Comments on: Google’s Matt Cutts Vindicates Controversial Theory Behind LinContEx.com

By: Antone Roundy

Antone Roundy — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:39:49 +0000

The problem is that the “rules” don’t specify behaviors, like “include useful or entertaining information in your content”, “link to good content”, “use the lingo of your target reader”, etc. They specify things like “our mathematical analysis of content that has been identified as good suggests that it typically has keyword density of 3-5%”. (I made those numbers up, so don’t anybody go out and use them.)

The bad guys see that and adjust their content to have the “perfect” keyword density. Does that make their content better? No. It usually means they mangle their content to force it into a the shape they think the search engines are looking for.

By the time they’ve fine tuned their content for every ranking factor, it’s a Frankenstein’s monster that no human can even understand.

Ranking factors — or at least the precise details of how they’re applied — aren’t a formula for creating great content. They’re statistics that come from analyzing lots of good lots of content and finding ways in which significant amounts of good content are similar.

What Google HAS published is webmaster guidelines that explain how to create content the way they like it. These are the things you need to know — not exactly what the 200+ mathematical measures are.

The guidelines are here: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

By: Michael Scott

Michael Scott — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:13:14 +0000

Thanks Antone, although don’t you find that strange? Information is power, and if those of us who are trying to do the right thing, do the right thing, then the “internets” are a better place right?

I understand the potential for abuse, but if the ranking criteria stands firm doesn’t it logically follow that even the bad guys will follow the rules? If they do then it’s game, set and match right? Dang. I used a tennis metaphor and don’t even play tennis :-)

By: Antone Roundy

Antone Roundy — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:10:07 +0000

Michael, you won’t find an official list of ranking factors anywhere. Google intentionally keeps the details secret to prevent people from abusing the information to game the system.

By: Michael Scott

Michael Scott — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:35:37 +0000

This is an extraordinary article. I found it while researching the efficacy, or lack thereof, of outbound links and SEO. I notice in your last comment you mention there are over 200 ranking factors. Any thoughts as to where I could find these listed? Thanks.

By: Antone Roundy

Antone Roundy — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:27:05 +0000

Well said, Aidan and David. Outbound links are just one of over 200 ranking factors. My main points here are that it IS a factor, and that PageRank also is just one of over 200.

By: David

David — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:20:48 +0000

Outbound links? are only valuable if everything else is (content, inbound links, ect)… if the case where that you could fill a page with outbound to authority sites ect… nobody would need SEO

By: Aidan

Aidan — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:30:35 +0000

A link or two to more good content can hardly be a bad thing so why not link out to decent content?

I’m not actually conviced how much weight it has in the algorithm but if you are providing more value to visitors it has to count for something!

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:01:24 +0000

As much as Internet marketers and SEO people focus on websites which have high PageRanks, it’s important not to forget that people are only going to keep visiting your website if you provide them with good content and good links. Repeat visitors (and a loyal fanbase) is what is going to keep your website going strong for years.

By: Gab

Gab — Sat, 15 May 2010 06:10:42 +0000

It is difficult to clearly control all the links that you send out from your site, I mean… this mean we also have to consider if the links in the comments are related to our niche/subject… ?

I think the best way is just to link build as natural as possible… the more we try to think about it, the more energy we spend and then google goes out there and change the rules.

just my 2 cents mate.

By: Antone Roundy

Antone Roundy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:09:12 +0000

Good question. I’d be wary of PR0 websites, just in case they got that way by being penalized.

Beyond that, if the content is going to benefit your readers, then it’s good. If it looks like somebody handed a formula to a trained monkey who followed it and pounded out a keyword-optimized PLR article, your readers aren’t going to like it, so don’t link to it.

I don’t know whether there is a way to decide “at a glance” what’s good content. You can sometimes recognize bad quickly when the site design is so horrible that it’s difficult to read the content. But most of the time, you’ll probably have to read the content to decide.