Search Engine Optimisation BlackDog

Because of the fact that I am never 100% happy with my testing results, I decided to run a new test on some new domains. Last year I posted about the fact that it is pretty easy to get your domain in googles index, but now recently I have seen some changes. For the sake of clarity I will label them domain A and domain B.
Details on Domain A :

• a previously  registered .COM domain
• has google analytics code on the page
• has google adsense on the page
• only one page, this page in the google  index.
• plain HTML site
• no previous versions of the site listed on www.archive.org
• registered in January 2009
• sitemap not submitted to google

Details on Domain B

• a new .IE domain
• doesn’t have  google analytics installed
• doesn’t have google adsense installed.
• multiple pages, 3 in the google index
• wordpress based site
• registered in January 2009
• sitemap not submitted to google

Because domain A is a dropped domain, it is likely that thare are some  links to this site. These could be from websites that list dropping domain names, or links to the domain before it dropped. In the past I have seen that google has discounted these, and often won’t list them completely.  Google is very good at cleaning the slate for domains when they drop.  

In the past getting a dropped domain to be indexed, was harder than getting a new domain to be indexed.  Buying old domains, and recycling links was something Blackhat SEOs did in the past, and as expected Google has gotten a smarter over time.  So I was suprised when I saw that the site:domainA.com operator on google was showing this domain

And for domain B with zero links, and hasn’t been submitted to search engines, it is indeed baffling why it would start to be listed in the SERPS.

Yahoo & Google Listing Differences

When I compare what yahoo and google lists for these domains, there is also a big difference. Yahoo doesn’t have any listings for either domain, and for all intensive purposes, it doesn’t exist in their eyes, and on the other hand Google is fully aware of these sites, and is listing Domain B for certain keywords. This would lead me to the conclusion that it is something on google’s side, and the only obvious advantage for Google  is that I have browsed both sites with Google’s internet browser Google Chrome . After a bit of searching I wasn’t able to find any mention that Gogole Chrome can get your domain listed, but I do know that from their privacy terms it is possible that what you type into the browser is sent back to them. Google Chrome Privacy Info

“When you type URLs or queries in the address bar, the letters you type are sent to Google so the Suggest feature can automatically recommend terms or URLs you may be looking for.”

So this might be yet another way to make sure that your domain gets indexed by google.

More for myself , I wanted to put together a list of European Search conferences taking place this year. These generally come under title Affiliate Marketing, Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation conferences. I still on the fence whether to attend some of these or not. Most of these require travel and  I would need to take the best part a week off to attend. And I wonder about the level of content at these events.

I’m guessing that for most of these events that my level of expertise would leave me not learning that much. Sometimes I get the feeling that (especially the SEO conferences they) are aimed at companies who don’t know very much about the area.  The main attraction to such events for me would be the networking possibility.  Working on my own means that I don’t really see too many people face to face. Although there are a few prominent German SEO’s in Munich whom I have met from time to time.

List of European Search Conferences 2009

If you have any event you want me to add, just let me know.

Have you attended any of these conferences in the past ?  Are they worth  going to ?

Edit 12/1/2009 : added Search Marketing World in Dublin

One of my pet peaves with WordPress is that you can’t specify all the attributes to links in your blog roll. While it’s possible to add some of the unpopular XFN relationship data to inform people about your relationship to the link, like ::

• if you met the person you are linking to
• it’s a link to a friend or family member
• if you happen to have a crush the person
• or it’s another website you own

While these are nice, they don’t normally serve much purpose for me. The XFN relationships that are of interest me are ::

• rel=”nofollow” : for limiting the flow of pagerank
• rel=”external”  : XHTML compliant version of target=”_blank”

So here is a quick tutorial as to how you can add these attributes to your current version of WordPress (done for version 2.7).  
 

How to add nofollow to Wordpress Blog links

Warning:As with all editing of files, you should keep a backup of them before you start to change them. Believe me, it will save some headaches along the way. 

Adding the nofollow and external attributes is quick, easy and painless, here are the 3 steps.

1. open file /wp-admin/edit-link-form.php
2. Go to line line 193 / 194 and find
   <tr>
<th scope="row"> <?php _e('identity') ?> </th> 
3. Above  that add
   <tr>
<th scope="row"> <?php _e('seo') ?> </th>
<td><fieldset><legend class="hidden"> <?php _e('seo') ?> </legend>
<label for="external">
<input class="valinp" type="checkbox" name="seo" value="external" id="external" <?php xfn_check('seo', 'external'); ?> />
<?php _e('external') ?></label>
<label for="nofollow">
<input class="valinp" type="checkbox" name="seo" value="nofollow" id="nofollow" <?php xfn_check('seo', 'nofollow'); ?> />
<?php _e('nofollow') ?></label>
</fieldset></td>
</tr> 

Once you have this,  go to Links on the side bar, and now you can change existing links or add new links with these attributes.  There will now be an extra line in the Link Relationship section of your Links page.

Why use rel=”nofollow”

This is used when you don’t particularly want to endorse a link you are linking too.  Normally a link to another page from your website, is seen as a vote for that page. And each page only has a certain ammount of voting power. If you use the rel=”nofollow” no virtual vote will be passed to the link tartget. For more info have a check for “PageRank”.

Example of controlling votes via rel=”nofollow”. If in your blog roll you have 10 links, but 2 of them are to well know services, you can choose to disable your vote to them, and to increase the effectiveness of a link to those other pages.

Why use rel=”external”

In XHTML Strict the link attribute target is not supported.  Previoulys target was used as a link attribute to open new pages, break out of frames, by using target=”_blank” , target=”_parent” etc.  Now in XHTML you need to use rel=”external”  to inform the browser that this should be a new  

Next time at BlackDog

Next week I will be discussing on how to edit your wordpress template, to just have your blog roll on your main page of your blog.