The importance of webpage optimisation is greatly debated and contested amongst professional seo consultants.Some would argue that the quality of links and the anchor text of links is the most important factor influencing search engine ranking positioning, also known as SERPS, others would argue that it is the optimisation of the webpages that has the greatest influence. It is my belief and experience that all factors are important, link volume and quality, the anchor text, relevance and page rank of the page providing the link, the variety of sources of link, the site structure and number of pages and the optimisation of the webpage. Which may seem a short list of factors, but inn fact the work involved should not be underestimated. The most successful system I have found for page optimisation is that of benchmarking. Benchmarking optimisation as an SEO service involves the comparisonn of the target webpage for the target keyword against the current top 10 ranking sites for the specified keyword or keywords. This process takes into account the keyword frequency and density within all areas of the webpage. The process includes a benchmarking analysis of the page title, description and body content and supports the individual optimising the page by giving them the keyword density and frquency parameters of the existing top 10 listed sites in the specified search engine. The logic behind this benchmarking process is that if the SEO attributes of the newly optimised page mirror that of the existing top 10 it should soon be ranked accordingly. This process does include benchmarking the backlinks to the specified page and the frequency of the keyword with in link anchor text. Overall this is a simplified explanation of what is a relatively complex process, however having practised the process for several years on several hundred webpages that have all achieved top 10 search engine ranking for their target keywords would seem to be sufficient evidence that the theory is correct, because ultimately it works.


See our video on our Free SEO Guide page for further explanation

As long as advertisers pay for clicks, there will be click fraud. And the more people combat it, the more sophisticated the attacks become to get around the defenses that advertisers, search engines, and others put in place. But a recent click fraud ring discovered by click-fraud monitoring service Anchor Intelligence suggests that the practice is evolving to a scale never seen before.

Anchor Intelligence identified a click fraud ring being run out of China which involved 200,000 different IP addresses and racked up more than $3 million worth of fraudulent clicks across 2,000 advertisers in a two-week period. That money was never paid out and the ring has now dissipated (or moved onto another scam), but who knows how long the ring was in operation before Anchor noticed. The operation was called DormRing1 because it was centered in dorms at technical universities in China such as the Shanghai Technology Institute.

“We have seen 200 fraud rings,” says Anchor VP Richard Sim, “and this one by far trumps them all. I think it is indicative of how sophisticated the click fraud is getting. We are seeing the sheer scale and size of these rings growing.”

Click fraud occurs when someone sets up a website, signs up with an ad network, and then clicks on the ads to generate ad revenues with false clicks. DormRing1 operated the same way, except it easily involved more than 1,000 people who set up more than 10,000 Websites to spread out the fraud. The image above depicts a portion of the ring, with each red dot representing a source of fraudulent clicks with similar digital signatures. (Anchor monitors such activity on behalf of advertising clients).

Spreading the click fraud out across thousands of sites makes it harder to detect, but it also requires a lot more people to perpetrate it. DormRing1 recruited student click fraud workers on Chinese social networks where and forums participants would post images of checks they were getting for their activities. One drummed up interest by talking about his plans to buy a car with the proceeds. Just like with any criminal organization, people at the lower rungs had to do a lot of grunt work to move up the ladder of trust and money. A briefing paper provided by Anchor describes the operation:

These social networks involve a complex set of user access levels. The baseline entrance level is only available by invitation; access to sensitive information is restricted solely to those users who have attained the highest levels. Users with the uppermost levels of access are able to purchase root kits to engage in fraudulent activity and contract out phases of their fraud operations to a large network of willing participants. Users reach higher levels of access in one of two ways: either through a vouching system or by proving themselves as valuable contributors to the network through the provision of some ground level of services (e.g. contracting to create hundreds of accounts on various websites).

DormRing1 was able to use these exclusive social networks to create a division of labor in which all participants at the highest levels shared in a percentage of profits from an operation. The students involved in the ring each set up dozens of bare-bones websites, and successfully registered them with multiple ad networks. The students then hired the services of several botnet controllers to systematically click on ad links that were displayed on these sites. For each ad click, the publisher made a percentage of what the advertiser paid for that click. Through this network, the perpetrators were able to contract money mules (i.e. people with US addresses to which checks can be sent), traffic generators / botnet herders, website template developers, and a host of other service providers. After monetizing these fake websites via fraudulent ad clicks, the perpetrators then wired money to their various contractors.

Remember, we only know these details because DormRing1 was stopped. But nobody was arrested. The advertisers just stopped making payments to the fraudulent Websites. You can be pretty sure that DormRing2 is already up and running.

For many businesses, it is very important to be listed in Google Maps. If you offer a service or a product that is relevant to a special area, you might miss many visitors if your website is not listed in Google Maps.

Your website can be listed on page one, above the regular results

This summer, Google changed its algorithm so that the search results automatically include local results if relevant:

"We like to make search as easy as we can, so we've just finished the worldwide rollout of local search results on a map, which will now appear even when you don't type in a location. When you search on Google, we will guess where you are and show results near you."

These local results are often displayed above the first regular result on the result pages:

If your website is listed in the local results, it will be listed above the regular results on that page and people will also see the exact location of your business.

Quick access to your company information

If web surfers enter your company name in Google (for example "cafe habana, nyc") they will get your company information at the top of the search results, above all other results on the page:

As you can see, Google will also show user reviews about your business in the results.

How to get listed on Google Maps

You can submit your website to Google Maps through Google's Local Business Center. Login to your Google account and click "Add New Listing" to enter your company information.

How to optimize your Google Maps listing

There are several things that you can do to get a better listing on Google Maps or to make your listing stand out. You can enter your business information in Google Maps for free but to be listed at the top of the list, you have to optimize your entry.

• Enter as much information as possible about your company. Include important keywords in your description. Also add information about opening hours, payment types, etc. Choose the best possible category for your website.
  
  
• If possible, include images and videos to help your listing stand out. The more information you provide, the better.
  
  
• If your business location is in the center of the town, it is more likely that it will appear at the top of the list.
  
  
• Submit your website to other local directories. Google Maps compiles its local results by crawling and parsing data from other online directories and databases. A good position in online yellow pages can cause your listing to be placed higher on the list.

Some search engine optimization companies and software developers use unethical tricks and techniques to artificially boost the search engine rankings of a website. This dilutes the quality of search results and the accuracy of search results becomes questionable.

For this reason, the search engines are continuously trying to trace the spam techniques which webmasters might be using and penalize or ban them.They continue to reconstruct their algorithms to prevent spammers from flooding the results page with irrelevant or low quality content.

Fact: If you use a website promotion tool that uses unethical tricks and techniques, you'll put your web business at severe risk. Unethical tricks might work for some time but they are not a good idea if you want lasting results.

Ianson uses only ethical SEO methods that lead to lasting results

Ianson use only ethical search engine optimization methods. IBP uses only techniques that produce lasting results and methods that are within the search engine rules.

Search engines consider the following search engine optimization techniques as SPAM. For that reason, IBP DOES NOT use or promote them:

• automatically generated doorway pages
• cloaking and false redirects
• keyword stuffing
• hidden text or hidden links
• pages loaded with irrelevant words
• duplicated content on multiple pages
• mis-spelling of well-known websites
• unrelated and centralized link farms
• other methods that try to trick search engines

You might get short term results with these techniques but it's very likely that your site will be banned from search engines if you use one of these techniques. You'll put your web business at severe risk if you use one of these methods.

Ianson uses only ethical search engine optimization techniques that produce lasting results:

• optimization of existing web pages, HTML code and web page contents
• organic link building to get high quality inbound links
• building a win-win-win relationship between webmasters, web surfers and search engines

Fact: Search engines want to find the websites that offer the most value to web surfers. Our tools help you to build such a website.

The difference between spammy SEO methods and ethical SEO methods

If you use spammy SEO methods, you will quickly get high rankings on search engines. Unfortunately, Google will completely remove your website from the search results as soon as they find out that you use these methods:

If you use ethical SEO methods, it will take longer until you get high search engine rankings. However, your rankings will grow steadily and you'll get a much better performance in the long run:

Do not use spammy SEO methods to increase your rankings on Google. It will backfire on you.

Ethical search engine optimization is about everyone winning.

Ethical search engine optimization leads to a symbiotic relationship:

• Search engines: They win as they are provided with pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information that their visitors search for.
  
  
• Searchers: They win as they are getting what they ask for from the search engines. They search for "green widgets" and get a page about green widgets.
  
  
• website owners: They win as they are getting quality visitors who are interested in what their website has to offer.

WHEN a US Airways plane landed in the Hudson River in January, the first picture appeared on Twitter. In June, Twitter users were mourning Michael Jackson before major news outlets reported his death. And, this month, as much of the nation was riveted by images of a balloon believed to be carrying a 6-year-old boy, every twist and turn was tweeted and retweeted instantaneously, drowning out just about everything else on the site.

It’s no wonder, then, that pundits and investors are salivating over the prospect of an effective way to search this information. Twitter, of course, has its own search engine. But others with names like OneRiot, Collecta and Topsy are also vying to become the Google of real-time search.

Not to be outdone, Google and Microsoft reached separate agreements last week to bring Twitter posts to their search engines.

For all the buzz, however, one question remains unanswered: How easily can real-time search turn into real cash?

No one doubts that helping users find fresh, up-to-the-minute content on the Web is valuable. But plenty of other valuable Web services — including content sites, free Web e-mail and social networks — have struggled to find effective business models.

Analysts say Twitter may well find ways other than search to make money from the huge amounts of data that flow through its system.

But Twitter’s chief executive, Evan Williams, said revenue was “not the focus” of its agreements with Google and Microsoft.

What’s more, neither of those companies has immediate plans to put ads on its searches of Twitter, though they may do so later. And Facebook said last week that it received no money from a separate agreement to make some of its users’ updates available in real time to Microsoft.

“We have no idea how much you can make off of real-time search,” said Danny Sullivan, a veteran search industry analyst and editor of Search Engine Land, an industry blog.

Traditional Web search is a business that practically mints money, and for two reasons. First, without Google, Yahoo, Bing or Ask, the Web would be an inscrutable jumble of bits. These services are so vital that they are used more than 450 million times a day in the United States alone, according to comScore.

Second, and equally important, search advertising is probably the most effective form of marketing ever invented. Because search queries telegraph a user’s intent with precision, they make it possible to match people with the right ads at the right moment. As a result, advertisers are willing to pay handsomely to peddle their wares in front of someone who types “iPhone deals” or “Maui hotels” into Google.

For all the billions spent on technologies that track users on the Web so marketers can pinpoint their interests, no other form of online advertising — or offline advertising, for that matter — has come close to matching the effectiveness of search ads.

If real-time search is ever to achieve the same kind of magic, it needs a large volume of queries and the same ability to match users’ intent with ads. Mr. Sullivan said he expected real-time queries to be fewer and more specialized than generic searches.

More specialized, and perhaps not as easily converted into cash. Real-time search is still new, and information about it is hard to come by. But recent checks suggest that only a small fraction of real-time conversations are clearly commercial. On a recent morning, for instance, only two of the top 10 topics on Twitter — Halloween and MacBook — were commercial.

Real-time search entrepreneurs dispute this.

Gerry Campbell, the chief executive of Collecta, said that as much as 20 percent of queries flowing through its system could easily be turned into sources of revenue. This month, for instance, Collecta had a surge in queries for Viper, a new iPhone application that can start a car remotely.

Others say examples abound of queries that could be matched with ads: a search for tweets about snow conditions may be an advertising opportunity for ski resorts; one about poor cellphone coverage could attract ads from a rival network; one about restaurants could be matched with ads showing up-to-the-minute seating availability at the local deli.

“It is clear that users are exposing their intent, and you have an opportunity to match it,” Mr. Campbell said.

Sean Suchter, a general manager for search technology at Microsoft, said that he expected real-time search would eventually become lucrative. But he added that for now, “The goal is definitely to drive user value.”

SIMILARLY, Google said that real-time search is valuable, though not necessarily because the queries will generate as much cash as regular searches.

“We don’t know enough about what kinds of queries people would issue against real-time data to know how monetizable it is,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience.

Google wants the Twitter data primarily because its mission is to be comprehensive: Google wants to organize all of the world’s information, including the Web’s fleeting real-time conversations.

“We do know that comprehensiveness has a commercial benefit for our business,” she said. In other words, comprehensiveness keeps people searching on Google.

Many webmasters think that low quality links or links from spammy websites can have a negative effect on the ranking of their websites on Google.

The problem with links from spammy websites is that it is very difficult to do something against them. For example, a competitor could add your website to a link farm network or the competitor could spam with your URL.

Google has released an official statement about spammy links

This month, Google published an official statement about low quality links in their webmaster blog. Here are the main statements:

1. Linking is a significant factor in Google's ranking algorithm but it is just one of many factors. Other factors are the content of your web pages, the site structure and the appearance of a keyword in the different web page elements.
   
   
2. If you have a high quality website and get links from spammy websites, try to contact the website owners and ask them to remove their links. Google will not help you with that.
   
   
3. It the webmasters of the spammy website are not cooperative, don't worry and focus on the links that are under your control.
   
   
4. Google recommends to optimize the many factors than influence indexing and ranking. The top 10 optimizer in our website optimization tool has been designed for exactly that task.
   
   It analyzes dozens of factors that influence the position of your website in the search results and it shows you what exactly you have to change so that Google will list your website on the first result page.
   
   
5. Google says that low-quality links rarely stand the test of time and that they may not be considered by Google's ranking algorithm.
   
   
6. If you want to make sure Google knows about the spammy links and is valuing them appropriately, you can report them to Google with their spam report or paid links report forms.

What does this mean for the rankings of your website?

Low quality links are usually links from low quality websites. These website usually have low Google rankings and they cannot pass much ranking power to other websites. For that reason, you shouldn't worry too much about links to your website that you cannot control. Better focus on the following:

• Create high quality web pages with a good website navigation and optimized web page content. Make sure that all web page elements contain the right information so that Google will list your website for the right keywords.
  
  
• Try to get high quality links to your website. The more high quality links your website has, the less impact have links from spammy websites.

A recent problem

A webmaster recently reported problems in Google's webmaster discussion forum:

"Today I found that my entire site has dropped out of site in search results. I have a site that received over 2,000 search visits per day and today that has stopped."

It turned out that the website has many affiliate links and other links to advertisers that looked like paid links to Google. Unfortunately, these links were not marked as paid links and Google penalized the website for having the paid links.

What does this mean for your website?

You should avoid paid links if you don't want to get in trouble with Google. If you do buy or sell links, make sure that the links contain the rel="nofollow" attribute. By using that attribute, you show that the paid link is for advertising purposes only and that you don't want to manipulate your website rankings with the link.

While Google doesn't like paid links at all, they also make clear that links are very important:

"Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating."

For that reason, you should try to get as many good links to your website as possible. The quality is more important than the quantity.

Links that point to your website are a very important factor that influences the position of your website in Google's search results. The links that point to your website should be from related websites and they should contain the keywords for which you want to get high rankings.

Google is very clear about paid links. They don't like them. Google even has an official form that enables webmasters to report paid links to Google:

"Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it.

Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.

However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

There seems to be a lot of speculation regarding the latest PR update from Google. Live PR is dynamic and the toolbar update will reflect the PR from at least two weeks before.

Page Rank is a measure of the authority of your site, but it is not what makes individual pages rank in Google, PR has more impact on the number of your pages that get indexed in large sites that have thousands of pages, so important for jobsites and ecommerce.

We have PR0 sites that have better ranking and traffic than PR4 sites, it is far more important to focus on page structure, page content, title tags, description tags, bench mark keyowrd densitiy, originality and the anchor text of back links including deep links.