Is Google just pretending?

Interesting.

In the most competitive of the small UK niches I compete in for Google success, the top keyword is ruled by a website with an almost exclusively paid-for backlink profile.

There are a few directory links. And some puff on article sites. But not, as far as I can see, a single organically generated backlink. Not surprising really. The site is merely one of several too expensive directories that serve the niche and it isn't even the best.

Now Google hates link buying. I know because it keeps telling us so. No matter. Despite the exclusively grey hat tactics, this website sits on top of Google and has done for months.

I've known about this for ages. But I assumed buying links worked here only because this is a tiny niche in the UK, not worthy of proper scrutiny from the big G.

But if you think about it, that doesn't make sense.

An algorithm is an algorithm. It doesn't work harder when a keyword is popular. It detects. Or it doesn't. And I'm beginning to think the Google algorithm isn't all Google cracks it up to be when it comes to bought links, irrelavent links and generally spammy linkbuilding tactics.

And today, I came across two blog posts today that seemed to back up my view.

The first was from the We Build Pages blog. Links for Sale – PR9 Links only $300 / Month! pokes fun at link sellers, but admits along the way that a customer was complaining how all of his competitors are buying links and kicking his ass for some key phrases.

Tell me about it.

The other post - Proof Anchor Text Links From Unrelated Sites Are GOLD Too - is from the Hobo blog.

The title says it all. Shaun Anderson looks at the seo vertical and concludes that unrelated links, for all the Google seo bollocks about relevance, work just fine for a Google push.

I couldn't agree more with both posts.

And I got to thinking - maybe Google has been quite knowingly putting the frighteners on us white hats for the last few years.

Making us work hard to build good content in pursuit of supposedly extra-valuable natural links. Making us police ourselves because really, it's too hard to algorithmically detect many kinds of bought links; and too complicated to differentiate between good backlinks from irrelevent sites and bad ones.

Whatever, I think I'm going to get a little greyer. Because it really is beginning to look like it is the quickest and - given the time it takes to generate and promote good content - the cheapest way to get results.

Search rankings dead? I don't think so

Yes I know this blog is supposed to be about the middle age and families and stuff.

But my irritation at the sheep-like search engine optimisation community is just too powerful to resist this opportunity to give my fingers free reign at the keyboard.

It's just this rankings are dead thing. People have been saying it for a while. But Bruce Clay made a splash about it recently (splash link is to a video if there is anybody else in the world like me who hates to wait for a video to load that will then take up 10 times more of your time than the equivalent text content). And I guess he got what he wanted because he got a lot of coverage and links from saying it.

But now everyone and his dog is saying it.

Now I'm not saying all this talk is groundless. Follow any of the links in the above paragraph to find out about how more localised results, video, images and oh dear yes Google's personalised search will or may effect the way Google orders search results.

And I have no beef with the other point the seo sheep bleat: the one about how high rankings are useless if the people who come to your site don't convert (buy/contact you/sign up) when they get there.

But I would argue the converse is also true. In other words, the old seo chestnut about great content that converts well being useless if nobody comes.

And how are people going to get there? Digg? Stumbleupon? Twitter? Friendfeed?

I don't think so, not if they aren't looking for the latest article on How Best To Tweet to your Tweeps or similarily naval gazing tactics that is.

No. The majority will be searching on Google. If I actually wanted something, that is where I would go.

And what would I click on? Why the results on the first page of course, maybe some from the second page, even the third if I really needed something. Would I be clicking on videos? No way. Why waste time? Images? Local? Maybe, if they looked like they might lead to something genuinely useful.

I had a sudden panic here. Am I just reflecting my age in the way I search? So I went and conducted a not entirely scientific survey and asked daughter 2 what she would do if she had to search for something. We picked buy New Rave clothes because that was something she recently had to do for a themed party.

So what would this tech-savvy screen-addicted YouTube-watching teen do? Well, she would go to Google and then:

• I definitely wouldn't look at the video" (yesssss!)


• I might look at the images but I would check they wern't something silly like Jennifer is wearing... (she was watching Friends at the time)

So basically, she would do the same as me. Click on the text results in the first page or two of the Google results.

So for both of us Google and the websites that rank are what count - however they got there.

Really, what I am saying is that I still believe the best way to get business for my customers is to get them on the first page of as many relavent popular Google search results as possible - ie to get them to rank.

That would certainly include optimising images for search; video too if it was affordable. Local optimisation for local businesses is obviously a must.

And I would absolutely ensure that what people who click on my customer's websites get when they come is content as good as can make it. I also would try and make it very easy for them to convert. All these things I would test with website analytics software (another of the shiboleths of the rankings are dead crowd.

And good content seems the best way to get promoted in personalised search too - except by competitors of course who, in the smallish local search results I am interested in for my customers, are as far as I can see the only ones using Google's personalised search so far. (Note to self: save anti-personalised search rant for another post)

There are others of similar mind.

As I see it, rankings, far from being dead, are still the number one consideration for SEOs. How we do it may change. But without them, it's us not the rankings but us who will be dead.