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March 10, 2010
Global Search Marketing SEMNE Event in Connecticut! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Recommendations Don't Implement Themselves!

February 24, 2010
I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of businesses through the years – from tiny one-person small businesses to huge international companies. While there are many similarities in working with different sized companies, there are also important differences. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

February 24, 2010
Do image links have the same weighting engines as text links? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Why We Do What We Do in SEO

February 10, 2010
One thing that can help you figure out how to SEO your site is to learn the whys behind the specific techniques you always hear about. But to understand the whys, you first need to get the gist of how search engines work. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Twitter Question of the Week

February 10, 2010
Do you build links for the traffic or for rankings? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Copywriting Tomfoolery

January 20, 2010
Do you have any info on the issue of spamdexing – specifically the practice of adding keywords into text unnaturally and then emphasizing just the keywords (for example, boldfacing and/or italicizing them)? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Same Article on Blog and Website

January 20, 2010
Is it OK to have the same articles on your site as you do on your blog? And, if not, is it better to have a blog with a link back to your site, or to put the article directly on your site? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

XML Site Maps

January 20, 2010
Is an XML sitemap mandatory if you have a CMS? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Many Domain Names for SEO

January 20, 2010
I own many domain names related to my business. Would I have a problem with Google if I made one-page websites with good related copy on these domain names and linked the one-page websites back to my main website? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Inbound Links

January 20, 2010
Inbound, good-quality links are a struggle for me. I can sort though all sorts of tech stuff resulting in a good-looking, professional website, but link building is a real challenge. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

January 20, 2010
Forum member "krisflex" wants to know how to increase his or her PageRank. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

A Decade of 21st Century SEO

January 6, 2010
I've been SEO'ing websites long before the 21st century began. Sometimes I feel I've been touting the same SEO processes and procedures for the past 10 years. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

December 16, 2009
Chopping and Changing Titles Frequently Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Trends

December 2, 2009
Each year around this time, I like to review the traffic trends to our High Rankings website, and compare the traffic to the previous year. I usually learn a lot from this exercise, and I highly recommend it to everyone. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

December 2, 2009

10-plus SEO Questions - Google Rules

November 11, 2009
This morning I woke up to someone having submitted a pile of SEO questions using our newsletter question form. At first I thought, "Yikes, that's kind of pushy to think I have time to answer all those questions!" But then I remembered that this was a newsletter week and I still had no idea what I was going to write about. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

November 11, 2009
Meta Description – Beyond 155 – Still Alive? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Twitter Question of the Week

October 28, 2009
Will you care if Google turns off toolbar PR? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced Forum Thread of the Week

October 28, 2009
SEO Best Principles for Local Service Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What's Good for Users Is Good for Search Engines

October 14, 2009
I know that you HRA readers know that what's good for your users is almost always what's good for search engines too, but not everybody gets this yet.
Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Title Tags Revisited

September 30, 2009
The title tag has been – and probably will always be – one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Forum Thread of the Week - Google SideWiki

September 30, 2009
Have you heard about Google's new project called "SideWiki" yet? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Website Traffic and Its Effect on Rankings

September 16, 2009
Advanced Forum Thread of the Week: New forum member "wsajay" was wondering if and how the traffic to a given website affects its search engine rankings. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Adjusting Domains

September 2, 2009
My plan is to move all the home decor products from the old site to the new one AND change the products of the old one back to selling the jewelry, perfume, wallets, etc. – that is, the "gifty" stuff. What is the best way to make this change? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO for a Swiss Site

September 2, 2009
I have a corporate client that is planning to purchase a company in Switzerland and they are wondering if I can do the SEO. But then it dawned on me, checking their rankings with a U.S.-based IP address might deliver different search results…do you think? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Determining Keyword Competition

August 5, 2009
I'm a Keyword Discovery subscriber, and I use the tool for organic SEO purposes. I've recently discovered that the keyword analysis information (competition and thus KEI info) is based on exact match search instead of partial match. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Measuring Your Marketing: Campaign Tracking via Google Analytics – Part 1

July 8, 2009
To further add to your web analytics knowledge, today I'm going to explain how you can more accurately measure email and social media marketing efforts by using tracking links to create "campaigns" in GoAn. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Methods for Showing Specific Content Based on Referrer - Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

July 8, 2009
The other day I stumbled across Google's 1-click for free program, which is a way of indexing content that can normally be viewed only by registered users. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Publishing Text Ads

June 10, 2009
We are being contacted more and more by companies asking if we will add to our websites and/or clients' websites a short paragraph of text that includes a link to one of their clients' sites – i.e., a text advertisement. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

PageRank Evaporation When PR Sculpting - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week

June 10, 2009
There was big news last week from the SMX Advanced conference, which we've been discussing at the forum, regarding the use of PageRank sculpting. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Video Elevator Speeches for Websites

May 27, 2009
Do you think a positioning video has value on a website, or does it interfere with the structure and architecture of the website? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Blog Post Metadata

May 27, 2009
Are the Title, Description and Keywords (the metadata) always the same for each blog post? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Redirecting Website to a New Domain

May 27, 2009
We have a website of which the home page has 5 PageRank. This website has 5,000 pages that are indexed in Google.com and many of the pages have good PageRank. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Multiple Keyword-rich Domains

May 27, 2009
I have a series (15) of keyword domains (3 to 5 years old) that are related to my site. Currently most of them are mirrors with just a slight content differential. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Page Title Question - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week

May 27, 2009
Forum member "vanzist" asks what the best Title tag for a page would be. While my first response was the usual "it depends," additional comments make for a very interesting forum thread. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Is Your SEO Campaign Out of Focus?

April 29, 2009
I've spent the last few weeks reviewing scads of websites for our new SEO Website Review clients and have noticed a lot of interesting things in the process.
Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google Labs Similar Images: Advanced Forum Thread of the Week

April 29, 2009
Forum moderator Randy has some interesting observations regarding Google Labs' "Similar Images" program. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Blogs and SEO

April 15, 2009
My question is: How does Google know that the blog is part of my website if the address isn't under my website address or hosted by my server? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

All-Graphical Home Page

April 15, 2009
I realize that Google picks up Alt text data (aka Alt tags), especially if the graphic acts as a link; however, I am a bit puzzled on how Google ranked a particular site. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Embedded YouTube Video Vs. Self-hosting – SEO benefits? Advanced SEO Forum Thread

April 15, 2009
Forum member "cswilliams" wonders if hosting your videos on your own server rather than on YouTube would provide any SEO benefits. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Offering a Discount in Exchange for a Link? Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

March 18, 2009
Forum member "whitespark" is wondering if he could get in trouble for asking his customers to add a link to his website in exchange for a discount on a future purchase. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Dynamically Generated Pages and Dynamic Titles

March 4, 2009
I run an apartment search website. The sites search results pages are dynamic and pulled from the database. If these dynamic pages also have dynamic page titles, will they be search engine relevant? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Duplicate Content Via Press Releases

March 4, 2009
I disseminate news releases for clients using online wire services. Additionally, the releases are posted on my clients' websites, usually as PDFs, and on my firm's website, the same PDF. My programmer just told me that unless I make these releases different I am causing search engine apoplexy. Please let me know the facts and, more important, what I should be doing. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Measuring SEO Services

March 4, 2009
My question is, how should SEO services be evaluated? In other words, what measurable objectives beyond landing above the fold are appropriate? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Fixing Duplicate Content

March 4, 2009
We have a travel website where people can enquire about beautiful small hotels we offer. Even though each hotel has a unique URL with unique content, the categories pages have a duplication problem. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Discontinued Products Showing in Google

March 4, 2009
I would like to ask a question too, please. Our website is geared to sell GPS equipment. Many of the products have a life of about 6 months to a year. Google indexes these very well, and we rank highly. However, some searches display discontinued products (I guess because they have been around the longest). Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Combining Subdomains - Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

March 4, 2009
Forum member Convergent7 has a website that uses a subdomain along with the main domain. He/she wonders if it would be better to combine them into one. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

The Difference Between Article Distribution and Guest Blogging

February 18, 2009
To many people, the idea of guest blogging is fresh and new and very "Web 2.0." Personally, I find the discussion to be a rather déjà vu–like experience. In fact, one participant on my blog responded to a post about articles by asking how I would contrast guest blogging with article marketing. He wanted to know how I chose between placing my articles on directories and writing an exclusive blog post. The short answer is: I don't. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Canonical and Base Tags

February 18, 2009
Forum moderator Jonathan Hochman posted about Google's new method for specifying canonical URLs, which the other major search engines have also agreed to use. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Same Content, Different URLs

February 4, 2009
I have a new website selling children's eco friendly toys. The site was designed to enable customers to search for toys by age, by type of toy, by brand, and by country of manufacture. A given toy description would be in each of these categories as well as in multiple age categories and multiple toy types (i.e., in puzzles and wooden puzzles). Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Submitting to Directories and Search Engines

February 4, 2009
I'm writing now because a colleague and I have some questions on search engine/directory submission and we are hoping to get your expertise on the subject. We currently submit new sites to major SEs once they go live, but are wondering if some of the services are worth pursuing or if you advise against these? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Can Lots of Clicks Equal Higher Rankings?

February 4, 2009
If I hire people through something like crowdsourcing just to Google some keywords from various areas of the globe to click through to my site and stay there for 5 minutes, will it improve my rankings? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Absolute Links or Relative?

February 4, 2009
I've been researching absolute vs. relative links and there seem to be two camps -- one that advocates absolute as better for SEO purposes and the other that says that absolute links won't improve your rank. My site is set up with relative links, so is it worth the effort to change them to absolute? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Effect of Navigational Content on SEO

February 4, 2009
I'm redesigning my website using CSS for the layout. In the HTML code the navigation information comes before the actual page content. What worries me is how I have my navigation set up. I use CSS and span tags to make neat little information boxes appear when my navigation links are hovered over. These boxes will tell the visitor more about what to expect from that particular link. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Podcast Conversation: Length of Copy for Search Engines- Stuff You Might Like

February 4, 2009
Karon Thackston and I were discussing copy length the other day (yeah, we're total geeks when it comes to that stuff) and decided to share our conversation via a podcast. You can click to it and listen from Karon's copywriting workshop page. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How Many Keywords Is Too Many? - Advanced SEO Forum Thread

February 4, 2009
Forum member "anne999" was wondering how many keywords she could target on her website. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

When Google Fails, It's SearchWiki to the Rescue!

January 21, 2009
It was a few weeks before our annual trip to Pompano, FL to visit my grandmother and get away from the nasty New England weather. We had our plane tickets and hotel reserved, but still needed a rental car. I'd been reserving cars for years through a rental car aggregator website that I found many years ago when searching online for rental cars in Ft. Lauderdale. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google AdWords Best Practices - Stuff You Might Like

January 7, 2009
The Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) organization's next event is on January 27th, 2009, at the Newton Marriott in Newton, MA from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Network with other search marketing enthusiasts and learn about Google AdWords best practices from Malinda Gagnon, an account manager and traditional media specialist at Google, Inc. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Setting Realistic SEO Expectations

December 17, 2008
In 2005, when I originally wrote the article below, I thought by the time 2009 approached, things would have changed. Yet many businesses continue to have unrealistic expectations of what an SEO campaign is all about. We've had a number of calls to our office recently from companies who continue to be hung up over one specific keyword phrase, with no interest in branching out to others. Surprisingly, I changed very little of the content of this article because the message is still as valid as the day I wrote it. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Optimizing a Local School Site - Advanced Forum Thread of the Week

December 17, 2008
Forum member jass_blink is looking for tips on optimizing a local school website. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Organic SEO or PPC?

November 19, 2008
If organic SEO is so important, why are we being sold on PPC as most important by PPC trainers? Why is there less about organic SEO? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Shutting Down a Site

November 19, 2008
I work for a nonprofit that since 2000 has been operating an e-commerce website to provide emerging artists with a web presence. It has earned a toolbar PageRank of 5, thanks to some decent inbound links. Due to a variety of things, the parent company of the website has decided it's time to shut the site down. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Pages Indexed, Descriptions and Title Tags

October 22, 2008
How important is it to have a large number of indexed sites through Google? If so, how do we increase the number, and how do we edit what text appears under the link?
Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Keywords, Traffic and Link Popularity

October 22, 2008
I performed a keyword analysis for one of my projects, picked several powerful "traffic juicy" keywords and optimized the landing pages for those keywords. My site went to the first page in the search engines, and yet we've got no more than 100 unique visitors per month. Have you any idea why? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

1 Site Plus 4 Subdomains: Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week

October 22, 2008
Forum member "bobmeetin" explains how a business he's evaluating has a main website plus 4 subdomains and seems like one big organizational mess.
Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Affect of a Domain Name on Search Results - Advanced Forum Thread

October 8, 2008
Forum member "wassim" asks if a domain name affects the search results, and if so, how much effect does it have? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Is Not a Last-Ditch Effort

September 23, 2008
Sales are down for many businesses due to the slow economy. Business owners and CEOs are looking for that one thing that can pull them through the hard times and keep them afloat. When times get tough, many turn to SEO, hoping that it will be the ticket to increased sales. While SEO is almost always a good idea, if you're counting on it to save a failing business, you may want to rethink things. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Example of Nofollow in Action, Unsustainable?

September 10, 2008
Last week Twitter decided to remove the ability to gain any link popularity via people's Twitter profile page. This set off a firestorm from some SEOs who always look for as much link popularity as they can gather. What really made them mad was that they felt that Google (via Matt Cutts) had "bullied" Twitter into the decision. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Can Google Follow Non-www Links?

August 27, 2008
For purposes of discussion, let's say my main URL is www.example.com. I have a plethora of links in my site for indexing purposes between pages. The page links all go to their respective pages properly, but are linked to example.com (without the www part). Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Blog on Different IP

August 27, 2008
I'm wondering if there is more link value provided by a new blog if it is hosted on an IP with a different C block than the IP address of the web site itself. The owner of the business would be writing the blog and sharing business expertise with the idea of building the brand of the business.

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Getting Search Engines to Re-crawl

August 27, 2008
I recently set up a new site, which isn't something I often do, and forgot to set up the meta title and description. Now what is called up on Google for my site is HOME and a sentence from mid-page. Now that I have fixed the Web problem, how do I get the search engines to do another crawl of the site?
Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Top Search Engine Ranking Software

August 27, 2008
I'm about to renew our contract with our search engine ranking optimization software, but thought I'd check out other options before committing. What do you folks use?

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced SEO Forum Thread: Will Google Suggest Changes in the Way You Optimize?

August 27, 2008
Google has announced that they are rolling out "Google Suggest" this week, which will provide searchers with a list of query suggestions when they start typing into the search box.
Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advanced Forum Thread of the Week: Important Hub Pages in Supplemental / Not Ranking

August 27, 2008
Forum member "don h" discusses a website problem that's been plaguing him for ages. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Are Websites Ranked as a Whole?

July 16, 2008
I recently signed up as an advertiser with [a blog review website] so I could purchase blog review postings for one of my clients. After enrolling, I purchased a PR5 blog review posting at the standard PR5 price of $40. Eventually my offer was picked up by a blogger, but the review posting only stayed on their PR5 home page for one day as the next day it was shifted from the front page of the blog to an archived page that had a PR0. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Improved Google SEO Documentation

June 11, 2008
Google's Matt Cutts has informed us that they've improved many things in their SEO documentation, including what they've written about robots.txt, IP delivery/geolocation vs. cloaking, the nofollow attribute, doorway pages and more. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

2 Domains, 1 Website

May 14, 2008
I have a client who has 2 domain names: namehere.com and differentnamehere.us pointing at the same IP address. Is it bad SEO to have multiple domain names for the same site? And will this negatively impact search engine results for each? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Lost Toolbar PageRank

May 14, 2008
The front page of my website has a [toolbar] PageRank of 4 and most of my inner pages had a PageRank of 3. After this quarter's Google [toolbar] update, my homepage remained a 4, but most of my inner pages went down to a 2. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Consequences to Adding a Sharing Button

May 14, 2008
While this question may not be directly SEO-related, I'm wondering if there might be any negative SEO implications to including a social bookmarking and sharing button to the more popular pages on our website to leverage some of the popularity of social networking? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Same Tags and Keywords But No High Rankings

April 23, 2008
If I have the same title tags and keywords as the company listed first in Google, Yahoo, etc., why don't I get a high ranking? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Getting to Grips with the AdWords Quality Score

April 23, 2008
Today’s guest article is written by Dave Collins, from UK-based SharewarePromotions Ltd. I really liked because it shows a similar philosophy to that of High Rankings (i.e., create good stuff and good stuff will happen!). Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

9 Websites on 1 Server

April 9, 2008
Here is the scenario: I had a Virtual Private Server (VPS) with 9 websites on it that were all interlinked. It worked great for awhile. Then in Nov. 2004, Google did a big adjustment, and all 9 of my sites dropped out of sight. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Different Results in Different States

April 9, 2008
Search engine results seem to vary for US states. For instance, one of my clients gets top results while one of my clients from another state doesn't get the same results. 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 >>

Consistency Is Key in the PPC Conversion Process

March 26, 2008
Let me enlighten you about something you might not have considered. Ultimate conversions from pay-per-click (PPC) ads come from a process, not a single event. Oftentimes, online marketers focus on the effects of PPC copywriting and the clickthrough rate it achieves. That clickthrough rate is thought of as the end-all, be-all for the campaign. But the overall goal of PPC copywriting is not to get people to click. Clicking a PPC ad is merely step one. The ultimate goal is to get visitors to take action once they reach your site. 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 >>

Save $100 on Google Analytics Training Series - April Class

March 26, 2008
I wanted to give you a heads-up that ROI Revolution is starting their next Google Analytics Training Series on April 10, 2008. As you may remember, our High Rankings SEO associate was trained in Google Analytics through this series. They have been kind enough to continue to offer a $100 discount to any High Rankings Advisor subscribers who wish to attend. 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 >>

Which Is More Likely to Be Clicked?

January 31, 2008
Is someone more likely to click on my organic or paid search result if they appear side by side? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Measuring B2B Conversions

January 23, 2008
You briefly hit on ROI and basically described perfectly a dilemma I have. We are a B2B manufacturer of machinery that costs anywhere from the 10's of thousands to the 100's of thousands each. We sell a handful of these machines each year. Consequently, the buying cycle can take up to a year or more. How would you suggest we figure ROI and conversions for this kind of business? 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 >>

5 Keyword Strategies for B2B PPC Campaigns

January 23, 2008
Today's guest article is written by Andy Komack, the President of KoMarketing Associates. I had the pleasure of meeting Andy through SEMNE, the search marketing association for New England (see...networking *does* work!). Andy has been creating online marketing strategies for clients since 1999, so he's one of the old-timers who definitely knows what he's doing. KoMarketing provides search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social-media marketing, and corporate blogging strategies for their clients. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Duplicate Content Within Shopping Cart

January 16, 2008

I have plain html pages that describe the various health-related products that I recommend. If one of my readers wishes to purchase a product, they click on an "order now" button, which takes them to the desired product at my shopping cart.

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Software

December 19, 2007

I am coming across a lot of offers for software for SEO.  A lot of them are
offering different sorts of analyzers, etc. — which I’m not sure are
helpful.  Is there any sort of software that is real SEO software and
actually does some actual SEO work to your site?

 

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEO Training Class: Learn How To Optimize Your Website

December 19, 2007
I mentioned last time that we were going to start offering highly personalized SEO training classes (limited to 10 people per class) at our High Rankings headquarters in Framingham, MA. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Search Marketing Training Videos

December 19, 2007
If you'd rather learn from the comfort of your own home/office, we have an alternative for you -- our video of a past High Rankings seminar (different from the training sessions mentioned above, but just as good!). Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google Analytics Online Training Starts Jan. 10

December 12, 2007
Our friends at ROI Revolution are starting their next round of Google Analytics online training classes on January 10, 2008. There's still time to sign up, and still time to get a $100 discount using our affiliate discount code of HIGHRANKINGS in the coupon field. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Changing URLs

November 28, 2007
I am in the process of changing all my URLs from things like news123.html to OurCompany_Announces_New_CEO.html Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Static-seeming Sites

November 14, 2007
My company is considering building some new sites where content is loaded from a database. We plan on using static URLs no matter what, but we are wondering if it matters whether the content comes from static, unique HTML files, or if the HTML page is served from a database. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

PR Popping

November 14, 2007
Two weeks ago, my Google PR was still at 0/10. We have a 6-month-old site, for which I've been doing many of the "slow growth" SEO tactics as my time allows. This week, I find that my Google PR is now 5/10. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

How To Write Successful PPC Ads

October 31, 2007
Karon Thackston has just finished her new ebook on how to write successful PPC ads. It’s so new, in fact, that it hasn’t even been announced to the general public! 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 >>

Google’s Paid-link Smack in the Face

October 24, 2007
The SEO world is abuzz today with Google’s smack in the face to a number of websites that are selling obviously paid-for, keyword-rich text links. 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 >>

$100 Discount on Google Analytics Online Training Oct. 4

October 3, 2007
The Google Analytics Online Training Course from ROI Revolution that we mentioned last week is starting this Thursday, Oct. 4. You can still apply the $100 High Rankings discount by simply typing "highrankings" into the discount code field when you register. I believe that even if you miss the first live class you could watch it online, so don't be shy about signing up late. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Google Analytics Training Series from ROI Revolution

September 26, 2007
In my search to broaden my knowledge, I came across the good folks at ROI Revolution. I checked into their credentials, and was pleased to see that they are a Google Analytics authorized consultant. Plus, their course covered training on every aspect of learning Google Analytics. I was quickly sold on their service and signed up for their Deluxe Google Analytics Training Series, which appeared to be the best value. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Submitting to Google or a Sitemap?

September 25, 2007
I submitted our website sitemap to Google a while back, but I was reading a forum this morning where somebody was saying you have to submit every page to Google. What is the real procedure and are sitemaps important? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Revisited: The Art of SEO

August 29, 2007
Hey everyone! I’m back from vacation and the conference and raring to go. Today’s article is an updated version of one I wrote back in 2004 on the art of SEO. I recently reviewed it and was surprised at how accurate it still is today. I figured there are many of you on the list who never read it the first time around, and for those who did, you’ve probably forgotten it by now. 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 >>

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 >>

Getting Into Google - New Unavailable_after Tag and More!

July 11, 2007
Last night was our third SEMNE event (Search Engine Marketing New England), and we were humbled to have Dan Crow, director of crawl systems at Google, spilling the beans about how to get your site into Google. He talked for a half hour or so, and then proceeded to answer audience questions for at least another hour. As I sat there listening to him (yes, I actually listened to this one!), I was struck by what an awesome opportunity it was for everyone in that room to be provided with such important information — straight from Google. It was clear that the 100 or so people in the room agreed. In fact, at 7:30 on the dot, everyone spontaneously stopped their networking activities and simply took their seats without being asked to. These folks definitely came to hear Google! 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 >>

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 >>

File Names and SEO

May 23, 2007
Does what you name a page (not the “Title” but the file name) matter to search engines when they crawl a site? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Advisor Wrap-up 199

May 22, 2007
If you’re in the New England area on July 10th, we’ve managed to convince the product manager of Google’s crawl systems, Dan Crow, to come speak at our next SEMNE event! He’s going to be speaking on “Getting Into Google” and will be taking loads of audience questions. 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 >>

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 >>

Best Practices for 50 Micro-sites

May 9, 2007

I wanted to discuss the possibility of developing a best practice/checklist
guide for our company to follow.  Our new  initiative will be to launch 50
or so micro-sites focused on our key product categories.  These sites will
need to be rolled  out quickly.

Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

SEMNE Event a Success!

May 9, 2007
Last week’s SEMNE blogging event in Connecticut was a rousing success! 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 >>

Lost Rankings Due to Site Redesign or Spam?

April 18, 2007
I started answering this question with the usual answer, but as I looked at the site in question, I realized there was more going on than meets the eye. Please read through the entire question and my response to see what I mean! 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 >>

6 Newbie SEO Questions

April 4, 2007
Someone emailed me with a list of quick questions about some SEO terminology they didn’t understand. I figured if one person was looking for these answers, many of you would be, too. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What’s Important to Search Engines and What’s Not

March 21, 2007
I recently had an inquiry from someone who was looking for some possible SEO consulting with me. He was in the process of a redesign and wanted to be sure not to make any mistakes along the way, which is super-smart! The time to be looking at SEO is definitely in the beginning stage of any design or redesign project. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Expanding Services and SEO

February 28, 2007
Your email newsletter is one of my favorites, and I get a bunch of them from SEO “experts” and others. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Adding a List of Keywords

February 28, 2007
Great newsletter. My business partner is developing our site and wants to put a list of keywords at the bottom of some of our shop pages (i.e. below the text) in the hopes that this will get the search engines to notice us slightly more. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Working on Conversions

February 28, 2007
My SEO’s Good. Now Should I Work On Conversions? 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 >>

Seth Godin Interview About Squidoo

December 1, 2006
Back in June, Jill and I were front and center at SES Toronto listening to Seth Godin, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and marketing guru. He is as excellent a speaker as he is a writer! Seth delivered a thought-provoking as well as motivational keynote speech, and if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, it is a truly remarkable experience! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Copywriting Makeover: Facts vs. Fantasy (Part 2 of 2)

November 29, 2006
Karon's back today to show us the results from the Julie's Jewels copywriting makeover that she wrote about last time. 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 >>

Project Management eBook Site Questions

October 25, 2006
Sixty-year-old newbie here with his first e-book! My site is unlinked --
just "up there."   I teach project management for a living -- but ill health
is forcing early retirement, and I have an urgent need to keep paying the
mortgage! Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Opening Sentences That Close the Sale

October 25, 2006
It's one of the best pieces of copywriting advice I've ever been given. "As often as possible, start your paragraphs with sentences that hook readers and drive them deeper into the copy." 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 >>

Same SEO but No Rankings

September 20, 2006
I have been receiving your excellent newsletter for more than 3 years and find it an invaluable help to understand the ins and outs of SEO. Indeed I am sure that your advice has been instrumental in achieving a top 5 listing for the last 3 years in Google for my London site. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Characters in Meta Keyword Tag

September 20, 2006
How many characters are allowed in the keyword Meta tag? How will the crawler treat a page that goes over this limit of characters? 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 >>

Why Would Anyone Link to Some Sites?

August 16, 2006
Push the button of every SEO expert and he/she will start talking about the importance of links for high rankings. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Extra Characters in Title Tags

August 2, 2006
Do the search engines see the addition of this character: | in the title tag as words/characters, thus reducing the amount of words you should put in the title tag? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>