I just read yet another article from a big-name muckity at a big SEO company about “PR Sculpting with the nofollow tag”. It took real restraint not to add a comment (as a rule, I don’t… it just encourages them).

“PR Sculpting with the nofollow tag” is like saying “Cake decorating with chainsaws”. The two don’t go together. The nofollow tag was not created in any way with this purpose in mind, and it doesn’t function well in this usage.

The nofollow tag is used in relation to links using the ‘<a href=’ HTML code within a web page. It was created to tell search engines (read - Google) whether or not a link is “trusted” by the site owner. It can serve to minimize blog comment spam, as it tells Google that links in your comments are not to be trusted, and it can serve to tell Google that certain links on your site are advertisements, not links you personally endorse.

I think the whole confusion arose from the name of the tag itself. Google made a mistake. (no lynch mobs, please!) Google should have named it something else… like notrust or noreference or similar. Because the Google spider (called Googlebot) most certainly follows links with rel=nofollow added to them. You can prove this for yourself by registering a new domain name and uploading a basic site of some sort like a blog; then go place a comment on a blog that uses the nofollow tag, with a link back to your new domain. You’ll see googlebot in your stats in no time, and the referencing site will be the blog you placed the comment on.

We’ve done a number of experiments in SEO Club with nofollow links, and not only does googlebot follow them, Google gives some juice to them as well. You can get a site ranked in a long-tail niche with only comments on blogs with nofollow usage.

So why in the world would you ever use such an amorphous and unpredictable tool for something called SCULPTING?

Yes, sculpting PR is a very real and effective strategy. I’ve taught it for 8 years now. You want complete control over your on-site linking strategy to ensure that maximum “juice” or trust is directed at the most important pages of your site. You also want to maximize the usage of the proper anchor text in these links.

For example, you probably don’t need your Terms of Service page ranked highly in the search engines. It can be indexed and used for internal linking, sure, but it doesn’t need much juice. But you want to have links to your TOS from every page on your site so that you’re covered, legally. It’s simple, really. You just make the links to your TOS page in your navigation javascript or flash; not <a href= links.

Second example: You have a site that you want to rank for the term “low-inome mortgage modification”. That’s the targeted term for the home page of the site. So you want internal links to have “low-income mortgage modification” as the anchor text of the links. If you have only one main site navigation, that might not only look unruly, but also be very confusing to visitors. You want the main navigation to the homepage labeled “home”. Again, you just make the “home” link JS or Flash, and then place a link with the proper anchor text back to the homepage someplace else in the site template or in the navigation.

Those two examples are very simple forms of PR Sculpting. More advanced methodologies… I don’t need to go into detail about here.

So let’s go back to PR Sculpting via nofollow. Are you going to use a tool that denotes “do not trust this link” to point to pages on YOUR OWN SITE? That’s crazy. And it doesn’t work. If the proponents of such methods would simply empirically test these strategies, they’d already know that. What it comes back to is yet another example of an SEO strategy that is simply there to impress clients and newbie SEO enthusiasts.

So go ahead and do some “sclupting” to the PR flow of your site. Just use the proper tools!

Nathan Anderson

One of my favorite quotes is “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

Perhaps Microsoft should heed this truism.

There’s a lot of talk about the imminent release of Bing.com - Microsoft’s new search engine. I’ve read a bit about it at MSN and watched the intro video…

Microsoft is doing the same thing again, and expects a different result.

Re-branding has absolutely NO EFFECT on the Web. Seriously. Research it. None.

Internet denizens are keenly tuned into FUNCTION. That’s what the web is all about. It doesn’t matter if the stupid website is named “jinxies.com”; if it does what the users want and expect it to do, they’ll continue to use it and recommend it to their friends! After all, Google was a stupid name… a misspelling of Googol (a number- 1 and 100 zeroes). But it’s so popular it’s in danger of losing its trademark, as it is now used as a verb in the English language. (I dunno, let me Google it.)

So here we have Microsoft YET AGAIN renaming their search engine in an attempt to gain more marketshare. Is it MSN Search? Live.com? Bing? Who cares what the name is, the functionality plain sucks. The engine is littered with spam and their own properties. Finding what you want is difficult; and that’s bad news when the whole purpose of the thing is to FIND, not SEARCH. (anyone want to invent a Find Engine?)

After watching the video promo for Bing, my only thought is “this is going to make it easier for Microsoft to hide more monetization in their search”.

That’s my prediction.

The extra doodads that make it easy to find a local restaurant, a cheaper airline ticket, a better travel itinerary… They’re all monetization opportunities for MSN. That is quite obviously their only goal. They have a long and detailed history displaying such. My own statistical analysis of their search engine nearly proves it as well - showing that their search results are unfairly stacked with their own sites.

I’m obviously going to reserve final judgement for the launch and performance of Bing.com; but I don’t hold much hope at this point. Time will tell.

One of the questions I get most when it comes to my SEO projects is, “Do you have a staff that does all the less technical, time-consuming parts of Search Engine Optimization?”

I, of course, answer “Yes!”

Especially when talking to an SEO client. I tell them I have a staff of 14, from programmers to designers to link building personnel.

What they DON’T know is that I have NO employees.

After all, who wants to do all the payroll, the taxes, the insurance, the paperwork.

I have people that work for me, but they’re all overseas. And they’re in several different countries, depending on my needs.

When it comes to having full-time people doing the more mundane tasks that require excellent English skills, I choose the Phillipines. These are the workers that I have performing article marketing, web 2.0 management, and link building. They use all sorts of different techniques for building link reputation to my and my clients’ sites.

Keeping on top of this many people doing this many different things would appear to be a full time job in itself, but it is not.

It’s all about the tools.

I use a service that not only has a project management system in place to manage the many tasks and workers, it has worker training as well. Training in all the areas I use - article marketing, web 2.0 management, video promotions… everything. So the workers literally train themselves and get to work.

I tell ya… it’s working smart rather than hard. In fact, if I wanted to, I could probably limit my workday to 2 hours if I cared to.

How much do these employees cost?

Depending on the level of expertise, from $200 to $600 per month per worker. Yes, that’s full-time.

If you’d like to check out the service I use, click here.

-Nathan Anderson

It took me a WHOLE lot longer than expected, but SEO Tactics 3 is ready to go.

SEO Tactics 3

I expected to just update my now 7-year old SEO ebook, but there was just TOO MUCH to change! So I pretty much re-wrote the whole thing.

In it you’ll find information on SEO by the numbers, Social Media and SEO, common problems, and some advanced ways of getting backlinks that just about no one reveals.

It’s a fast read, but you’d be better off if you read the whole thing a few times over. It’s extremely concise and full of tactics you can use to get more natural search engine traffic to your sites TODAY.

Did I mention that this is a Free SEO book?

Have at it!

Nathan Anderson

Stompernet has sent out “review copies” of Stomping the Search Engines 2.0 to strategic partners… more accurately, affiliates. I happen to be on that list. Even though I’ve never promoted anything the Stomper Boys have sold (Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins), they were kind enough to send me a review copy of STSE 2.0.

In fact, they sent me two!

I’m going to be a spoiler for you…

It’s not the best thing since sliced bread.

You won’t automatically have top search engine rankings and millions of visitors after reading it.

But it is a very complete instruction on the ins and outs of SEO.

There are a few technical inaccuracies in it… but that’s splitting hairs between top SEO minds. I could go into a diatribe about some of the statements they make in the course… and prove here on this blog that I’m right with examples and statistical data to prove my point. But that won’t help anyone. The fact is, the stuff they’re wrong about really doesn’t matter. If you follow their instructions, you’ll get great results.

I really only have one problem with STSE 2.0… it’s presented in a format that is really hard for me to consume. And if you’re a seasoned SEO enthusiast, I think you’ll find similar.

It’s presented in a video format similar to a powerpoint with the instructor talking over the top. It’s not a bad format for learning… similar to going to a seminar and hearing from a speaker. But for guys like me that read REALLY fast, it’s like pulling teeth!

I can see how it will be VERY effective in instructing those that aren’t SEO veterans, though. Lay it all out with audio, video and text to take advantage of different learning modes. Those with only a passing familiarity with SEO should find it compelling.

If you decide to take the Stompernet Boys up on this offer, be warned… You’re about to be exposed to one of the finest marketing machines on the Net. They give extreme value, and and ask a premium for it.

Here’s a link to the special deal for STSE: Stomping the Search Engines 2

For the rest of us… those that are more familiar with the topic, or that can consume material through the written word quite easily… I’d recommend my ebook SEO Tactics. Version 3 was recently published, and it’s completely FREE.

Nathan Anderson

Do you blog?

Is any of your content syndicated via RSS?

This 3-minute Video SEO Tip may just give you a nice “ah-hah!”

http://screencast.com/t/3lZYHp0EJDo

Nathan Anderson

Ever since late January, I’ve been watching the news (particularly the New York Times) coverage of the Microsoft bid to buy out Yahoo.

There has been rampant speculation in the tech world as to what the truth is behind the scenes. My only certainty is that the reality of the situation doesn’t match what we get to witness.

I’m anxious to see what happens tomorrow.

We’re about 9 hours from the opening bell of Wall Street. What happens then will tell a lot about the situation.

Yahoo most certainly will be seeing a huge stock drop tomorrow. It will be their #1 aim this week - to bolster their stock.

Microsoft… I’m 50/50 with no change in share price or a dramatic increase. Certainly not a drop.

If Yahoo can’t get control of their share price… they could very well be devalued to the point of being an easy target later. Going to Google for search monetization tests does not help that situation AT ALL. Instead of differentiating themselves from Google - a ploy that would bolster their value to the market and to shareholders - they openly admitted and displayed to the world that side-by-side, their search monetization pales in comparison. Yes, it may have helped keep the Microsoft wolf at bay, but it was a long-term major mistake.

I’ve been very critical of Google “buying their way to the future”. But in comparison, these antics are positively sophomoric…

Nathan Anderson

A friend on Facebook asked me today:

“Nathan, I just installed Headspace2 as a plugin and wanted to know if you have any experience or feedback you could share with me.”

So instead of just replying to him via email, I thought I’d put the response here.

Taking a look at Headspace2, there are some very interesting features. In comparison to the “All in One SEO Plugin” I recently reviewed with Jack Humphrey, this plugin allows pretty exceptional control over meta tags and content tags. For someone very particular with their SEO, it’s a winner.

However, if you aren’t all that picky about your exact SEO bits, it isn’t a great improvement over the All-In-One.

So my conclusion is: If you’re an SEO Nut like myself, go grab it!

Nathan Anderson

Hey, I just went round and round with someone about the importance of META tags.

I thought I’d share the video proof with you, plus a few other factors, in a free video I just made.

Enjoy!

http://screencast.com/t/63LtutDEn

Nathan Anderson

Time for some SEO info

We’ve moved everything over to new servers in SEO Club, and the statistical analysis has been running for a couple of weeks.

There’s some really interesting new information in the preliminary data; and I thought I’d share some of it with my subscribers.

First of all, a reader asked me if there was something happening with Adsense ads and the Live.com search engine (MSN Search). Apparently, this reader has had a couple of sites dropped from the Live.com search engine, and some people in the SEO community said that it was due to the sites having Adsense on them.

I wonder how they came to that conclusion? They “heard” this happen to someone else, and just assumed?

We can easily pull this information out of the statistical analysis we do every month in SEO Club. Although only 4,200 sites have been processed so far for Live.com data, we can easily see trends such as this.

Looking at this preliminary data, I don’t see a problem with running Adsense on your site and still performing well in Live.com. There is a very minor -33 correlation to having Adsense on your page and your ranking in Live.com. It’s been about at that level for at least a year now.

So don’t worry about your rankings in Live.com if you have Adsense on your site.

The fact is, Live.com is so erratic in behavior it’s difficult to come to solid conclusions about these types of events. They
periodically re-integrate old data sets into their live database so sites seemingly disappear for weeks at a time; until they’re either re-spidered or a newer database is incorporated (or at least I’m assuming this scenario from my numbers).

If this happens to you, my advice is pretty standard: Give it some time and see what happens. If nothing changes in a few weeks, start examining your site carefully and look for “killers”. Killers can be pages that have been hacked, and had hidden porn links added. It can be as simple as having some text on the page that is the same HTML color as the body background color. The text can be in a table with a dark background, so it’s still perfectly visible, but it happens to match your page background color, and thus trips a spam filter.

If you can’t seem to locate any killers, try contacting the search engine that has delisted you and see if they’re able/willing to tell you what the problem is. If that doesn’t work, you might need to hire an SEO Consultant to take a closer look.

In any case, jumping to a conclusion like “Live.com kicks out sites that have Adsense on them” is the wrong way to go; without the data to prove it.

If you’d like to examine the latest data we’re examining in SEO Club, I’ve added some great bonuses to your initial membership in SEO Club, including several DVDs and an audio CD. You’ll have access to the initial stats results, plus you’ll be able to look at the results from 2007.

Grab yours now at SEO Club.

Nathan Anderson