44 replies to this topic

[Sharon & Roy]

So you guys are saying that links from other web sites could possibly lower your ranking, as well as improve it?

Hi Webstream,

No, that is not what we are saying!

Your Friends,

Sharon and Roy Montero

[Jill]

S&R, sorry, but I really fail to see how your post is helpful in the least. You don't want to give away the farm, and pretty much just want to slam those (like me) who say Content is King.

Why bother to post at all then?

Jill

[Ron Carnell]

LOL. And to think I managed to restrain myself earlier from making much the same comment, Jill.

Those with farms rarely tout them, preferring instead to let their produce speak for itself. What S&R call Link Reputation is simplistic and will ultimately prove to be only of temporary importance to SEO, a "mistake" the algorithms are already moving to correct. Not a farm. Just a field full of pretty and short-lived wildflowers.

[OldWelshGuy]

Personally S & R I find your attitude a little annoying. What is the point in all this cloak and dagger stuff? It looks to me like you are quite happy to read the posts and milk this forum for any hints and tips that may help YOU, but are unwilling to contribute openly.

This forum is the equivalent of OPEN SOURCE software, if you only want to suck the blood in a parasitic manner (which imo you are) then you are in the wrong place, If on the other hand you are on some ego trip on how SPECIAL you business is and how much better you are then i say 'get a life'.

Either way what you posted was of no direct help, all it served to do was to muddy the waters. if you can't help another person then don't get involved, this may be a game to you, but this is Jodi's rep and livelihood you are playing mind games with.

I suggest you leave you monitor after reading this post, and think long and hard about consequences of our actions and responsible posting.

Sorry if this seems harsh, but these are my observations and how it comes across.

[OldWelshGuy]

One other thing, YES linking is important, but i have had sites go to the first page, and stay there with no links other than the dmoz link, with pages directly below it that have links in abundance. All i have done is followed the rules, made the tags relevant to the content, the links relevant to the content they link to, gave the site a navigable system, and it worked.

Content IS king, Links are the pretender to the throne, links can be manipulated, content can not.

No matter how many people call my apple an orange, if it looks like an apple, and tastes like an apple, the people in the know will call it an apple. If you see a video clip of what looks like a dog, with a sound track lip synched to a cats meow, we will ALL describe it as a dog meowing, NOT a cat that looks like a dog. Sight is the strongest of all our senses, and what we see on the web page will ALWAYS take the front seat above ALL other factors, if it does not, then the web is dead, as we are going to be served up totally irrelevant pages, a sure fire way for ANY search provider to go out of business.

i have shot of at the mouth again, sorry all but as you have worked out by now, I type it as i think it, and rarely correct it.

[Matt B]

Content IS king, Links are the pretender to the throne, links can be manipulated, content can not.

Veerrrrrrry Nice!!!!

Good explanation of the importance and long-term value of good, solid content.

[Ron Carnell]

Throw a large handful of healthy egos into the same room and there is always the potential for a rather unhealthy explosion.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Sharon's and Roy's conclusions. I think they're wrong, but I understand how they reached them and accept their right to be wrong. Heck, there's one or two times I've thought Jill was wrong, too. Doesn't mean I don't respect her.

Most professional SEOs hold back a trick or two from their public dissertations, too. It's not so much a "secret," I think, because virtually everything to do with SEO can be reasoned from the basics, but a matter of not making it "too easy" to talk yourself out of a decent living. I can't really fault a person who gives freely for not necessarily giving everything.

For the two or three years I've known Sharon and Roy (not personally, of course, but in terms of running into them in forums), I've repeatedly seen them have problems. Not because of what they say, but in every instance, because of the WAY they say it. When you talk down to people who should be addressed as peers, it's real hard to be accepted as their peers.

In my experience, healthy egos require a liberal dose of noncombustible politeness if that unhealthy explosion is to be avoided.

[fred]

Hi

I thought spiders did not follow forms.

I have not seen this one before can anyone confirm ?

technically they should follow them , they are url after all.
ok it's a special kind of url but a url non the less.

[Sharon & Roy]

S&R, sorry, but I really fail to see how your post is helpful in the least. You don't want to give away the farm, and pretty much just want to slam those (like me) who say Content is King.

For the benefit of those of you who are not familiar with our posts, we'd like to mention that while we have not always agreed with Jill's advice over the last 3 years of posting on various forums with her, we have NEVER "slammed" her (as she put it) or her advice, but we have simply explained why we disagree with her advice and always in a very calm and non-combative way, and then we usually end up saying that we'll just have to agree to disagree on the issue(s) at hand and we simply move on and remain friendly and friends.

Hi Jill,

We think it unfair of you to accuse us of something (that we pretty much just want to slam those [like you] who say Content is King) that we have NEVER done to you (or anyone) before, nor would we ever even think of doing it to YOU (or anyone else) either now or in the future!

You have to know by now that we have the utmost respect for you!

In the last 3 years we really can't count many instances where you have disagreed with us on certain issues at all, and in fact, other than this particular issue, nothing else comes to mind that we can say that you disagree with us on.

Nevertheless, it has been fairly obvious that this issue is one that we will have to agree to disagree on, so it is really not an issue "between us" anymore and we know that, and we are not attempting to convince you otherwise, so if you did not already "realize" that, then please realize that now.

So if you failed to see how our post was helpful, then we already knew that you wouldn't find it helpful for yourself, as you have made it very clear to us that you believe that "content is king" and we're pretty sure that we have made it equally as clear for you that we don't believe that content is king. So would that be a correct assumption on our part?

You then go on to say that we ... pretty much just want to slam those (like you) who say Content is King ... which is not true at all.

We simply wanted to explain to Jodi that if she was under the impression that content (ALONE) was enough to get high rankings, then we advised her to look beyond "JUST THE CONTENT" to a much more weightier and valuable aspect of SEO, which is "Link Reputation," that is all, and in no way, shape or fashion were we "slamming" those (like you) who say Content is King.

To give you (and Jodi) further insight to our post, we'll refer you to what Jodi posted ...

So their results have dropped off the map because their affiliate link seems to have more "relevance" than their main site?? Huh?

Jodi, please correct us if we are wrong in our assumption here, but we assumed that you were referring to the "relevance" of the CONTENT of the MAIN site's pages compared to the "relevance" of the CONTENT of the AFFILIATE site's pages?

So, Jodi, were you referring to the "relevance" of the CONTENT or were you referring to the "relevance" of the Link Reputation of the respective pages?

We "ASSUMED" that you were NOT referring to the "relevance" of the Link Reputation, and that is why we POINTED you to look at and analyze that aspect and if you see what we see, then you would begin your "Off The Page" optimization process for the page in question and soon enough that page would outrank all of their affiliate pages.

Why bother to post at all then?

Just for the record, below you'll see that Jodi SPECIFICALLY asked for suggestions, and so we simply gave them to her, and there is no need to read anything more into our post than just that, "Our suggestions for Jodi."

Reading into our post (that we pretty much just want to slam those [like you] who say Content is King) is both unfair and untrue.

Jill, and you HAVE to KNOW by now that we are saying this with the Utmost Respect For You, and that we are not wanting to hurt you in any way by what we are about to say, but the reason that we "bothered to post at all" (as you say) is because Jodi did not stipulate that our suggestions had to be helpful for Jill or else we could not provide her with our suggestions.

Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In closing we want to say that if our post(s) has offended anyone, then we want to apologize and say that it was NOT our intent, as our intent was only to help Jodi, nothing more and nothing less!

We also want to say that no matter how "heated" some forum discussions may SEEM to be, we are certain that "good" can come from them all, but that "good" may not be readily apparent to everyone at the same time.

Your Friends,

Sharon and Roy Montero

[Matt B]

We simply wanted to explain to Jodi that if she was under the impression that content (ALONE) was enough to get high rankings, then we advised her to look beyond "JUST THE CONTENT" to a much more weightier and valuable aspect of SEO, which is "Link Reputation," that is all, and in no way, shape or fashion were we "slamming" those (like you) who say Content is King.

S&R,

While you explain away your "slamming" of the "Content is King," you slam it again by giving YOUR OPINION AS FACT.

To say that link reputation is "much more weightier and valuable aspect of SEO" seems very short-sighted, as evidence you have offered to this point is circumstantial and could be interpreted many different ways.

OWG has a point, one that I think should be heeded. Link Rep may be important, it may even be one of the most critical factors, but only for now. It will not be as long-lasting a factor as content. Content is marketing, content creates conversions. Ultimitely, content drives linking.

When you look at the entire aspect of marketing a website, not for rankings, but for success; link reputation pales in comparison. I think the bulk of disagreement you find is because of your crusade for linking, which is worthwhile, but to claim it as the most "valuable aspect of SEO"? Purporting that claim as fact will certainly raise the ire of many of your peers.

[Jill]

For the record, I also have the utmost respect for S&R and have learned a lot from their posts over the years. In fact, their posts are actually some of the few posts where I do learn stuff from.

The reason that I posted what I did was twofold.

I found it somewhat offensive to see the phrase, "without giving away the farm" and the other phrases like that. There was no reason to say that, imo. If you don't want to give away the farm, then don't, but it's not necessary to say it. I don't know why, but that simply grated on me the wrong way.

Then to have on top of that S&R saying basically, content is NOT king, which I of course disagree with, it was just too much for me to hold my tongue!

I'm happy to agree to disagree, but disagreeing isn't the same thing as saying "you are wrong." That's what was said, if not in those words. I can say you are wrong also, but i wouldn't.

In fact, I agree that the words in the links pointing to your page can most definitely trump anything else. That's a fact. It's been proven time and again. (Look at the other thread about stars.com for the proof.)

But that being true doesn't negate the fact that content also works as an optimization technique even without keywords in links pointing to the site.

Both optimization methods work, and both should be used to their best advantage by SEOs, if possible.

Perhaps I should have taken my beef with S&R into a pm, but I felt justified in posting it publicly, since I felt they were saying (in their roundabout way) that I was simply wrong. Now, granted, I'm certainly not always right, but in this case, I think we're both right.

It was actually more the other stuff that got up my ire, then the content is king thing.

Jill

[glengara]

S+R are correct, right now you could forget content if you could arrange sufficient optimised link text.
That the much vaunted G algo should come down to this is a bit of a joke, but with the increasing list of features that are acting-up, I don't think G has been working properly for some time.

[BrianR]

Erm... excuse me, but to get back to the original topic of this thread:

Having just read the whole thread from beginning to end for the first time, the only reason I can see for Jodi's rug site disappearing from the rankings quite so suddenly is that G couldn't spider it for some reason.

I think Jodi said as much in one of her later posts. If it was ranking at #8 and then, without further significant changes, disappeared from the rankings, I can't see any other possible reason but that.

Call me naive if you like - it won't be the first nor the last time, for sure!

BrianR

[SEOCub]

Hi



I have not seen this one before can anyone confirm ?

technically they should follow them , they are url after all.
ok it's a special kind of url but a url non the less.

There seem to be more than one thread in this thread...fred, there is another thread in which you posted where someone else confirmed that spiders don't follow forms.

It makes sense and I went through the logs of all my sites. None of the URLs which are only accessed by the method post from a post are ever reached by a spider. A spider cannot 'submit' a form. It only follows links which is one end of an anchor.

[fred]

Thanks

It makes sense, I never thought about that

I will keep that in mind next time , I have never had to optimize a such a process.

well in this case Jodi

forget the 'post' thing

sorry