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Says Robert, advertising his book (twice) on his free Wordpress.com blog ;-) Not saying you shouldn't. But, it's not that different from a sidebar of Google Ads.
- Google’s page ranking/site ranking algorithm is probably one of the most closely guarded secrets out there. Having been studying and experimenting and reading extensively about SEO for several years now I can tell you that you can’t make a bold statement without being wrong.
- “Links in the sidebar that appear every single day are FAR FAR FAR less ranked than links in the content part”. A couple of issues about that statement. First, unless Google scrutinizes the code and extracts the sidebar code from the rest of the page (which I doubt, given how big a job that would be - although some people are known to radically change the default template used by the various platforms in case Google do that), the sidebar is just a standard part of the page. Also, the sidebar is a constantly changing in terms of links (latest posts, etc).
- A link, even in the sidebar (or header or footer, which are static) from a high PageRank site to a site with lower PR is almost always beneficial to the site getting the link. FACT.
Nothing worse than being forced to listen to the MSN video commercials before viewing your next selection; one forced viewing is more than enough ... two is annoying ... three is just plain obnoxious.
Robert,
Please add the ability to fast forward through the videos on your blog for those of us trying to sip from the firehose.
The beauty is that Posties are earning more than enough now to take their blogs elsewhere and are doing so -- achieving the 'American Dream' of blogging: to own your own domain ;-)
You'll get that when we start doing other formats. Unfortunately that won't be the next two weeks.
And, the less commercial he can keep this, the better, personally.
I'm going to have him pull off the Sphere links cause those just aren't ready for prime time and they are slowing down my page load.
Hey, if you don't believe me, experiment. You have a high PR (8). Link to a low PR site and wait a few months. Heck, you could even sell the links! :-)
I don't see Sphere slowing down your page load.
Wordpress itself is what is not ready for prime time, on the self-hosted version it's currently a web 1.0 software in need of a major overhaul.
The difference between content links and sidebar links is that content links only stay there for a few days. So in some cases they may not help at all.
Example, if Google doesn't spider the page often, it may never see that link except after it's made it to the "archive" section... maybe even 2 or 3 clicks away from the main page. Typically these archives have lower pageranks than site's main pages.
Also, if we look at the concept of a link as a reference as in academic papers (the original Google premise) It would dictate that a permanent reference counts more than a temporary reference. Or, every time you visit i'm reccomending the links in the sidebar, whereas I'm only reccomending the content links once.
It's really hard to say, as I can make a compelling argument for each case.
As for wordpress being clean, that's awesome. If only they'd make it easier (I mean super easy, no code editing) for bloggers to customize their comment form, maybe it would cut down on that spam too. Somethign as simple as a "type the name of this blog in this box" or "type Scoble here" would be sufficinent enough so that automated scripts would have a hard time posting comments.
The math captcha is great, but easily crackable since it's widely used. Same with other captchas. The trick here isn't to make it harder for bots to crack, but to make it so thinks vary so greatly that it's pointless to make a bot in the first place.
I guess that means you can no longer link to your wife's blog because you're trying to help boost her search engine rankings.
You should maybe define SEO gaming, because last time you discussed it you accused B5 Media of SEO gaming, yet Wordpress.com with their category tagging system might be looked on by many as gaming SEO even more.
<a href="http://andybeard.eu/2006/11/wordpresscom-linking-structure.html" rel="nofollow">Wordpress.com Linking Structure
As to other commenters, Robert is a part of the VIP program, so this is a commercial blog, and Robert could probably use a service such as PPP or ReviewME (just launched) and not break the Wordpress.com ToS.
(please note I am not saying he would)
It also allows him to link through to his Podtech site frequently, which is again a commercial link.
This is however from what I can see quite a recent change. Until quite recently Robert's blog was not part of the VIP program, and still had links to Podtech...
It seems to me if the Wordpress.com ToS was being universally enforced, that a large number of blogs are breaking the ToS, because they have some kind of commercial interest in the sites they link to.
There are real SEO and traffic benefits to have a blog on Wordpress.com
One interesting thing I have noticed is that many members of the core development team, or those that get listed on http://planet.wordpress.org/ at least appear to have paid text link adverts on their sites.
I am not sure who is automatically added to blogrolls on wordpress.com these days, but there are some similarities in the monetization model.
In subjects like this, even people who try to maintain a "holier than thou" attitude sometimes get caught out.
We have been playing with payperpost on our own hosted site. If you look at the front login page at payperpost they have Colleen 692 as a top earner with
$2,835.42. I have no idea how many wordpress.com blogs she is running to get that much money, but I would guess more than one.
We are at $85 for 15 posts and it will buy groceries this month.
Then there are blogs with legitimate content who want to sign up for commercial third party services like AdSense or PayPerPost to make money. We've not (yet) enabled/allowed that because we wanted to build a service that is about great blogging content first (and making money later). So far, this approach seems to resonate with bloggers and readers alike (for example, 18 million unique visitors came to wordpress.com blogs in Sept). For those of our users who would like to start making money from their blogs, we are looking into various options for the future.
As far as wordpress.org developers who get linked, that's completely separate from the wordpress.com service. Those links are a way to provide recognition to the people who donate considerable amounts of time and talent to the open source project.
My interpretation of what you are saying is that if someone was employed as a freelancer for PayPerPost, and every few days made posts similar to
The blogger is employed on an ad hoc basis by PayPerPost.
They don't earn as much money quite probably as Robert does at Podtech, but there are huge similarities.
How about more blurring of the lines
The only way you can have such clear cut rules is a system of no linking to sites outside wordpress.com
As I said, I had no idea what is currently linked to by default in the blogroll for Wordpress.com. I knew what is current for WP.2.0.x
I have now quickly checked out a test wp.com, and there is a difference now, both in the blogroll and the contents of what is showed in the dashboard.
I am not criticizing anyone for monetizing the popularity or authority status of their sites.
They deserve whatever income they receive, and TLA, PPP, ReviewMe etc are effective ways to monetize for many.
If/When PPP posts start appearing within the posts from planet.wordpress.org, I wouldn't complain about that in itself either.
In the analysis of the WP linking structure I even openly admit I have used tactics that are more grey. It is all totally white hat... at least to some.
You see it is great to be able to start a blog on almost any subject, use categories, and be almost guaranteed PR5 or PR6 in 3 months time.
That is the advantage of being in a network of almost 500,000 blogs.
But Robert in his title is saying Wordpress.com doesn't practice SEO gaming, yet in the comments of a previous post he likened a blog network to being gaming the search engines.
Robert is also saying the sidebar has no effect, which it totally wrong. A blogroll can totally kill your pagerank, especially if you have it on every page.
(warning WP.com users should also avoid linking to commercial sites in their blogroll)
Ryan's blog is a good example of how to link to 3rd party sites, he has a seperate friends page.
His site still has lots of "ball linking" but it takes a lot of smart plugins to remove that "feature" of a blogging platform.
Methods of earning money and the blurring of lines are going to become more and more tricky, to the extent that without a court order you will never be able to prove whether someone is earning money for a post or not.
IMHO PPP is more honest (from an SEO perspective) that the wordpress.com linking structure.
Many would class both as still being white hat.
Here, try this. Get four bloggers to add a plumber's site into their blogroll. Then get four separate bloggers with equal Google standing to write "best plumber" and link that into their content.
Measure the results. It's not even going to be close. The content will beat the blog rolls every time by a HUGE mile.
Truth is that PageRank doesn't matter anymore. It matters WHAT YOU LINK TO WITH WHAT KEYWORDS YOU USE.
This is why the venture capital community is throwing money at these new advertising schemes. They know that it's the new SEO cause simply linking on the sidebar isn't working anymore.
Measure the results. It’s not even going to be close. The content will beat the blog rolls every time by a HUGE mile."
I think you misunderstand the difference between PageRank and keyword selection. Four links wityh "best plumber" would have negligible effect because of the dilution of the keywords.
"This is why the venture capital community is throwing money at these new advertising schemes. They know that it’s the new SEO cause simply linking on the sidebar isn’t working anymore."
They're throwing their money because they have money to throw. It doesn't say anything about effectivness. The reason that sidebar linking isn't working any more is that people's sidebars are a finite resource.
You're mixing-up two different factors - recency and PageRank.
A new link has a recency effect, which is not the same as PageRank.
Moreover, a new link in a post from a popular blogger can initially carry the PageRank of the front page PLUS recency, which makes it very powerful at first. When it moves off the front page, it loses that PageRank power and carries only the PageRank of the permalink page.
Of course PageRank plus relevant keywords is better than PageRank without relevant keywords.
PageRank matters. It's just not the only factor - Google even says that outright.
Pagerank can be transferred to that page, and the page can transfer pagerank to other pages.
A page on a higher PR website is sometimes worth more, because other pages on that domain give the page a little or large boost.
Linking structure is highly important.
I went to some poor guys website that is 16 months old, a highly respectable podcaster, and see his Pagerank was only 3 for the front page, 2 for categories, and 1 or 0 for all his content (even the aged content)
He didn't have many incoming links to his front page, but he had many links coming in to his blog content.
The problem was his blog content was being sucked dry by the number of links he had in his blogroll.
I actually tell my readers don't put a link to me in their blogroll. Sure it would be of benefit to me, but I honestly don't want to have a negative effect on their own search engine results.
If you realy think sidebar adverts are not working, why do you think text link ads is so popular?
The value in PPP or ReviewMe type advertising is that it is a link for life, not based on monthly fees.
The big problem is that the way most blogs are setup, the amount of PR that is given to an external link is minimal in the longterm.
As an example, your current linking structure probably doesn't retain most of the PR you are gaining from outside links. It is retaining pagerank like a sieve and only the newest content is receiving any PR from internal pages.
Then again you have the benefit of being on WP.com, so you are gaining a fair amount of pagerank to waste.
There are good reasons why your old domain might still rank higher than your new domain when searching for your name. Your sitewide link to your old blogroll is one good example.
Do you really want to give Wikipedia that much PR compared to your own content?
$2,835.42. I have no idea how many wordpress.com blogs she is running to get that much money, but I would guess more than one."
I don't have any blogs on wordpress.com - I use WP on my own domain. I use 2 blogs for PayPerPost, and that total is since July, posting 3 opps per day. It's not hard to do.
To VC DAN, "(it will be awfully hard to cover their hosting costs if they are left with ad-phobic bloggers who can’t afford $250/month)"
Actually I think Automattic is doing alright with wordpress.com, and has the best service. My wife and I were talking tonight about the fact that we have been spending about 2 hours a day doing payperpost related stuff and if we were to do that much work building something of value, it would be worth much more than the revenue we are getting from PPP. It is a bummer to spend 30 min working on something only to have the opportunity not work because of some software glitch on PPP. I think that it can work for some but not on our main blog, it just looks to cheap. And then if I spend the time building 2 "PPP" blogs that meet the requirements, I really should have built something that I really care about. I think that PPP is going to make a killing, and I can see that you guys are working like crazy. I am just finding that I need to spend my blogging time more effectively. And I think our PPP posts that get 4 or 5 comments are worth a whole lot more than 5 bucks.
I've always thought the default blogroll in downloaded WP and on WP.com was a brilliant way to reward those who developed by giving them pagerank. It cheapens what you are doing there when you say WP doesn't game SEO, because you do, and you obviously think we are too stupid to see it.
Like I said, I don't fault WP for doing this, I think it's smart. But don't act like you don't do it...
PS: Default WordPress.com blogs link to wordpress.com and wordpress.org. That's it.
If your boyfriend started saying he loves you, a lot more than usual, then you find out he was part of, say, a university experiment that paid him $20 each time he expressed love to you, would you not be annoyed and disappointed?
Same thing in the blogosphere. Nothing wrong with monetizing your blog, as long as you keep the 9 core values of blogging in mind.
Blogger allows and encourages google ads. Wordpress doesnt, but sometimes randomly put google ads on some blogs.
Blogger has a better policy, makes podcasting very easy, is easier to use in general and is better for begininers. Plus the fact they allow ads doesnt make them harder to read.
Taking a cold look at it, Id move away from wordpress if i could afford my own personal domain. The proverb start as you mean to go on, springs to mind.
Keep up the great work and, give some thought to reserving your ad-blocking for models that don't involve blogger content freedom the way PayPerPost does -- I think WP.com needs to remain a champion of blogger content freedom. Blocking AdSense, TLA or other banner-like approaches doesn't get into censorship the way blocking user generated content would.
Also, thanks for clarifying this isn't related to SEO issues, but about blocking all commercial services, whether it be AdSense, PayPerPost or other monetization options for bloggers. I understand this takes time and you're trying to get the whole model right. Keep up the good work!
>> Blogrolls don’t change from day to day.
Um, yeah, that's what makes them so powerful....
Weren't you recently advocating a Googlebomb?
So 'gaming the engines' is okay, as long as it's for a cause YOU agree with with? Your 'sidebar' argument is pretty weak too. You're advertising on a freely hosted blog.
So, you advertise on your blog and you tried to game the engines from your blog, AND, you tried to enlist the help of others to help you game the engines. Is it hard to sit down at the keyboard with one foot in your mouth?
Sad that you don't see the difference.
I guess you wouldn't see the difference between a letterwriting campaign to politicians and going in and bribing them behind closed doors. Got it.
I own my own blog... pay the hosting and have on occasion done a review blog - while my time is paid for my opinions are not bought. So what that makes me a whore or a pimp - I think there are claims of both in the comments above. It would be nice to know if I am being fucked or getting someone fucked.
And since we're now using absurd illustrations to make an illogical point, let's try this one;
I don't suppose you see the difference in publically asking 1,000 people to start a riot in the streets, or privately asking 1,000 people to start a riot in the streets.
Also - isn't the Pay Per Post system a more democratic economy - and one that will inevitably see market forces hone the process so that the biggest sell-outs in the short-term are the biggest losers in the long-term?
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regards
On how to be a fair and search engine friendly check my next commentment soon..
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My subdomainsite: http://www.ebay-usa.eoltt.com suddenly
disappeared from the search listings.
Now I submitted http://www.ebay-usa.biz
How will the big beast react?
I admit it; I do have a Blogger blog, and at one time I used it to help me get my sites spidered. Found out I didn't need it. Build a good site and promote it, it isn't even an issue.
Wordpress.com isn't a democracy. They don't have to accept anything they don't want. I personally delete comments that have nothing to do with my blog, I do have advertising on it, as well as affiliate programs, but I try not to go overboard so that others can read the message.
Guess it all depends on what you want to use your blog for. Mine is a relationship builder and public relations tool for my business.
Sincerely,
Jinger Jarrett
There is a free service at http://www.urlfreeze.com that you can use to help fight against affiliate link hijacking. Hope that helps.
Chris
I wish WP would just offer an option to PAY for access on their servers so we can run ads on our sites. Why can't I just pay them $6 a month instead of like bluehost?
www.skilline.com