Learn why many websites that were making their owners tons of money in the past through traditional SEO, no longer work as well "post Panda." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

When building links or doing other search marketing tasks, it necessary to lie? Isn't that sort of thing exactly what gives marketers in general (not just search marketers) a bad reputation? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Are dishonesty, stretching the truth, or white lies necessary to be a good marketer? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Is "Hidden" Read More Text Okay? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Not a week goes by where a reader or a client doesn't ask me a question based on some bad SEO advice they heard or read somewhere. In this article, I try to figure out where it's coming from and why it gets spread. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What Bad SEO Advice Have You Heard Lately? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

One of our connections came across a horrible website that copied our homepage and used it for their "About Us" page. What can we do about it? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

It's been more than 5 months since my open letter to Google lamenting the state of their search results and how web spam was getting the best of them. Jill takes a look at how far they've come with improving their search results. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Have you noticed much change in Google's results since Farmer / Panda? That is, less spam? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

By now you've surely heard of the recent Google algorithm changes dubbed the "Farmer Update." This article highlights some of the interesting things I noticed that made me go hmmm...with the small set of sites I've looked at so far. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What're 1 or 2 main factors you feel caused massive drops in traffic to some sites w/Farmer update? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Is it too late to save SEO and its reputation from those who have made SEO = spam? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

I'm tired of Google (and Bing) returning sites that use anchor text link spam to get on the first page of results. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What type of web spam concerns/bothers you the most? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Question About Mobile Site and Duplicate Content Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Jill writes about why Google wants their organic search results to "suck just enough." Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Non-nefarious Cloaking Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Last week I was speaking with a potential client in need of SEO consulting who told me that they had been working on their product part e-commerce website over the past few months by adding "SEO articles" to it on a regular basis. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Can Backlinks Have a Negative Effect? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Jill Whalen writes an open letter to Google lamenting the amount of spam still found in their search results. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What type of search engine spam do you see still working well in Google? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

What would be the best way for me to transition old pages off our website, while keeping up our SEO? They have a lot of links to other pages, some not related to our business. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Using Divs and JavaScript for SEO Purposes Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

For the past few weeks I've been tasked with reviewing a few different sites that have seen a loss in traffic – their owners hoped to find out why... I can usually make some educated guesses based on what I dig up in Google Analytics. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Have you seen sites obviously penalized by Google and, if so, what was the cause? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Forum member "KemoSabe" wanted to mask a keyword-rich domain with a more memorable one for humans. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

True or false? Today's SEO could be tomorrow's search engine spam with the turn of an algo crank. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Jill's response to whether today's SEO techniques could become tomorrow's search engine spam. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

I have one main website and own about 10 other domain name versions that are similar. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

On my web page I have H2 tags that include the HTML ampersand (&) character code. I've been told that this confuses crawlers. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Duplicate content has been and always will be a natural part of the Web. It's nothing to be afraid of. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

Have you seen "BlindSearch" yet? It's a page with Google, Bing and Yahoo search all together, but with no branding. You make a search, see three sets of results and choose the one you feel provided the best results. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

The Twitter question for this week was: "Is there such a thing as white hat or black hat social media? Why or why not?" Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

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 >>

What's your opinion on the purchase of links for SEO? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

In Google's Webmaster Tools there is a section where you can submit someone you think is buying links. Here is what I don't understand – can Google really penalize you for purchasing links? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Forum member "Webstream" wonders if it's okay to use the "noscript" tag as a place for links and text on a site that is all Flash and images. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

Over the past few weeks, I've had a few run-ins with plagiarism in various forms and thought I'd take the opportunity to have a little rant about it. My hope is that by discussing it, people will become more educated about the issue and perhaps it will become a little less rampant online. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

When the term "linkbait" first appeared on the search marketing scene a few years ago, I wasn't too keen on it because it has a lot of negative connotations. In fishing, bait is not really a good thing (to the fish). One minute the fish thinks he's going to have a tasty meal, and the next minute he IS the tasty meal! Works out nicely for the fisherman, however. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

A lot of my clients pull data/products from semi-public databases to populate their websites, similar to how real estate agents show listings of homes on their sites. I've been ensuring that each client has unique valuable and professionally edited content whenever possible on the rest of the site, but I’m afraid that if I make the portions of the site that use the semi-public data accessible to the search engines, they will find duplicate information on other sites and my client site(s) would not be indexed. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

I have a plastic surgeon client who specializes in many procedures and has spent a fortune on developing a very nice site that has been done in Flash. In efforts to get him some traffic, we are doing a double campaign, one with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and one using SEO tactics. Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

High Rankings Forum Thread of the Week Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

I have a really quick question I hope you can help with. There is a small business in town that is paying $200 a month to have another company make sure it stays at the top of the ranking lists in search engines. Now if there is no new competition, except maybe a new office every few years, is it necessary to pay them, or could they do it themselves with the guidance you offer on your website? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

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 >>

I have to create some pages for a client. They are full of images and little to no content and have no title tags…however, they still want SEO services…*groan* Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

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 >>

As you know there are a lot of so-called SEO/SEM experts/gurus claiming all
sorts of things. The analogy to me is like "quack" doctors compared to the
genuine article.

Are there 6 or a dozen questions that would expose those purporting to be
experts? Read More >> Related Forum Posts >>

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

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 >>

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 >>

Related Forum Posts >>

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 >>