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^^ Why the thumbs down?? Who would give a thumbs down for that post?? Some odd people out there!

Don't use it on it's own. I use it a lot but never use it for any more than a rough guide. It's based on searches performed in Google... not specific to ads or organic. It throws up numbers that you know are wrong for a start. When you use it, don't use broad match, watch for keyword phrases that are in reverse, and just don't take it as gospel. With the search volumes, use it more as a measure of how popular one keyword is over another. I do use it loads more than other keyword software and despite how volatile and deceitful it is I still think it lies a lot less than any of the others. But once you've got somewhere with your keyword research try then in one or two other tools too i.e. Wordtracker and/or Keyword Discovery

The fact that you feel like you "know" SEO like the back of your hand, etc.... is a big give-away to your problems, it results in complacency.

I did my final project at uni on SEO, have worked in-house for a large multinational corporation as an SEO, have worked now in an agency for three years doing nothing but SEO, subscribe to every blog that's any good, read every book that's any good, and have done every SEO course in existence that's worth doing, yet I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in terms of what their is to know, and I know nothing in comparison to many of the people on these boards. Maybe Mr. BigJohnson, you should consider how much you actually know, rather than how much you think you know before apportioning blame for your own lack of knowledge.

Also, If SEO is dead then why are all of my agency's clients so happy with the results we get them, which increases their revenue... maybe look inwards for the answers to your problems instead of outwards!

I love it, it's brilliant. You get to peruse through the questions to see real world examples of SEO issues, and help with things you do know the answers to, as well as learn loads from seeing others answers on things you don't know the answers to... I'm getting addicted to coming on here!

The instant-ness of it all makes it much better than any other SEO forum out there in my opinion.

I think that's awful (no offense). I get tonnes of link requests, and other such emails every day. I don't have the time to reply to them and neither should I have to. Some of the emails state that "As they haven't had a reply from me... etc..." And then presume to suggest that I should take time out of my busy day to reply to their unsolicited emails.

Continuing to ask after no reply the first, or even second, or as you say 5th time is not getting the message and is little less than harassment.

A lot of people, like myself don't reply because:

a) It open the doorway to more such spam, and

b) Sometimes replies are little more to the sender than confirmation the email exists and responds so they can sell your data

I think it's rude to keep sending people emails. Why should I have to write "No" hundreds of times per week when I didn't even ask for the email in the first place.

So, what you're saying is that you're one of those people who hassle and bug people like me who are just trying to get on with my work, and you won't ever stop despite the fact that I don't reply?

It gives all of the industry a bad name when people do stuff like that.

Also, why should I have to unsubscribe, when I never subscribed in the first place? Not to mention that most of these requests don't have the option to unsubscribe anyway.

Sorry for the rant, nothing personal but I see it as pressure sales via spam... which I'm surprised works at all to be honest.

I've noticed something in the forums.

Many people are asking the wrong types of questions with regards to SEO and having success with their sites on it.

This is understandable since many of the questions being asked are by those who have only just got in to SEO. But it does show that the emphasis of the industry must still be very much focused on getting links and changing META data, etc... with little mention out there in all those resources of what actually matters.

Thankfully, the questions are answered with people explaining that the wrong questions are being asked, and that it's not just about random traffic gained through rankings for general keywords.

Do you think that in time we'll see an evolution of the questions, as awareness grows, moving from questions of how to rank to questions on how work out the best KPIs to measure, and how to action strategies for improving them?

This will always be the case... there are different sources, and different interpretations of what constitutes errors. I wouldn't go thinking that just because GWT is Google that means it's the most efficient though, Google have a lot of other business to be thinking about and are unlikely to be too concerned if everything isn't perfect in their free GWT product, so I doubt it would take priority over other services of theirs. Where-as Moz of course is more focused in that particular area. I would just combine the two and iron out as much as you can from each... you'll never get them to match up though.

Thanks I didn't notice I got one too, I just saw that EGOL got one for his response which was a good response.

One of our tactics is to try to be really helpful about stuff on topically relevant forums and blogs. i.e.

1. We have a client who sells a product to combat penetrating damp.
2. We find forums and blogs where people are having problems with penetrating damp.
3. We research a proper answer for them ourselves.
4. We answer their questions and recommend the product via a keyworded anchor text link.

As long as the post or comment we've made is a valuable contribution and provides a solid, well researched answer (so not spam), then the forum mods don't seem to mind the link staying there

Alan is totally right, offering money for it is the wrong path to take, plus, as you'll need links more and more you'll forever be paying for them. Are the sites even that good that the links are of any value? If the page already links out to loads of people then that could make the link worth less.

Sure, pay for a link off of a site with huge credibility (as advertising), but not any old site with a links page.

Write something they'd like to link to and then tell them it exists.

It's all so practical too. I would bet that anyone who spent an hour or two each day in here just reading through the questions would make a great SEO after a year

I wouldn't worry about the PR. It won't be due to content changes anyway, since PR is based on incoming links only and has nothing to do with what you have on-page. We've gone from PR 4 to PR 5 with the update but I don't care as I practically ignore PR now anyway... can't wait for them to hopefully get rid of it. It's one tiny metric which isn't a true reflection of what they have anyway. So much more that matters.

At the moment you have a direct link from the homepage to the quickbooks hosting page with anchor text in the footer. Above that, you have some body content about quickbooks hosting (still on the homepage), put a link in there to the quickbooks hosting page. Body content links are better than footer links by far.

Also it seems that you've had the following URL's for that page:

/quickbooks-hosting.html
/host-quickbooks.html
/hosted-quickbooks.html

Were/are these all the same page just with URL changes? Have you put 301's in for them so that both older URL's point to the new one?

I respectfully disagree. I know they don't necessarily pass loads of link juice but some of the paid directories don't have all the millions of spammy links to spammy sites in... because they're paid. Some are very, very cheap too. I know most are rubbish and not worth squat but there's still lots which are cheap and do pass link juice which far outweighs the cost.

Also the paid ones add you much faster... and if you want a diverse backlink profile it's worth getting a bunch of directories in there as well as your other link types... rely on the free ones and you could be waiting forever for that.

Make sure when you are placing links first make up good anchor texts with your keywords in it.

Or not, a tonne of incoming links with exact match keywords might raise a few flags. Natural links tend to have brand names, web addresses, etc... in them, and generic things like "click here".

I'm not saying it's not a relevance signal but it's certainly a lot less of one than it was. By all means get a few exact matches, partial and phrase matches but I'd mostly go for the relevance through the site/page content and the fact that it's relevant, trusted sites/pages that are linking in... and not so much concern with the anchor text.

Yes, it's not good practice so you'd do well to avoid it. I don't know in a technical sense whether Google would decide that a page that has a similar title to it's description would make any ranking difference, but if a bunch of pages had the same titles as each other then it definitely isn't good. Also, descriptions should be tailored to that individual page anyway, with whatever helps to encourage a click, which it wouldn't be if it was too similar to other pages.

Don't worry, I bought the DVD's and they shipped them over to me in the UK nice and fast... it's not the sort of company that you would ever have any unethical practise problems with.

I'm sure it happens a lot, but it always strikes me as odd.

Rand put out a really interesting post which I'm sure you've all seen here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/everyone-should-hire-social-media-experts

It's controversial, so there's bound to be plenty of civilized disagreement. I must admit I do like controversial stuff a lot so I ended up commenting a lot.

Now, I know MozPoints don't really mean anything and they're just a bit of fun, but I'm struck by when people give a thumbs down without an accompanying explanation to why. It's not because of the MozPoints, it's because of the fact that they're stating in that action that they disagree... and of course if somebody disagrees you want to find out why, it's a great way to learn and debates are fun. So I kind of look forward to getting a thumbs down and being challenged on my views in that sense.

I said some things in my comments that I was sure would get a few thumbs down, and probably rightly so, there was some sarcasm in there, and views that would surely be opposed. I saw that I'd got three, and I'd only commented an hour before that so I clicked over to see where I was being debated... it wasn't three on one comment though, it was on separate comments. Again, no problem there but on one of them I didn't get why, there were others I'd made that were surely more deserving of a thumbs down which didn't get any.

I looked through the comments and noticed that quite a few people had been given thumbs down too. I could be wrong, but it seemed very much like just one person had arrived on the post, and then went through just thumbing down completely at random. A bunch of the thumbs down didn't make sense at all... I tried to work out what side this person must have been on in the argument by seeing if the comments they thumbed down correlated and they didn't. It "looks" as if they maybe didn't even read the posts they were clicking it on.

Can somebody really get some kind of strange enjoyment out of finding a post, and then just clicking thumbs down at random?

Even if that's not the case, why don't they say what they disagree with. Don't they want their views to be heard? If they feel that way, why don't they challenge the position with words.

I know it doesn't really matter, but it's just so weird. If I were to give a thumbs down I would simply have to state why.

I know people and their thinking are diverse, I just don't get it though. Does this weird OCD of needing answers when challenged instead of silence bother anyone else or am I just that strange?

BTW: I realise this long, tedious question is just asking for a bunch of thumbs down, even if just for comedy value

Whatever you do, don't guarantee any position ever... first page or not. It's a big red flag for bad SEO's.

You'll likely need an on-going link campaign whatever the case is. How competitive are the keywords?

Do something that involves them so they get something out of it, i.e. praise them in some way then let them know there's a page on the web praising them... they're likely to link to that so others can see as it gives them boasting rights

Joe, trust me on this... I used to be on the dark side before I knew better. It was all about the software, from Xrumer and Scrapebox, to Linkvine and everything else you can find out there... people are right when they say it leads to no good. Yes it can provide some short term success but it's extremely volatile and it's nowhere near the success you'll get if you're patient and you do it properly. It's like living life on the edge so to speak, but with all of your time and efforts, and it can (and will) quickly come crumbling down, followed by complaints and a realization that you've not really been doing SEO at all, you've been spamming. There's no creativity involved, no quality, no pride of work or achievements, just rankings that shoot up then disappear and the constant unnerving feeling that you're always waiting for the next one to do the same, which it always inevitably will. You get lost in it, you lose your passion and become a robot just clicking buttons... always knowing that it can't last and that soon, it will all go wrong.

You'll figure out that it's not why you got into SEO... somewhere along the line you were lured in by this quick win with software, so you went further and further down that path. Take my word for it, that path just gets darker and narrower and leads nowhere. Turn back, head for the light and discover that it's the creativity and quality that gets to fulfill the needs, to expand, and to prosper in the long term

And stop reading Warrior Forums lol... it's good for some stuff but stay out of those software threads!