Google Gets Revealed During Latest Q&A Session

A group of Google employees, including blogger Matt Cutts, sat down on October 22nd in a live chat and fielded questions from some Google users. There were many highlights of the Q&A session, most notably:

- Rank checking software doesn't make much sense anymore (not to mention that they're against our Terms of Service and could result in us blocking your IP address). We use a lot of personalization and geotargeting in our search results - so what ranks high for one user might not rank high for others.

- That being said, Google might be considering releasing its own rank checking software to eliminate all the automated applications such as WebCeO and AdvancedWebRanking)

- On a question of mass article marketing... If you're thinking of boosting your reputation and getting to be well-known, I might not start as the very first thing with an article directory. Sometimes it's nice to get to be known a little better before jumping in and submitting a ton of articles as the first thing.

- None of the search engines penalize duplicate content -- they just ignore the duplicates.

Below are some questions and answers that stood out to me and I have added my own commentary underneath.

(The full text is pretty lengthy but you can read it here- http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web...)


What weight does the age of a site and the amount of time a domain is registered for have on it's search placement?

Matt Cutts says:
In the majority of cases, it actually doesn't matter--we want to return the best information, not just the oldest information. Especially if you're a mom/pop site, we try to find ways to rank your site even if your site is newer or doesn't have many links. I think it is fair for Google to use that as a signal in some circumstances, and I try never to rule a signal out completely, but I wouldn't obsess about it.

Verdict:
The Google algorithm takes domain/web site age into consideration along with hundreds of other factors.


Recently, you removed this suggestion: "Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!" from your guidelines. Is there any chance that you will be discounting these kinds of links for ranking value in future?

Matt Cutts says:
There's always the chance that we'll discount directory links in the future. What we were seeing was quite a few novice people would see the "directory" recommendation and go out and just try to submit to a ton of directories, even if some of the directories were lower-quality or even fly-by-night directories that weren't great for users. Right now we haven't changed how we're weighting directory links--we've only removed the directory suggestion from the webmaster guidelines.

Verdict:
Continue to submit to high quality directories (I can't stress the 'quality' enough). Nothing's changed with how Google ranks sites regarding directory backlinks.


Since Google is against using ranking software (ie:WebCeO) to monitor SERP rankings, is there any plans on Google creating an approved, in-house rank check application that webmasters can use?

Matt Cutts says:
It's something that we've talked about. My concern is that sometimes people get too worried with paying attention to their "trophy phrase" and want to rank for that even if that's not the best phrase for them, or concentrating on one phrase to the exclusion of all the other stuff they rank for isn't the best idea. I think paying attention to server logs or analytics data gets you a really nice array of keywords that are practical to work on. But this is feedback that we've heard, and personally I think it would be nice if we offered this for some reasonable size of keywords.

Verdict:
Very cool. Even though Matt's right in that visitor data and conversions count for far more than rankings, clients continue to swoon over where they show up for keywords. Software straight from Google would be a welcomed sight.


Are .gov and .edu back links still considered more "link juice" than the common back link?

Matt Cutts says:
This is a common misconception--you don't get any PageRank boost from having an .edu link or .gov link automatically. If you get an .edu link and no one is linking to that .edu page, you're not going to get any PageRank at all because that .edu page doesn't have any PageRank.

Verdict:
Makes sense. There are .edu or .gov sites that don't have much authority or value so why should they count for more than a .com on TLD alone?


Recently went through a rebranding of our company name. The old domain name was successful in page ranking, however the new domain name has terrible page ranking. Do 301 redirects transfer the site equity from the old domain to new domain?

Answer:
This is a pretty common question, so we actually did a blog post about it recently. In short, 301's are the best way to retain users and search engine traffic when moving domains.

Verdict:
For instructions on how to implement 301 redirects in multiple programming languages, read our 301 redirect instructions.


Some blackhat linked to my blog from 300+ adult splogs as revenge for calling him out. My blog had #1 ranking for it's keywords, now it is on the second page at best. Can mass amounts of links from "bad neighborhoods" cause a drop in site ranking?

Nathan J says:
We work hard to make sure a site can't have a negative effect on another site. Feel free to report spam if you think you find some - https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport

Verdict:
Yikes. If it's true that the site in question did nothing on its own then this is a real shame to see ranking sabotage still working on Google.


Any chance of Google favouring sites with valid markup anytime soon? On the principle that if the webmaster has taken the trouble to write valid markup, it's less likely to be a spammy site?

JohnMu says:
Since less than 5% of the pages out there actually validate according to study done by Opera, it wouldn't make much sense for us to give the other 95% of the pages any trouble. You can find the study at http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama-markup-validation-report/

Verdict:
This makes sense, as most validation errors don't even result in a difference of what the user sees on a web page. When invalid markup does hurt, however, is when it results in search engine robots not being able to follow links or index content.


Given, the incoming links are intact and there is no link buying/selling. Can there be any other reason for a drop in Page Rank?

JohnMu says:
Assuming the number of links stays the same, it's always possible that some links change with regards to the way they pass PageRank.

Verdict:
Wow, how ambiguous was that answer! Let me translate: Can there be another reason for PR drop? Yes. Nothing happens in Google without a reason. My best guess in this specific situation is that the links that link to the direct incoming links to your site have changed (ie. Site A is linked to from Site B; Site B is linked to from Site C, and so forth). Of course the impact is diluted as you move back each link level, but just think of it as a family tree -- how many generations (ie. links) came before you? They all, indirectly, have an impact on how your PageRank is calculated.


How does Google view content that is placed in divs that are hidden/display none until a user does something? These are also good places to stuff SEO content that a user may never see. What is best practise from Google's point of view?

Wysz says:
I've addressed this question in the Google Webmaster Help Group here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/b2d09046ab4d5ed/
And here:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/browse_thread/thread/5d31cc395fe20b64/
What is boils down to is intent:
If it's there for the user, you're probably safe. If you're trying to deceive search engines... that's risky. :)


I have reported sites that clearly have paid links (e.g. the backlink page says "Advertising" above the link), but Google does not seem to take action. Why would that be the case? These are .orgs who are clearly selling their .org juice.

Kaspar aka Guglarz says:
While paid links and spam reports are being taken very seriously by Google, the results may not be seen immediately for users or even not at all. This does not mean no action is being taken on the offending sites. Also, the TLD of the sites should not be a factor being taken into account. For this reason reporting both, web spam and PageRank passing link selling makes sense and contributes in an important way to the quality of Google's index.

Verdict:
I wonder under what circumstances the results from reporting paid links "would not be seen at all"... the only scenario I can think of is if two sites pay for advertising on each other. Would that be considered a link exchange, albeit with money exchanging hands?


How many times a year do you update a site PageRanking?

Matt Cutts:
PageRank is re-computed all the time (different PageRanks every day). But we update the toolbar PageRank 3-4 times/year.


About IP addresses, you always used to hear that you don't want to share because you could get punished if you share with a bad site. I'm guessing that's not a concern anymore -- true or false?

JohnMu:
You're right, I wouldn't worry about that anymore. The situations where it would matter are when the server is overloaded (can't respond to your visitors) and when it's incorrectly configured (not returning your site to your visitors).

Verdict:
Makes sense. Not everyone can afford dedicated hosting so it wouldn't make sense to penalize those sites who have the misfortune of being hosted on the same IP as spammers.


Is it true that the fewer the links FROM your website, the more influence they have on the sites receiving those links?

JohnMu:
PageRank is split up over the links from a page, but I would recommend not concentrating on this (as you won't be able to "measure" and act upon it anyway) and instead making your site as usable as possible for your visitors.

Verdict:
If you wish to pass more PageRank from your own site to another, the fewer external links you have, the better. Your site holds a maximum amount of PageRank at any one time and outbound PageRank is divided amongst all your external links.

A Solution for Google and the Paid Link Fight

One of the biggest debates raging in the search marketing world right now is Google's stance on paid links. Google went a step further than just talking about it, and dropped PageRank values for many sites known to sell links specifically for the purpose of passing PageRank and thus, rankings, on to the buyer's site. My solution to the paid link epidemic goes one step further; but first, here's a brief synopsis of what has actually transpired.

Google feels it is a violation of organic search engine optimization practices to pay for incoming links... but only certain kinds of links. Some webmasters do a great deal of business by simply selling outbound links off their high PageRank web pages. But there's a difference between that and say, paying for a business listing to the Yahoo! Directory. There is more value and legitimacy in a Yahoo! listing than buying a text link on a pharmaceutical site pointing to your gambling site with keyword stuffed anchor text. Yahoo! also does not accept all submissions, so there is an element of quality to their directory. There are differences in paid links.

Sounds like Google's just stepping up their algorithmic intelligence once again and defining new black hat techniques, right? Perhaps, but not without controversy. News in September spread that the once very popular Aviva Directory, among others, had suffered drastic drops in Google rankings, which ultimately would lessen the quality of the outbound links they list. Aviva was one of the more SEO-friendly directories around, which led to its popularity for webmasters. PageRank was passed on several levels deep, and the $50 fee was very reasonable for a permanent PR3 or PR4 one-way link.

Many argue that Aviva has done nothing wrong. Their business provides a service to webmasters that is transparent as well as valuable for a fair cost. But the point I have isn't to say who is right and who is wrong. It is instead to say that Google is walking a fine line with this one. There was speculation that their stance has something to do with a Federal Trade Commission staff opinion saying that, "companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships." This would extend to web sites presenting commercial listings of other businesses for a fee without sufficiently noting that in each case. According to Google, there are several linking options that web sites should use in these cases, or else they risk suffering the consequences like Aviva did. They include using a meta robots tag to disallow the Google crawler, using JavaScript links, and the "nofollow" attribute among others.

Whether the FTC opinion and Google's unhappiness with paid links are just a coincidence, I found it worth mentioning.

Keep in mind that Google also runs the most popular Pay Per Click advertising platform on the Internet. If webmasters are paying for links on the Internet, it is certain that Google would like to do everything it can to encourage the use of their AdWords and AdSense services over text link buying from private companies. This includes offering a paid link reporting page which is the first of its kind in the search engine world.

The drop in PageRank of many high profile sites was indeed a wake up call. However, my solution is extremely simple, goes one step farther, and one I'm sure Google has already considered:

Stop making PageRank values public altogether.

Why? Well, for starters PageRank never really gave any accurate reading as to the value of a web page. One could get a single incoming link from an irrelevant PR7 page that would transfer a very respectable PR value to their site. Another web site could have hundreds of relevant PR1 links pointing to it and have a lower PageRank value than the first page. If I'm trying to determine the "worth" of a page, the second example could easily be more helpful to a user than the first. The value of a link doesn't begin and end with the page's PR value. There are other factors. Without knowledge of PageRank, link exchanges, article reprints, and other old school and still popular methods of link building could continue fairly unaffected. New-age methods such as social media promotion, press releases, and link baiting would also not be affected. Hiding PageRank would not turn the world of webmasters and SEO upside down.

But what's more important is that PageRank plays such a massive factor in why people buy and sell links. The higher the PR, the more expensive a link is generally. Take away that value system and all of a sudden paid link participants need to re-evaluate their strategies. Sure, existing links would likely not change. Even though PR is hidden, you can bet most existing pages will hold their value for the time being. But all future link purchasing would have to be based upon a brand new system.

PageRank is a window to Google's algorithm. It's only natural that some people will try to manipulate rankings by using that data. But what purpose does PageRank serve anymore? To the casual web surfer (the vast majority of Internet users) the little green bar in their browser's toolbar (if they even bothered to install the Google Toolbar) probably evokes the same reaction that a Windows "stack dump" error would: A scratch of the head. A shrug of the shoulders. A bewildered, "huh?"

As an SEO myself, I find it pretty annoying that my competition pays for incoming links to rank their clients well. It doesn't put me out of business, as I'm a creative and resourceful online marketer. But the sheer ease of buying links for clients definitely leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. So I, for one, welcome Google's crackdown on paid links and will be an active user of their paid link reporting form. Hopefully they get rid of PageRank altogether. Its day has certainly passed.

Buying Links for SEO

There is a debate raging over paid links as part of an SEO plan. Should it be done? Does it fall within White Hat SEO techniques? What do the search engines say about this? Is there a risk involved with buying incoming links? There are so many questions brought up with this issue, but let's cover a few of the big ones:

First off, search engines don't like the fact that webmasters can indirectly buy rankings, since obtaining good quality, relevant links theoretically helps your rankings rise. It also lowers the quality of links on the web when webmasters start linking for SEO instead of for visitors and quality. Matt Cutts has a good blog on this topic here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/

So right off the bat we know that link buying is a Black Hat SEO method because Google has said it does not condone it. Paid directory listings are different because human eyes validate these links upon submission as being relevant and useful to their core audience. Business directory listings will always have a place in the heart of search engines, but buying thousands of site-wide links strictly for SEO do not.

The risk part is definitely true. As with any Black Hat SEO method, there may be benefits in the short term, but as your methods age they will likely get picked up by new search engine algorithm updates. For example, take hidden text. Many webmasters years ago would make text the same color as the background of a page in order to stuff the page's content with repetitions of popular keywords, hoping to get a high ranking. Occassionally I will come across a site that's still using this method, but over time, the search engines weed these bad folks out.

But fear not. For those who want to throw some money at a web site and have it ranked well (and quickly), take the PPC route. Pay-per-click advertising reaches just as many people if not more (with Google content ads) than organic search engine listings. Hire a capable PPC campaign manager and you will probably see a good return on your monthly budget. Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing are the most popular services for PPC advertising.

And if you still want to buy links, do what Google says and use the 'nofollow' tag. Set up a link for direct click-throughs from potential customers, not to increase your link popularity.