September 7, 2007 – 8:53 pm
Below is a video of a New Zealand Maori War Chant performed by this rugby team before each game in front of their opponents. I don’t watch many videos but this one got my attention. Passion is a great motivator. People with an internal drive can accomplish far more than those under obligation.
September 5, 2007 – 8:11 pm
Internal Linking
This week is all about internal linking, siloing, third level push or essentially how to move pagerank around to benefit the most pages on your site.
- Building a Web Site Theme With Silos (Part 1) Bradley Leese - March 2007
- Third Level Push (modified Siloing) For Deeper Index Penetration Halfdeck - August 2007
- Internal Link Architecture John Scott - April 2006
- Internal Linking Strategy: SEO Self Reflection Mike Valentine - March 2007
- Internal Linking Patrick Gavin - January 2005
- Case Studies: Internal Linking iProspect - June 2007
- Google’s PageRank Explained and how to make the most of it Phil Craven
- Taking Internal Linking Too Far Search Engine Watch Forums - January 2006
August 29, 2007 – 8:09 am
This week I chose a classic article on linking and authority from Mike Grehan - Filthy Linking Rich. In easy to understand terms, he explains how the subjective nature of determining “quality” forced search engines to begin ranking pages by their link popularity. His point is if one page has twice as many links as another, then it is precisely twice as likely to receive a new link which leaves the page that is poor in links disproportionately likely to remain poor.
The other 9 articles I chose either link directly or indirectly to Filthy Linking Rich. The first two deal with link acquiring techniques. One plays on the ego to attract links, like Personal Development for Smart People (he really does have very information posts, I’m not linking because I want you to know I read it so you’ll think I’m smart). The other plays on people’s emotions and curiosity.
The next link is an old SearchEngineWatch Forum post asking this question “…there will always be someone willing to pay and others willing to receive payment for a link regardless of where they are. Therefore it brings us back to square one, how can a link be fair for the average small budget website compared to Corporate-America’s deep pockets? Will the solution be to give it less importance within the 100 or so factors of a search engine’s total algorithm? or can there be a link popularity algorithm that takes into the equation an equal playing field?”
The next 2 emphasize this point “The sandbox isn’t something you are trying to get out of, it’s the trustbox that you are trying to figure a way into.” which means “…crusty old domains get love, new ones get ignored until the popular kids start talking about it.”
Graywolf says Filthy Linking Rich is “…one of the most essential documents of SEO” and Bill Slawski puts it at number 3 on his list of “100 best SEO documents of all time”.
Michael Martinez sums it up this way - “Once a document becomes well-linked it accrues links at an increasing rate in part because idiots are easily convinced by the enthusiasm of other idiots. If idiot C learns that idiots A and B recommend a document, idiot C will also recommend the document.”
Lastly, my most favorite of all quotes is found in the paper that started all this… “There are even numerous companies which specialize in manipulating search engines for profit.”
10 Link Building Articles
- Filthy Linking Rich Mike Grehan - October 2004
- [Video] What is a Self Reinforcing Authority (and a Self Reinforcing Market Position)? Aaron Wall - February 2007
- Can You Compete with Industrial Strength Linkbaiting? (or, Why My Site Will Outrank Yours for [mortgage]) Andy Hagans - February 2007
- How Fair Is The Link Popularity Algorithm? Search Engine Watch Forums - September 2004
- SEO Playbook Stuntdubl - April 2007
- Google Ranking Filters: Trust and Age Factors Jim Boykin - October 2006
- MyBlogLog Community Meme Via Graywolf Graywolf - January 2007
- 100 best SEO documents of all time, part 1 Bill Slawski - August 2005
- The Physics of SEO Theory Michael Martinez - March 2007
- The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page - March 1998
