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The #1 Way to Get Google/Yahoo/Bing to Love Your Website
Everyone wants to rank #1 for a higly-competitive, highly advertised, and high traffic keyword. If you could be in the 1st, or top 5, or top 10 for debt consolidation, would you leap at the opportunity? However, it takes more than a willingness to work to rank highly in the search engines.
The Way of the Hack.
Typically, how do most webmasters try to get high rankings? They get as many links as possible! They trade links, write articles, create a blog, maybe a forum, submit blog comments, go to squidoo, myspace, facebook, etc. and HOPE that the search engines will index the links and move them up the search engine rankings.
This means living in the world of directories, social bookmarking & social networking wesites, link counters & checkers, link trading, and keyword tools. None of this makes your website better and doesn’t add value to your visitors. It is all a huge waste of time if it doesn’t work.
The Basic Problem.
If every webmaster is doing the same basic things to rank, then doesn’t that mean the established website is the permanent website in the search engine rankings? Is there a better use of your time than chasing links? Would you rather add value to your visitors and give them something they can use?
Today, even for the most competitive terms, the only thing separating one website from another is links and age. The top websites don’t really offer the visitor anything more than lower-ranked websites. You can almost guarantee the content isn’t unique because it’s not as if they are the sole knowledgeable source in the world. For commercial websites, such as electronics, apparel or music, you get the impression the search engines rank certain sites higher (such as Amazon and EBay) because of behind-the-scenes trade agreements.
So, how do you beat all this competition as an unknown, newly-started webmaster who wants to be noticed on the web?
The Solution.
Since it doesn’t seem to be any real reason one website should rank above another, you have to look at how you can use the search engines own tendencies to your advantage.
If the top websites aren’t giving the visitor anything more than ads and an opinion, you have to give the visitor something more. It must be something they can use and for which they find real value. It is these websites that are almost impossible to beat in the search engines.
What type of websites are these? They are software websites.
A Little Background.
Software developers are a very logical group. It is required to have the patience to create software that people want and to find and fix bugs. So, when they create software, they usually name it according to its function. They will name a zip program after compression, or “something’-zip, or file packer. They will name an image program “The Ultimate Icon Editor” or “Image Maker” or “PhotoEdit” or something similar. They would never name it “Debt Consolidation” or anything like it.
Why is the name of the software so important? It is because this is the name people will use to search for your software on the web. And, that is important if you want to rank for that term.
How to Become An Authority.
The best way to get a search engine to love you is to become an authority. One of the simplest ways they determine that is by looking at the domain name. For instance, if you want to rank for debt consolidation and your website is “debtconsolidation.org” then you get credit for being an authority for that keyword phrase.
There is more to it than domain name, but it is a start. Next, they look at the content. If the content matches the domain name, then it is further confirmation of your website’s purpose. If they see many links to your website, that adds more confirmation.
In the case of Google (maybe others), they look at the anchor text of the link and maybe the site where the link is coming. If the anchor text matches the name of your website and the website where the link is coming has authority of its own, then that makes your “debtconsolidation.org” website look that much better.
If you can put all this together (domain name, content, links, and links from an authority site), then your site will become an authority for that keyword phrase.
You will be a content authority.
The Next Step.
As a content authority, the search engines still may not move you up the rankings (could be too much competition, could be your site age, could be not enough content, etc.). Or, they may not move you up far enough to make any difference. What next?
You need to become a software authority.
The Software Authority.
When you create software and submit it to the shareware/freeware/software directory sites, you create a lot of links to your sites. If you name your software with the keyword phrase in your domain name (Debt Consolidation for debtconsolidation.org), you have added a lot of websites with authority linking to you as the authority for this software, with the keyword-rich name in your domain.
You are now a software authority.
To the search engines, they see all these authority websites linking to you, with software, domain name, and content all matching a specific keyword phrase. Not only that, but since none of the other keyword-targetted websites above you have these software websites linking to them, you are seen as the software AND content authority for this phrase.
In many cases, this will dramatically move you up the search rankings. In a world of content-only websites, the software AND content website reigns supreme.
The Catch.
There are several problems with becoming a software authority. A few of these are that you must create the software, it must be good, and it must be unique.
Creating software is a time-consuming, frustrating, and expensive effort. You have to design it, write it, and test it. The hardest part is creating software someone will want. But, one nice thing is that you really don’t have to worry about competition. If you create yet another word processor, but it has one unique feature, that alone may justify its existence.
One Last Word…
Do understand that these shareware/freeware/software directories are not dummies. They know people will try to harvest them for their authority. They will check your software, use it, test it, and some will check it for viruses. It is not worth their effort to go through all that if they believe you are using them to get search rankings and not to provide useful software.
If you can get past this issue, you are well on your way to crushing your competition in the search engine rankings as the clear authority for your keyword phrase.
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Google Ranking and the Changing SERPs
While doing an experiment with Google, I learned something that never occurred to me before. It may be true it has been discussed in the webmaster forums. Or, Google may have made an announcement. Or, maybe it was always this way and I just never noticed it. But, did you know Google’s results are not what they seem?
My experiment.
Let me give you a little background on what happened to lead to my discovery. Then, I will tell you what the implications are for webmasters, advertisers, and users of Google. search.
I have a few websites that are ranked in Google for a lot of different terms. They have done well for me and their links have moved a few of my sites up the Google listings. Before expanding into other websites, I decided to see if my links had as much power for other people as for me. Who knows? Maybe it might lead to reciprocal linking or some nice trades.
With several websites from volunteers, my test began. The terms were all over the place and the starting positions went from just outside the Top 10 into the hundreds. It was a diverse group to use for testing.
After about a week of monitoring, I realized that my links worked as well for my sites in Google as they did for the volunteers. One website was in China, another in India, and the rest in the United States. It didn’t seem to matter. Once the links went live, the rankings improved, within a week.
Now, you may be thinking, so… what was the discovery?
A little lesson learned.
Since the experiment worked so well, I decided to try it again. This was just to be on the safe side. Except, this time, I wanted a very specific site to try. This time it had to be in a money-making niche, with a highly keyword-targeted domain and in the first 100 results.
After getting another volunteer, a funny thing happened.
Having learned from the earlier experiment to make a clear distinction on the starting position of the site, it became obvious that…
Google displays results based on your location!
It took awhile to confirm this. It may be common knowledge. It may have been announced. It may be obvious. It may already be known to advertisers. But, it was news to me and to the volunteer.
What does this mean?
The biggest implication of this is that you have to re-examine your link building, search development, and site checking strategies. Just because you rank highly for a keyword when you do a simple search in Google, does not necessarily mean that rank is seen by the rest of the country, or the world.
In retrospect, it makes sense. I have seen one of my websites rank for an extremely competitive keyword phrase (10k+/day) and yet the traffic trickled in from Google. That alone should have told me something was not quite what it seemed. Yet, I ignored it. Lesson learned.
Strategy for success.
The best solution I have for handling this problem is to use proxy servers. Before, I thought they were only good for testing websites and avoiding viruses. Now, it seems, they are great for testing Google searches.
There are many proxy servers out there and new ones seem to become available every day. You have to be careful with them, because you can expect to be inundated with all kinds of intrusive ads. So, it may take some time to build a list of proxys to suit your tastes. However, they are invaluable for the purpose of checking Google search results.
My new strategy.
Now knowing how Google handles its results and with a list of proxy servers, I am ready to accurately understand how well my websites are doing in the SERPs. Since not everyone knows this, it is SEO experience that you can share with other webmasters. This is great if you are doing any kind of link trading or search engine optimization (SEO).
Another idea is to check to see if Yahoo and Bing do the same thing. Of course, it is not as worthwhile since they do not deliver the traffic of Google. Yet, it shows how search engines may not be as straightforward as you may have first thought.
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Making Money with Yahoo and Google – My story
Getting Started as a Webmaster
I first decided to make money off the web, in 2005. Back then, there were two big players in the contextual ad game, Google’s Adsense, and Yahoo’s Publisher Network. Really, it was just Adsense and Yahoo decided to join the party later in 2005 because of Google’s success. In those days, the earnings were great, the competition not as fierce, and there was enough for everyone to make some money.
My goal in making money was rather modest. I had no plans to do it seriously. Since contextual ads were rather new for a lot of people, many didn’t realize how lucrative it could be. Sure, Google was successful, but they were a big, faceless corporation. Why would a mom-and-pop website, or individual expect to get anything from that? Well, that kind of thinking was out of place in 2005.
The emergence of social networking.
When I first started, Myspace was all the rage. While many people searched for layouts and backgrounds, many webmasters completely ignored this audience. Too many “serious” webmasters thought Myspace was equivalent to an AOL. It was simply for the newbies and not for serious web development. That was my first lesson on the web, never underestimate your audience.
Since the Myspace crowd was being ignored, I decided to focus my webmaster activities entirely on serving them. The results were phenomenal. Both Google and Yahoo ranked me #1 for many Myspace-related terms. The traffic was pouring in to my humble website. I couldn’t believe my good fortune! But, a problem arose. How do you make money off all this traffic?
First, I tried dating websites. That was a disaster. It was all wrong for my audience. As a matter of fact (I didn’t know this at the time), most of the Myspace traffic was female. I guess that would explain why the mostly male webmasters didn’t understand the mostly female Myspace traffic. That taught me lesson #2, know your audience.
Discovering Adsense and YPN.
After much trial and error, I stumbled onto Google Adsense. It seemed like a very easy way to get ads in front of my Myspace traffic while I figured out what they really wanted. Well, it seems Google was the answer, not a temporary solution. With Google Adsense, my website started making a little at first. Then more and more until it began out-earning anything I had made in computers, doing anything.
Google was a real find. It took several months before I really understood how to use it. But, it was time well spent. While this was happening, Yahoo decided to get in on the action. They created the Yahoo Publisher Network. To attract Adsense users, they offered very attractive payouts and often complemented Adsense. Traffic that did poorly in Adsense would do well in YPN. It was a great arrangement. That taught me lesson #3, always diversify your ad networks.
Competition Is Tough.
The YPN/Adsense arrangement worked great through the balance of 2005 and into 2006. Unfortunately, while Adsense continued to do well, Yahoo began to suffer. It seems that earnings were declining for the entire year of 2006. While, many other webmasters attributed it to many different things, a general consensus seemed to be that Yahoo was not what it had been the previous year.
While 2006 was weak for Yahoo, Google remained strong. In 2007, that began to change for Google. While it continued to do well, in the face of Yahoo’s seemingly unending fall, Google began to show very slight decreases also. In hindsight, it’s clear what was happening. Many of the advertisers were beginning to suffer. But, at the time, no one was sure what the problem was.
By 2008, Yahoo’s Publisher Network was a shell of it’s former importance. The excitement of joining began to disappear and many realized that Google was the king of the contextual ad game. Despite the mighty Google’s slight decline in payouts, it was still far and away the premier choice among webmasters.
We all know what happened in 208. The United States suffered a major financia meltdown that did not spare the webmaster nor Google. Earnings for everyone dropped or stopped growing. It was a time of $4 gas and disappearing mortgage and credit card ads. Things got tough but Google weathered the storm. However, it did show me that Google is not invincible. Google is not immune to the economy.
Spending 3 years with Google can make one lazy, if you’re not careful. With the rampant uncertainty of 2008, it was time to look into the affiliate game and other ad networks. While none matched the size of Google, they offered many ways to protect oneself from being dependent on just one advertiser (e.g. Google). That led me to lesson #4, there’s more to webmastering than Google.
Saying goodbye to Yahoo!
By 2009, I was extremely disappointed with Yahoo. My sites still carried their ads, despite 90% drops in earnings from 2005. Things looked very bleak, yet I persisted with the hope that one of these years things would change. Well, when someone makes an offer for cold-hard cash, you see how deep your loyalty is.
One day, while browsing a webmaster forum, a user offers to buy my YPN account. They offered a sum that was irresistible, given my earnings with Yahoo over the past couple of years. With some negotiation, I sold them my account. Thus ended my belief and hope Yahoo would ever become a relevant ad network again.
That leads to the last lesson I learned over that incredible period from 2005-2009, this is business, not personal.
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Domain Front-running
If you are searching for a good domain name, be careful who you use to do searches.
In the past, it has been confirmed that certain registrars would analyze domain searches. If they decided enough searches had been made for a domain name, they would register it themselves.
The purpose of this is to resell the popular domain to the user who searched for it, or auction it to all users. This greatly increased the cost of domain registration for popular domain names.
This is called front-running.
Definition.
From Wikipedia,
Domain name front running is the practice whereby a domain name registrar uses insider information to register domains for the purpose of re-selling them or earning revenue via ads placed on the domain’s landing page. By registering the domains, the registrar locks out other potential registrars from selling the domain to a customer. The registrar typically takes advantage of the 5-day “domain tasting” trial period, where the domain can be locked without payment.
The term was created by domain investor and retired stockbroker Daniel Stager who likened the practice to front running, when a stockbroker illegally puts their own financial interests above that of their clients. ICANN has since picked up on the practice [1]
In January 2008 it was reported that Network Solutions uses data collected from their web-based WHOIS search to register every domain that users check for availability.[2] Although the practice forces users to register the searched-for domains from Network Solutions, Network Solutions defends the practice, claiming that “This protection measure provides our customers the opportunity to register domains they have previously searched without the fear that the name will be already taken through Front Running.”[3] However, during the 4 day period the domain is still up for sale to the general public solely through Network Solutions and is not, in fact, reserved for a specific person at all.
In June 2008, Network Solutions proposed a small fee for domain tasting, in part to end the practice of domain name front running.
Domain name lookup to avoid.
It has been claimed that GoDaddy does this. They will register a domain name that has been searched and then offer it for resale as a premium domain name. Of course, Network Solutions does this.
As far as I know, NameCheap doesn’t do this. But, if you ever do a domain name search, and later discover the name you wanted is taken, you may be a victim of front-running.
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