If you look at most of the SEO techniques that are now
considered "black hat", they would have been OK and worked
well in moderation, but instead they are used, abused, and
killed by us, thereby sabotaging our own success.
Look at blogging and pinging. It's a great way to drive
spiders and it makes sense. However no one wanted to commit
to manually blogging and pinging. No one wanted to do it in
a realistic way, so we bombarded the free blog servers and
bots with all the automated blogs and pings, and we got
ourselves where we are now. Another valuable technique, no
longer any good to us.
Let me talk specifically about RSS Feeds, Press Releases
and Articles and tell you what I think the downfall is
there.
RSS Feed, it's a great way to stay current. Pull in news
that is relevant and comes from different points of view,
showing different opinions. Fabulous! Use a few feeds to
enhance the already strong content you have on your site
and this tactic should remain long term, to benefit us all.
However, what is really happening is people are saying
"Great, I don't even have to write content; I'll just pull
in feeds and bulk up my site that way"
Now you can imagine Google saying, "OK these guys are
abusing this technique and trying to fool us - too bad, no
more RSS Feeds". And those out there that were using it
legitimately are now suffering the loss of this fabulous
technique.
What is even scarier still, and the reason for this article
to begin with is what is happening with Article Syndication
- because this one I believe is accidentally being misused
and abused. People don't realize the big picture, and
therefore aren't considering the future for this technique,
and the future for their site.
In order to understand the overuse and abuse of this
particular service, you need to understand how it benefits
you, and you also need to understand the SPECIFICS of what
the engines look for.
Perception: Articles provide links to your site. Google
likes links. Score one point for you!
Reality: Google likes links that go to various pages on
your site, with varying text used as the clickable part of
your link (anchor text or hotspot). It is those specifics
that people tend to ignore.
When you syndicate an article, you send the same article to
multiple sources, sometimes even hundreds of sources. You
send the exact same version to each source. That means each
link goes to the same page on your site, and has the same
anchor text.
Not exactly what Google had in mind!
The way I see it, it's only a matter of time before Google
starts dismissing links from articles as irrelevant.
Now: Articles provide a good source of content to enhance
your site's existing content.
The Future: It's true, they do. However with all the
"scraping" (stealing bits of content from sites online
through an automated software and then posting them to your
page as text) going on - Google has had to develop a
component in their algorithm that determines how old
content is, and who was the first publisher of it.
Therefore, content from articles is no longer beneficial to
you.
Even worse, if you syndicate an article that you actually
wrote yourself, you are potentially losing the credit for
that article -- unless you quickly post it on your site,
and wait until it is indexed so Google knows it belongs to
you, and then open it up for syndication to the world. Then
people can use your content, but you still benefit as the
creator of the original content.
Most people don't think of that. Sure, they think to post
it on their site - but do they wait until its indexed? Not
usually, and since article sites are so big and active,
they are likely to be spidered first - and then the article
site will get credit as the first source to use the content
and therefore the owner or creator.
Good: Press Releases are a great way to get news out there,
throw in some links and you have built in link popularity
with media sites, which are typically high PR.
Not Good: People are sending our press releases every time
they make a move. Is it really news worthy that you
acquired a new client, or that you completed a project for
a client? No, not really. However, the real news worthy
items get lost in the mass numbers of press releases
floating around each and every day.
With a little bit of restraint and strategy, we could use
these to our benefit without over using them, and driving
that strategy into the ground. Stay tuned for the next
article in this series: Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Real
Strategies to Implement Now.
So, the take-away here: Be careful - even the people with
the best intentions can sometimes accidentally run a
technique into the ground.
Work with someone that sees the big picture and is willing
to work a little bit harder, and wait just a little bit
longer for results. They end up the ultimate winner, with
rankings they can hold on to. They don't have to live in
fear of the death of the next hottest trend.
What if you follow the rules, but others don't, and the
strategy still gets used and abused?
I know, it is possible. However, if everyone decides not to
stand for it, and takes action to prevent the misuse of
techniques, we'll come a long way towards being where we
need to be. So, spread the word - and decide today that
your SEO techniques have to work for your future success
and not against it.
----------------------------------------------------
Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner
of http://www.EcomBuffet.com
Since 1998, her expertise in
online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has
helped clients increase revenue and achieve their business
goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on Search
Engine Optimization and has been published in many SEO and
marketing publications.
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