If all your title tags and meta-descriptions include how you’re ‘SEO friendly!’ and all that fluff, and your main means of promotion seems to be spammy footer tags in WordPress themes released under Creative Commons (meaning that someone’s not supposed to remove them), you probably pass about as much link value as [...]]]> Another comment on ‘directories:’

If all your title tags and meta-descriptions include how you’re ‘SEO friendly!’ and all that fluff, and your main means of promotion seems to be spammy footer tags in WordPress themes released under Creative Commons (meaning that someone’s not supposed to remove them), you probably pass about as much link value as my cat does (The PageRank over Fluff Protocol is not yet implemented).

But then, I am a known crankypants.

Unfortunately, many of our clients, let alone non-clients who think they can’t afford SEO advice, don’t have the well-honed sense of smell. Nor should they be expected to — one of the advantages for a [...]]]> I think any reasonably competent SEO has the good sense on how to tell if a directory is ‘good’ or ‘eh.’

Unfortunately, many of our clients, let alone non-clients who think they can’t afford SEO advice, don’t have the well-honed sense of smell. Nor should they be expected to — one of the advantages for a business owner in working with a full-time search engine marketer is that the SEO spends their professional life being a search geek. Most ‘normal’ business owners need to spend their time knowing the ins and outs of their business.

Here are a few warning signs about if that ‘directory’ is crap:

• Are they indexed? I had someone ask me about submitting to a ‘directory’ that I was quickly able to determine wasn’t even indexed in Yahoo or Google. This is not the sign of hot traffic referral waiting to happen! The site: command is a good one for people wanting to get involved with their web site to learn.
• Age of domain. Now, I know that a lot of normal people don’t know how to use whois, but it’s really quite simple. If the domain is fairly new and the directory isn’t associated with someone you’ve heard of, caveat emptor.
• Request for reciprocal link. I recommend all suspicion of any reciprocal link request, but if this directory is prominent enough to drive traffic to you, why do they need you to link to them? In general, they’re going to have hundreds of outbound links, you probably have fewer. This means your link to them is likely more valuable than their link to you. So why bother?
• Have you heard of them? If you haven’t heard of them, will your clients have heard of them? It won’t be a good source of traffic if no one uses them.

There’s a Salon blog post today on the reliability of online reviews. Here’s a choice bit:

Online ratings are beset by one main flaw, something pollsters call “response bias.” Because people are more likely to rate products that have moved them in some way — either positively [...]]]> This one’s for the Funk King of Minneapolis, Paul Jahn.

There’s a Salon blog post today on the reliability of online reviews. Here’s a choice bit:

Online ratings are beset by one main flaw, something pollsters call “response bias.” Because people are more likely to rate products that have moved them in some way — either positively or negatively — ratings for most items brim with extreme opinions. On Yelp everyone is above average; company CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told me that 85 percent of local businesses on the site get a three-star or better average rating.

The article is pretty good, so I won’t rehash it here. One thing that notably isn’t mentioned is ‘business owners posting wretchedly fake reviews in some mad faux-SEO urge.’ I’ve seen some awful, awful fake reviews — no real human writes like these reviews, or would say these things about a business such as that reviewed.

The visual range depictions discussed in this article won’t do much about those written reviews, although they’ll show the bias in the starred reviews a little more strongly. On the other hand, Paul and I have discussed that if a reasonable person found these fake reviews, they’d make a sane reader less likely to go to a business. Even though there’s massive response bias in even real reviews, at least they’re real.

I hate hidden links, simply because playing games with CSS to hide links from users is a clear sign of some form of dumbassery occurring.

But paid links are a really messy area. There’s a billion comments in [...]]]> It’s all over the place: Google is looking at ways to get bitchy about paid links and hidden links.

I hate hidden links, simply because playing games with CSS to hide links from users is a clear sign of some form of dumbassery occurring.

But paid links are a really messy area. There’s a billion comments in a billion forums right now pro-killing paid links, con killing paid links, etc. An argument is being made that when you buy directory links, such as Yahoo! Directory, you’re not paying for the link, but for having the link reviewed.

That strikes me as complete poo. You mean to tell me that it really costs Yahoo! $299 to ‘review’ my submission? Man, their reviewers must be pulling amazing hourly rate. I want to be a reviewer. I could sit at home with the cats and wear sweatpants all the time. I could bike all day and review all night while drinking beer and watching the Fox Reality Channel on cable.

The only way the $299 makes sense is if Yahoo! is in fact charging on the basis of the value of the link. Which, as we’re all aware, is the truth of the matter, or else none of us would ever pay the going rate.

Other types of paid links are similarly sticky. Text link brokerage is sort of sleazy — it’s rare that I see an example where brokered text links don’t look spammy on a site. But what of a paid review? Sure, most reviewers won’t give quality reviews just for the freebie or the cash, but everyone lies if they claim the gift or the $$ doesn’t make an impact. It’s a truism of public relations that schmoozing works.

I just feel like, of all the dodgy techniques to go after, paid links are both hard to justify the various nuances, and likely difficult to build into an algorithm. How about devaluing Squidoo and MySpace linking? That would be super-easy, and probably have more immediate merit.

Edit: One of the my favorite summaries to date: The Real Reason Google Doesn’t Like Paid Links. It suits my sense of tinfoil-hattery.

Consider: