Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Link bait is always one of the most challenging yet very rewarding task.

I do agree with George below though -

Try implementing your own contest - if you need help with any ideas let me know.

your pal

Chenzo

I have the same problem - and what I have done is try to allow the content to illustrate more of a behind the scenes of the company.

Creating a specific author or blog to the site - to also eliminate the "thin" content issue in a post panda/penguin world.

A once a week post - labeled "John's Corner" or whomever the content author may be and allow the content to illustrate a day in the life of one of their employees or what one of their customers may be able to relate to.

Stimulating a social engagement as well and hopefully creating that "sticky" factor.

If that doesn't work - shock therapy!

your pal

Chenzo

honesty.im

David - best thing to do right now is to not make any moves with URL.

Are you able to make contact to the URL's that are supplying you with the poor - over abundance of links all of a sudden?

Due to your age and overall rankings over the years you should be coming back from this and don't forget their is another penguin update still rolling out into the end of this week.

This site really interest me as I used to run a few URLs within the same vertical and know the segment very well.

Keep me posted if you would like via email - chenzo@honesty.im -

Real quick Mozers' - when creating a widget that has the purpose to hopefully be placed on multiple sites as the new http://mozcast.com/widgets is supplying -

In the past when I would create widgets to supply to webmasters - I would sneak in anchor text within the by line much like the "mozcast" -

But in post penguin world - won't this end up negatively affecting the inbound link profile to such a newly created domain - especially since both widgets carry the same anchor text - and are both pointed to the index page?

I have taught recently that it would be optimal to supply a variation of anchored keyterms also pointing to a variety of internal subpages to spread the juice.

Or in this case - it isn't a concern?

• I use a lot of tactics for link bait and widgets was one prior to penguin - but I'm interested to see how the keyterm "mozcast" will be valued through the big G overtime.

Great job on the overall development though guys and also the acquisition of followerwonk.com - you guys are doing so well and honored to be a part of it.

your pal

Chenzo

By asking this question tan you have opened up the door to a lot of everything you are not looking for. I am assuming you want links to give you rankings and you want rankings to get you traffic that you hope will purchase your goods. Well, it starts now, why should I link to your site and if your site can not deliver that then no level of SEO or links is going to help you. The best link is the one you didn't build. Don't get caught up in trying to rank, try to supply me or another potential visitor with something worth looking into. Your vertical is very competitive but no one is supplying a resource much like seomoz does for us optimizes. Consider that and the last thing you have to worry about it building links. So in a nutshell anyone offering "links" is offering you a nice new black hat :0) Your pal chenzo

Tina, you are going to run into a few SEO issues with Wordpress but don't worry to much about over optimizing since Wordpress is still one of googles most favored platforms. Ultimate SEO plugin is best and really try to consider the following: 1) title tags Wordpress will automatically title the page universally leading to duplicate page title issues 2) meta tag discription Aside from those two I usually do not use the other options as they are not needed when developing a natural/organic white hat type of site. Ps, a neat trick is to not use the Wordpress platform for the entire structure of the site but just the content areas. Giving you in essence 2 power house domains as you are able to upload a Wordpress through the root file under another keyword. Drop a line and I can explain further ... Hope this helps Your pal Chenzo

Just reading this now - I love the last part!

how true!

Has someone filed a large number of DMCA “takedown” requests against your site? If so, look out. That’s the latest penalty that may cause you to rank lower in Google’s search results. It joins other penalties such as “Panda” and “Penguin.” We’re dubbing it the “Emanuel Update” in honor of Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel, who helped prompt it.

Read more here:

http://searchengineland.com/dmca-requests-now-used-in-googles-ranking-algorithm-130118

• What do you guys think MOZERS?

I have had a few people ask me what I think about semantic search optimization efforts...

For most of us - we know the drill but...

Some street folk are trying to tell me that there is some new HUGE emphasis on it -

Is there something out of ordinary I am missing here!?

LOVE YOU MOZZERS!

-Chenzo

Anyone of your sites less than 3 months old?

Google said it was rolling out a Panda algorithm last night.

  New data refresh of Panda starts rolling out tonight. ~1% of search results change enough to notice. More context: goo.gl/huekfHas anyone been affected yet ....I seem to see a jump in some newer sites less than 3 months old already for some rankings - I don't like seeing rankings that quick!Do you see anything?

For pro members:

Is there a way to see exactly what "it" is that is duplicate?

Also, what % of duplicate content is required to be labeled as dupped.

Much thanks,

Chenzo

I think the keyword here is variation.

If the ONLY links you have that are followed to sites you are trying to help benefit and nofollow everything else.

No bueno.

I have started to see - if it doesn't make sense, it probably won't rank.

Jp, I would take Benny's advice here and recommend webmaster tools. The implementation of the actual file is a little tricker as you need to have it uploaded to your root hosted URL and sometimes is not recognized depending on your hosts regulations. Also, try to make sure the sitemap is one of the last things you implement as it should contain as much as the backbone of the URL. Even though your content should continue, try to be sure most of your highest converting or "hoped" to convert pages are up and fully operative. The sitemap takes some time to be populated so if delivering this for a client, I usually add this near the ending cycle of an "on-site" SEO process. #bleedSeo Chenzo

I have yet to play with these settings but I think it is just traffic based at this point - not much other variables to track.

Thanks Keri, I love ya guys!

Steven, I hav been trying to do this same thing for my clients places account and have found myself at a lost of advice as well...I adjust glad I am not the only one. Standing by for some help

So is it me or did Google make some crazy changes -

The "trends" are no longer anchored to appropriate articles etc...

Why do you think they would remove something so useful to us?

http://www.google.com/trends/ - check it out for yourself.

tumblr_m5jh04D65G1ry8grko1_1280.png

I am as well, I think it is a geo location issue

If all links are external, then depending on how many indexed pages the root domain will have ... It will in essence be site wide links which are no good for your site or the sites they are pointed to. Something to consider if you can't avoid placing a lot of links is building them within an iframe so they are not crawled.