August 18 2009
The SEO pendulum swings back to content
Over the past few weeks I’ve found several articles from people in the SEO industry that talk a little bit more about on-page optimization and a little bit less about off-page optimization. Even Rand Fishkin’s article from this week about on-page optimization pays some attention to matters people have long ignored (although he has yet to publish the data that show his conclusions are valid).
This gradual shift in interest back to on-page factors — which have been covered in thousands of SEO tutorials, introductory blog posts, and even a few in-depth debates — seems to signal a feeling in the SEO community that maybe not all is well in the world of links.
It feels to me like everyone is trying to make sure their on-page optimization credentials are in place just in case content optimization becomes more popular with other SEOs than link-based optimization.
I’ve always maintained that the two go hand-in-hand. After all, you only get two things to work with in this business: links and content.
Links seem to be taking it on the chin for several reasons.
First, more social media sites than ever are using “rel=’nofollow’” on their user-generated links. The SEO community is finding it more and more challenging to produce useful lists of dofollow sites that make sense.
Secondly, more bloggers are starting to use “rel=’nofollow’” in their comments, or to moderate comments, because of the abuses of the SEO community.
I’ve also noticed over the past few months a growing trend in the free article distribution business: the archives are requiring people who republish the articles to allow the embedded links to pass value (they forbid the use of “rel=’nofollow’” in their terms of service).
Who wants to link to crappy sites that no longer exist when reusing old articles?
Some link hounds must be feeling rather forlorn about now as it’s becoming more and more difficult to find good lists of resources to abuse. Of course, every now and then someone feels compelled to ruin more good resources by publishing them in a new list, but the lists keep getting smaller.
If the Web runs out of value-passing links, how will the search engines ever index all the new content being created?
There is, I am sure, a happy medium somewhere between all value-passing links and no value-passing links. We do, after all, control the links we place on our own sites. There is no need to panic just yet.
But the retreat from link gorging may produce yet another SEO myth — that links have somehow lost their power, just as SEOs have behaved for several years as if content had lost its power (ironically while sites like Ickipedia crept into more and more search results without the aid of link anchor text).
I don’t think links have lost their power — I believe that link providers have begun exercising their power. They have the power NOT to pass value and they have listened to Google explain why they should not allow indiscriminate linking to third-party sites. It may very well be that the end of superlarge sites is in sight for the SEO community.
Oh, there will be more DIGGs, other Twitters, but they will nofollow their links and they will become popular without the help of search engine optimization abuse.
Rather, I think the SEO community will have to turn back to more niche-oriented linking resources, where users are vetted in at least some minimal way. Instead of allowing anyone to blindly link out, the next wave of linking resources may only allow some people to link out (with value-passing links). We’ve already seen a primitive form of this process in blogs and forums where people earn the privilege of passing value through their links.
Think of the opportunities you have to create new resources where user trust is earned step-by-step. One possibility might be where links are submitted to community review ala DIGG or StumbleUpon and if enough people agree they are useful then the nofollow is lifted from them.
But how do you combat the inevitable link gangs that will arise? GMail accounts are easy to create and anyone can use them to create an army of sock puppets. Maybe the trick is to require people to earn the privilege of submitting links in the first place through contributions. Having to prove they are real people might be more than average sock-puppets can accomplish.
It just seems to me that the barriers being raised against link dropping are increasing faster than the barriers being raised against content creation. In the process of changing gears many people in the SEO community are starting to come out of the woodwork to affirm something that everyone has known for a long time but which they were afraid to admit because their favorite link gurus would have publicly shamed them: content is the best way to optimize for search because you can still decide whether to include value-passing links in the content.
It’s okay to remember that you still need content. You’ve been creating it all along anyway. Next year someone will come out with a great new linking resource and everyone will jump on that bandwagon no matter how brief the ride may be. But they’ll still be creating content because as everyone knows, Content Is King. It’s just not always in fashion.
Written by Michael Martinez
I think it’s interesting that you’re seeing a cyclical pattern in SEO trends. I think if you’re a webmaster, it’s easy to get stuck in the “echo-chamber” as @thegypsy would call it where all you hear is THE NEXT BIG THING!!!!
I think it’s a good thing for the web that focus is coming back to content. (Good for me too since it’s my blogs focus
)
Of course, there is always the danger that people who now realize they cannot sculpt their PageRank may run around the Web “creating content” in order to drop nofollowed links that sap their competitors’ PageRank.
I think the Next Big Thing may be another Very Bad Thing, as the people who gave us PageRank hoarding and PageRank sculpting seem reluctant to let it go.
So let me propose the name PageRank Leeching for low-life scum incompetent SEOs who don’t know how to make do with what they have.
Michael,
After half a year or so I returend to your SEO_theory and read about truereputation and now I see you here.
I tried true reputation and while useful it didn’t bring me that much news, as I kind of knew what the outcome was, considering what I had put in. Maybe it helped there were no negatives so the answer was obvious from the outset.
I liked your posting and you may remember our website it has a lot of content in it. I know all the basics of on-page optimization and sometimes it even worked, sometimes it didn’t. I don’t expect you to tell all secrets of the trade but you mentioned some advanced discussions. If you could point me in the right direction that would be very much appreciated.
And.. thanks to your advice we NEVER sculpted or rel=no followed internal links, nor external links (since they’re editorialized anyway and we are not in the business of hoarding PR) and I am glad, form what I read, we haven’t. SO thanks so much for your dire warnings.
Another thing we did was create a much better internal linking structure and lord and behold, whenever we produce a new article and link it from somewhere, doesn’t even matter that much, then within a week it’s in Google, often faster and it ranks quite well after a little while (apart from the first week bump google gives you).
So.. I wanted to say with this is that although half the time I was struggling to understand what you were saying, I guess the other half was already good enough to have a visible effect applying your logic with our logic to our site, if you know what I mean.
And.. returning to your article: I do not think links have lost power either. We noticed about a year ago there wasn’t really that much impact from many links and especially not those “popular” sites (.edu or whatever).
Strangely enough, and I remember you were not in agreement with this, but correct me if I’m wrong, we noticed that it was more the overal strength of our domain that helped since several pages, without having external links still outperformed links from domains such as newspapers or museums.
I guess to now find the right links on a page-by-page basis is going to be extremely cumbersome: and what’s the long term effect? Links from bloggers disappear in archives, thus the value (often) disappears with it. Same with many social media beside the rel=nofollow issue.
If you look elsewhere, outside social media… what websites still have value that are not commercial websites? Like from individuals, or organizations or institutes..and what about the page they’d link from to you, most likely some old fashioned guy who says: “we have a link page”… eh.. forget aboutit.
So it’s a totally different arena then say 2-3 years ago.. or am I just rambling ?
Hi Patrick,
I think you’re referring to TruReputation Score, which is a tool to measure sentiment in the search results. We feel (after several years of managing search reputation results for clients) that it provides a better picture of the impact of negative content in the search results than other metrics. Not everyone has an inflamed search reputation, of course.
I’m not sure of what you’re referring to with respect to advanced discussions. Are you referring to something I said in the comments for the SEO Theory article about whether Black Hat SEO is more advanced than White Hat SEO?
Not every discussion I’ve had with people about SEO is to be found on forums and blogs. I’ve had plenty of discussions via email and in person (or on the phone).
As far as link building goes, I wouldn’t say you’re rambling, but to me the arena only seems larger in some ways and smaller in others. Most new non-commercial sites are probably coming out as blogs, so maybe it would make sense to befriend amateur bloggers and then link to the posts that feature your sites.
Is that reciprocal linking? Yes. Is it accepted? As far as I know it is.
Search engines don’t care if you link to 100 sites that happen to write articles about you. They do care, however, if you only link to sites that write articles about you. A reasonable person (and search engine) would ask, why are all the outbound links on this site only pointing to articles that link back?
I referred to the first paragraph in your posting: “This gradual shift in interest back to on-page factors — which have been covered in thousands of SEO tutorials, introductory blog posts, and even a few in-depth debates”
The few in-depth debates. If there’s any public place you know off hand where this took place in the past, would love to hear it.
Thanks very much for your other very good advice. That’s a good strategy and I had not thought of reciprocal linking in that sense. For us no problem, NONE of our outbound links are actually reciprocal. We just link to where the best place is and we received links from others on that same basis and they hardly ever coincide.
I understand the whole hub-spoke model both internally and externally and this reciprical way of linking may actually be perfect for that model..
It’s not easy to document the lengthy debates in any concise way. I suppose one could create a “links vs. content” or “content vs. links” hub that links out to a large selection of articles, blog posts, and forum discussions.
All I can suggest is you search on those terms (understanding you’ll only just find the tip of the ice berg). The in-depth debates happened all over the place, although mostly long ago.
Thanks Michael.