The recent news of Google
taking down yet another link network like Buzzea has drawn my attention to write this post,
though after a couple of months. Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, time and
again, releases videos warning a no notorious practice of link building either via
guest postings or directory submissions. While such advice is not new, the reality is different. There is a gap between a 'do follow' and a 'no follow' advice!
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Image Courtesy: 3quarksdaily |
Audience
Reaction Matters -Frankly speaking, I’m not a big fan of such link
building practice. Nevertheless, I don’t mind if content fetches a few backlinks
as people, if they find value, share, and like the post on social media. It all
depends on audience in a long tail digital channel –whether they consume, or
vomit our ‘produce’.
Audience Reaction (AR) is very important, and this should
matter to all of us in real sense. While Google is going semantic and the socially
connected network is pacing up with the TIME machine, what holds back these SEO
agencies is the lack of ‘applied knowledge’ to adapt to these changes!
Are We
STUPID? Yes, there is always some cause-effect relationship, and this
is how search industry works. Algorithms are dark. Nothing new, we all know. Nevertheless,
we get into such dark tunnel. The more we get into, the more we discover it
darker, indeed, darker than black! The end result -we are made to look STUPID. Not
sure why such silliness when the light of hope is actually outside the tunnel!
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Image Courtesy:Verticalmeasures.com
False
Promise - We all know ‘ranking’ is the dirtiest and false promise the agencies
make, basically to hold a client in a hope to deliver low cost marketing
solution for audience acquisition, a promise easy to make, but difficult to
deliver these days!
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Image Courtesy: ilifejourney.wordpress.com |
Ranking delights us, but it may not infuse a new life to a drooping business,
which could be due to exogenous factors.
Link
Building as a First Aid Box?- I have heard of many clients
looking at the top 3 organic results on Google, and perceive them as
competitors taking the cream while they, being not there, are losing the opportunity.
There could be some reality, but don’t sound very prominent. Some of them even
point out at SEO agencies and cite examples of a few sites on the top of Google for not adapting
to the “current scenario”, yet they rank high. And, SEO agencies, at their
fingertips, look at the link popularity as a first aid box, and suggest them to
build a robust link structure to outrank them. Not sure if this salvages, but one
thing is certain –those on the top of the search engine are not adapting to the “human
factors” of Google may likely to see a big impact down the line, and those who have adapted need a little patience.
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Image Courtesy: skytechgeek.com |
Matt Cutts’
on Link Building- Thanks to Matt Cutts whose video is a
direct answer to such clients’ query and less convincing recommendations of SEO
agencies for enhancing the link counts! Matt, in this video released on 27th
Jan, 2014 discards such speculation, and instead, suggests us to focus on taking
a fresh look at the website.
Matt Cutts indicated that
there are many old sites that are in the range of about 15 years old and while
that is a good thing, some of these sites have their original design templates
and have not done much to their sites to improve things over the years. They have never redesigned the site, never updated the user interfaces, never added new features for their users,
etc. If you want to stay competitive, Matt said you need to take a “fresh” look at your site and keep
upgrading, tweaking, improving the site and the user experience. Search
Engine Journal has published the story here.
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Image courtesy:jmgsoftware.com |
Link
Building for Social Utility- While I don’t deny the
importance of growing organic links, and I love David Amerland’s 3 tips on building links, I hardly seem to be satisfied with SEO agencies on their suggestion
to produce ‘just’ content, video, or articles
to syndicate solely for link baits. Producing content is not easy, as many of
us think. We need to see if a valuable piece we produce gets some value for our
audience. Our job, in fact, should be, to produce anything for social utility,
and leave it onto our audience for a hit or miss!
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Image courtesy: Noriskseo.com |
Cost
Effective vs Low Cost Solutions - Clients always look at
the things from a business perspective, and try exploring a low cost marketing
solution, sometimes even short cut solution, which they find in SEO as a
substitute of PPC or some other channels, which I believe, does more harm than
good to their business. It’s unfortunate, we being gullible, end up in
recommending a low cost and quicker solution too, such as producing low quality
video, or audio or article, and do refer them to some low cost services such as
fiverr, and what not!
While I have no grudge against
the site like fiverr, in fact, such site offers something valuable for users,
but unfortunately we have misused them so much that gets them a bad name. Personally, I find a big chunk of gigs out there are junks, and hence a bad
reputation we have built online. At time, when Google is taking down a link network
like Buzzea, and Hummingbird, in my belief, targets a site like fiverr, we must
be cautious, and do a thorough research before referring them to clients. It’s
very tough to find a needle from haystack, especially from such sites, better we
should avoid, or use them at your risk!
The fact is not only Google, but a SEO like Mr.Bruce Clay is also of the same opinion. I attended one of his live classroom training in Gurgaon and when asked almost the same type of questions, the answer was to NATURAL LINK BUILDING and trying to look or act like anything else is deceptive and hence SPAMMY.
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