Posted by great scott!

This week our very own Jen Lopez is at SMX East in New York. She took a few minutes to sit down with Googler, Maile Ohye (first name pronounced like the Disney teen pop-star, last name rhymes with "Oy vey!"), to get the answers to some of webmasters’ most frequent questions.

Watch the video to get Maile’s take on how to best approach such issues as:

• Getting deep sites indexed
• Handling multiple sitemaps
• How to influence crawl frequency and schedule
• Whether or not to worry about spammy inlinks
• Duplicate content from scraper sites
• And much more!

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Interview with Google’s Maile Ohye from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by Dr. Pete

Many SEO topics are like good games – you can learn the basics in a few hours, but really mastering them can take years. One topic that seems simple but that generates a ton of questions here on SEOmoz is URLs: How to construct them, how to optimize them, what the pieces are, etc. In the spirit of great SEOmoz cheat sheets like Danny’s web developer cheat sheet, I’ve decided to put together a 1-page guide to all things URL. You can click on the image below for a larger image or download the PDF (105KB).

Download as a PDF (105KB)

The guide is broken up into two sections: (1) "SEO-friendly URL", showing a modern URL and it’s parts, and (2) "Old Dynamic URL", showing a classic, dynamic URL with CGI parameters. Both sections contain useful tips and stats about URLs and their optimization (based on SEOmoz research).

(1) SEO-Friendly URL

(2) Old Dynamic URL

I hope you find it useful and welcome any comments and criticisms.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Link development is tough. Not everyone can create amazing linkbait, as easy as the experts make it sound. It’s not an easy proposition to get people to link to your website if you’re a local realtor, mortgage broker, or holistic doctor for that matter. It is POSSIBLE though with the right approach to actually solicit and develop links that will help your search engine rankings. From LOTS of trial and error, here’s the process I’ve developed for training link developers to become true link ninjas that will hunt and pursue links that actually make a site rank high for targeted terms.

The updated "How to Train a Link Developer for 2009 Guide"

Teach them why links are important and the basic criteria for establishing their value

1. Overall value of the link theme (use cost per click as a rough metric)
2. Total links
3. Total unique linking domains (find with linkharvester)
4. Anchor text and surrounding text variables
5. Placement on page
6. Check Age (Archive.org)
7. More link value factors

Explain the contradiction of pagerank mattering

1. It is a quick indicator to dismiss low value websites
2. Toolbar pagerank is for entertainment purposes only, and can be spoofed
3. Finding high pagerank (or global link popularity) sites is a great starting point to finding authority links

Show them how to find good starting points
(and WHY this is important)

1. google directory (sorted by PR)
2. keyword combination tool
3. creative queries (soloseo link tool)
4. Competitor backlinks

Explain how to find contact information

1. Page search for name or webmaster
2. Whois.sc or other whois tool
3. Phone number search
4. People search

Explain how to search source code and within the browser to find things quickly on a page

1. Firefox – control+U to view source
2. Control+F to find text
3. Find text on the actual page
4. Open tabs with shift+click or other methods
5. Mouse gestures FF plugin

Explain the 12 different types of links

1. Order of importance
2. How to get each
3. How much time to spend on each type
4. Links is to SEO’s what Snow is to Eskimos.

Explain how to write contact emails (see pickup tips below for more)

1. Explain how to write converting titles to improve open rate
2. Explain how to write an link request

Write some descriptions and anchor text

1. Explain getting content for article links
2. Explain writing titles and description
3. Explain varying anchor text
4. Explain current keyword strategy
5. Co-citation techniques

Demonstrate how to negotiate

1. anchor text or alt text
2. type of link
3. rates
4. term
5. exclusivity

Explain how to tell if a webmaster is cheating or if a site sucks

1. Non-cached pages
2. Linkfarm pages
3. Sneaky redirects
4. Robots.txt
5. Nofollow
6. Buried links pages

Let them go out and get some links

1. Setup a paypal account with limited access
2. Setup a one time credit card with a limited amount
3. Have them verify purchases

Allow tool use for link development

1. Link Harvester
2. Linkscape
3. Hubfinder
4. Local Rank tool in SEObook community
5. Majestic SEO
6. Link Management tools (like Raven SEO Tools, or BuzzStream)
7. FF Quick Searches
8. Other tools?

Explain how to mine a competitors backlinks

1. Linkscape
2. Link Harvester
3. Yahoo Site Explorer
4. Quirk Search Status plugin for FF
5. Hubfinder (in SEObook community, and a few legacy versions)

Start a persona for your website

1. Real or psuedonym (real are much more credible)
2. Be consistent across websites (and interlink within reason)
3. Have picture and bios
4. Make sure you own your brand (in addition to generic personas)- Secure with KnowEm

Explain they are a brand advocate, and their actions represent the company

1. Similar to business development
2. Establish phone etiquette
3. Establish email and IM etiquette rules

How Link Building for SEO is Like Picking Up a Girl

Approach **

1. Learn to get a response (of any type) from a target
2. Use Twitter, IM, Email, Facebook, or any other communication method
3. Overcome approach anxiety and approach sites early and often

Transition

1. Discuss webmastering
2. Discuss content of a similar nature
3. Mention the website you are associated with

Attraction

1. Demonstrate value as a webmaster
2. Demonstrate value as a web user
3. Demonstrate value to the webmaster’s users

Qualification

1. Allow the opportunity to have a webmaster help you in return (ask intelligent questions)
2. Find attractive opportunities to work together (perhaps brainstorming ideas or content trading)

Comfort

1. Discussing opportunities to work together through trading links
2. Discussing advertising opportunities

Seduction

1. Discussing anchor text and surrounding text
2. Discussing ad placement and terms

Relationship

1. Discussing the duration of the contract
2. Discussing renewal terms of the contract
3. Discussing mutual arrangements of the contract
4. Make sure there are no lies (nofollow, robots.txt, javascript redirects)

**Numbered points are from the "Emotional Progression Model"

For more on information on SEO and link development training, check out MarketMotive, or let me know if you need something more custom.

Inspiration:

• Emotional Progression Model
• Original Link Development Training Post
• Link Popularity is like high school popularity

Additional Resources:

• @NinjaJen’s version of Art of getting a link and picking up women
• Advanced Linkbuilding in 2009 from Christoph
• Linkbuilding A-Z
• Big bunch of link dev ideas
• 11 Link Experts Speak Out
• Old Link Hunting tips

Anything I missed? Great Tips? Great Tools? Great Links about Links? Leave ‘em in the comments.

Most people are taught that the first rule of SEO club is that you don’t talk about SEO club (some learn this rule harder than others.) This is an important question as far as most people in the SEO community are concerned. Based on the system that information is knowledge, power, and ultimately money, you can see how people often have a vested interest in outing other peoples techniques, or keeping them secret. You also learn very quickly that who you can trust is extremely important. Everyone has their own code. Mine personally is started with – ""their are no hats, only goals". With the essence of that being that only illegal techniques are truly crossing the line, but everyone has to determine their ultimate level of risk and reward (similar to investing or anything else). Hats are bullshit. Techniques and code should be determined by one’s career choice and goals.

My buddy Brent got a little bit of flack last night for this post, about digg selling links. I’ve also had more than a few conversations defending my friend Rand’s choices for outing sites on more than one occasion (as well as arguing with him about where I disagree with his choices). I figure I’d open it up for a bit of public debate, as well as state for the record where I stand with it, since I helped Brent in this case rather than mentioning it was a bad idea. This of course, got me riled up on a pretty good topic of discussion anyhow, so I figured it was a good time to put it on paper quick and bust out a blog post.

I’m not gonna point out names, but you know who you are, and where you stand.

When is it okay to out a site’s SEO techniques? Here’s the spectrum of types of people I would categorize people into. "Outing" a site includes doing a spam report or blogging about it, which are essentially different methods to do the same thing.

Old School Affiliate SEO/ Competitive Webmaster

It’s never okay to out a site. EVER. EVER. EVER. Google Japan buying links MAY qualify as an exception, but probably not. They’ll definitely talk about spammy techniques in the bar (and you’ll learn a helluva lot), and swear you to secrecy, or have you know that secrecy in these matters is always implied. I respect this code the most, and only disagree with it in a very few rare instances.

I think Rae sums it up nicely, “back in the days when we used to have Omerta and anyone with a name earned it – kinda like television before reality TV”

Basically – the rule is “keep your mouth shut unless you have been granted permission to speak about it” on anything outside of a conference presentation (especially if you heard it in a smokey pub at 1 am).

SEO Consultant/ Blogger (aka me)

It’s okay to out ultra large sites on very rare occasions with proper justification and research, knowing that they are large enough that there will be no penalization instituted because of the hypocrisy of search engines. Outing these sites is mainly to piss them off a bit (get their attention), or demonstrate the hypocrisy of search engines. I didn’t get this, until I saw some of my favorite OG SEO folks discussing Colgate, BMW, and other large brands that ultimately got a tiny slap that amounted to nearly nothing more than probably a link monkey getting a scolding from their boss. In cases of big brands being the new black hat

Personally, I still wouldn’t out these, but I can at least find a rational reason why a journalist/practioner (see below) might when they discover and seo company or consultant that totally sucks at what they do and does it for a giant dumb corporation. Again – not my thing (and I would never do it since I respect the OG affiliate competitive webmaster code far too much), but I can at least understand their logic, unlike some of the other following types of people.

This being said, on at least one occasion, I’ve ACCIDENTLY outed things that I didn’t mean to (and still feel bad about it JS:) Tough lessons to learn, so I always try to err on the side of STFU

"I’m curious who the genius is that told Experian buying a straight link on Digg was a good idea. Pretty fuckin clueless." – Greg Boser on Twitter

Oh – one other time it’s probably okay to do a spam report – if you’re searching for blues clues and get beastiality pr0n

Weak (and cowardly) SEO

People who do spam reports and outings because they’re not competitive enough to play the game. I probably have the least amount of respect for these people than anyone. They hope that by reporting others, their rankings will improve. I learn from my competitors, and it pisses me off when someone acheives higher rankings than I with a bogus OLD technique. It still NEVER justifies reporting them in my opinion/code.

Journalist

For people whose business model is based on news, hype, ratings, and traffic – they’re going to out as much stuff as they can to get the traffic. Just the same as traditional media, they are not active practicioners of SEO. The trouble becomes when you are an active practicioner of SEO and don’t respect your craft enough to have a solid code.

Pointy White Hat "Ethical" SEO.

These folks have spam report bookmarklets in their tool bar, and pride themselves on making the web a better place (by ruining other people’s livelihoods) because they think google will make a rather benovelent dictatorship. Kind of the equivalent of the religious right, and often get outed themselves with something equally as morally ambiguous like Jimmy Swaggert or Larry Craig.

Search Engine Engineer

Always okay. It’s they’re job, and at least their consistent in what they do. Even google japan deserves a penalty for buying links. I respect consistency.

It’s very difficult to be respected by both sides of the fence, but in order to do it you have to have a level of respect for both sides of those playing the SEO game.

So the question becomes – when is it okay to "out" a site, and where do you see yourself on the spectrum? Anything I missed?