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I think that all the threads regarding the Penguin update (including this) need to be merged into 1 thread as it seems the majority of new conversations are all about the same thing whenever I log on in the morning.

Hi.

I was wondering whether anyone knew if it is possible to compare search volumes for keywords year on year for absolute figures (so not using Insight).

For example:

How many people searched for computer mouses from 1.1.11 - 1.4.11

Compared to

How many people searched for computer mouses from 1.1.12 - 1.4.12

Ideally you would look at which sales pitches have historically driven the best results for your products and test these online (are these prices, benefits of the product etc).

If you have any tactical campaigns surrounding the products, I would include these within the description and change accordingly to when they start/finish

Just wanted to point out that unless the pages are trying to rank for the company name, I wouldn't lead in with this (Target Keyword first and company name last is best practice).

Also, I would probably analyse the need for keywords such as 2T12 when the search volume is so low for that specific example.

By meta data; are you referring to the page title and/or description?

For the former I would definitely take the time (which is a pain) to write individual titles per page to avoid duplicate content issues.

For the latter, I wouldn't worry too much but would make sure it has the relevant sales pitch per page.

I'd suggest setting up a ROI model which looks at how the activities will positively effect your KPI's.

You'll see a high increase in spend to begin with then level off at a consistent rate, but I would advise getting some scope of what you are paying for to 'SEO' your website.

Or with the recent G update just do nothing haha

There's some element of irony about someone who offers SEO services asking what happened to their rankings.

There was an 'anti-spam' update yesterday. I also believe there was a Panda update on the 23rd.

Would be funny though.

Personally I'd just use it for him to trust you in the future and bring it up whenever you need to back up a point he doesn't agree with.

I'd just go with I told you so.

Then Google slap him

Hi I was wondering if someone could help me with something?

Whenever I try and use the rank tracker SEOmoz logs me out and won't let me log back in until I go to a different page.

Is this because I am on a free trial (which I don't understand as I am able to use the other tools)

If the keywords they are targeting are very competitive then they will have to buy bidding high to appear where they want to anyway.

I think it would be very naive to think that the quality score would be impacted to such an extent by the keywords being in the domain names (other factors such as website authority and ad longevity have a much more important role imo).

Let's say that they appear in the top 6 for the keywords (through a combination of quality score and presumably high/unsustainable/aggressive bidding). If the content on their websites isn't good enough then the consumer is going to click through and leave. With an aggressive bidding strategy in place to achieve these high positions, it would most probably increase unqualified traffic, increase CPC and CPA, decrease CTS and result in an unprofitable ROI model.

In order to get the most out of PPC/landing pages imo the adverts need to be live for a while at a lower average position. Through work on the website and other initiatives to increase page authority and relevance to the ad, you could hopefully over time see your av.position increase without increasing costs. Then at this point I would find some sort of trade-off between how much money you're paying and what you're getting in return to find the most optimal average position.

Obviously there are a variety of other tactics for efficient bidding etc, but this is the basic approach I would take.

With regards to being penalised by Google; if you think there's a possibility of it happening, don't risk it.

Wouldn't you be a bit dubious of a page that has a fair few likes and next to no interaction though? I know I would.

This is why the + me and i'll + you (unless relevant) statements gets on my tits.

People need to realise it's not about quantity. I wish G would properly penalise people for doing this type of thing. It's just the same as poor purchased and reciprocal linking.

There's really, really no point in purchasing 1000 likes when you will get no engagement.

The catch is people selling a product to consumers who don't understand what they need to buy.

Apparently there's currently a bit of Manual review of anchor texts going on and your link profile seems quite spammy. Could have something to do with.

The Open Site Explorer gives this information

I read the first point about how beneficial reciprocal linking can be and then stopped reading.

I imagine not as you are 'letting link juice flow away from your site'

The only reason I would suggest outbound links if if you think that it would really benefit your consumer .. or someone is giving you a wad of cash to do so.

I thought this was due to users being signed in to Google when searching for terms and as a result Google doesn't provide this data in analytics.

I'm not sure if there are any plans on this changing down the line...

With emphasis supposedly shifting more on social signals as the year progresses I would suggest asking users to act this way will have positive effects for SEO (especially the Google interaction).

It depends how you do it though. If you are just getting people to like you in returning for you liking them etc it will build an un-natural profile (same with purchasing +1's) which won't have any benefit to you. I don't know if G algo recognises these types of profiles, but I wouldn't be surprised if it does at some point.

If you capture an engaging/relevant audience to your social media portals then it will have numerous benefits (with SEO gains potentially sitting here).

However be careful of competitions on G+. As far as I am aware it goes against their guidelines.

It seems bizarre that now the website is no longer optimised for the term and back-links have been removed (I just double checked on OSE) that there would be any legal issues (I know that you're currently mid discussion) that you appear for the term as you are actually doing nothing wrong.

Is it illegal to rank for certain keywords?

I can see how it would be against contracts to bid on certain terms in PPC, but as long as you are not offering the services on the website I'm a bit confused to how it would cause any issues?

Maybe try and get Google to penalise you for the term? I'm not sure how this would effect you rankings for other keywords though. If it doesn't then why not implement everything you're not meant to so G sends you down the rankings?

I would only look at your competitor links if you honestly feel your content is better than theirs.

I have previously tried looking at competitor links and found that a lot of juice was being passed on from high authority football websites due to the competitor having an invaluable widget for said website. Obviously contacting them for links was a waste of time.

In a nutshell

.. no.

Unless you are experienced with 'black hat' tactics and have been experimenting with them for years then I would stay clear of programs like these.

I suggest reading:

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

And also not being tricked by the various "WE WILL GET YOU LINKS FOR $45" Type of promotions that float around the web.