is Google going to think, getting a .edu is easier?

One simple question, more spam and junk out there with other TLDs or more spam on .edu/.gov site?

I'm not saying .edu/.gov are almight powerful, and we all know that getting a link on CNN homepage will give more juice than a kid's .edu blog without needing Google to confirm it.

So when a professor's personal .edu blog vs. a nobody's .com blog where they have the exact same backlinks, content, andeverything, who would win under a Google manual review? Just answer this.

We are not talking about manual reviews or anything like that. Fearlesspioneer is misleading people into believing that Google gives special weighting to links from a .edu site versus links from a .com, .net, .org, etc. That is just not true.

Just the TLD alone does not give any special boost to a link.

Now would I rather have a link from a professor's personal blog versus some a website of some random unknown person? Sure. If it is relevant. However, I would probably take the professor's blog over the random person whether it is a .edu, .com, .net, .yourwrong, etc.

The only time the TLD comes into play is for geo-specific rankings. If I am trying to rank in the UK for something, I would like to have more links from .co.uk sites. That is when the TLD matters.