A few of you have been kind enough to report bugs and issues with the internal link building plugin. I’m currently aware of the following issues. They’re on the to-do-list to be fixed and/or improved. I wasn’t sure whether or not to hide these bugs or be upfront about it, but I figure it’s better to fess up and be transparent than whatever might happen in the alternative.

Keep in mind, however, that some problems will be specific to you personally. Try de-activating other plugins before you come to report a problem. If that doesn’t work, then please, I really, really want to hear from you!

Also, if you’re on version 1 of the plugin rather than version 2, get version 2
now as it fixes a common bug (see 2 below) and may address yours. You don’t need to worry about losing saved keywords; they’ll be there when you install the new version. This is per my testing on a 2.5x WP install on this site.

1) Apostrophes are not being accepted as part of a keyword. Problematic for anyone that wants to use a possessive (e.g. mark’s internet marketing) and for many Irish folks.

2) Words that are set as global keywords, when appearing within URLs, get linked. E.g. “cats-and-dogs.com”  appearing as the text will have cats link to the page set for ‘cats’ and ‘dogs’ set to the page for dogs. This bug also affects trying to set something like ‘idea’ to link to seoroi.com/ideas. THIS BUG IS FIXED IN THE LATEST VERSION, courtesy of Chris Balicki of Web Systems SEO / reklama internetowa. Download that and install it if you have any problems.

3) Linking from the destination page to itself. I.e. my SEO services page links to itself. While nothing is technically broken, it’s kinda dorky and shabby usability for less-savvy users who won’t look at a link’s destination before clicking.

4) When words appear within blockquotes or lists they’re not getting linked. I checked this myself and there’s no consistency in the plugin; sometimes the links appear, but mostly they don’t.

5) It looks like the randomize functionality duplicates links. Per Chris Cemper: “If we specify 6 links and place 3 per post, we certainly want 3 unique links, not 3 times the same ones… that would look spammy/unnatural.” I personally could not replicate this, so I don’t know what to do about it.

6) On a vanilla WP 2.6, Chris got this problem

—
internal-link-building
Warning: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument 0000001 is not an array in C:\!work\!testbed2\wordpress26\wp-content\plugins\internal-link-building\Internal_Link_Building.php
—

Err, crap. Anyone else get that/know why that’s happening?

7) There’s no facility to do this in bulk. I’m going to speak to my dev about having some CSV import/export functionality so that multiple keywords/links can be done in one go.

Other requests I’ve had:

1) Simple Tags/another plugin compatibility. If I wanted to make my plugin compatible with every other plugin out there, it would be a money sink. Sorry, but this isn’t happening.

2) No follow functionality (e.g. make a link use nofollow). Not sure why you’d use a link building plugin and want it to do nofollow too. If enough people chime in in the comments, I may have this added. I’m a lot more likely to do this if you offer monetary support through PayPal. But I think you guys could stop citing Wikipedia so often (you know who you are) and use the Wikipedia-nofollow plugin if that’s the concern.

3) Ability to set multiple keywords to link to a particular page. I’m thinking this will be integrated with the bulk feature above. At first, I was reluctant but I just set up about 60 phrases using the tool and it can get tedious if one of your pages targets multiple keywords…

Finally, if you guys would like to help accelerate the development of the plugin and the fixes named above, please leave a comment and what you’re willing to contribute. I’ll email you a money request through Paypal. Supporters will be acknowledged.

Reading the post-Common SEO Mistakes: CSS Image Replacement, I found myself criticized for making the logo here an H1 tag, as well as for making it the first link.  

First, I recognize my mistake on the H1 point.

That was done years ago when I didn’t appreciate fully the distinction between sites and pages and wanted to rank for SEO on the homepage. The H1 is acceptable for that purpose, but it’s a sitewide element – other pages are also getting “SEO ROI” as an H1.

Oops! Thanks Boston SEO !

Second, the first link question needs some context for newer SEOs. Various studies have been done (eg by my friend Branko, the SEO Scientist) on whether all links on a page pass value or just the first.

Some say only the first does, others say all do, and maybe there’s a possibility the first passes more value. So best to make the logo the second link, after a more anchor-text optimized link.

Well, I don’t recall the studies in-depth, but I think the context was external  – not internal – links. Also, the testing by Branko says all links pass value. Third, I can spend time on more productive things.

If I couldn’t spend my time better and did believe that internal links, specifically the first one, pass more value, then the solution is simple: Use CSS to position the logo in its place, but have the code for the logo appear below the first properly anchor-optimized link on the page.

If you liked this tactical discussion on SEO ideas, add my RSS feed to your reader for more! And check out my upcoming advanced SEO book – you can download some free chapters!

Standard conversion advice says remove navigation from the landing page (at least for lead generation landers). Standard SEO says use links. The next best thing would be to put the navigation out of sight, in the footer, and have your calls to action above that so visitors won’t use your navigation to leave your page.

But if you put the nav in the footer, it might get less search engine trust, precisely because folks don’t use footer navigation. What’s a conversion minded SEO to do? Here are 4 options to play navigation peekaboo with search engines and humans to convert your SEO traffic better. Blackhats use some forms of this, but I think I’ve also thought of original twists too.

Cloaking Update – Since this wasn’t 100% clear, cloaking is disapproved in most cases by search engines. Use this at your own risk.

Step 1. Cloak the page to search engines and show them the navigation bright and early.

Step 2. Show humans the navigation waaaaay down the page, which they mostly won’t get to because your awesome calls-to-action are getting them to click before reaching the footer.

CSS

This avoids the risks associated with cloaking, but will likely hurt your conversion rate.

Option 1 Location Rotation: Change the navigation’s position on the fly depending on the referring source. If it’s a search engine, the links are where they should be. For everyone else, the navigation is in the footer.

Option 2 Camouflage: Have the navigation blend in with the background (e.g. white on white text) or else have the navigation “collapse” (e.g. what happens when you click minimize – the minus/dash/underscore – on a regular browser window) automatically when humans visit. I’d guess that the white-on-white can be easily detected by search engines though, so I’d be a little weary with that one.

Option 3 Peekaboo: Another possibility I just thought of is to use DHTML or complicated javascript (e.g. search engine illegible) to immediately place a background-blending graphic over where the navigation would normally appear. Kind of like playing peekaboo – you put your hand in front of someone’s eyes and then other people can only see your hands.

Are domain names the internet’s real estate? Can keyword research be considered intellectual property? I put these and other questions to Eric Goldman and Mark J Rosenberg, both of whom are speaking on SES San Jose’s legal panel. (Clarification: This is an interview, not coverage of an SES session.)


(Image: Jason Burrows)

Note: This post only offers information. It does not offer legal advice, counsel or opinion, and should not be relied upon for such. Speak to a lawyer who is a member of your local bar if you need counsel.

1) Are domains really an equivalent to real estate? I asked my real estate prof that and he highlighted a variety of reasons why they aren’t. Ex.: No rights-of-way, usufruct, and other such items.

Eric Goldman (EG): No, domain names are not virtual real estate, and I always chuckle when I see the domainers bloviate about this analogy. Personally, in almost all cases, I’d rather own the top spot on Google for a keyword than to own the keyword.com. I expand on this point more in this lengthy article: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=635803 [Requires some kind of subscription; password confirmation email not hitting my inbox so I’m not linking to them. Talk about SE friendliness… Abstract looks interesting though!]

Mark J. Rosenberg: He [your prof] is right. Domains are like any other personal property. No different than a baseball bat. They can be bought and sold without any special terms and conditions. If used incorrectly, they can cause damage.

2) Can SEOs be considered fiduciaries/trustees for their clients, at least with respect to the site? What criteria would militate in favor and what criteria would oppose such a characterization? Is implementing non-best practices a breach of trust that can constitute a cause of action?

EG: No, I think the analogy to fiduciaries or trustees is way too strong in most cases. In some cases, SEOs can be “agents” of their clients and have the power to bind their clients to legal commitments, but this is probably not the case with the standard SEO-client relationship.

EG: However, like any professional service provider, SEOs could face malpractice or related claims for botching their jobs. I’ve never seen an SEO malpractice claim but I suspect they will come in the future. Even then, the standard for malpractice will be loose (i.e., general incompetence will probably not be deemed malpractice; it will take a higher degree of incompetence to be actionable).

EG: In all cases, an SEO who does a lousy job will develop a poor reputation and suffer some economic consequence accordingly. Also, this issue becomes less important to the extent clients are paying performance bonuses or other compensation tied to results.

MJR: [Whether the SEO is a trustee or not] is most likely a contract specific issue. Unless specified in the contract and/or SEO given special responsibilities, the answer should be no.

MJR: Some of the criteria that would militate in favor are handling money, extensive control and/or operation of the site including content. Those that would oppose such a characterization include an SEO acting as a consultant merely providing advice, and having limited or no control over site or its operation.

MJR: [As to breaching a trust by forgoing to implement best practices,] This is case-specific. For example, in some situations, there may be a legitimate reason for not implementing a best practice. Otherwise, I would say that depending on the extent of the violation, there may be a claim for breach of contract.

3) Keyword research – can it be considered as intellectual property? If an affiliate manager gives yours away, or a search engine does… are they violating your rights?

EG: It’s possible for the insights derived from researching keywords to be protected under IP. Most likely it would qualify as a trade secret (if it qualifies as IP at all). In order to remain a trade secret, the SEO would have to require everyone who has access to those insights to agree in writing to protect their confidentiality. This can be tricky–especially with the search engines, who aren’t promising anything!

EG: Note, however, that depending on an SEO’s contract with its client, the contract may transfer ownership of the SEO’s work (including their keyword research) to the client. Clients are often as concerned about confidentiality as the SEO, so this can set up some conflict during the contract negotiations. SEOs really interested in protecting their work product, including their keyword research, need to retain an attorney to help them build the proper legal
protections into their contracts and operations.

MJR: It can be considered a trade secret if it is treated as such. If given away without permission, there is a definite violation, provided that it was a trade secret in the first place.

4) What is the standard of care SEOs need to employ in carrying out work for their clients?

EG: As I mentioned, I don’t think the standard of care has been defined in the courts, and I expect it will take some time before it is. In all cases, the legally defined standard of care will be less rigorous than the marketplace expectations of SEOs’ ability to deliver results. Add value to your clients, and you will be richly rewarded. Chunk it, and your phone will stop ringing.

MJR: There is no special standard. It is to abide by contract terms to the best of their ability while governed by the usual implied covenants and standards under the UCC [Uniform Commercial Code, a US inter-state legal convention aiming to harmonize signatory].

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This is a guest post by Brandon Hopkins, a freelance Fresno website designer who blogs at Brandon-Hopkins.com

The most common way to buy links is to find a site that shows up in Google’s index, then contact the owner asking them to add your link in exchange for monetary compensation. What is often not considered is that published pages don’t change very often.

If you have a page that was published 6 months ago and the only change that page has ever see was adding an < a href… tag, isn’t that a red flag? I know it would be to me! Since this is content that is already online, we’ll call this a post-published link purchase. So a better, but often overlooked way to buy links is in pre-published content. Buying links on pre-published pages takes a little extra effort because you have to contact the site owner/webmaster/blogger based on their past articles, but ask for a link in an upcoming article. Since this content hasn’t ever been seen by Google it won’t raise a [why-is-this-otherwise-stable-content-suddenly-changing-] red flag when the post has a link to your website. A few concerns with this method: 1. Posts with a single outgoing link are dangerous. Experienced link buyers know that you can quickly get in trouble if your link is the only outgoing link on a page.

Make sure the pre-published page has a few outgoing links in addition to yours.

2. Paid link outers. Just with any link purchase, you’ll encounter a few people who like to use Google’s feedback form to report your site.

You can easily get around this by not telling the site owner which site you own, and explain that you want a few links. Give them 3 links to include in the post. Your link, and two links to trusted authority sites that are not direct competition.

[Ed: You might also consider buying links “for” the competition and ask to have yours included as well to keep things under the radar.]

3. Time and labor. This is a labor-intense method. You have to suggest topics for a post that your link will fit into. For many bloggers/webmasters, they don’t know what they’re going to post about so you might have to coach them on appropriate topics that would match the anchor text for the links you’re buying.

The only way around this is to outsource the labor (which adds a hard cost) or to bypass the individual blogger and go somewhere that accepts most links (like a regional web directory or niche directories).

4. Poor post quality. Knowing that they’re writing the post for the purpose of linking to you could lead the blogger to write a lazy post. A poorly written post won’t earn many links so you’ll have to rely on the strength of the main domain to provide some juice to your post. This completely depends on who’s writing the post.

A good way around this is to write the post yourself and offer it as free content. You might be able to get around spending money this way. [Editor’s note: Brandon’s implying in this context that you pay the site owner and provide the post. Obviously it’s not a paid link if you just offer a guest article, like Brandon’s doing here.]

Here’s to staying under the radar and on top of the SERPs!

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I’m often asked about Google’s Supplemental Index (SI) and how to get pages out it. Consider these post directions to the exit, the light at the end of Google’s dark tunnel, the “this way to the egress,” if you will. (Ok, so I like my hype, but I promise it’ll be worth it.)

If you’re impatient, click here to get the solution to getting your page/pages out of the Supplemental Index and skip the background info. I think you’re better off with a full understanding of the SI, but I’ll leave it up to you.

As Aaron Wall puts it in his excellent SEO Book, search engines are frequently developing new ways to save computing power. When you do things on a large scale and have billions of websites and web pages to work with, as Google does, getting your computers to run more efficiently will save you money. Lots of it. The Supplemental Index is a way for Google to save money by being more efficient with its computing.

To understand how to get your pages out of the Supplemental Index, you need to understand why they’re there to begin with. In other words, you need to know how the SI works. So let me explain.

When somebody performs a search with Google, what happens behind the scenes is something like this.

1. Google looks at the keywords.
2. It compares them to the pages in its index (think of a library’s index card system).
3. Google determines which pages are most relevant and ranks them.
4. Finally, the results are displayed to the searcher.

It’s incredible, but Google really does do all that in fractions of a second.

(This is a simplified explanation of Google’s processes, based on what Dan Thies wrote at SEO Fast Start. If anyone has the precise page’s link, I’d appreciate a comment pointing it out, as I’ve lost it. Wouldn’t want that page to end up in the Supplemental Index, now would I?)

The second part of the process gets exponentially more expensive for Google every day, as more sites and pages go online. Their computers need to run through more and more content. Google hit upon the idea of using a Supplemental Index as a shortcut in this process. By putting pages of lesser importance in the SI, Google has fewer pages to assess and rank at step two. (Then, only if Google feels its main index has too few pages to allow it to do a good job, will Google resort to the Supplemental Index. It supplements their main index when this one is thin for a particular topic.)

Amazon also had Supplemental Index issues at one point, as Tamar Weinberg pointed out in this picture. It’s nothing to feel bad about. (Note that Google no longer labels pages in the supplemental index as such.)

So how does Google determine if a web site or web page is of lesser importance? The behemoth of search considers how likely a web surfer is to arrive at that page if they randomly click links in a never-ending browsing session. The more likely someone is to visit your page through links on other websites and on your own, the more important your page. This idea is the foundation of Google, better known as PageRank. See Danny Sullivan’s article on PageRank (which he seems very enthusiastic about ranking for the keyword “PageRank,” based upon his linking practices on Search Engine Land) for more info.

The solution to getting your web page (or web pages, as the case may be) out of the Supplemental Index is to get more links to them. These can be links from within your own website, but it’s usually better – particularly with newer, less established sites – to get links from other websites.

If your site is non-commercial, it generally shouldn’t be difficult to get other sites to link to your inner pages, increase your PageRank and help you out of the Supplemental Index. But if your site is commercial, people are generally less willing to link to your pages. For example, the average webmaster (who isn’t an affiliate) has no incentive to link to a product page.

(As an aside, it would make sense for Google to count affiliate links towards determining whether a page belongs in the SI or main index. This despite the fact that they might be considered paid, PageRank manipulating links – which Google despises – otherwise).

So what do you do if you’re a merchant? (I owe this upcoming generous tip to Lorisa, who runs a Montessori school materials site, featuring CD-Roms, teacher tools and more.)

Ironically, you create more pages!

Just not on your own website.

The pages you’ll create will be what’s commonly referred to as “User-Generated Content.” For example, the photo-sharing site Flickr lets people upload pictures that then get an individual page (the picture at the top of this post comes from this Flickr user, as a matter of fact). Flickr’s users generate their content. And they link back to their own sites, or other pages they like, from their Flickr profiles, photo pages and so on.

A particular type of user-generated content site – which I detailed in my article The New Directory – is likely more useful for getting these links than other types of site. This is because the quality of the user-generated content is controlled by member ratings and reviews. While I again encourage you to read the article and learn more, I’m happy to provide you with the easy solution: a list of sites accepting user-generated content where you can get links to your site’s pages.

• Squidoo is a perfect example of The New Directory.
• Gooruze is similar but focused on the internet marketing niche.
• SEOmoz is like a second home to me. I’d be crazy not to point out their great user-generated blog Youmoz.
• Still, in marketing, search marketing social media site Sphinn gives you a nice page – do see my profile and add me as a friend.
• eBay gives users About Me pages.
• Myspace is a classic and should need no explanation.
• Ezine Articles, for what it’s worth, lets you have a profile page. I’m not sure Google cares much about Ezine Articles, though, because contrary to the New Directory, their quality control is nil.
• Dofollow blogs allow you to leave comments where the author’s name links to a page of his/her choosing. These links are counted by Google, as opposed to most blogs, which use nofollow (I’ll implement dofollow once I choose the right plugin). Courtney Tuttle has a good list of Dofollow blogs.
• WordPress lets users create blogs of their own on their site. (I also recommend using the WordPress software if you want your own full-featured blog with plugins such as dofollow. This blog runs on it.)
• PR offers free press release distribution. I’d link to PR Web too, but they don’t offer a free service, so no link love. (Told you being commercial was tough!)
• Search for “your product” and “social networking” on Google. Try related searches like “your industry” + “social networking,” “your industry” + “social media,” “your industry” + “forum(s),” “your product” + “file-sharing,” “your product” + “article distribution.” The sites you find will let you create a profile and links.
• At the end of the day, networking is still crucial, as I told Marketing Sherpa (PDF) (see tip #27). If you can get bloggers and journalists writing about you, that’s going to mean better links, traffic and copycat links from bloggers who repeat what they read in the daily paper.

by One Good Bumblebee
From the Seattle Times today (read in print version) comes a story headlined: “Google Says It Will Challenge Amazon On Electronic Books.” Loyal readers of mine would have known this was coming 7 months ago. Here are a few choice excerpts from my old post:

“Why Google is likely to come into conflict with the mega-retailers like Amazon and eBay[…]” 

“In turn, the margins for internet retailers will become thinner as Google progressively steals marketshare and people just use Google as their default product search. Call it Froogle 2.0.”

Actually, it appears from the Seattle Times story that I was wrong on the margins point because Google will allow publishers to set their own retail price, while apparently Amazon is already selling e-books at a slight loss. Presumably, Google will take a commission on each sale. But Google is trying to steal market share…

This fits in with what I was saying about Google’s affiliate network and how they are going to become the biggest affiliate around in the next little while.

“The organic search results for obviously commercial searches will be dominated by Google Base products. […] Once this happens, Google becomes the largest affiliate worldwide.”

Replace Google Base with Google Books – whose rapid rise to prominence I noted at SEO Book – and you get today’s announcement [Ed: It actually was in Monday’s paper, but I didn’t have time to edit this post].

This isn’t the first time I’ve been ahead of the mainstream SEO community.

Longtime readers will recall how, I picked up on Google’s new submarine crawling, 4 months before the announcement that they were querying site search forms.

Others will remember my presentation of how to use trusts to buy sites at SMX Advanced last year – which also came months after I shared the technique on this blog…

And my SMX Advanced presentation was based partly on a year-old post! Yet people loved it…