Why Pogo Sticking is Not a Ranking Factor
You’re not alone if you fail to see the distinction between a ranking factor and a factor that was used to train the algorithm. However, this inability to comprehend the distinction has caused a lot of misinformation about how CTR is used in search algorithms. I will try to explain this missing information and hopefully the distinction will be clearer. Pogo sticking is when a searcher clicks on a link from Google, doesn’t like what they see, then returns to Google to change their search phrase or else to click on another web link....
read moreElements of a Site Review : False Positives
Theories about Fred and Phantom Have Been Discredited All the theories about “Fred/Phantom” were wrong. This is a fact. Those were not updates at all and they had zero to do with finding “quality” issues with websites. This has been confirmed out of Google. What happened were run of the mill changes to the core algorithm, changes that happen on a near daily basis. Difference Between Negative SEO, DDOS & Exploit Bots What you’re describing is not negative SEO. It could be described as a DDOS attack but some...
read moreHow to Explain Quirky Search Results
This article addresses the mystery of search results that don’t make sense, such as top ranked sites with obviously paid links seemingly powering their rankings. Some top ranked pages have weak backlinks and sometimes only a partial keyword match on the page. The top ranked site shouldn’t be ranked but there it is! These are quirky SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Often, what you see is not what is powering those rankings. Traditional ranking factors don’t always explain why they rank. Google sometimes ranks pages...
read moreUnderstanding Google Updates
The SEO community generally perceives Google updates as targeting metrics of low quality. Anytime a change occurs in Google’s algorithm, the change is understood through the lens of what kinds of sites lost ranking. This is a less than ideal way to understand what Google is doing. That’s why so many theories contradict each other, because they’re looking at the wrong metrics. These are the typical touchstones the SEO community focuses on to understand what an update was: low quality content low quality user experience low...
read moreHow to be a Better SEO
This article addresses shaky SEO strategies that are promoted as important but are outdated. But more importantly, this article will show how some ideas are true or not. Building a better SEO BS Detector will show you how to be more discerning of what you are told to believe and how to detect SEO BS when confronted with it. I believe it will make you a better search marketer. The Problem with Common Sense The problem with good ideas is that they are reasonable and make a lot sense. For thousands of years the idea that the world was flat was...
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