Talk:Search engine optimization/Archive 1

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Contents

External links

My apologies for knockin out all the external links. There was some discussion in comments (and comments only) , without any signatures. Forgive me for not wanting to try and trace back *every single* line to see if it originates from an SEO or not.

If we feel there should be external links here anyway, please put them back, and motivate each addition here. Sorry to be so With Extreme prejudice about this, but I've been fwapping SEOs all day, and I'm losing my patience. :-P Kim Bruning 23:28, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

The issue isn't who put them here, it's what they link to. Most of these links to informative, non-commercial sites. I think there were more than needed, but still... -- Jmabel 00:08, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
You're probably right to a degree. Maybe I'm too paranoid. OTOH, see Nigritude_ultramarine. Kim Bruning 00:32, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
Sure. But as the article discusses, there is ethical and unethical SEO. I agree that such a competition (further) encourages unethical SEO. However, at least one of the links you deleted was to Google's statement on what they consider unethical! -- Jmabel 00:34, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
*nod* Mainly because the list of links was growing too long, and no fast way to check if it had been tampered with. So the baby got thrown out with the bathwater (to quote a saying). I posted one possible solution to prevent this in future here. I'd be interested in hearing other ideas.
Incidentally one of the links you reinstated was actually an advertisement anyway. Kim Bruning 00:38, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
The Ethical SEO paper you put back is probably borderline. In fact, almost everything to do with SEO is borderline. Ugh. I'll stop editing for now and cool down first. Kim Bruning 00:46, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Subtle Adverts

Keep your eyes open, SEOs sometimes have websites which at first glance seem to be a reasonable tutorial or text, but in the end it turns out they're advertising anyway (after you've clicked through page after page after page). Kim Bruning 17:50, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Title Change

What's with the title change? "Search Engine Optimization" or "SEO" is almost universal usage, over 10,000,000 and 7,000,000 Google hits, respectively. "Searchability optimization" seems like a completely novel coinage, never used by anyone. -- Jmabel 06:30, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

I asked Hfastedge the same question on their talk page, and am awaiting their answer. Kim Bruning 08:40, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

I asked on Hfastedges' talk page, discussion copied to here:

Hmm, why did you move Search_engine_optimization -> Searchability optimization ? Kim Bruning 01:19, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Basic english. I strongly care that the term be corrected. the search engine itself is not being optimized. The pages that are being optimized. Hfastedge 02:40, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
Ah right, well, if you'd be so kind as to explain that to the other folk(s) on Talk:Searchability_optimization, I'll copy your comment there and reply there also. :) Kim Bruning 09:19, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

It's nice that you're trying to correct basic english :-) Unfortunately these SEO folks seem to have coined a new term, and they're sticking with it. It might be wiser to use the actual term these folks are using in their adverts and so, else things get rather confusing. Kim Bruning 09:24, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Precisely. Wikipedia is supposed to follow common usage rather than invent new terms where common terms exist. It's not our job to be prescriptive grammarians. Please let's move this back. -- Jmabel 02:15, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
I'm going to bite the bullet and move this back. -- Jmabel 23:24, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

A long standing link to a non commercial site was cut. admittedly it was initially part of a search engine optimisation competition, but that competition is now long over and the page in question is a perfect example of SEO in practise. I will restore the link, please explain why you feel it is out of place before deleting, thank you Serps 21:50 17 May 2004 (GMT)

Of all the nerve! Kim Bruning 22:53, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
I cannot understand why this disturbs you so much. The topic of this wiki page is search engine optimization. It provides a little basic information on the subject but does not explain the tactics often used by SEO's,

The page I provided the link to, is an example of a web page that has been optimized for a set word. This is a practical example of search engine optimization. The page in question is a perfect example of search engine optimization and as such the link to it is not out of place here. You may not be interested in the subject of search engine optimization, but I can assure you thousands of people are, and may like to see an example. I have not restored the link, but would like to here your justification of why it should not be restored. Serps 19:20 18 May 2004 (GMT)

OF ALL THE NERVE! That page was link-pushing Nigritude Ultramarine, at the freaking top of the page even. And why haven't you been banned from wikipedia yet? Kim Bruning 18:51, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
"Link-pushing" as you describe it, is a tactic used in search engine optimization. As this wiki page is about that subject it is appropriate to provide an example of this. As I mentioned earlier the page in question is deliberately optimized for search engines, the fact you don't like it is irrelevant. The reason I am not banned from wikipedia, is because I can have sensible discussions without shouting or resorting to abuse. I write on-topic, and provide links that are on-topic. If you do not like discussing the topic of search engine optimization, why are you contributing to this page? Please feel free to email me, if you would prefer to carry on this discussion away from wikipedia. Serps 21:20 18 May 2004 (GMT)


A discussion on unethical behaviour is one thing. Actually contributing to that unethical behaviour is another.

Alright. While I quite frankly have quite grave doubts as to your sincerity, let's assume for the moment that you are indeed sincere.

If you'd like to present a demonstration page, how about creating a page with a fictional term that's not actually used in any serps-based competition past, present or future, and then linking to that?

Note that at no point in time should you link to sim64 on wikipedia, since that site is abusing google ranking at this point in time. I do not believe wikipedia should be contributing to that abuse.

Kim Bruning 22:27, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Problem with the search engine

I don't know it this is the right place to post this, but I have discovered a problem with the search engine when searching for "History of Greenland". The History_of_Greenland article doesn't show up, in fact I have to use Google to find the page, but it doesn't work either. The first hit is just the Greenland article, where I can access the History... article, but it's the error that's important.

--FePe 22:33, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I'll explain on his user talk page about search being turned off. -- Jmabel 01:03, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Ethics

The article currently says, "[V]irtually all SEO methods are considered to be unethical by a significant group of people." I think that is (1) vague and weaselly: "a significant group of people" and (2) probably wrong, in terms of any actually significant group of people. Certainly it is ethical to create a content-rich site and submit it to search engines, which is SEO recommendation number one, exactly what (for example) Wikipedia does, a very effective SEO strategy. One step down from that, I don't think any "significant" number of people think it is unethical to research what vocabulary people tend to use in searching for the topic(s) you are covering and try to stick to the wordings that are more normal, hence more likely to get your site found in actual searches.

Unless someone can make a case to the contrary, I would like to drop that phrase and replace it with discussion of the ethics (or otherwise) of particular SEO methods. -- Jmabel 23:15, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It's been 3 days. No one has responded. I'm editing accordingly. -- Jmabel 02:57, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)


The ethics section was pretty appalling, and obviously written by someone without any grasp of the SEO industry. I've since added what I hope is a more balanced middle grounds.

One of the "names" here may not like that there are anonymous people who contribute to the Wiklipedia - but tis done nonetheless.

The rest of the page is relatively reasonable, but could be improved upon. The paid placement section could probably go as this is not SEO but SEM (search engine marketing) territory, and has nothing to do with natural organic search, which is what SEO is focussed on.

I've also returned the external links - there is always a danger of abuse, especially on a page like this - but each of those sites should have some merit. If you think not, it would be great if you could formulate a list of what is considered reputable and disreputable sites on SEO - I have tried to simply list resource sites, though I know there are a number of others. Those listed are generally with merit, though of course subject to further editing.


NOTE: I've also removed the section on "Reconcillation", because it is absolute rubbish. Whoever wrote these original sections knew about as much on SEO as a Creationist knows about Evolution. (anon 14 April 2005)

SEO Glossary

Link to http://www.seo-glossary.com/ placed by User:82.92.150.45 , looks clean so far. We'd probably want to make a wikipedia 'list of SEO terms' sometime. Site looks like a good guide to start with. :-) Kim Bruning 15:44, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Didn't we reach consensus against these?

[On the basis of Kim's remark that follows, I've edited the following comment, to remove the link even from the talk page. Spaces inserted after "http://" to break the links -- Jmabel 22:07, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)] The following links were recently re-added to the article. I've moved them here, because I seem to remember we'd reached consensus a while back against including these. They are imaginably slightly useful, but they are not particularly encyclopedic, and they are commercial.

  • [http:// www.seomasters.com/meta-tags-generator.php Meta Tags Generator]
  • [http:// www.seomasters.com/meta-tag-analyzer/ Meta Tag Analyzer]

-- Jmabel 07:56, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

And thank you for adding an extra point to this persons' google rank, I'd wager.  :-/ . Kim Bruning 08:41, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Observation (worth including?)

It's now almost impossible to search for a review of any consumer product on Google without about 70% of the results being price comparison sites or sites selling the product in question; invariably actual reviews don't appear until the third or fourth page anyway. Worth figuring out a way of mentioning this consequence of careless SEO? Sockatume 12:57, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, ideally by citing a published article (on the web or elsewhere) talking about this phenomenon. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:31, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
I'll get on it at some point then. Sockatume 23:43, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

External link

I'm usually very skeptical on the addition of external links to this article by anonymous users, but I want to specifically request the retention of the recently added #1 Search Engine Optimisation Blog. I was very impressed with the content. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:09, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Who Invented the Term: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Seems to be an unlikely term to have "taken off", and surpass:

* SEARCH ENGINE RANKING
* SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT
* SEARCH ENGINE POSITIONING

Initially, these terms were more popular; it is interesting that SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION became the chosen term, and also, SEO become the chosen term to describe BOTH the professionals and the profession.

The earliest use on news groups shows it to mean the technical Speed-tweaking of Search Engine Technology.


Here are one of the earliest uses of the term:

[[1]http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=%22search+engine+optimization%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=14&as_maxm=9&as_maxy=1997&filter=0]



--Search Engines Web 18:54, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Linkspam?

Recently added "Example of SEO Tool" looks a bit like linkspam to me, although not a useless site. What do others think? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

More "possible link spam". We seem to have disagreement over these. A statement of the case for and against each would be welcome:

  1. http://www.organicseo.org: "Organic SEO Wiki" covering organic search engine optimization techniques.
  2. http://toprank.blogspot.com" Daily SEO blog regarding search engine news, resources and tactics.
  3. http://www.webmasterworld.com WebmasterWorld SEO forum and news.

Jmabel | Talk 05:56, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

  1. Non-notable wiki, not yet well maintained.
  2. Blog. We don't link to those unless strong notability can be established.
  3. forum, ditto as for blog
Kim Bruning 09:53, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


  • [WebmasterWorld.com] is a non-commercial and advertising free message board that covers many aspects of SEO and web development. The site also contains various articles and tools. It was also the first web site of it's kind in the world.

--83.108.14.136 12:04, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

    • Taking a closer look at the site I noticed a ad in the top right corner, but that should not alone be a reason for not includign this resource. --83.108.14.136 12:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't have strong feelings either way about this one. It looks like a good site; whether it's notable enough to deserve a link is arguable either way; in any event, though, why link from this article rather than from Search engine, it doesn't seem focused on SEO. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:29, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
    • It's a message board, like you stated yourself. Unless it is particularly notable or canonical, there's no reason for us to link to it, that's what google is for. :-) Kim Bruning 00:42, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Sorry for anon. post, but webmasterworld.com and searchengineforums.com were the two ORIGINAL SEO resources on the net. If you want to ignore them then that is fine, but a lot of the other forum stuff out there is "black hat". Would you prefer to point people to white or black hat sites? (6 June 2005)
        • If this anon poster is right about these being among the first of their kind, and given that neither is particularly egregious, that would seem to justify linking to them. Kim, I'd be interested in hearing from you before we act on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:32, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
          • As usual for wikipedia in general, if anon can provide references to prove it, we'll post it :-) Kim Bruning 18:29, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
            • The adverts on WmW were sponsors of the regular SEO conferences they organise - it is a very well established SEO industry event and the forum is widely considering by SEO's to be a starting point to learn about the industry (SEO job interviews usually ask what your forum nick on WmW is!). Weeboab 11:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Ethics

The ethics section has been almost completely rewritten by someone who seems to feel that the only ethical question is whether an SEO firm gives their client value for money. There is no notion at all of public obligation to keep searches useful and not to mislead. I don't have time to engage this now, but I recommend that people look at this (and this same anons other edits) closely, see if there is anything worth keeping, and expect mostly to revert. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:18, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • And it's filling up with self-serving links as well. Can someone please take this on, I'm really too busy right now. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:03, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Will some people please weigh in on this matter? If no one replies, I am simply going to revert the ethics section. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:24, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Kim Bruning has now reverted all of this, pending discussion. Thank you, Kim. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:17, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

AdSense

Recently added: "Despite this, Google's 'AdSense' programs fuels much of the current search 'spam' on the web, creating an internal and external conflict that is still playing out." I don't follow this; perhaps more of an explanation of AdSense would make it clearer. I've left it as is, for now. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:07, May 7, 2005 (UTC)


  • I have removed the added part. This is an opinion and should not be stated as a fact, atleast not without a noteworthy source.

--85.166.61.79 00:43, 10 May 2005 (UTC)


    • Adsense allows a site to show adverts that google supplies to them. The site owner gets paid everytime a surfer clicks through one of the ads to the advertisers site. The problem is that many people now build keyword rich websites not to provide information, not to provide a product or service, but simply to rank well so that many people visit the page and then have to click the adverts to get to where they really wanted to get to. The real content sites, and the real product sites, get pushed down the SERPs by these "fake" sites. Everyone loses. These pages are hijacks on the information superhighway.

External Link Spam, Again

  • I re-added the external link (external link removed. See the consensus, and here for a permanent diff link if you want to see the URL that was removed) as it adheres to Wikipedia:External links (e.g., non-commercial, valuable information, not my private site). --uriah923 12:54, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)
    • There is no reason why this site should be prefered over any other site on the subject and this site is not very noteworthy when it comes to SEO. I hope all agree that SEO related subjects are targeted by spammers and that we need to be very carefull about which sites to list afterall this is not a directory.
      --85.166.22.1 22:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • This site complies to the guidelines in Wikipedia:External links. Under the "What should be linked to" section: "High content pages that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article." Also, there is nothing that qualifies this link as 'spam' and you have not given any legitimate reason to remove it. The link should be included until you do so. --uriah923 14:36, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)
        • I would suggest that external links should not be added without some discussion beforehand, at least for articles like this frequently targeted by spammers. Also, your persistence in trying to add this link is a bit suspicious, and suggests that it is spam, or that you have some personal interest in the site. tregoweth 22:13, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
        • Agree entirely with Tregoweth's suggestion, and not just because of the recent sprees of spam linking to ON. --W(t) 22:16, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)
          • OK, let's discuss it. My justification: As I said, the site meets the Wikipedia:External links guidelines that specifically say this kind of page should be posted ("High content pages that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article"). What is your rebuttal? --uriah923 16:04, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)
            • The guidelines says:
              1. Official sites should be added to the page of any organization, person, or other entity that has an official site.
              2. Sites that have been cited or used as references in the creation of a text. Intellectual honesty requires that any site actually used as a reference be cited. To fail to do so is plagiarism.
              3. If a book or other text that is the subject of an article exists somewhere on the Internet it should be linked to.
              4. On articles with multiple Points of View, a link to sites dedicated to each, with a detailed explanation of each link. The number of links dedicated to one POV should not overwhelm the number dedicated to any other. One should attempt to add comments to these links informing the reader of what their POV is.
              5. High content pages that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article. Ideally this content should be integrated into the Wikipedia article at which point the link would remain as a reference.
              The ON article doesn't fit in any of the above categories. If the external link you are advocating is added then there is no reason to add links to the large number of similar articles.
              The article is even about search engine optimization
              • The ON article fits perfectly into category 5. As for your other comments, I think you need to correct some typos. --uriah923 12:27, 2005 Jun 20 (UTC)
                • The article is not about SEO, so it would not fit as a reference for this article.
                  --85.166.8.211 14:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
                  • Did you even read the article? From the article's header: "Describes how web content can be optimized to increase its visibility on the Internet." This is backed up by the content of the article. Now, compare this to the SEO definition on this site: "Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methodologies aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engine listings." The article is obviously about SEO. Protest #2 shot down. Any more? --uriah923 13:00, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)
                • I read the article. It seems to me it would be a relatively harmless link, but I'm not at all sure it would be a valuable one. Uriah, what do you think it brings to the picture that isn't already in the article? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:25, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
                  • The article contains multiple points not included on the Wiki page: content optimization info, analysis on whether paid advertising is worth the cost, info on cheaper methods of advertising, etc. Protest #3 gone. Next?--uriah923 13:01, 2005 Jul 11 (UTC)

ON spam

Check out Special:Contributions/Uriah923 and the user has constantly added links to the ON site, which has been created by him and which I believe is a Sock puppet of CHansen and MarkMcB, who is supposedly the founder of the site and has an article on himself as well. pamri 08:04, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Pamri, you have no idea what you are talking about. Fact error 1: I did not create ON. Fact error 2: I am most definitely not a sock puppet, as evident by how fast I am typing. Fact error 3: There is not an ON site nor an article on MarkMcB, as evident by your empty links. Fact error 4: My contributions include much valuable content up and above links to ON. Links have been used only where they are necessary as References. I suggest you do more research before posting your conspiracy theories. Uriah923 19:07, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
Why are you trying so many times to promote the ON site, if you have no connection to it?

--85.166.8.211 01:21, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Adding valuable content from a legitimate source is much different than trying to promote a site. I significantly improved the quality of this article through adding missing content, re-organizing, formatting links, etc. I followed Wikipedia policy in so doing by listing the references for the added content. There is no justification to reverse the changes. Uriah923 15:55, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Consider my external link?

I can well understand your problem with link spam, so I won't add my link myself, but ask that you consider linking my article www.goingware.com/tips/search-engine-optimization/, White Hat Search Engine Optimization. It is still a rough draft, so you should wait until I am done, but enough is there for you to see where I'm going.

The article presently discusses how improving title, h1 and meta description element text can increase search engine referrals. The second draft, to be posted late tonight, will explain what SEO is, what the difference between White Hat/Ethical SEO and Black Hat is, why one would want to practice ethical seo even if one doesn't care about ethics, why one should be sure only to hire White Hats, and how one can improve one's position significantly even if one isn't an expert. I'm also going to give a brief explaination of pagerank and link to the wikipedia pages on PageRank and Search engine optimization.

In a couple days I'll post a new draft which discusses keywords. One recommendation I will make is that rather than targetting high-paying keywords, one target keywords that one can develop content for over a period of years. That is, someone who does origami as a hobby would do better to develop an origami website than one on online gambling or asbestos lawsuits.

In general the article is meant as an introduction to help nonspecialists either to optimize their own sites, or make better choices when hiring someone else to do it. It is part of a series of articles that encourage webmasters to produce high-quality legitimate sites.

However, I must say in advance that mine is a commercial site. I'm not an SEO but a writer. I don't have ads on this article yet, but in general I earn my living now by writing articles that have ads in them. Not all the articles have ads, and some have Creative Commons licenses. I monitor each ad's performance and remove those that aren't earning money, as I feel that too many ads reduce the quality of my site. I recommend this to others in another article. You can find an index to all my articles at GoingWare's Bag of Programming Tricks. MichaelCrawford 00:00, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

    • This article is frequently attacked by spammers, so there is little or no chance to get a link to your article included. You may add it - nobody is stopping you, but it will most likely be removed after a short time.

--85.166.8.211 01:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll wait until I'm done writing it so you can see the final result, then add a link along with another note here. I posted my second draft early this morning. I expect another tomorrow on keywords, and then a fourth on advertising and sponsored links. There will probably be a couple drafts just to tighten up the writing style.

My target audience are mom-and-pop website operators who either can't pay for optimization or don't know how to tell whether an SEO is ethical. I see many fine websites full of valuable content, but that don't fare well in the search engines when a few simple changes would improve their position considerably. There is a lot of arcana to SEO, but I think most of it is either beyond the comprehension of most webmasters, or too much work to implement. 24.224.190.102

Citing Your Own Web Page is Problematic

Wikipedia is not a place to publish original research. It's an encyclopedia. You should attempt to get your paper published elsewhere first, by a reputable journal or magazine (i.e. something with peer review, or editorial review - not your own web site). Every SEO, myself included, has an article they'd like to link from this page. We can't all stick a links on this page, can we? Jehochman 06:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Edits by 85.166.8.211

I just finished doing a much-needed work over of the article and almost all of the work has been reversed by 85.166.8.211. The previous organization was very unclear, inconsistent and covered the same topic in different places. I am going to revise the page back to what I had before (including replacing the references I used in writing the article). I would appreciate it if those who read this could back me up that the content and organization I implemented was both useful and necessary. Uriah923 03:30, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

It is obvious that your intentions are to sneak in external links that have been removed several times earlier. Please stop doing that.

--85.166.8.211 08:43, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I added no external links, only two references that were used in the creation of the text as stated in Wikipedia policy: "If you add information to an article which you gleaned from a specific external source, please at least write a quick note about where you got your information. If you can properly format your citation, that's great! If not, others can re-format it for you, as long as you provide all the information necessary to find the original source... At the end of an article, under a ==References== heading, list the complete reference information as a bulleted (*) list, one per reference work... If there is a separate section under the ==External links== heading (see below), it should come after ==References==. A ==See also== section, which is for links to related Wikipedia articles as opposed to external works, should go before ==References==." In this case, I added content that I gleaned from two sources, both of which I added as properly formatted references. These references have only been removed by YOU. Please stop removing content that significantly improves the quality of this article. Uriah923 13:58, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
Is there any objective way to distinguish spam from legitimate external references? MichaelCrawford
Yes. Refer to Wikipedia policy on citing sources and External links. Uriah923 00:24, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Search Engine Engineering

A Search Engine Engineering page has been created and a link added to the see also section of this page. Is this legitimately different than SEO, or should it be included as a method of SEO? Or not included at all? Uriah923 20:08, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

It looks like someone trying to create their own buzzword for SEO. If you Google for the phrase, there are only a few hundred hits, and a lot of those are something like "Search Engine - Engineering," where the words are just adjacent but not related. If it ever becomes noteworthy, a section in this article might make sense. tregoweth 21:47, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

De-emphasized page rank

This was recently added: "As of 2005, some webmasters believe that Google has been de-emphasized the importance of link popularity in calculating Pagerank." First issue, is this worth mentioning? Is it even true? Second, if it is left in, we should standardize on how we are going to list 'page rank.' "page rank" or "Pagerank" or something else? Uriah923 14:05, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. There's an infinite amount of speculation, that we can't get into to. Plus I vote for use of PageRank (as opposed to separate words, or lower case). It makes clear we're talking only about Google's usage of the term, and not some genral concept, or the dictionary definition of the words. --rob 14:40, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Changes made. Uriah923 16:15, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

ON reference re-added

I have re-added the ON reference to the page for the second time. Jehochman removed the reference each time without explanation . Per Wikipedia policy: "if you add information to an article which you gleaned from a specific external source, please cite where you got your information." I added significant amounts of content from the referenced article in my edit on the 3rd of August. To remove the reference would put this article in violation of copyright policy. Reference re-added. Uriah923 04:48, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I added the reference again and replaced my comments on Jehochman's talk page. Jehochman then made a 4th edit (in violation of the Three Reverts Rule) to this article, although I'm not sure of what his edit consists. I have yet to see any support of the 'spam' label leveled against the reference. I have provided support via Wikipedia policy as to it's legitimacy and replaced it when it was removed without reason. Somehow, Jehochman has considered this vandalism and says he filed a report against me. Odd. Uriah923 05:22, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Could you point out which items are referenced from the ON article? --fvw* 05:46, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
A lot of content was added and the site was also re-organized. It's difficult to point out every item, so please review the history, specifically this edit. As you will notice, the issue of whether or not this content and reference is spam has already been addressed. Uriah923 15:45, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
The three reverts rule does not apply to edits made to restore damage caused by vandalism. Jehochman 06:15, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
This is a content dispute though, and anyone who violates the 3RR will be blocked. Check WP:DR instead. --fvw* 06:18, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Value of ON content and quality of reference

The content added from the ON reference remains in this article, but the reference has been removed. This action is disputed and a conversation is ongoing here. Uriah923 06:23, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

In case anyone is still following the issue, the consensus on that page was that ON is not a suitable reference and due to Uriah's behevior, ON links are not allowed unless added by a longstanding contributor and not prompted by Uriah or other people from ON. It became very clear that Uriah's only interest was having as many links as possible from WP to ON, and in the interests of avoiding exploitation of WP, links to ON should be avoided. Please discuss at that location, as separate discussions of the issu are just redundant. - Taxman Talk 14:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Should this problem on Wikipedia be mentioned as an example or something in this article? —Frungi 01:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

This article needs some major revisions.

1. " If a site is to be found, it must contain keyword phrases that match the phrases the target audience is typing" is not valid anymore. Having the keyword in anchor text alone can get a page to #1 in Google.

2. "...(SE) spiders analyze web page content and keyword relevancy based on an algorithm". They used to. A long time ago. Then came things like Pagerank. Now it's a whole host of factors that determines position.

3. "Search engine optimization is the process of configuring a website to be more visible to its target audience". "Configuring a website"? Very narrow definiton. What about off-site factors? Isn't getting a DMOZ listing, blogspamming etc part of SEO? None of that is on-site.

4. "...began modifying their site to accommodate the needs of search engine spiders". They modified more to gain advantage with the algorithm at that time rather than for pandering to spiders per se.

5. "The content of each webpage is objectively evaluated by analyzing included keywords. While previous analysis used the now outdated keyword density method, the analysis now includes factors such as proximity, distribution, occurrence, and on-topic issues." is largely bunkum :)

6. "Methods commonly used to optimize content include". Sorry, guys. No mention of Latent Semantic Indexing? Themeing? Hilltop? Other buzzwords like Authority and Hub? Some of the methods listed here are actually red rags to Google, mark a site out as having being optimized, and actually hinder its ranking. These need to be under "History" i.e. what USED to work.

7. "Link popularity is an important factor for high importance rankings." That was a long time ago. PR is about "pages" and WAS an important factor. Now, it plays a teeny, weeny part in the algo. Do a few standard Google searches and you'll see PR0 pages outrank PR7s more often than not. In fact, you may want to differentiate between toolbar PR and the PR google really uses (sometimes referred to as algo PR).

There is lots more that needs revision. Can I have a go? MansonP

  • These are all really good points. (Well, let me correct myself: the 4 or 5 where I have a clue are really good points, so I assume you also know what you are talking about on the other 2 or 3.) Please, take a shot at it. But remember, this is an encyclopedia, not a how-to, so don't throw away material about methods that are no longer current, just contextualize them in terms of when they were relevant. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • OK, I'll rewrite the whole article to explain these were earlier optimization techniques popular with SEOs, expand on how the algos now are a lot more complex and take into account both on-site and off-site factors in <often> heuristic ways. I'll add some references to places like Google's patent filings and LSI to give an idea of what other factors could be at play. And add a small section on what techniques will always work well - W3C validating your code, providing useful content, ensuring no accidental duplicate content (by remembering that SEs see the www and non-www versions of your site as two different sites/.htm and .html as two different pages/MyPage.htm and mypage.htm as different pages), having a valid robots.txt ... that sort of thing. I should get a chance to work on this early next week. MansonP 12:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Any comments anyone? Go easy on me - this is my first major edit MansonP
    • Pretty good work. I hope most of my edits downstream of yours will be seen as friendly. I moved the material that you cut on paid inclusion to the paid inclusion article. I think we sould still say a lot more about ethical methods, but other than that, I think the article is much improved. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:04, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I liked your edit, Manson. Afterwards a contributor added a section about Long Term SEO that seemed like a lot of conjecture (I agree with what it said, but it was not supported by an authoritative source). I've deleted that stuff for now, but the contributor could perhaps proved better citations. Folks, we need to rely on what is published by authoritative sources. In my view, a PageRank 4 web site is not authoritative enough for this article, one that is frequently attacked by link spammers. My own web site is sometimes PR 4, and you don't want me citing myself. Jehochman 06:14, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks, guys. JMabel, I liked your careful and meticulous edit. I'm still studying it but I have no reason to believe it's not "friendly" :-). It's a big improvement on my sloppy editing of inserting text but not dotting and crossing the respective "i"s and "t"s. In fact, I was hoping to run with the corrections/improvments you made and make a few further improvements/tightening of text/wikifying words. I'll add to Ethical Methods but think I should also add a note as to why many SEOs believe that terms like ethical and unethical shouldn't apply to SEO at all. They feel that any webmaster should have the liberty to put any spammy material on his own site even if it's just a bunch of nonsensical, machine generated text... as long as it's legal. They continue that should an SE chance upon that content, plug it into their algo, and figure that it's relevant to show in SERPs... then it's the SE's problem, not theirs. Not a POV that everyone agrees with, of course, but a POV that should really be presented or the article looks biased in favour of those who clamour for "ethics" in SEO.

Jehochman, it was I who did the "Long Term SEO" and it was at the time of the original edit. I believe that the section should be in. It's not conjecture; stuff like "making it easy for SE bots to access your site", "targeting the same goals as the SEs" etc is more common sense than technique. As an aside, and with respect, I don't believe that authority of a reference is determined by PR of that page. PR is largely cosmetic according to the article ;-). If not, the latest Google patent list can't be linked to because it's a brand new page and only a PR0. I believe that it would be of use to the article to keep a section on what basic principles always help with SEO; readers would want to know that. The sites I found as references were the only two sites covering the two respective areas ("possible" algo considerations and General Long Term SEO principles) that were not SEOs themselves i.e. not selling or dealing in SEO services, and I spent a lot of time looking. I'd be happy for equivalent URLs to replace them if you can find any. I'd like to reinstate this section of Long Term SEO. If you really feel that it should be out please provide some reasons here and I promise to be open minded on the comments/feedback that follows ... and remove the section if necessay. MansonP 09:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

  • MansonP, Thank you for your polite response. PR is not a measure of anything, but it is a fairly good indication of "authority". Usually I look at the PR of the home page of the web site being cited. An interior page may have a low rank or now rank, if new. My concern is that if we set a precident of allowing citations to obscure articles, then every SEO on earth will come in here and slap references to their own work into this article. The fact that "Long Term SEO" is so hard to find means that it is not a well-established term. Perhaps it's tagline established by one particular SEO consultant. Have you researched "Internet Marketing" as a strategic approach, in contrast to SEO, which is merely a tactic? Here's a scholarly book, 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site very comprehensive, but it does not mention Long Term SEO. Why should a Wikipedia article cover something that is absent from a 400 page book? Jehochman 06:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I would say that what was called "long term SEO" is mostly just common sense: build it right, have worthwhile content, and you'll do better with search engines in the long run. As for the references: if Manson legitimately used these as his references in making very substantive additions to the article, they should be credited. Not to do so would be intellectually dishonest. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

JMabel, thanks for your reply and support. You are correct in that it's common sense... and I'd be quite happy to rename it from "Long Term SEO" to something else if necessary, I'm not married to the term. The History and Long Term SEO sections do rely on those two sources a lot so if I didn't have to scrap the references for new ones it would save me a lot of rewriting.

Jehochman, I'm really uncomfortable with the "PR is a fairly good indication of authority". As most SEOs know PR is easily manipulated/spoofed up or down (see my recent edit of PageRank). Joe Public doesn't value a page's contents by the amount of green in the toolbar, it's just the SEOs who care. Once we establish any sort of relationship between PR and authority we'll be opening a can of worms with SEOs spoofing their PR and creating PR10 pages just to get links from here. If a PR10 page claims that Bambi's mother killed JFK by spitting bullets at him can we take that as "gospel" truth? Why not? And how will you prove that this page's PR is spoofed? There are various other anomalies with PR, famous sites like Alexa are PR0. I really think we should break any association between PR and authority (or lack of it).

I'm going to link to this new patent list (PR0) as a reference, and add a few points to the "what is in the pipeline" bit. In the next few days. MansonP 13:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

  • In general, I'd say that the high PR of a page about SEO is likely mostly to be an indication that its author is good at boosting PR and inclined to do so. Admittedly, if I were hiring someone to boost my search engine results, I'd probably hire someone who had done well for his or her own, but I wouldn't presume that success at doing so meant actual prominence. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:01, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Why do the following keep getting removed? They are obviously references MansonP used in making major, good additions to the article. It is clearly in line with Wikipedia policy to cite such references; in fact, it is clearly against Wikipedia policy not to. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:35, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

    • The above references go to non-noteworthy sources that display ads. My objection is that these links are a form of stealth advertising. The SEO page is subject to constant linkspam attacks (every SEO on the planet thinks they deserve a link here), so we have gotten very defensive about external links. "Long Term SEO" is not commonly used phrase. It seems to be a phrase invented by one particular SEO. For perspecive, "Ethical SEO" has 100,000 Google hits. "Long Term SEO" has about 600. I view the 'Long Term SEO' section as overly opinionated, and also a form of advertising for one particular SEO. Let's not start an edit war - can we get some more opinions please, especially from people who are not SEOs? I'll agree to abide the consensus.


    • As far as "Ethical SEO" is concerned, I'm sorry, that's a POV issue. We're not here to judge what's ethical and what's not - in fact, I'm hoping to remove all the "ethical" and "unethical" references in the article. But, as I've said before, I'm open to a rewording of the "Long Term SEO" title itself as it's not something I've coined and it's not the best of titles anyway.

The Long Term SEO section did arm the general public with information that was previously privy only to SEOs. As someone who does SEO for a living - and are therefore in a position to directly benefit from public ignorance of SEO - you were not best placed to delete large sections of the article. This is particularly inappropriate as you haven't declared your conflict of interest here.

You deleted the content relating to one reference but you've deleted one additional reference (without deleting the content related to it). It seems you have some personal vendettas here and I have no idea what they are. I believe both those references and all my previous content should be restored.

From your site's content it's obvious you're fairly adept at SEO. It's a shame you did not choose to use that knowledge to do the rewrite that this article so badly needed - and correct the information you apparently know to be wrong - despite the fact you've been editing it since April.

You keep seeing SEOs even where there are none. You kept referring to me as an SEO; I'm not (for your information - I run a minor search engine). You keep referring to the experienced-people site as an SEO site; it's not (In fact, as I've explained - it took me a lot of time to find references that were not SEOs themselves).

If Jmabel or someone else reverts the document I can get on with making some changes in line with Google's latest patent application, tidying up POV issues etc. But, I'd really like this issue settled before I do any further work on the article. So, somebody, please intervene and let's settle this once and for all.MansonP 18:54, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Reply to MansonP

OK, I don't want to stand in the way of progress. If you can't find a good source for information, one that is authoritative, then maybe the information needs to be reworked? As for a title, I suggest "High Quality Web Sites Usually Rank Well" instead of "Long Term SEO." Although longer, it is also more descriptive, and more accurate. You can address two issues: what is a high quality web site, and why does it usually rank well. That's the crux of good SEO work. Jehochman 04:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

A few points: 1. My life is an open book. I have a user page that links to my bio and contact information. You're not so open. Please consider being less critical of me. 2. I have made many substantial edits to this page. Some of the good advice in here was written by me, and cited from a well-known book. You'll have to wade back through the history to find my contributions because they have been buried by recent edits (and reverts). 3. The reason this article stinks is that we either have SEOs who try to use it to promote their POV, or newbies who don't understand the field. There is tremendous disinformation circulating about SEO. You may represent the informed-layperson, and I may represent the restrained-SEO. Let's try to cooperate. 4. I'll be happy to do a thorough edit when I get some time. Thank you for the invitation. 5. Please help me watch this page for linkspam. There are linkspammers everywhere... (LOL) Jehochman 04:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

  • "High Quality Web Sites Usually Rank Well" is a big improvement as a title and I'm quite happy to go with that. I agree that there must be a way we can reach consensus. However, if we are to use the large chunks of new information I introduced then we have to credit the sources. That is Wikipedia policy. Whether you personally don't see the destination sites as "authority" sites - or sites with high PR - is not really relevant.

If you are so concerned that my edits are disguised linkspam then I'm quite happy to withdraw and let you do the rewrite. As you say there is "tremendous disinformation" criculating as SEO. Most of it was in this article. It's a shame that through so many edits over so many months you were quite happy to let that disinformation continue but now wish to do a rewrite. However, I'm not one to stand in the way of progress either.

Seeing that nobody else is commenting on this I'll make you this offer: We'll take the article back to how it was before my original edit and you can do the rewrite from there. Not that I'm claiming any licence for the edits I've made - I know how the system works - but we can't really use the extensive content I added without crediting the sources. If you really, really don't want the sources, and nobody else is commenting on this, we'll remove them but we have to remove the associated content. And, no hard feelings; I'll continue to edit the article from your new rewrite onwards.

I'll wait for 48 hours to see if anyone else has any comments before I implement that. MansonP 09:36, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Let's tackle this point by point. You were happy with the new title I suggested. Maybe you'll be happy with further edits that we can collaborate on. Which paragraphs are now problematic due to lack of sources? Let's start with the first one and work through it. Either we can (1) add your citation, (2) modify or delete the info, or (3) find an alternative citation that is more authoritative. My concern is that we find the most authoritative source to cite. Since I am fairly knowledgeable about the body of informtion that has been published on this topic, I may be able to suggest some better sources of the same information. Let's cooperate. Jehochman 14:05, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


Removed New External Link To ALA

Although I respect ALA in general, I don't think their article link belongs. My rationale for removing link:

  • article isn't particularly noteworthy
  • topic (accessibility == seo) isn't new, but I'm sure ALA will get more credit than earlier works because of high profile
  • contains some ideas many SEOs would disagree with (such as code/text ratio being of relevance to search engines)
  • sets a new precedent for link spam which was common on this page until external links where wiped out (bar official SE pages)

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.104.252.171 (talk • contribs) 10 Nov 2005.

Agreed. I wrote a piece nearly 2 years ago that said much the same, though coming more from the accessibility side than the SEO side. I wouldn't consider it to merit a place in the article.-- Jmabel | Talk 06:46, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Related areas

Just a note that although a lot of spam prevention is focused on this article, there are numerous related areas that are being targeted by link spammers to a lesser extent, but that problem will no doubt grow over time.

I just removed a fairly irrelevant link from [search marketing] that was there for over a month. I'm sure we would all benefit if some folks with an interest in this general subject area could stick a few related articles on their watch list to help out.

Weeboab 11:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Done and done. I've been cleaning up the AM entry recently (as well as others) for this reason. If I can't linkspam wiki, then no one can! =] LordMac 14:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

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