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How is everyone developing their SEP campaigns?
What do you use?
1. Cloaking / IP Delivery
2. Doorway pages
3. Content optimization with title/meta tags/alt tags/text/h1 tags, etc..
4. Super ethical, no "gray area" approach
5. Themed site
6. Linking campaign(inbound/outbound)
7. Pay Per Click
8. Luck
Anyone want to add to this/change it?
I am a 3,4,5,7,8 as of right now, as I am prtetty new and still getting the feel of things.
With luck I also rely on my instincts.
2. Doorway pages
Yes, quality over quantity on these
3. Content optimization with title/meta tags/alt tags/text/h1 tags, etc..
Yes
4. Super ethical, no "gray area" approach
By strictest standards only thing unethical would be reverse engineering algorithm research for the content optimization work. No work hidden, all relevant to client services.
5. Themed site
Yes, slightly
6. Linking campaign(inbound/outbound)
Slight
7. Pay Per Click
Some
8. Luck
Yes, especially during keyword analysis phase.
2. Doorway pages
- depends on whether the site was completely created before my contract. If it was and is not search engine friendly in that it would take more time to rewrite the page than create one, I create a 'poor man's cloaking' page.
3. Content optimization with title/meta tags/alt tags/text/h1 tags, etc..
-Always, and very heavily.
4. Super ethical, no "gray area" approach
-depends on what "gray area" means
5. Themed site
- Always if the site is new and I'm creating it from scratch.
6. Linking campaign(inbound/outbound)
- Yes, heavily inbound
7. Pay Per Click
-not yet. Haven't had a reason to (yet). I do well in the engines without it.
8. Luck
-no luck, just God's blessings.
It depends on the situation the customer is in when he/she gets to me. If from scratch - 3-6. If with a non se-friendly website, then 1,2,3,6 and prayer.:)
I've used cloaking in the past but maintaining a spider list is a dangerous game so I stick to building very large themed sites with good inbound, outbound and cross-site linking.
Google continues to be my main referrer so I try to keep close to their algo.
05% Aggressive ip/agent Cloaking, 10% mild ip/agent, 20% agent...the rest none.
>2. Doorway pages
Define doorway? every page I build is a doorway page under my definition.
>3. Content optimization with title/meta tags/alt tags/text/h1 tags, etc..
Ah..lol - that's SEO. I wouldn't know how to build a page any other way.
>4. Super ethical, no "gray area" approach
If I may be allowed a touch of 'attitude' here:
We have some search engines who have targeted seo companies and their client lists for banning - in massive numbers. Hundreds of thousands of urls banned - entire ip blocks, banned - entire client lists, banned. (unethical)
We have Alta switching the ip on babelfish for the purpose of exposing cloaked sites. Not to mention their history of anti seo rhetoric. (unethical)
We have search engines literally using our pages from their site, committing what I feel is the most massive violation of copyright laws in world history. (unethical)
We have what appears to be Inktomi going straight after seo's biz and clients. (what ever you do - if you list with Ink, use an alternative biz name - don't let them associate you with your client list). (unethical)
We have Alta and Ink charging what I feel is excessive price gouging for simple spidering. (unethical)
We have Alta running a full web crawl right now. Think your site will get listed? Think again - they are just looking for links - strip mining the web at the expense of your bandwidth and resources. (unethical)
And I am suppose to hear the search engine propaganda about what is and isn't ethical optimization?
Make no mistake about it, the current definition floated around by seo's about what is and isn't ethical was written squarely on the PR desk of the search engines themselves. It was the search engines who coined the term 'spam' in reference to listings - not us. If they can't figure out their own business model it's not my job to do it for them.
The sooner more seo's figure out that the search engines are our #1 competitors, the better for the whole net.
There is no such thing as ethical or unethical seo. There is only promotion.
They can't figure their own system out, it isn't our job to do it for them. My job, is to promote sites and generate traffic by any means necc short of violating the law (which includes extreme respect for copyright laws that the search engines don't think applies to them).
>5. Themed site
Yep.
>6. Linking campaign(inbound/outbound)
strategic linking - not mass linking.
>7. Pay Per Click
Nope.
>8. Luck
You make your own
I beleive I don't know what this is referring to:
We have what appears to be Inktomi going straight after seo's biz and clients. (what ever you do - if you list with Ink, use an alternative biz name - don't let them associate you with your client list). (unethical)
Would you please enlighten me?
Another one to put up on the 'war-room' wall. Thanks Brett.
The 'war-room'? Where we all sit, drink coffee and work out the next client promotion strategy :)
Did they really forget to invite you?
I usually attend those meeting and quite honestly they are most often very borring :)
No, honestly, I do actually attend such meetings (not as a SEO but as SE and portal consultant) and to be honest with you most of the talk there is on a MUCH lower technical level then what is most usually discussed around here.
If I could give you all just one good tip then it would be: You are aiming to high! :) The SE-world is much simpler then you might think - in most cases. Many of you guys are much more advanced then most SE-people I have ever met.
“Academic” pages: 3, 5 and 6
Commercial sites in competitive business: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8
In all cases treat every page as a doorway – also try and see only black and white – not much time for “grey areas”
"Make the best damn site I possibly can."
Ultimately, good work has its rewards, and in more ways than you can count. People like your stuff so they link to you. You wind up on people's "Cool Link" pages. Internet periodicals do reviews of your site. Yahoo lists your site in an extra category without even asking for it. Google puts you on page one. Life is good.
But make a crappy site, one more to add on top of the mountain of garbage sites out there, and you are ignored. As you should be.
There is justice in the SE world, you just have to be patient. I think this philosophy has served me better than all the cloaking, meta-tag tinkering, and submission work I've ever done.
Bolot
it's difficult when you work in a controversial area...all content has to be approved at board level by an international, multilingual board...that means I need strategies that are "future proof"...it can take three months to get approval to change a few sentences or add a new link...so I like any changes I make to content to last for at least a year or two
