SEO ROI

The blog SEO experts read.

Google Slaughters Wall & Inman, But Amazon Survives

Author: Gabriel Goldenberg, April 17, 2008

Google killed former SEOmoz CTO Matt Inman’s widgetbait because some Guardian reporter didn’t like it and wrote his negative opinion up. Then Aaron Wall was unlucky enough to trust a jerk who asked Matt Cutts about Aaron’s affiliate program based linkbuilding.

The question is: Will Amazon get a beat-down too? For their affiliate program based linkbuilding?

Don’t be silly.

3 Lessons for the Weary:

1) Don’t make Google look stupid. This is the cardinal rule of SEO. Spam isn’t a problem until it makes Google look bad. Sometimes that’s just by ranking. Other times you figure out a way to get lots of whitehat links and then bingo - you’re nailed. Note: I personally find the Widgetbait issue particularly weird, since Google’s saying to webmasters: we’re not holding you responsible for your own content.

2) Avoid getting too specific, particularly about your sites or clients’ sites.

3) Build your brand. Duh.

4) If you find some code that works to build whitehat, links in a scaleable fashion, keep it to yourself and do your best to stay on the downlow/practice reputation management. The Guardian folks wrote the story up a couple of times, and it’s plausible that they’d have wrapped it up after one piece with some reaching out.

Liked this? Subscribe to my RSS feed. (This link may be duplicated if you’re a new visitor by an automatic plugin. Just FYI if you’re wondering…)

StumbleUpon It!

Related posts

Comments

  1. I think Google should not penalize for inbound links.

    Imagine a competitor does a widgetbait and makes it look like
    you did it.

    Google then penalizes you for his actions.

    Not fair. Not fair

    [Reply]

    Comment by Lassar — September 23, 2008 @ 7:39 pm

Post a comment.




Latest News

5 Great Reasons To Attend SMX Advanced

You NEED to attend SMX Advanced. It's that simple. The single best investment you can make in your search education and professional life this year will be happening in Seattle, June 2-3, 2009. Here are 5 sweet reasons to attend. 1) Marty Weintraub of Aimclear search marketing is on at least 2 panels. At SMX West, he schooled myself and the rest of the audience with such creative techniques that I couldn't ...

Read More

It’s Crunch Time!

For school, work and taxes. Therefore, posting will be light or nonexistent for the next two weeks. When I return, I've got some massively juicy content for you, including interviews I did at SMX West with Bruce Clay of Bruce Clay Internet Marketing and Gillian Fishkin of SEOmoz. Those are two of the top shops in the game today, by brand awareness and client base, and our interviews focused on the business ...

Read More

Testimonials

"As someone with a strong understanding of advanced SEO techniques, I wasn't sure if an SEO consultation was something that I needed; however, I knew from Gab's articles that if I did, he was the person to go to.
Working with Gab reaffirmed that belief.
Gab did some link building work with me and also spent some time doing a phone consultation. He was the perfect sounding board for some of the big ideas that I've been planning on implementing, and he also introduced me to some concepts that I'm excited about trying. It's very obvious that Gab has a passion for SEO, and he's constantly working to not only be one of the most knowledgeable people in the industry, but also to push the limits of the field by testing new ideas.
He was a pleasure to work with, and I'd recommend him to business owners with all levels of SEO needs."