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Forum Threads

Below are SEO Forum threads that were highlighted in the High Rankings Advisor newsletter because they were interesting and thought-provoking.

I Google, Therefore I Am Losing the Ability to Think - Forum Thread of the Week

July 2, 2008
High Rankings forum members discuss a Guardian article by John Naughton (who was writing about a Nicholas Carr article in The Atlantic), which talks about how we seem to be losing our ability to concentrate for long periods of time. And apparently, the Internet is to blame! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How to Determine ROI for Social Media - Forum Thread of the Week

June 11, 2008
Forum member "ramki" has a bunch of questions about social media marketing. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How Do I Redirect HTTPS to HTTP on My Site? - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week

May 28, 2008
Forum member "chrisjum" is wondering what the code is to redirect the HTTPS version of his website to the HTTP version. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

302 Redirects Appear As 200 Status

May 14, 2008
If you're a true techie geek, you will like this High Rankings forum thread where member "doughayman" notices some weirdness in his server logs. With some probing, forum moderator and all-around server wizard "Randy" helps diagnose the problem, and all is well again. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Too Many Hits for My Custom 404 Page

April 30, 2008
Forum member "johking" posted that her 404-error page is getting tons of hits, and wonders if it's set up incorrectly. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO High Rankings Forum Thread of the Week

April 23, 2008
Forum member "Christopher" is looking for help to improve his checkout conversions. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Sitemaps: How Important Are They?

April 9, 2008
When you're done reading the SEO Standards threads, here's a good one on sitemaps. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Client Responsiveness: How Do You Prod Them Into Action

March 26, 2008
Forum member "lenwood" has provided a client with lots of SEO recommendations that should ultimately increase their search engine traffic. That is, however, if the client would only implement them! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Using Nofollow: Good, Bad, or Indifferent?

March 26, 2008
Now that the nofollow link attribute has been around for awhile, and even sanctioned by Google's Matt Cutts for "PageRank Sculpting," forum member "nethy" is wondering what your thoughts are on it. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How To Prove ROI with SEO?

March 26, 2008
Forum member "iloveseo2" wonders how one can prove one's return on investment and track conversions with SEO. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Negative SEO

March 12, 2008
I recently read an interesting article by someone who goes by the name of "slightlyshadyseo" regarding negative SEO, and asked our High Rankings Forum members what they thought about it. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

PDFs Not Being Completely Indexed

February 20, 2008
I was checking to make sure that all my client's PDFs were appearing in Google's index and noticed something odd. Luckily all the PDFs appear when I do a site:yoursite.com filetype:pdf. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Yes, [Toolbar] PageRank Means Nothing!

February 6, 2008

There's a good thread in the forum from member "fishermack" explaining why toolbar PageRank is not an effective measurement for website traffic and sales.

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Does Google Use Theming?

January 23, 2008

An interesting topic of discussion has broken out in the forum regarding whether Google understands the "theme" of a website.

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

$10k per Year for Directory Inclusion

January 16, 2008

Forum member "maleman" asks if it is worth $10K plus per year for advertising on a website/directory?

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Need Some Input on Site Outline

January 2, 2008
Forum member "ronfrank" is new to SEO and is having trouble figuring out how to categorize his site based on keyword phrases. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

VP Got Rid of PPC -- How Will This Affect Us?

December 19, 2007
Forum member "NeilPertRocks" tells the other members that the VP in his company completely removed their paid-search program, and is wondering how this will affect their business. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Beginner Advice

December 12, 2007
Forum member "Vini" wonders why his/her website keeps going down in the rankings rather than up. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Changing Homepage URL

November 28, 2007
For those looking for some advanced SEO info, we have a ton of it in our “Technobabble” area of the forum. There’s tons of great info on dynamic sites, as well as mountains of technical info on redirects, mod_rewrites, etc. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Seo Expert Rant, Arrrghhh! Forum Post of the Week

November 14, 2007
Forum Member “Deverill” is ticked off at the SEO guy in his office due to some strange advice he is giving. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Increasing PageRank - Forum Post of the Week

October 31, 2007
Forum member “Reflections” is looking for a quick way to increase PageRank because the usual routes take too long. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Anchor-text and Nofollow Links

October 24, 2007
I noticed something interesting the other day that made me wonder whether links that have the nofollow attribute on them can/do still pass anchor-text “juice” in Google. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Marketing Resources - Forum Post of the Week

October 17, 2007
Forum member “scouseflip” wants some good reading material on marketing. See others’ suggestions or share your own at the forum. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Cross-linking 40 Relevant Websites

October 3, 2007
High Rankings Forum Thread of the Week Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Is SEO an Extra Skill or a Prerequisite When Designing a Website?

September 26, 2007
Forum member "rolf" told the community of a website design company that created a brand-new site completely in Flash for a client, even though the client expressed an interest in having the website found in the search engines. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Does Graceful Degradation Really Work

September 19, 2007
At the place where I work as an e-commerce copywriter, we are about to take a pretty successful, basic, unpretentious e-commerce website and guck it up – er, I mean, enhance it — with fancy Flash animation on virtually every page. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Same Title Tag for Every Page

August 29, 2007
Forum member “SEMMatt” wonders if it’s good or bad that the Title tags on his website are all the same. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Should You Include Plurals?

August 29, 2007
Forum member “malhyp” asks if there’s a benefit to using both the singular and plural forms of his/her keyword phrases when optimizing. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

High Rankings Forum Turns 4-years Old!

August 1, 2007
We’re also running a poll in conjunction with the birthday announcement... Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Supplemental Results? What Supplemental Results?

August 1, 2007
Google has decided to stop labeling pages in their Supplemental Results Index as such, and some webmasters are up in arms over it. Personally, I think it’s smart of them not to differentiate the results anymore, as all it served to do was cause unnecessary grief for people. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Matt Cutts Giving Out Clues via Google Webmaster Central?

July 25, 2007
Forum moderator Jonathan Hochman (jehochman) noticed a post on Matt Cutts’ blog asking people to vote for what features they’d most want added to Google’s Webmaster Tools. Jonathan thought it was curious that one of the proposed features would tell webmasters which pages on their sites don’t validate. He wondered why Google would do that if they don’t care about pages that validate. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Help and Advice Starting a Business

June 20, 2007

Forum member "siringo" says:

 

"I'm thinking of starting a blog hosting business. Not web site hosting, blog hosting. People will come to the site, select a blog template they like, I set it up and away they go."

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

You Can't Fake Real Content

June 20, 2007
We had a very interesting discussion regarding my last Search Engine Land article, "You Can't Fake Real Content." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Article Dos and Don'ts

June 20, 2007
Forum member "1dmf" asks the High Rankings gang: "If you wrote an article/blog, how do you do the links? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

ROI Tracking Between Lead and Sale - Forum Thread

June 6, 2007
Forum member “ARothman” is looking for suggestions on how to determine which website leads actually become sales. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Do Women View the Web Differently Than Men?

May 30, 2007
Randy (and some others) have some great advice on how women and men view the Web differently. You don't want to miss this thread! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What Do You Call Yourselves?

May 30, 2007
Forum member "kurzo" asks, "If you do SEO, SEM, optimisation, etc., do you call yourself a Search Engine Marketer? Web Marketer?" Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Cache Dates on Pages Getting Old

May 30, 2007
Forum member "DannyAFC" tells us that he ranks well on the competitive keywords in his industry, but he's getting concerned because his cache dates are starting to get quite old. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Does a Site Redesign Spell Trouble for Rankings?

May 30, 2007
In another post, "DannyAFC" says he feels that his site needs a redesign but isn't sure what elements he can safely change without hurting his search engine rankings. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Avoiding Duplicate Content on eCommerce Site

May 30, 2007
Forum member "Brandon C" asks, "I want to be able to offer a true breadcrumb for customers in an ecommerce store, but I am afraid that the product page will get penalized for duplicate content if I'm not careful." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Why Have We Gone From <br> to <br />?

May 29, 2007
Forum member "Doogie" wonders why we've gone from <br> to <br />? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Anchor Text Question

May 16, 2007
Forum member "Nystul" remarks: "Due to the long name of my website (keyword), a couple of my backlinks are anchor text as 'thisisme,' instead of 'this is me.' Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How Do You Find Out Where Your Prospects Usually Hang Out At

May 16, 2007
Forum member "Kai2810" is wondering how one can find where their target market hangs out online. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Do Forum Links and Signatures Help SEO?

May 16, 2007
Forum member "vertigo" has been busy posting in online forums and says, "For about 20 of these forums I have replied to existing posts with original info, and have put a keyword-rich hyperlink to my website in my signature. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Is This SEO Email Correct?

May 16, 2007
Forum member "Angelina" wonders about an unsolicited email she received from a so-called SEO company saying that her optimized site was actually unoptimized. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google AdWords When You Already Rank Well

May 16, 2007
Forum member "bims" asks whether it's necessary to keep his/her Google AdWords campaigns running for keywords in which he/she already has decent organic rankings. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google Analytics -- Check Out the New Interface

May 16, 2007
Google Analytics has a completely new interface, which I for one really like! It's cleaner and seems a lot faster as well. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

HTML vs. Joomla

May 9, 2007
What if you have 2 identical websites with the same Meta tags and same content, but one is “100% HTML web design (clean code, CSS design)” and the other is “100% Joomla, fully loaded with SEO options”? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Pauline's Poll

April 25, 2007
How often do you visit the High Rankings Forum? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Any Good SEO Tools To Promote My Site?

April 25, 2007
Forum member "rachellee" wonders if there are any good SEO software programs around. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

I Need Expert Opinions!

April 25, 2007
Forum member "fromtherooftops" has an ecommerce site and has a bunch of SEO-related questions for the crew. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Need Some Diagnostics

April 25, 2007
Forum member "sleidia" wonders why his or her website isn't performing well, even though it has a high ranking for a specific keyword phrase. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How Long Before Spammer Relisted?

April 25, 2007
Forum member "stacykan" tells the group that she filled out a recent spam report on one of her competitors, which apparently resulted in the site being penalized/banned. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Strange Google Phenomenon - Any Guesses?

April 25, 2007
Forum member "chorn" sees his or her rankings constantly fluctuating, gets freaked out by it, and wonders why it's happening. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Sitemap Protocol Updated

April 25, 2007
Forum moderator "qwerty" informs members of the new search engine site map protocol, which allows you to direct search engines to your site map page, via your robots.txt file. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Translation of PPC Campaigns from English to Russian

April 25, 2007
Forum member "Sarah" tells the group how one of her clients wants them to set up a new PPC campaign for them in English, Russian, and French, and she's looking for some direction with it. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advertisers’ Opposition to Forums

April 18, 2007
I believe that user-generated content — in the form of a forum — is going to play a large role in a current client’s growth strategy. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Matt Cutts and Paid Links

April 18, 2007
Forum moderator Michael Motherwell (aka “ProjectPHP”) wondered what all the hubbub is regarding a post Matt Cutts made at his blog asking for people to report paid links to him/Google. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Creating a New Site Based on One Product

April 4, 2007
We have a website with tips and advice about health products. The competition is quite tough in this field, but we have one product that is doing extremely well in search engines and other websites are starting to link to it as well. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

CSS Better than Tables?

March 21, 2007
Are Sites Created with CSS Better than Those Created with Tables? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Hiding Links Behind a Flash Menu

March 7, 2007
Forum member "joeeee" asks if it's okay to hide a link behind a Flash menu. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Posting in Forums To Gain Inbound Links

March 7, 2007
Forum member "Jon H" is looking for ways to build links and has started a few different threads on the topic: Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Using Valuable but Non-related Content To Bring Links

March 7, 2007

Paying Bloggers for Links

March 7, 2007
"Ryan2" is also looking to build links and was wondering if it's okay to pay bloggers to link to your site. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Wikipedia: Is a Paid Alternative Really Better?

March 7, 2007
Forum moderator "ProjectPHP" heard the "SEO Rockstars" radio show dissing Wikipedia and talking about how a paid online encyclopedia would be better. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Optimizing All Pages or Few?

February 28, 2007
Forum member “seo_bright” has a couple of SEO questions for the High Rankings Forum members this week. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Alternate Domain Names

February 28, 2007
A client of “Bobmeetin” was given some advice about registering a bunch of alternate domain names. Bob knows it’s not good advice, but decided to come to the Forum for a little back-up. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Client Training Once Website Is Finished

February 21, 2007
"Kalew" asks website developers how much time they spend training their clients to upload new content to the server. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Promoting Our List via "Free Stuff" Sites

February 21, 2007
"Rolf" says, "We've been discussing ways to increase subscribers to our mailing list, and one of the ideas that has come up is those 'free stuff' sites you can find all over the place." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Anyone Know of a Good PHP Calendar?

February 21, 2007
"Johking" is looking for a PHP calendar he can add to his website. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Free Web Hosting To Test SEO

February 21, 2007
"Christelle" wonders if it would be useful to get some free hosting accounts in order to test out some SEO techniques. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

MSN Listings Different in Different Locations

February 21, 2007
"Heather" wonders what to tell her clients when the rankings she sees for their site at MSN are different from the ones they see. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Question About Cross-linking Websites

February 21, 2007
"Jammin' Jake" tells the forum, "My employers would like to start three new websites for these three aspects of our consulting services to focus on each individual consulting service." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Penalty for Linking to Unrelated Sites?

February 14, 2007
Forum member “LarryB713″ was told by an SEO “expert” that linking to unrelated sites could get his site penalized by the search engines and was wondering if it was true. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Confused About Nofollow? So Is Google!

January 31, 2007
Did you know that Google supposedly doesn’t crawl nofollows? My understanding was that they are to be used for untrusted links, not to keep Google’s spider out of places. (There are already tags/attributes for that.) However, Google seems to keep changing what they want to use the nofollow attribute for. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

302- vs. 301-redirects for Domain Changes

January 17, 2007
Not quite 2 years ago, Scottie Claiborne wrote a brilliant article here in HRA on how to switch to a new domain while avoiding the nasty effects of the aging delay. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Anything Unusual Happening with Google?

January 17, 2007
If your rankings have slipped in Google recently, you’re not alone. Check out this thread regarding a recent Google update that killed a few sites’ rankings. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Trade-off Between Company and Search Term in Title

January 3, 2007
I really would prefer having company name come first, but I feel, looking at competition that the best search term leading off (3-5) words at beginning and the company after… Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Update on Redirecting Multiple Domains

December 13, 2006
I recalled some advice you gave on redirecting multiple domain names from a while back and to my surprise I was actually able to locate it on your site... Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Who Coined the Phrase “Search Engine Optimization”?

December 13, 2006
We’ve got a thread in the forum where we’re trying to figure out who coined the phrase “search engine optimization.” Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google Minus-30 Penalty

November 8, 2006
Do you have a page that used to rank #1 in Google that is now suddenly ranking #31? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

H1 Hidden in Comment Tag

October 25, 2006
Forum member “arteworks” noticed a competitor site that had a keyword phrase
in a comment tag wrapped with an H1 tag.  Is it spam or just stupid?  (Or
perhaps both!) Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Hired an SEO Comp and Now Feel Ripped Off

October 11, 2006
To go along with today’s featured article on trust, we also have a forum thread on a similar theme. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Who Loves Their Laptop?

September 27, 2006
If anyone is looking to buy a new laptop, Karon has started a thread at the forum to try to figure out the best brands to buy. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

PPC Rant

September 13, 2006
The usually unflappable High Rankings® Forum admin Alan Perkins has had it with all 3 PPC providers and rants about it this week. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Worth Getting a Link on a PR0 Page?

August 30, 2006
Forum member “excel30″ asks whether it’s worth getting a link on a PR0 page. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Biggest Misconceptions People Have About SEO

August 16, 2006
In our forum thread of the week, new forum member “Carica” posted some information showing that many people have a lot of misconceptions about SEO. Carica was surprised by this, but we old, crotchety moderators weren’t. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Disclaimer

August 2, 2006
New forum member "norty911" asks fellow members if anybody knows of a place where he/she can find a copy of an SEO disclaimer that says he/she cannot be held responsible if there is not a significant increase in rankings for his/her clients' sites. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

HRA Wrap-up 173

August 2, 2006
And speaking of the forum, it was its third birthday this week. In many ways it seems way longer than 3 years since we started it. I really can't remember a time without it as it's been such a huge part of my life for so long. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Overusing Google Match Types

This is the first time that Erin has encountered every keyword in every campaign and ad group having a broad match, phrase match and exact match version. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>