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Thanks for the clarification, Marie. Most of that makes sense from a logical perspective.

My only gripe with John Mueller would be that if someone is using a widget that's taking content from your site, then there should be no problem at all with forcing them to link back to you. By using that site's content, you're already telling Google that the site is authoritative and/or useful (otherwise you sure as heck wouldn't be using their content). And if they don't want to link back to you, then it's simple... don't use the widget and content that that publisher put so much effort into creating.

Also, I'm curious... how would one go about asking specific questions to people like Matt Cutts and John Mueller. Are they openly available for questions at SEO events, or is it rare that you actually get the chance to meet them face to face?

I'm a bit confused on what the actual "rules" are when it comes to including dofollow backlinks from widgets.

When sites like YouTube offer embed codes, don't those include dofollow backlinks in them? And when sites like Facebook offer widgets, don't those too include dofollow backlinks in them?

Back in December we released a WordPress plugin, seen here. A few weeks later we saw our rankings plummet. We were told by our SEO consultant that because our link profile changed so drastically over the course of a few weeks, that Google took that as unnatural link building.

I have two thoughts on this.

First, our plugin is directly related to our site. And it's taking content from our site. Therefore, if another publisher chooses to use our content, does that not mean that they are indeed endorsing our site, and therefore the backlink should be dofollow?

Second, what is the difference between a dofollow in our WP plugin, and a dofollow in Facebook's widget? Why does one get you penalized while the other boosts your authority?

Well, it's not necessarily SlideShare linking to me that I'm worried about. It's the sites that have embedded the slide, in combination with the amount of backlinks in that slide.

While we did see our rankings fall with the 4.0 update, we rebounded a few days later. And even more mysterious... we actually started to rank #1 for many "current event" keywords such as "memorial day quotes".... even though we had zero backlinks to the article... and the article didn't rank 1 until the holiday actually rolled around, which makes me wonder if it could have potentially been a manual boost in rankings. Same exact thing happened with "father's day quotes". As soon as it rolled around, we jumped to #2 in the rankings.

Everything seemed to be going very well, right up until about 3 days ago, which is when our rankings crashed.

We recently published a slideshow on SlideShare.net and it ended up doing pretty well. It was featured on their homepage for 3 days, and we got quite a few embeds.

Unfortunately, a few days later, our rankings in Google tumbled. I'm wondering if this killed our link velocity, which I suppose would have potentially got us a temporary, automated penalty?

If you look at slide #4 and beyond, you'll notice that the logo links back to our homepage, and there's also a "View Quote" button that navigates to that specific quote, so users can find out more information, share it, or view any associated pictures. So, in total, there are quite a few backlinks in that slideshow (88 to be exact).

Is this what likely caused our drop in rankings? Or is it more likely to be a coincidence? We haven't done anything else in the past couple of months, other than publish an infographic and a press release.

And if this is a problem, how would we fix it? I can edit the slideshare and remove some of the links... but it seems sort of silly considering we haven't done anything blackhat. And, it would actually devalue our slideshow, because users would no longer be able to click through to the quotes.

Thoughts?

Could an abnormal ratio of nofollow links cause a drop in rankings? Our "Followed Linking Root Domains vs. NoFollowed Linking Root Domains" is 50/50... while our competitors have an average ratio of 90/10.

The reason for our abnormal ratio is that:

A) We're a relatively new site, with a small link profile so far.

B) We have a WordPress plugin that allows other publishers to add our content to their site (which has a nofollow backlink included).

And, as a followup question... if we removed the nofollow backlink completely, but still left the branded text there... could we potentially still benefit from it (our brand name being near targeted keywords that appear in the plugin content)?

Travis, by the way, looked up your company in Grapevine, TX... looks like we live right down the street from each other. I'm in the Keller area.

Small world.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to get a bit more specific...

If you look at this page, in the top right sidebar, you'll find our WordPress widget in action. It shows a "Quote of the Day" with a quote from our website, and then it links to our site using our site's name as the anchor text. My thoughts on this are that we're providing value to other publishers, and they're feeding our content to their site (which qualifies as an endorsement of the content that we offer, which in turn validates a dofollow link). We're also using our site's name as the anchor text, rather than a keyword-stuffed link. This technique is clearly white-hat, in my opinion.

But, apparently Google did not like the idea. Since releasing the plugin 10 days ago, our rankings have dropped significantly across the board.

We're using 97thFloor as our SEO agency at the moment. Initially they said they thought the plugin might be a good idea, but they called me today to tell me to nofollow all the links, since our total backlinks had tripled in the last week, which they believe caused the rankings to drop.

We updated the plugin tonight to include nofollow on the backlink.

Interestingly, one of our competitors in the niche released a similar plugin, seen here. And their dofollow link is actually black-hat, with the anchor text being "more Quotes". They have not taken a hit at all. Is this because they've already got an established backlink profile?

And, now that we've nofollowed our plugin link, is it likely that our rankings will improve back to their original positions?

Appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks!

When developing a WordPress plugin, is it OK to include a dofollow backlink with the name of the source site as the anchor text? Or would Google consider this spammy?

I've been using GravyTrain.ca for my press releases over the past year but it appears that they're no longer in business, as my last order was not processed, and emails are not being answered, despite them taking my money.

Anyway, what I liked about their service was that they used both PR Newswire AND Marketwire. Are there any other companies out there that do the same? Offering distribution through multiple partners?

I've been looking into eReleases. And although they only distribute through PR Newswire, they also have their own list of journalists. Anyone have any experience with them?

I'm curious, if I go to webmasters and suggest a change to an article in their archives (convincing them that the new link offers more value to their readers), how would Google look at that?

It seems to me that if a two-year-old article all of a sudden gets a new link, it might look fishy, and might even bring penalties with it.

Thoughts?

Chris,

Admittedly, I don't have any testing to backup my hunch. The only thing that I can say is that the entire first page of results are from urls that include the keyword in the url. Now, that might simply be because all of these sites were started long ago when keywords in the url had more of an impact, and since they're older sites, naturally they have more backlinks and rank the highest. I just find it odd that not one ranking site on the first page includes a url without the keyword.

You mention, "it's satisfactory to simply throw something keyword related in the url." So, let me ask a question with a more specific example. Let's say you were targeting the keyword "Quotes by Topic" . . . would the following url work since it has "quote" in the domain's brand name, even though the brand name isn't truly a dictionary word (and therefore Google might not pick up the word, "quote"?):

quotery.com/topics

Or would you gain value by adding quotes in the url string? As follows:

quotery.com/quotes/topics

I'm aware that keywords in the url aren't as effective as they used to be, but I'm still convinced that they do have a significant impact (based on results in one of the niches I'm in).

My question is, will variations of keywords and "hidden" keywords have as much value as an exact keyword? For example, let's say that I'm trying to target the keyword "day." Will including variations like "daily" in the url work just as well? What about a brand name that includes the keyword hidden in its name, like "Dayest"?

And, as a followup question, does including "stop" words have any effect? For example, if I'm trying to target the keyword "Day of the Month", would including "day" and "month" in the url be just as effective as including "day of the month"?

I have access to analytics for two different sites that rank for the same keyword. Strangely, the site that ranks on page 3 gets three times as much traffic as the site that ranks on page 1 (rankings according to multiple SEO tools as well as my own browser).

How is this possible?

If I'm trying to rank multiple inner pages, when does strengthening the homepage become more productive than strengthening the inner pages themselves? Is there a strategy to this?

For example, maybe you build up a few dozen backlinks to each inner page, and then focus all your efforts on the homepage?

Because, from my understanding, strengthening the homepage will go a long way towards helping your inner pages rank. Is that correct?

Thanks for the video, Mike. After watching it, I'm still a bit confused. He specifically addresses high keyword density anchor text in this video. And he talks more along the lines of themes and such that don't really offer any content value.

I'm thinking that since I'm only using my brand name as the anchor text, and that I'm providing content on other sites that is directly related to what I offer on my own site . . . that should be enough for Google to accept it as white hat. Because in the end, I would be getting targeted clicks from this widget . . . and hasn't that always been Google's philosophy? If it's bringing you targeted traffic, then it's white hat.

Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that it's a good idea? In the end, all that matters is whether Google penalizes me for it . . . not how useful I believe it to be.

I'm considering having a WordPress plugin developed that would provide content from my site for others to display in their sidebar. It would definitely provide value for users and I know people would use it on their sites, but my question is . . .

If I were to add my link below the widget (e.g. "Content provided by Company ABC"), would this be good or bad for SEO? The anchor text wouldn't be anything special, just an exact match of my brand name (my domain name).

I seem to remember Matt Cutts answering something similar a few years ago and I thought he said it was fine as long as the anchor text was the brand name. But maybe things have changed since then.

Keep in mind that this plugin could potentially be used by tens of thousands of sites, so the backlink profile could be huge.

Thoughts? Would this cause my site to get penalized?

Would it be worth submitting to a couple dozen article directories (like EzineArticles) just one time? Each with a unique article? Or have these links just become toxic all together?

I know that people have abused article directories, but what about in moderation as part of a larger, overall SEO plan?

Thank you for this information Erwan. Exactly what I was looking for.

I don't need an audit for on-page optimization since I'm familiar with what should be done when sticking to the "rules" of SEO.

I'm basically trying to figure out how much benefit that keyword being in the url is going to have. In other words, am I going to have a hard time outranking my competitors for those keywords even if I have the better site?

I've got a site about a specific topic, which we'll call "themes" for the sake of this discussion. I personally like to keep the url structure short and clean (for usability purposes, but mainly because I'm a perfectionist and a minimalist).

I feel that adding "themes" to the url structure is a bit redundant. However, nearly every keyword phrase that my site should rank for includes the word "themes." So I'm wondering how much I'm handicapping myself by not including the keyword "themes" in the url?

The domain name itself sort of includes the keyword . . . although it's in Italian (I chose the domain for it's brand-ability, not for the keyword). A quick example:

My Url Structure: www.themo.com/topic/abc

My Competitor's Url Structure: www.sitesample.com/themes/topic/abc

For many of the keywords, the competitors with the keyword in the url rank highest. But, I'm not sure how much emphasis to place on this, because from my understanding Google doesn't pay as much attention to url keywords anymore . . . and those sites might just be ranking high because they've been around for so long (which also happens to be the reason why they coincidentally also include the keyword in the url, because they started the site when that was a high ranking factor).

Thoughts? Should I just trash my perfectionism and add the keyword to the url structure?

(By the way, the site is only a couple months old and doesn't have any significant backlinks to inner pages yet, so changing the url structure wouldn't be a big deal if I decided to do that).

I've heard that having duplicate meta descriptions is bad for SEO and can even be the cause of penalties.

However, a duplicate meta description would make sense for different categories on many sites. So I'm wondering what the best solution is for a case like this?

One of my sites has around 150 topics, and each topic page is exactly the same, aside from including only things that are related to that specific topic. So why would I want to create 150 different meta descriptions? Not only is it time consuming, and nearly impossible to create 150 unique descriptions for the same type of content, but it also serves no purpose for visitors coming from the search engines.

A logical approach would be to use the same meta description and just switch out the topics in the description... but then all of those descriptions would be 95% the same - and I imagine Google might see that as spam.

So... suggestions?

Could you please link to a few of the more reputable providers? Or is it like SEO, where thousands of companies exist?

I'm wanting to submit press releases to PRNewswire, BusinessWire and MarketWire.... but I dont want to take the time to fill out forms and fax them back, or pay the initial membership fees.

Are there companies that just take the press release that you've written, and then send them out to these services?

Where can I find such a company?

What do you guys think about creating quality pages on sites like Squidoo, with backlinks from that page leading to your website... and then ordering backlink building packages from SEO companies to build up those web 2.0 sites?

My thoughts are that you would be able to get an idea on how good that SEO company is, while minimizing your risk (since their backlinks are going to a Squidoo page), and also increasing your site's authority at the same time (since those Squidoo links are going to your website).

I'm sure this has been discussed before. But what is the general consensus on this strategy?

That makes sense.

I guess my biggest problem with that is I'm not really sure what links are considered quality and which are considered spammy. Because in reality, every backlink you ATTEMPT to build is against what Google would like to see. In the perfect world, everyone would link out to great content when they came across it, and everyone would have an equal shot at getting their content viewed. But that's just not the case, which is why SEO exists.

But, I digress.

When doing press releases for example, how do you know which press release sites to submit to? How often should press releases be sent out? Use paid or free ones?

I'm very confident that I have a quality website built that visitors will love. I've received extremely positive feedback from the promotion that I've done so far. But again, getting eyes on the site is the issue, and the easiest way to do that is with getting ranked.

Yeah I pretty much have everything that I need as far tools go. I'm relatively experienced with building websites. Sold my last one a few months ago for $205,000. And I'm not trying to brag, I just understand the point you're trying to make and I want to make it clear that this isn't the typical newbie site.

My biggest challenge over the years has always been finding a reputable SEO company that I can trust. I can handle everything else myself. I just need quality backlinks coming in. And from my experience, it doesn't matter if you've got the greatest content in the world if you're not actively involved in SEO and getting that content to rank.

I'm having a real hard time trying to dig through all the BS and find a reputable SEO company that delivers quality and value.

Anyway, here's a package that I'm considering from a company called eBrandz. It seems a bit overpriced to me, but I don't have a lot of experience with reputable SEO companies, so I'm hoping someone can weigh in - on both the package itself for the price, and the company (if you have any information about them).

$1500/month

• 8 Guest Posts (With 80 Bookmarks)

• 8 Articles with Syndication (With 80 Bookmarks)

• 1 Press Release (With Bookmarking)

• 75 "Curated Business Directory Submissions"

• Social Bookmarking for 5 Urls (Each Url to 20 Sites)

• 1 (every other month) Video Creation (45 to 90 seconds) With Submission and Bookmarking.

I wonder why WordPress wouldn't implement this automatically? They automatically 301 posts when you change the url, why not a category base?

I recently changed my category base in WordPress and instead of redirecting or deleting the old base, WordPress kept the content up. So I now have duplicate content on two different urls - one on the old category base, one on the new category base.

How should I handle this situation? The site is only a couple weeks old, if that makes any difference.

Jim,

A few notes:

1. This a simple quotations website. Not an e-commerce site in any way.

2. I do not have 15 or more employees.

3. I don't own a billion-dollar company.

4. I will have functional alt tags, whether or not someone thinks they're perfect or not.

What does all of this mean?

A) I wouldn't be worth anyone's time in court.

B) Even if a case was presented, a judge would laugh hysterically... because there is no case.

I can guarantee you I will never... ever, be sued for not having the correct alt tags on my images.

Jim,

The problem with that is Google has said it doesn't like long alt text. And we're only using a simple 5 word quote for this example. Imagine a quote that's 30 words, or longer... in addition to the description of the image itself.

And while I'm all for the visually impaired person getting a better user experience, I'm more concerned about my website being successful. This is a full-time job for me, not volunteer work.

One more possibility is to take an excerpt of the quote, maybe the first 10 words or so.

Title: Quote from Milton Berle

Alt: "I have never in my life learned anything from any..."

But that would still leave me with duplicate title tags across multiple images.

Another option would be to just add "Quote from Albert Einstein" in the alt tag, and then a description of the image itself in the title. For example:

Title: Beach with children playing in the sand.

Alt: Quote from Milton Berle

The only problem I see here is that first, the quote itself isn't included anywhere in the image, so if someone is searching for that quote on image search, it's not going to show up. Additionally, there could potentially be dozens of images on my site (and on the same page) with the same exact alt tag.

I'm building a quotations website. Each quotation will have between 1 and 5 images (picture quotes) associated with it. The images will be featured as thumbnails (image gallery) on the quote post itself.

How should I handle the image alt and title tags so that I rank better for a quote in image search, and also strengthen the ranking signals on the quote post itself?

Take for example, a photo of a beach and a photo of the sun. Both have the same quote on it: "Laughter is an instant vacation." Should the quote itself go into the alt tag? while the description of the image goes into the title? Or should the quote go into the title? Would this be correct?

Title: Beach with children playing in the sand.

Alt: "Laughter is an instant vacation."

Title: Sun shining in the sky.

Alt: "Laughter is an instant vacation."

What about if the quote is very long? Google has said they like when the alt and title tags are short.

I see that a lot of SEO companies offer a large 5,000 directory submission package with slow, 160 day submissions.

I don't mind spending the money to have this done, but my question is... would they help, or would they actually hurt my rankings? Since a lot of these directories are basically just copies of each other on different domains.

As an added question, would it be worth submitting to all of the general directories on this list? http://www.seomoz.org/directories

Can anyone recommend high-quality backlink building services? A company you can trust to not spam your site all over the internet?

Would there be any benefit to building some backlinks to your social media profiles (i.e. Facebook, Twitter), considering that you're linking to yourself regularly from them anyway?

There are a few SEO companies that I would like to try out, but I figure why not try them out on my social media profiles first, before having them do any work directly to my site.

Thoughts?

I've got a new site officially launching next month (just waiting on a few inner page designs to be finished up).

But if I'm looking to get a head start on backlinks, would it be okay to start publishing content now on one of the default WordPress themes? And then start publishing guest posts immediately to get backlinks?

Or would Google look at the site as not being unique?

I have a few pages like the contact and privacy policy page that I could really care less about as far as whether people visit them, or whether the search engines index them.

They also don't have any sort of unique content on them... pretty much duplicates of what you'd probably find on hundreds of other websites.

Would it be logical then to just nofollow those pages?

I just don't know if maybe there's something hidden that I'm not thinking of. For example, maybe Google wants to see that your website has a privacy policy, and by excluding it, you're actually hurting yourself.