We are pleased to be able to offer an article by guest author, Manish Pandey of SEO MegaCorp, answering the common question of which tools SEO professionals should be using.

Expect to see more articles from him here soon!

There would be many SEO professionals who may already be using these tools. But I thought to cover them as they are a must for every SEO.

1. SEO Quake: Seoquake is a powerful tool for Mozilla Firefox and for Internet Explorer, aimed at helping web masters who deal with search engine optimization and internet promotion of web sites. Seoquake allows user to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly.
2. SEO for Firefox: SEO for Firefox pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market directly in the search results.
3. Rank Checker: The Firefox Rank Checker extension allows you to easily check your website rankings in Google (US and international), Yahoo, and Microsoft Live search.
4. Link Analysis by Joost: Link data in Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Microsoft’s Webmaster Portal is pretty static, they give you the pages a site has links on, and let you do all the analysis with other tools. That sucks if you want to do a quick analysis of a site, or want to get a quick overview of inbound anchor texts for a site.
5. Link Diagnosis: This tool is the best at representing information offering the wide variety of sorting options based on link type (nofollow, missing, good), link anchor text, PageRank, page internal+external links.
6. Google Adwords Keyword Tool: This tool not only shows the keywords and it’s count that month, it also shows it’s trend, estimated ad position in per click, average cpc, competition, and the month it’s highest volume occurred.
7. C-Class Checker: This free Class C Checker tool allows you to check if some sites are hosted on the same Class C IP Range.
8. LinkHounds Yahoo Backlink Information: Sorts results based on the IP address, thus showing only unique IP/domain backlinks.
9. Domain Backlinks Checker: The tool offers the information in a very convenient way linking to each page from the certain domain where the backlink was found.
10. Hub Finder: Hub Finder is web based software which looks for hub pages using the Yahoo! API. It allows you to find sites which link to common resources that you manually enter, or resources that rank well in Yahoo! for a specific term.

Author Bio: Manish Pandey is the Founder and CEO of SEO MegaCorp an seo company based in India.

That is the question…

Whether ’tis PR worthy of the affiliate program to suffer the hijacked threads or to take up arms against a web of link-maskers…

So, you’re a registered forum user and you want people to visit your site… Great! We all do. Well, we don’t all want people to visit –your- site, but rather… Well, you get the point.

No matter how long your site has been active for its not so much a matter of getting people to click in as much as it’s about giving them a reason too. Sure, some folks resort to ye-old affiliate link-masking in the hopes that a user will ‘go for it’. Others may just spam it over dozen of posts thinking the more of it there is, the more likely they are of getting one click and others will bump old threads with their link using the ‘helpful reply’ tactic. Honestly though, they all fall under the SPAM category so none of those will get you very far in a forum. In fact, all that will do is bring attention to yourself and get you banned. At least it does at V7N. (:

No, what you want and what you need to do are so closely related to proper etiquette and good posting form that it might be hard for the average spammer to grasp.

First, just stop the bumping old threads with links and images to some great opportunity or program or service. Nobody takes the content of a 1-post-noob seriously. Ever. All that’s going to do is alert the moderators to you and get your post canned. then, you’re screwed. You’re on the radar and no amount of duplicate accounts and re-spamming is going to help.

Second, stop the set-up spam. You know, when a 1-post-noob asks a question and shortly there after another 1-post-noob posts a spammy reply. We all know its the same person. And now, again, that spam and those users are on the radar. Canned and banned.

Third, profile spamming. That’s when a user signs up and uses their site’s url in every field they can find… Name: Their site, Sex: Their site… Etc etc…  But then never post. While this might seem like a quick and simple method of getting indexed and getting that all important PR, it does nothing for visits and, again, will get the account banned. After, of course, all those links had been edited out.

So here’s the thing. We get it. You want PR, you want visits, CT, CPP and so on… And it mainly takes one thing to do that. A link. And on the other hand, more importantly, a visitor.

First you need to start posting. Yes, I know. “But I don’t have time for that!!” I know you don’t. You’re too busy trying to screw the system that you’ve forgot how easy it is to just play by the rules.

Becoming a valued member of a web community is a sure-fire way to get some juice and also some, -gasp- business!! Yes, it’s true. Stick around, post quality posts, help others, show off some of your flare and it will come back to you. Forums are always on the look out for quality poster and through that, you gain respect. Nurture that respect.

Second, use signatures! Coupled with that, start quality threads. Replies are one thing, but if you start quality threads it brings more attention to you and your signature.

Third, for the love of all that is holy, do not link to anything that will be perceived as spam. Link to a quality website or a quality blog and name it accordingly. Then use that website or blog as a spring-board for your crap. At least in this case, people will be more inclined to click through to a link “Johnny’s SEO Review Blog” and land on Johnny’s SEO Review Blog as opposed to “100% Free SEO EBOOKS & SCRIPTS” and land on a single 800 line scroller.

Yes, to Spam or Not to Spam. If you choose the former, may all your sins remember’d.

yt
jay
www.mysweetslaughterhouse.com

With the recent new releases by Google and Yahoo concerning advances in crawling flash, we are very pleased to share this timely and very informative article by V7N SEO Blog guest author
S. Emerson of Accrete Web Solutions.

The web design and search engine optimization communities are a buzz in the last few days with an announcement that hit the news that it will now be possible to create search engine friendly flash files.

Google and Yahoo to Search Inside Flash Files

“Adobe announced Tuesday that Google and Yahoo are adding search capabilities that will enable users to look inside the content of files encoded in Adobe’s Flash file format SWF….”

Source: The New York Times July 1, 2008

Optimized Flash Player makes SWF Flash file format searchable by Google, Yahoo engines

“Adobe Systems Inc. today announced that an optimized Adobe Flash Player will be added to the search engines of Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. under agreements with the two Internet firms. The tool will help the search engines better index dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications (RIA) that include the Flash file format, or Shockwave Flash (SWF)….”

“…As a result of the partnership between the three firms, pre-existing Flash-based RIAs, including content that loads at runtime, will be searchable without alteration by companies or developers, Adobe said. Google has added the optimized Flash Player to its site already, and its search engine will be able to access SWF files as of today. Yahoo plans to add the technology to a future update of Yahoo Search. A schedule for adding the technology to Yahoo wasn’t disclosed…”

Source: Computerworld July 1, 2008

Google has a post on their Webmaster Central blog about this news also, Google learns to crawl Flash, . They have also started answering questions in another post, Improved Flash Indexing. Pay particular attention to the question regarding current technical limitations before you get too excited about this new feature.

So how does this effect web design houses and website owners?

In the past, it was difficult to get a website built using Flash® indexed in the search engines. If you do a Google search on the topic, you will find ways to attempt to get a flash based website indexed. Now it appears these methods will no longer be required in the future.

With this partnership, now websites using Flash® will be indexed better almost immediately according to the post at Google and in the future with Yahoo, per the quote above from Computerworld.

What does this mean to website owners?

Your website, if it uses Flash®, will be indexed easier in Google and Yahoo. Note that this partnership is with only 2 of the millions of search engines and directories available on the Net. Yes, these two feed information to other search engines and directories, but what about those who are not in partnership with or are fed by these search indexes?

This news only tackles one of the problems of using Flash® in a website. There are still the issues of the download speed, usability and accessibility of Flash® that need to be addressed when you hire a designer who wants to build your website using Flash®. A qualified designer can tackle all of these issues, but, will your return on investment justify the expense of hiring such a designer?

S. Emerson
Accrete Web Solutions

I find it difficult to understand how topics involving the importance of Google PageRank continue to be an ongoing debate in forums. Interestingly enough, often those people claiming that PR has nothing to do with how Google determines the placement of sites in search results, are those people with low PR sites.

Google PageRank is certainly not the only factor in determining your position in the SERPs, but believing that it does not play a role in search results is simply crazy.

A Google feature that helps determine the rank of a site in our search results. PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your searches. Webmaster Help Center

When a user enters a query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the PageRank for a given page. Google 101

How often does Google crawl the web? Google’s spiders regularly crawl the web to rebuild our index. Crawls are based on many factors such as PageRank, links to a page, and crawling constraints such as the number of parameters in a URL. Any number of factors can affect the crawl frequency of individual sites. Webmaster Help Center

Please do not bother showing me dozens of examples of sites with low PageRank doing better in the search results than sites with higher PR. No one is saying that PageRank is the only factor. It is simply one of many factors involved.

Until Google chooses to ignore PageRank by removing it from the algorithm, it would be foolish for website owners to do so. While I do not feel it is something we should obsess over, for top 10 results, we certainly shouldn’t ignore it either.

J. Cricket Walker of CricketWalker.com

Don’t bother adding comments to popular blogs. It’s a waste of your time. You are about as likely to write anything interesting enough to drive a reader to your website as I am likely to shoot an Ansel Adams’esque windswept landscape, blindfolded.

Of course…

They just might like what they see, and tell others about you. *gasp!

You can’t risk it!

They might link to you!

If you take the time to set up a blog, make sure that the content is of no value to anyone. Just scrape duplicate content from other blogs and add a ton of spammy links. That way you can be sure no one considers linking to you.

Do not add quality content to your website!

Make sure it breaks in all but one browser. Preferably Opera: because nobody uses that one anyway.

Whatever you do, don’t even think about joining a quality ‘Webmaster Forum’ as the last thing you would want to do is become a valued member of any online community with your signature attached to your post and profile.

Though, if you feel the need to join, don’t bother with quality posting…

…Better yet, don’t even read the rules!

Just dive right in with ‘Mr. Obvious Replies’ and spam your URL all over the community in as many threads as possible with as much zest for ctrl-v as your fingers will allow. That way you can get banned faster and won’t have to worry about someone wanting to link to you.

Even curiosity can get a hit or two to your site a day and god-forbid if your posts lasted longer than the Windows Boot Logo. This way, they’ll all hit the Spam can and be assured of never being seen.

If someone is foolish enough to ask you for an interview after seeing the quality of your posts in the forums, tell them ‘No!’ immediately. You cannot take the risk as they will inevitably link to your site as part of the article. This can be bad news, indeed.

If after seeing your crappy content, someone is desperate enough to ask you to write a guest article for them, (it goes without saying that you would certainly never offer to write a guest article) turn them down. If the bar is that high then you haven’t been working hard enough and need to re-read this article. If they insist, make sure you do not add an author bio linking to your site.

It would be nuts to submit to a quality directory like the V7N Web Directory. Directories are like a phone book of the web. Why would you want to be listed with like-minded business people?

Join social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon? Are you crazy? Even though they use the nofollow attribute on all outgoing links, you cannot take the risk.

What if someone actually likes what you have to say, and starts paying attention to your post? What if they look up the URL to your site? Don’t do it! A few links might sneak through!

Co-Authored by Jay M. of OpticalDevotee and Cricket of CricketWalker.com

Whatever determines link juice, it sure as hell ain’t PageRank.

This comes as no new news to most SEO’s, but the myth of PageRank being the dominant factor in link juice is still quite popular amongst the forum posting crowd.

We here at v7n place a lot of links. (Matt doesn’t read this, does he?) Our Contextual Links Program has paid out over $140,000 to thousands of bloggers. So, yeah, we know links.

In the link building business, no matter how indifferent one is, sooner or later you’ll take a good look at what links are passing link juice and what links aren’t. So we do tests. We place links on blogs, using keywords in the anchor texts that do not appear on the linked-to pages. We track these links, and sometimes we place them on pages blogs that we wouldn’t usually use in the program. We place them on brand spanking new PR0 websites. We place others on old crummy PR0 websites. In most cases, the links do pass link juice.

Yes, links on PR0 websites – websites that have never had PR – still pass link juice. Amazingly enough, they pass enough link juice to put the linked-to website in the top ten for search terms that do not even appear on the linked-to page.

But sometimes links do not pass ranking juice. Why is that? When we find sites that do not pass link juice – and they are not as common as you might think – the one thing they all have in common is a lot of links to not-so-nice neighborhoods. And that doesn’t mean “paid links”. Paid links, even when they are marked as such, do not automatically result in a website losing its link juice. It appears to be an issue of number, frequency and percentage. If a good portion of the outbound links are to penalized websites, you can expect to lose your link juice. If, on the other hand, you slip in an occasional link or two to a bad neighborhood, chances are that you will not suffer any link juice loss.

A month or so ago HostGator bought some banner advertising on the v7n forums. Not for HostGator.com, but for their SEO hosting division, aptly named SEOHosting.com.

A few people have asked, what does SEO have to do with hosting?

We’ve known for several years now that Google has a patent which filters and devalues inter-IP links.

Quoting Google’s patent:

Re-ranking component 122 begins by identifying the documents in the initial set that have a hyperlink to document x. (Act 301). The set of documents that have such hyperlinks are denoted as B(y). Documents from the same host as document x tend to be similar to document x but often do not provide significant new information to the user. Accordingly, re-ranking component 124 removes documents from B(y) that have the same host as document x. (Act 302). More specifically, let IP3(x) denote the first three octets of the IP (Internet Protocol) address of document x (i.e., the IP subnet). If IP3(x)=IP3(y), document y is removed from B(y).

On occasion, multiple different hosts may be similar enough to one another to be considered the same host for purposes of Acts 301 and 302. For example, one host may be a “mirror” site for a different primary host and thus contain the same documents as the primary host. Additionally, a host site may be affiliated with another site, and thus contain the same or nearly the same documents. Similar or affiliated hosts may be determined through a manual search or by an automated web search that compares the contents at different hosts. Documents from such similar or affiliated hosts may be removed by re-ranking component 124 from B(y) in Act 302.

But if you’re not linking to your own sites from your own sites, why worry about inter-IP link devaluation? You don’t need to. But why are you not linking to your own sites? If you have the link popularity, use it.

We here at v7n own a hundred or so sites, and for the most part they do not participate in inter-linking schemes. Why? Because they are on different topics. Health, finance, travel, etc. Inter-linking those sites would not create much in the way of link popularity, but we still host them each on different IP ranges. The reason for this is, in one word, Google.

Google loves to launch half baked filters and penalties. They do this on the basis of what they know, so it’s in our interest to keep Google’s knowledge to a minimum. At least where it concerns website ownership.

That’s where multiple Class C IP web hosting comes in. It’s the SEO equivalent of not keeping all your eggs in one basket.

It might also be a good idea to keep your domain registration private.

Or something.

I love Godin’s stuff, but he can talk some gibberish, at times.

“One of my concerns about the misuse of SEO by marketers is that it’s largely about tactics. It’s easy to get hooked on constant cycling of this approach or that tactic, all to incrementalize your improvements. Big successes, on the other hand, come from arguments. Arguments about what you stand for. Arguments about big strategic shifts“

I think he means strategy is more useful than tactics. A person almost certainly needs a strategy, but that strategy also needs to be made up of well executed tactics. Most SEOs I know see strategy as being essential.

As for “having an argument”, I’m none the wiser.

There are plenty of big game-changing, controversial ideas that end up as road-kill, and plenty of incremental refinements made to old models that result in game changes. I’d argue Google was an incremental refinement of previous models.

GoTo was the real game changer.

Reading SEO forums is often frustrating. People suggest a possible algorithm element, and two seconds later it is accepted as fact.

One of these unproven theories that is generally accepted as fact is the theory that if you want to rank for a specific search term that you need to link to “authority sites” on that topic.

So if you wanted to rank for “Internet Marketing”, you need to link to KnowThis, Clickz and WilsonWeb.

Just a note here to say, it isn’t true. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to think to check the SERPs and see that many top ranking websites do not link out to authority sites in their field.

Overpriced, in my humble opinion.

http://www.dotsauce.com/2007/06/16/seo-domain-purchased-for-5-million/