Conducted by Gary Woods
Academy of Web Specialists
Take search engine marketing training!


18:01:13 gary woods So what does everybody think about Google's Information for Webmasters?
18:01:52 gary woods Has everybody looked at Google's statement? If not it's at http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
18:02:07 gary woods You might want to give it a quick look before we go on!
18:03:09 gary woods Mostly I think it's a good statement not only for SEOs but for any kind of business relationship you enter into
18:04:45 frisco are that THAT many ruthless scummy SEOs out there? On the whole, though, ...
18:05:04 gary woods By the way in my chats you don't have to put up a question. I usually run a pretty loose ship, just ask your question
18:05:07 frisco it appears to be something that we should all be able to use as a yardstick for ourselves.
18:05:45 gary woods Were there any parts that you found yourself agreeing with, and any that kind of made you wince?
18:06:22 chezparis I heard something about telling people to 'ask for a money back guarantee' if they don't like what the SEO is doing
18:06:38 gary woods That's a pretty tough one alright
18:07:00 gary woods Trying to guarantee someone placement is always difficult
18:07:03 clarence If anyone has seen this months Planet Ocean they have a good follow up on Google's webmaster information page.
18:07:15 frisco To the un-initiated person wanting SEO and web design services, these are pretty good guidelines, much like you'd expect for tattooists or other services
18:07:19 gary woods Yes their retort is excellent
18:07:48 gary woods That's really my look at this frisco, overall they're pretty basic guidelines for any business relationship
18:08:32 gary woods One of the places I find a little odd is that they suggest that you talk to many SEOs and other SEOs if they would recommend the firm you're considering
18:09:11 gary woods If you say yes they're great, they're gone, and if you say no, they think you're jealous!!
18:09:18 gary woods It's a real no win proposition
18:09:39 gary woods You could ask other webmasters whether a certain SEO firm was beneficial, but another SEO firm?
18:10:15 gary woods One of the other points I found odd was that Google thinks it's a good idea to rat out some other SEO firm
18:10:32 gary woods Usually that's a practice I associate with firms I would rather not be associated with
18:11:10 gary woods Do any of you guarantee results for your clients?
18:11:48 clarence I am just starting myself
18:11:55 gary woods What do you think about a basic fee, then a bonus for results?
18:12:06 gary woods Would that be a reasonable business model.
18:12:25 frisco that's a good idea - never thought of that one
18:12:47 gary woods If you get them in the top 20 it's one bonus, top 10 another, top 5 etc
18:13:03 gary woods How long a contract do you usually sign with a client?
18:13:24 webman 6 months
18:13:31 chezparis I have started with a year and no guarantees
18:13:35 gary woods It's difficult to get quick results for some sites because of all the different elements that have to be working
18:13:48 gary woods So your minimum is a year contract
18:14:04 chezparis Yes
18:14:12 gary woods That certainly seems like a reasonable amount of time.
18:14:30 gary woods I had somebody contact me the other day guaranteeing me a Google 6 rank in a month!!!
18:14:47 chezparis How do they do that?
18:14:50 gary woods I don't know if he knew I already had a 5, or he was just blowing smoke
18:15:09 gary woods That's a good question chez!!
18:15:30 webman it's all smoke
18:15:31 gary woods He seemed to be implying that they only go after link partner sites of 5 and up!!
18:15:48 frisco you should refer that person to the Google webmaster's page, then ask if they STILL guarantee such a result
18:15:55 gary woods Which brings me to another question. Do you go after a link partner if they're a 3 or less?
18:16:05 webman I had someone who wanted to resell my services, but when I told him he wouldn't be able to misrepresent the truth, I never heard back from him again.
18:16:15 webman misrepresent
18:16:46 gary woods I feel that most of these people are hit and run artists, and that if you really start to ask those kind of questions they'll disappear rather quickly
18:17:16 gary woods The person who solicited me waned $500 setup and $250 if the results actually materialized
18:17:47 gary woods The real thing to look at though is just because you have a 6 or above even, that doesn't guarantee you great placement
18:18:10 benu well what are the other things he ways going to do
18:18:27 gary woods He didn't specify, and I really didn't want to get into a dialogue
18:18:40 chezparis Do the new guidelines change the way you plan to do business?
18:18:52 webman what do you think about the guideline of asking how many people work in the company?
18:19:02 gary woods What do you think about those people who call you up and want to sell you keywords on Internet Explorer
18:19:23 gary woods I'm not a real fan of asking people how many employees are in the firm
18:19:41 gary woods As they mentioned in Planet Ocean, some of the best firms I know of have 1 person
18:19:53 webman my point exactly
18:20:08 webman I'm a one-man operation, and I don't think that means I'm shady.
18:20:33 gary woods and my other feeling is that larger firms tend to be the ones who deal in the kind of abuses that Google seems most concerned with
18:21:13 gary woods Just looking a corporate structures you inevitably have some individual over you who really doesn't understand what it is you do and only cares that results are happening NOW!!!!!
18:21:30 gary woods And of course that kind of thinking results in some questionable practices.
18:21:47 chezparis So what/who do you think initiated the published guidelines???
18:21:58 frisco and why?
18:22:18 webman That's a good question to ask a Google rep at one of the SE conferences
18:22:18 gary woods I think they get a lot of queries from SEOs and just people with websites who would like to rank better than they do
18:22:22 clarence and should be thought of a little more
18:22:53 gary woods By publishing this Google tells you what not to do, but not how to get the rankings you desire
18:23:34 webman my favorite guideline is the one about asking your competitor for a recommendation
18:23:50 gary woods That does seem bizarre doesn't it??
18:24:18 gary woods As I mentioned it makes sense to me to ask for references from an SEO firm, and then call or write the other firm
18:24:21 chezparis Shall we write a ' What TO do " guideline for them....
18:24:32 gary woods But asking your competitor how good you are is a non-starter
18:24:47 clarence I wonder if Google tells customers to use Alta-Vista
18:24:48 gary woods Sure go for it
18:24:55 webman I loved the mock conversation in the Planet Ocean article on this subject.
18:25:05 gary woods That was pretty funny!
18:26:18 gary woods What about putting links on the clients site to other of your clients
18:26:25 gary woods Does that seem like a good practice?
18:26:41 frisco not if there's no benefit to either client
18:26:52 chezparis I think if the links are relevant...
18:27:01 gary woods But what about if they're related firms in different parts of the country?
18:27:23 frisco wouldn't you still need the OK from each client?
18:27:26 gary woods That's really my point chez! If they're related what's the problem?
18:27:45 webman what about owning shadow domains. I thought everyone did that
18:27:47 clarence Is that a common practice for linking sites with the same theme amongst SEO
18:27:52 gary woods I think so, and that's probably the place that Google has a issue
18:28:09 gary woods I know in Real Estate firms it goes on all the time.
18:28:26 gary woods Usually it's done deceptively however, so I don't think it's a good practice
18:28:44 gary woods The SEO will bury the links on a page that is not easily found
18:29:24 gary woods Some firms will sell only one Realtor in a particular area and then link all those sites together. There can be 100s
18:30:29 gary woods What do you think of working with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info?
18:31:15 gary woods One of the things they recommend in the Top 100 things Planet Ocean book is to register domains under different names. Is that a good or bad practice
18:31:16 webman Yahoo takes a look at the registrant, so you can change the Admin contact all you want, it won't make a difference to them
18:31:44 gary woods Okay webman, but what about having different people as the registrant?
18:32:16 benu what about making small page with little description and links for all your clients and put it on all the clients web sites..
18:32:19 gary woods Having your wife with one site, and your mother with another, and your dog with a third?
18:32:20 webman That should work, as long as the domain names don't have similar IP addresses.
18:32:56 frisco gary - what is YOUR take on utilizing different people as registrant?
18:32:59 gary woods What do you think of that practice benu, do you think it's good or ethical if the sites are related?
18:34:14 gary woods I think it really becomes important when you're dealing with Yahoo, and Yahoo seems to be becoming marginalized
18:34:25 benu well I think what I am saying is giving little info about each doorway page- make one long page or mini site and upload- It helps all the clients and it is not a link farm..
18:34:40 webman Unless your dog has his own website, why would you put your dog's name? Isn't that what Yahoo uses to determine the title of your site?
18:34:50 webman as the registrant I mean
18:35:31 gary woods That's a very good question webman, so what if your dog's name is "World's Greatest Auto Dealer" does he get to register
18:36:02 webman pretty funny name for a dog, but I see no problem with that.
18:36:18 gary woods I think really the bottom line for me starts with is the page informative and answer the question the person looking for information for Google asks
18:37:10 gary woods CindyT just dropped me a note about revisiting the question concerning soliciting sites with less than a 5 Google Rank
18:37:38 gary woods Do you solicit sites with less than 5, and would you link to someone if they requested you to that had less than a 5?
18:37:41 cindyt thanks gary! ( : not that this other stuff isn't interesting!
18:38:34 gary woods My general take on linking to people is, do they seem to be headed in the right direction, and how do they link the people they already have
18:39:12 gary woods I would rather have a link from somebody who gives me the right keywords that somebody who doesn't and has a higher ranking
18:39:27 cindyt what about having lots of links to other relevant site (google ranked 5+) but not as many links coming in?
18:39:42 gary woods My hope is that the person with the lower rank will continue working on the site and gain that higher ranking
18:40:01 gary woods Out going links don't do anything for you!
18:40:06 webman links coming in are the critical factor aren't they?
18:40:13 cindyt do they dilute your incoming links?
18:40:21 gary woods They're all that really matter
18:40:23 webman Links going out, from what I understand, don't count as much to Google.
18:40:33 gary woods They don't dilute your incoming links
18:40:52 gary woods I use my out going links as advertisements for people who want to link to me
18:40:54 clarence I have just done some linking to theme sites with links of 300+ which are in general all the same theme I went from a page rank of 1/10 to 6/10 to
18:41:12 webman are shadow domains just another name for domain pointers?
18:41:15 gary woods So that was a good thing!!!
18:41:17 cindyt clarence: to but not from, right?
18:41:36 gary woods I think that shadow domains is a reference to Redirects
18:42:07 gary woods Domains that really don't have any content of their own, and are really just place holders for the site they want you to go to
18:42:19 webman then how would google know if a domain is a shadow domain. I've even slipped that one by Yahoo without any trouble.
18:42:32 gary woods It's very easy to detect a redirect
18:42:32 benu do they really work
18:42:47 clarence No they are link partners it is both ways cindyt
18:43:02 gary woods Let's say your firms is XYZ Firm and everybody knows you by that name
18:43:09 webman as long as the URL doesn't change, how can they detect it?
18:43:34 gary woods But you sell Color TV, your shadow domain could be www.colortelevision.com and be redirected to your other site
18:43:48 gary woods colortelevision.com would rank better on some engines
18:44:10 gary woods The problem is it shows up as a redirect and Google finds this offensive
18:44:51 gary woods The URL does change though, because the user clicks on colortelevision.com and in a few seconds is on XYZ.com
18:45:10 gary woods This is the reason that a lot of major firms don't rank very well with the search engines
18:45:15 frisco I have a new web-design client whose "site" is one of those provided by his ISP - I just had him buy the domain name, and we will re-direct from his ISP space for a while. I assume that's ok
18:45:29 gary woods Their corporate ego won't allow them to have a domain that would work better for them
18:45:52 gary woods Re-directs can be a problem
18:45:59 webman OK, so I have a site in Google called fieldpower.com. Now I want to get this same site listed as field-force-automation.org. There have only been a few minor changes made between the two sites. Am I going to run into trouble with this?
18:46:19 gary woods That could be a problem
18:46:35 gary woods I would concentrate on building a separate identity for that second site.
18:46:55 gary woods Focus on what is different between the two, and then link the sites to each other.
18:47:23 gary woods That does a couple of things, it gives you two bites at the apple, and if one of the sites all of a sudden plummets one is still working
18:47:48 webman so should I request that Google remove the first site from its index before submitting the second version? I mean the first version doesn't even show up in the first 10 pages of results, so it's not like I'd be losing traffic
18:48:12 gary woods NEVER REQUEST GOOGLE TO REMOVE YOUR SITE
18:48:31 webman but they're identical. All I wanted was the better keyword-laden URL
18:48:31 gary woods They may start to like it and look around for what else you've got that they don't need!
18:49:01 gary woods Boy that's tough, if your new site getting spidered yet?
18:49:04 webman has that happened to you?
18:49:32 gary woods No, I've never requested Google take down one of my sites!
18:49:39 webman no, I haven't submitted the new site yet. I'm going to submit it to Yahoo, and hope that Google picks up on it then.
18:49:57 gary woods Are you going to pay the $300 to Yahoo?
18:50:25 webman Well, it's actually a client's site, and he seems OK with it, because he wants the page rank improvement.
18:50:47 webman the site is pretty much dead in the water at the moment
18:50:49 gary woods Have you examined the results for your search and seen whether the results are really from the Yahoo directory and not from Google?
18:51:11 webman what do you mean
18:51:31 gary woods These days most of the results that Yahoo serves up are Google.
18:51:38 webman the results I get are from Google. Both when I use Google and when I use Yahoo
18:51:52 gary woods That's right, so why are you submitting to Yahoo?
18:52:16 gary woods Have you submitted toDirectory Project yet?
18:52:27 gary woods What about Inktomi?
18:52:42 webman correct, but according to Planet Ocean, the only thing Yahoo is good for now (aside from lining the cyber birdcage) is a page rank improvement
18:52:50 webman because Yahoo still has a high PR
18:53:00 benu odp I have no luck with that- tried so many times
18:53:15 gary woods Yes, it's definitely circular. You do gain credibility with Google by being listed in Yahoo
18:53:20 frisco what would you suggest for this - my client's current site is http://home.pacbell.net/psgreene/ - and he just got the domain petestours.com
18:53:52 gary woods Is he ranked anywhere with home.pacbell.net/psgreene/
18:54:21 frisco he shows up #1 if - and only if - you look for "petes tours"
18:54:40 gary woods but under his keywords, he's non-existent
18:54:51 frisco he has no keywords - non-existent
18:55:07 gary woods So what are the keywords you're going after?
18:55:30 frisco he still has to decide on just what his focus will be
18:56:43 gary woods So that's the real question at this point, what does this person want to do with the site
18:56:53 webman I tried optimizing for some keywords that either didn't exist in Wordtracker or that showed little competition and I got nothing.
18:57:12 gary woods I think I'd take all the current content off the PacBell site and put it on the new site and start building it from there
18:57:52 gary woods You've really got to start focusing this site or you're just floundering around
18:58:37 gary woods Any more thoughts on the Google guidelines? Are they going to change the way you do business?
18:58:47 benu well we should talk about general google stuff
18:59:03 gary woods Great, what would you like to know benu?
18:59:52 benu well do not know where to start- but what are some of best practices with google..
19:00:08 gary woods Does anyone have an overall strategy for working with Google?
19:00:25 gary woods I think the best strategy for any search engine is build a page with a lot of information.
19:00:39 gary woods Focus that information on one or maybe two specific areas
19:01:05 gary woods Examine what your competitors are doing an try to analyze why they've gained the ranking that they have
19:01:48 gary woods Does that site have a lot of text, or very little text? Does it have hundreds of links coming into it, or very few? How are graphics and tables used to put together the site?
19:01:59 webman I've seen this one site whose got about 50 links all from signing guest books, even though they have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to his site. What gives?19:02:20 gary woods and the site does very well with Google?
19:02:56 gary woods It's definitely not all about incoming links and Google Rank.
19:03:17 gary woods We see it all the time where a site has a better rank than another and yet is several places below the well ranked site
19:03:43 gary woods That's why I say don't just look at the page rank look at the whole page.
19:04:04 gary woods Most of the time the answer is right in front of you. It's the title, the description, the content
19:05:09 gary woods Does anybody have a strategy that they've found works particularly well for Google?
19:05:24 gary woods and what about a strategy that has absolutely gone nowhere!
19:06:21 webman finding keywords with little traffic and little competition and no incoming links is a strategy that goes absolutely nowhere.
19:07:09 gary woods Yes, it's better to go after the words you really want to go for, instead of trying for some very marginal set of words
19:07:53 gary woods A few years ago I was at the SF SEO conference and some guy told me he did really well for a search that was something like "left handed steam fitters"
19:08:14 gary woods He was amazed that when he tried some more main stream keywords he didn't score at all
19:08:43 webman for example, for a mortgage bank in Virginia that wants to go after "virginia real estate", there are 80,000 plus sites using that keyword. How do you beat that ?
19:08:44 gary woods I asked how he did for the search "left handed steam fitters" and he said he got a couple of hundred hits a month
19:09:40 gary woods What about parsing it out for example going for "Alexandria Real Estate" etc
19:10:02 gary woods That would be a good place to use either specific domains or even the dreaded doorway pages
19:10:02 webman thanks, that's what I figured
19:10:31 gary woods Of course all those other domains could be linked to each other and add to the overall Page Rank of each one of them
19:10:35 webman I know. I have the job of designing 12 doorway pages per site per state for this client.
19:11:19 gary woods Do you make them look all like the main domain, or do you work on a distinctive look for each one
19:11:44 gary woods Also, is the content significantly different or are you doing a lot of cutting and pasting from page to page?
19:12:16 webman I work on a distinctive side navigation bar for each one, but the meta keywords, meta description and state name will change.
19:12:25 gary woods Then, do you submit each one of the doorways, or do you depend on the interconnecting links to have Google find them on its' own?
19:12:43 webman I should be asking you these questions
19:12:53 gary woods What about having the navigation bar on the right side or the bottom?
19:13:21 webman Don't know if the client would go for that.
19:13:42 gary woods I would certainly try to create as distinctive content as possible for each site, and would suggest putting the Nav Bar at the site or bottom
19:13:48 webman right now, the main site has a top NavBar and a side NavBar, whereas the doorway pages only have a side NavBar
19:14:18 gary woods Using Nav Bars on the left can push your keywords and other content farther down the page than you would like
19:14:54 webman Planet Ocean has come up with a way to work around that.
19:14:55 gary woods You can do essentially the same thing with Linked References throughout the page which go to the places you want them to go
19:15:08 gary woods Yes I noticed an ad for some product.
19:15:18 clarence Yes I am switching to the right and using CSS
19:15:21 webman no, it's no product, it's an HTML trick.
19:15:22 gary woods My concern was it seemed to have to do with Cascading Style Sheets
19:15:45 gary woods Have you found that effective Clarence, and has it affected your rankings?
19:16:28 frisco there are some good table layout solutions posted on the html chat pages
19:16:30 gary woods My concern with CSS is how it plays on all browsers and versions of those browsers
19:16:47 gary woods Yes there are, and they can be very useful
19:17:13 gary woods Looking at my logs I still get about 10% of my traffic from Netscape Navigator
19:17:33 clarence I just started working the pages so I have not had any spiders yet
19:17:43 webman it's just that it's hard to come up with thousands of different articles on home loans and mortgages.
19:17:59 webman as for CSS, it works well for me on the latest browsers
19:18:01 gary woods Yes it's difficult, but it's really incredibly boring!!
19:18:23 gary woods My advice on articles is always keep them brief.
19:18:32 clarence One thing is you have to watch is browser visibility
19:18:46 webman I do. Usually between 250 and 400 words.
19:18:48 gary woods Do judicious editing and focus and re-focus the articles so that they track quickly for users
19:19:05 gary woods That's a great number webman 250-400 is right on target!
19:19:37 frisco have you noticed the proliferation of blogs (web logs) - syndicated articles and such - and can a smart SEO put these to use?
19:19:45 webman but do you just link them to the main site, even if the main site doesn't link back to them. And does google penalize for no sites linking back to these doorway pages?
19:20:18 gary woods I haven't really examined the BLOG issue yet. But it could be a good tool.
19:20:25 webman Well, seeing as how I'm about to start my own SEO column, I'd have to say yes.
19:20:44 gary woods Great, where are you going to be publishing this column?
19:21:20 gary woods Ah go ahead, Robin won't mind if you publicize your column!!
19:21:29 webman Female Entrepreneur magazine (print and online). It's going to be a Q&A type column
19:21:53 frisco url?
19:22:13 webman that's http://www.female-entrepreneur.com
19:23:21 gary woods Well folks, any more thoughts on Google, and their SEO Guidelines?
19:23:48 webman If a doorway has outgoing links, but no incoming links, will Google penalize it?
19:24:17 gary woods I don't think Google will penalize it, it just won't give it a great ranking
19:24:40 webman then what's the point of having a doorway page, if it doesn't get a great ranking?
19:24:43 gary woods You usually have to do something to get a Google 0 ranking
19:25:09 webman yeah, like not submit the site! ;-)
19:25:15 gary woods What you need to do is go out and start getting some incoming links, even if they come from your main site
19:25:35 gary woods I have an interesting thing happen to me the other day.
19:25:47 gary woods All my link sites showed up as a 0
19:26:11 gary woods I had been using Zeus and had kept their structure of a "themeindex" page
19:26:11 webman Someone on PO complained about that too
19:26:43 gary woods When I change the name of the page to something else my ranking went from a 0 to 3 over night
19:26:57 clarence Mine went from 0 to 6 and no Yahoo or ODP listing
19:27:03 gary woods Now this is a page that had no other incoming links to it other than references from my own site
19:27:12 benu please explain more about changing page name
19:27:18 gary woods Great Clarence, so what did you do?
19:27:52 gary woods I just changed the name of the page and uploaded it, then deleted the page with the previous name
19:28:00 clarence I have two links on these pages: one to the product and one to the site map
19:28:36 benu what else did you have on this page.
19:28:52 gary woods is that to me or Clarence benu?
19:29:57 gary woods That's really the point, the content of the page never changed, just the name
19:30:08 benu please give an example
19:30:44 frisco there was a brief article at Planet Ocean about Google and pages named "links" - so I changed all mine to "partner sites"
19:31:01 gary woods Here's one of my links pages http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com/partners/californiarealestate.html
19:31:08 gary woods yes burgwald!
19:31:27 burgwald what is the
19:31:42 burgwald call for whois
19:32:02 gary woods could you rephrase that question burgwald?
19:33:27 burgwald how do bring up the whois web page
19:33:50 gary woods Does anyone have any other questions for me or thoughts on Google tonight?
19:33:53 frisco gary - thanks for your time
19:34:09 gary woods Thank you all for coming, you've really made my evening!!!

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