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Thanks for your help on this.

When the ranking is wrong it's either because it didn't search for it that week or it didn't see it. See the attached image (Incorrect Ranking Report 1). It shows that a key-phrase has dropped 49 places, however, it actually is still in first place on Google UK.

And next week it will probably show it rising by 49 places.

2nd image shows the same thing Incorrect Ranking Report 2.

This is happening for lots and lots of words. It's makes my full reports a little useless.

It's not a case of it say that something it in 5th place but it's actually in 15th place. It's only when it drops out of the top 50 that the problem occurs.

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Yes 100% checked cross browser, computer, cleared cache and private browsing! I'd always found it very accurate up until recently.

I have been running ranking reports on my pro seomoz account for a couple of years now.

I recently added a lot more keywords to my list. Unfortunately there now seems to be a problem.

It shows that many of my keywords have dropped out of (and climbed in) the top 50 when they actually haven't. I think it's just missing the keyword out and assuming that it dropped. I'd prefer it said "Not checked".

Anyone else with a similar problem? or ideally a solution at my end...

Thanks all!

Hi,

There are a few ways to go about this, but for the best results you have to use all the tricks in tandem.

1. Firstly the copy has to be really interesting, funny and/or look amazing.

Your standard boring 300 word articles do not cut it. There has to be something unique and offer extra value to other info on the web.

2. Promotion - There is no point in creating great content if it's not going to be found I have found 2 effective ways of doing this.

• Getting you post featured on famous blogs. Having great contacts in the blog world always helps, but is difficult to build up a quick relationships especially if blogging isn't your business. So I recommend finding someone with experience promoting content. I would to pay between £200-£400 for a good job. (I charge £400 but I'm sure there are plenty of people that will do it for less, just make sure to have proof that they can do it

  Examples:
  http://www.rollaramp.co.uk/news/infuriating-wheelchair-ramps/ http://www.airconco.com/news/how-not-to-install-an-air-conditioning-unit-1190.html

• If you are not looking to promote the content then it's important to write about something that people will search for. I wrote an article a few years back about the hottest cities in the world. It got no attention when it was initially published but now it ranks top on google for many search terms and always brings in at least 100 hits a day. Best tip is to use Google Keyword tool to find long-tail questions that people ask, then write about them.

http://www.airconco.com/news/the-worlds-10-hottest-major-cities-839.html

• The two options above are scattergun approaches that bring in traffic to your site but do not guarantee top quality links, however, they significantly improve your chances. For good quality links you need to hustle by going out to respected websites and ask them to publish your blog post. It's hard work but high value. For example find a college website that is teaching people about a specific subject that you can offer extra value on and ask them to put a link to your page.

• Finally, if you become an renowend blogger in your field you get asked to write things for newpapers etc. The New York Times found our blog (ranks first for air conditioning blog on google) and asked us to write a piece for them.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/21/should-air-conditioning-go-global-or-be-rationed-away/air-conditioning-made-this-debate-possible

Hope this helps a bit.

Thanks for your answer and useful tips. Totally agree with your point about seeing the content. However, we really want to keep it under wraps until the launch.

The vast majority of the videos are very funny in the context of the website and not necessarily as amazing as a stand alone YouTube video.

After some consideration and further research we are going self hosted. I think that going for a slow burning approach will benefit our site more, hopefully bringing in social/links over a period of time.

Any viral instances would be a bonus!

Thanks again.

Richard

Thank you for your detailed answer.

We initially had a Vimeo Pro Account, and was tittering on switching to youtube and following a similar pattern as you describe.

Amongst the reasons that we decided to self-host was that we would get the direct benefit of people embedding the videos rather that the 3rd party site.

There was also a bit of functionality (as you mention) that we want to add
There was also a fear of youtube ads appearing on the video (which may be an unfounded opinion).

Thanks again.

We are soon to launch 25 short videos on one of our websites. They are a little bit different and I think they have a particularly good chance of going viral.

The videos will be scattered over the website on our actual sales pages (not tucked away on our blog). We are hoping (expecting) that customers will click on them and subsequently share them mainly due to the surprise / fun factor.

I've got a lot of experience promoting our (linkbait) blog posts which usually get between 10,000 and 100,000 hits via social media blogs, however, I have no experience promoting video.

We will do the offsite social blog promotions as normal, however, my two main concerns are:

1. I'm unsure how best to use the social buttons (facebook like/share tweet and G+). As I understand it (I could very much be wrong), I can either embed the social buttons on the videos so that they are easily shared across facebook etc... or I can make the the social button make the user 'Like' / 'Share' the page that the video is on.

I assume that the latter option is better for website promotion but maybe not good for people sharing the video on Facebook etc. some of the videos do not have pride of place on our pages.

An explanation or examples on the best option would be appreciated.

2. Should we hold off from putting the videos on YouTube until the website has earned some of the juice first? Or are we missing out on and opportunity by not offering all avenues at once?

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated too!

They will hopefully be up and running by the end of the month so I'll come back and let you know how it went.

Thank you for your time guys and gals!

Richard (Moz Customer 2391745)

PS. If it is of interest we are using JW Player

I don't think that is is much of an SEO problem as long as you are targeting business in the UK.

We have lots of high ranking .co.uk sites that are unaffected by the .com alternative. We have American suppliers of products who own the .com addresses and therefore we are not in direct competition.

The only time that it could be a problem is if you are physically competing the the .com version and they sell the same product and are targeting the same keywords as you.

Your potential customers may end up buying from the wrong company.

So in my opinion this is a branding issue rather than a Search Engine ranking issue.

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35843 third option at the bottom.

You will need to be logged into your Google webmasters account.

Before removing links it is worth posing a reconsideration request to google. This will confirm if your site has been manually punished.

This removes a lot of the doubt out of the process so definitely do this first.

If you have lots more links like this http://kierszencweig.com/with-wordpress-website-design-to-make-websites/ (this is super dodgy!) then you may well have a unnatural link penalty!!

I think your site is pretty good but would also be nice to show-off some of the end results e.g show some great images that your students will be able to achieve. This is more of a salesy point rather that search engine ranking one, however, if you have some great images on your site you could start getting some real good natural links!.

I write linkbaits for my own websites . They often get picked up by big blogs and we get a lot of useful links out of them.

Recently the New York Times stumbled across my air conditioning blog and asked me to join their debate on air conditioning.

I'm used to making pretty boring topics fun.

Although EGOL might be right.... I'm usually busy and I'm not cheap.

Some Examples of posts that went viral:

http://www.rollaramp.co.uk/news/infuriating-wheelchair-ramps/

http://www.airconco.com/news/9-most-extreme-air-conditioning-repairmen-1243.html/

http://www.insuranceclaims.co.uk/news/freaky-car-crashes/

http://www.airconco.com/news/how-not-to-install-an-air-conditioning-unit-1190.html/

http://www.insuranceclaims.co.uk/news/7-strangest-places-that-people-work/

I also do infographics too if you are interested.

We write fun articles that often get picked up by the big blogs and we get a lot of useful links out of them. Recently the New York Times stumbled across our blog and asked us to join their debate on air conditioning. Air conditioning is also a pretty boring topic but we have pushed the industry boundaries and have had some good success because of it.

BUT.... you can have great content but you need to know how to promote it!

Some Examples of posts that went viral:

http://www.rollaramp.co.uk/news/infuriating-wheelchair-ramps/ (on our wheelchair ramp website)

http://www.airconco.com/news/9-most-extreme-air-conditioning-repairmen-1243.html/

http://www.airconco.com/news/how-not-to-install-an-air-conditioning-unit-1190.html/

http://www.airconco.com/news/the-air-conditioned-outfit-83.html/

http://www.airconco.com/news/invasion-of-the-air-conditioners-189.html/

With anything you produce you should always be proud to show it to a friend (that's my motto)

When is a 'Repair' not a 'Repair'...? When it's a "Service" (... cue rapturous applause and laughter!)

We run an air conditioning website and we have recently noticed that Google is assuming the keyword "Repair" also means "Service".

For example if you type in (in the UK) "Air Conditioner Repair" the first page of Google it puts the word "Service" in bold. E.g:

1. Check this before calling for air conditioner service - YouTube

2. Halfords Autocentres| Air Conditioning Service for all car makes and

3. Service Your Air Conditioner for Summer Comfort « Sustainable

Now... why do I find this annoying. I had a amicable dispute with a colleague last year before all of this happened.

I noticed that our Google Adwords campaign was showing a high bounce rate for our /air_conditioning_service page. He explained to me that if someone wanted and 'air conditioning service' it was because they wanted their air conditioning fixed / cleaned etc.

My argument was that a fair few of the people bouncing off were actually looking for a company to provide a service (of air conditioning) that they were looking for.

We split the page in half (half linking through to a repair page and the other half to a page about the service that we offer) and ran a test against the original.

I was only expecting a small percentage of people to click on the new option we had added to the page, however, the difference was far greater than ever expected. It was a 60/40% split in favour of the new option not people wanting their aircon repaired/serviced!

So in conclusion... very annoyingly, Google is recognising my service page rather than my far more relevant repair page, and there seems to be nothing I can do about it (other than make my service page more relevant)

Rant over... but has anyone else experienced anything similar?

Is there anything you can do about it?

I have some great links from the New York Times, do you think it is unwise to link back to them if I find a useful article?

Can this really be seen as a reciprocal link!?

It may well be recent. Another possibility is that a trigger has been sent off because you have too many unnatural looking links (as a %).

Best thing to do is to have any recent spammy links to your website removed. Then post a reconsideration request.

Then you will know the situation that you are in.

I had same that message during my midway battle clearing a penatly. Google said that they were being "extremely granular", however, they said that we should send another reconsideration request if we had made any further process in cleaning up the links.

We all got very excited at this point, however, despite some improvement we didn't get back to where we should be (taking into account that we lost 1000s of bad links).

Rankings started to drop again so....

From this point we sent a further 3 reconsideration requests. 2 were rejected and the final one (after all spammy links were finally removed (thank you disavow tool!)) was accepted. "we have revoked the penalty on your site".

So from experience I would not stop cleaning up the site just because you received that message.

I actually have 3 fully documented cases of penguin recovery to my own sites!! I have started writing one up but it's currently 22 pages long!! (Messages from google included in that!) I plan to post a refined version of it in a couple of weeks. Hopefully it helps people out!

Seems like you might have an algorithmic penalty instead (Google don't tell you when you have these). Have you done anything dodgy on your website?

How badly have you been hit? Could it just be other sites overtaking you?

Post the domain and I'll have a look.

You have too much unnatural anchor text. It is a penalty without question. You must submit a reconsideration request to Google (so they confirm the penalty) then you must start clearing the spammy links.

This will take some time to fix. I recently cleared 3 massive Google penalties on clients sites (worse than yours). It takes time but it is definitely worth doing it properly. Do no try any tricks to get round it, they will only come back to bite you in the posterior.

I can't see any reason why you would have a link penalty so it must be something else.

You do have one immediately obvious issue on your site. 95% of the text is an image so it cannot be read by Google. You have to fix this!

I totally agree with the statement "I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice."

However... I have a bit of an issue with Best of the Web (and many other "quality" Directories). The only reason that you would want a link without link juice is if it was bringing in traffic.

We have been on BOTW for 3 years on 5 of our websites. I have just checked and we have received a total of 9 clicks (across the board) in those 3 years. Hardly worth writing home about.

I've never met a person that uses directories other than (yell.com perhaps). I have even forced myself to use BOTW for a week instead of Google and it only lasted 3 days before I gave up.

Am I missing something?

I also just did a search on BOTW for "Air Conditioning" and this result came up: http://www.kingair.com.au (just one example that took me 10 seconds to find)

Is this really "The Best of The Web". Why would Google trust their judgement?

I know it's quite off topic but just had a look at your site on Open Site Explorer. You have a load of anchor text to your site for the words "Viagra" and "<a class="clickable title link-pivot" title="See top linking pages that use this anchor text" data-text="penis" data-id="9619270841">penis". You might want to look into that! (The bad links that is)</a>

Assuming your site is www.amsvans.com?

It would be interesting to know whether making the external link a No Follow makes a difference or not.

In the users eyes it makes no difference if it is No Follow, whereas in Googles eyes they treat the the link in a different way, but do they treat the gesture in the same way!?

Firstly I have no proof of whether or not it is good for rankings so you may want to stop reading now.

Having said that... My personal view has always been that if the link is going off to somewhere that adds extra value to what you are blogging about then it is worth linking to.

I wouldn't just put a link to the homepage of a industry relevant website for no reason.

Wouldn't the internet be an awful place if posts didn't link off to other insightful or funny points of views or videos.

If I was Google I would want to promote sharing of useful information so I think there would be a little algorithmic boost for sharing other sites.

Google says design your website for users, so I think it makes perfect sense. Why would you be punished for supplying good information?

....And for some further insightful reading see this link I just discovered!: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-reasons-you-should-link-out-to-others-from-your-website

You have an quite a bit of unnatural Anchor Text with the key phrase "lifestyle magazine"

Just 2 examples (but there are many more)

http://www.young-baby-how-to-succeed.com/One_in_Ten_Parents_Do_not_Sterilise_Their_Babys_Bottle.html (unnatural text only used to fool Google)

http://katyroofers.net/resources.php?cid=8&page=4 (spammy looking page)

I have seen much worse than this but it might be worth submitting a reconsideration request to Google to see if you have been given a penalty.

If this is not the case you need to "produce a magazine that is much more popular than the competition and acquire higher quality links."

I don't think 39% is a big issue especially in an industry where repeat views are necessary.

One of our websites sells cheap portable ramps and has a high percentage of new visitors, due to the fact that there is no reason to come back (they either buy or don't buy).

Another of our sites sells expensive vintage furniture and has a very low percentage of new visitors. There is far more time spent on the buying process, there are also many visits from interior designers who always come back.

I always think that it is dangerous to look at percentages (especially on low traffic figures). For example if you increase the amount of your new visitors the amount of repeat viewers should also increase therefore your 39% may well stay the same (despite the obvious traffic improvement). Look to increase traffic not percentages.

PPC is a good way to get people to your site. You can advertise on words that people don't currently type in to get to your site, this could cut down on repeat viewers clicking on your adverts.

As to why your rankings have dropped can't comment until you post the site!

I think EGOL makes a pretty decent point actually.

I speak from experience... once upon a time we hired one or two respected SEO companies to write content on our air conditioning site. The content included a lot of keywords but in the main was waffle and uninteresting.

We later got proper aircon engineers to help us create our content, this included great explanations, high quality diagrams and videos/animations. This practice massively improved the user experience and significantly helped our rankings.

SEO people don't know your industry, experts (in your field) do!

Hopefully the website isn't about local serial killers...

It is incredibly easy to report a site to Google: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93713

HOWEVER... in my experience, Google rarely react to requests. We have reported a number sites that have clearly been cheating the system (see this recent post http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-is-this-site-not-being-punished a version of this was also sent to Google) but no action has ever been taken.

HOWEVER (2)... Google are getting smarter and smarter... well they have always been smart, they are just applying it properly now. Panda and Penguin were surely just the start... Pelican, Pademelon and Platypus are no doubt on the way.

Have you had any successful blog posts? Our safari / firefox count often has a massive jump when we promote things to social websites.

Check your top keywords and see if the same statistic is true.

I know that I'm not directly addressing the question, however, you should really proof read your website!

There are countless grammatical / spelling errors on the homepage alone. This is on your testimonial:

| "I was searching online and found Singapore Dry Cleaning. Their price are very reasonable and also very efficient service. I am using them for quite awhile and i am very pleased and impressed with their service. Will recommend them to nayone who needs laundry and dry cleaning service." |
| Miss Cathy (Ang Mo kio)" |

I'm not saying that spelling is a big part of Google's algorithm, but it will make you look far more professional to your customers.

Further to Heathers quite correct comments... You also have to keep an eye on the latest links tab in Google Webmaster Tools. It is also worth posting a reconsideration request as a preventative measure if there has been a large influx of spammy links.

I guess this is the usual reaction to a seeing a domain rank above your own website is "They must be cheating"!

However... in this case I feel more than justified. The website is aircon247.com they rank top 3 in the UK for "air conditioning" and other quite generic terms in the industry. I'm interested to know your thoughts and what (if any) action should be taken. Here are many of the links that I think contravene the Google Guidelines :

Spammy Article Submissions with Inorganic Anchor Text:

http://www.furniturearcade.com/decorative-furniture/decorative-accessories-lamps/

http://www.sys-con.com/node/2308271

http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/imagine-a-world-without-air-conditioning-units-7-112555

http://www.retail-digital.com/press_releases/appliances/diy-air-conditioning-installation-options

http://www.livingwithwhite.com/three-fun-uses-for-antique-grates-and-floor-registers/

http://www.mcrjk2008.com/2009/04/best-air-conditioning-ever.html

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/comfort-your-business-needs-1682737.htm

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/diy-air-conditioning-installation-options-1677015.htm

http://www.housetohome.co.uk/topical-advice/531054/regulating-your-home-environment

http://homeklondike.com/2011/01/10/country-style-bedroom-design-ideas/

http://professorshouse.com/Building-a-house/Plumbing-Heating/Articles/Energy-Efficient-Air-Conditioners/

http://www.greenscenedebate.com/2009/04/take-good-luck-at-air-conditioning.html#.URzEmh17L5w

http://www.harlynn.com/2009/04/wanna-chill-out.html

http://www.loveshaven.com/2009/04/we-are-all-so-excited-for-my-sisters.html

http://asiwaspassing.com/2009/05/

Spammy Links in External Website Footers / Side Bars with Inorganic Anchor Text:

http://www.w-int.com/

http://www.g-dir.com/home/gardening/

http://www.s-dir.com/

http://www.sefdir.org/popular-listings.html

http://www.ribcast.com/

http://rapidcoolsite.com/Home.html

http://www.index-guide.org/

http://e-dir.org/

http://www.singaporerealestate.info/blog/?s=%27the+solitaire+call%27

http://www.onlinepureherbs.com/acidity.htm

http://erostours.com/cheap-flights-Chicago.html

http://www.search-way.com/

http://koolergazi.persianblog.ir/

Blog Spam Inorganic  Anchor Text:

http://edcel.net/2009/05/

http://www.bluehatseo.com/quick-answers-1-link-building/

Spammy (Link exchange etc.) Directories:

http://ireland.accommodationforstudents.com/info/reciprocal_links_ad.asp

http://baliscript.net/barter-links.php

http://www.abacushosting.ca/linx.php

http://www.whelphelper.com/links.php

http://www.spectramedi.com/links_shopping.htm

https://www.midwayautosupply.com/linkexchange.aspx?

http://artsellart.com/links.html

http://www.linkalizer.com/directory/39-1/

http://dogdir.com/region/NA.php

http://www.easyezinearticles.com/ezineresources/Outsourcing.htm

http://www.patchhomeinspections.com/Links.html

http://autoharpusa.com/index.html?p=10

http://www.baliscript.net/webdesign-links.php

Really appreciate your comments.

It's funny you mention that, I just noticed that it has brought in 20+ facebook likes / tweet, so maybe not so useless.

We have many articles on our sites that bring in a large volume of traffic but bring no links.

As an example we wrote an article about the hottest cities in the world. The article brings in over 1000 hits a month on Google and people spend an average of 4 minutes on the page and never return and never link to it.

The article also doesn't bring in business because the company sell Air Conditioning.

From an SEO point of view should we focus any time at all on writing articles that are useful for the internet community that bring in traffic but don't bring in many (any) links?

Every summer for the past 4 years one of our customer's competitors suddenly has a big jump in Google's (.co.uk) rankings for some of the main industry phrases, particularly "air conditioning".

We were always under the impression that they bought links before the busy summer season, as they have these strange massive jumps in the rankings. (for the rest of the year they often drop down) I recently checked out some of the back-links going to their site and noticed something I'd not seen before.  Of the (approx) 480 links that showed up, around 80% of the SourceURL's ended with "?Action=Webring" (see 1st attached image).

To me it doesn't look natural at all and I'm surprised that Google hasn't picked up on. Their site is www.aircon247.com. It had been mentioned to me that this may be to do with link sharing sites (which I assume is black-hat) but I'm not 100% sure that they are doing this.

They also have an identical long spammy-looking footer at the bottom of every page which is clearly only for search engines to see. We reported it to Google a year ago but no action was taken. Do you think that it is acceptable to have it on every page? (see 2nd attached image)

I would be interested to know your thoughts on both of these, and whether this would be a dangerous tactic to try and emulate?

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