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Once upon a time, the prince of SEO, Matt Cutts, said that only a small percentage of web links are nofollowed, and we shouldn’t pay much attention to it.  

I must only be surfing that small portion of the web because I rarely see external “editorial” links that are followable anymore.  I think it’s sad.  Many of these are the editorial links Google originally built an algorithm around, but simply failed to measure the link graph for a publisher’s intent.  

Google.  What have you done???  

So I have questions for all you bloggers, webmasters, spammers, etc:

The major blog and social media platforms nofollow all posted links by default.  They blame spam, but in this automated world, where they press a button to spam 10k blog comments, is the nofollow really deterring anyone?  

We’ve been told that Page Rank scultpting doesn’t work anymore, but are some of us still concerned with leaking Page Rank?  Or have the other signals stepped up to pick up where Page Rank leaves off? 

Does having a lot of nofollows signal to Google that you care about them not misunderstanding your endorsement, or does it signal that you really don’t care who you link to?

Or do you think the nofollow is being counted (somewhat) by Google now anyway, and it doesn’t really matter? 

Personally, I leave this blog dofollow.  I get a lot of spam that gets caught either by my spam script, or by my own eye.  It’s not difficult to moderate – in fact, it’s actually fun.  I see the comments and get a chance to contribute to the conversation.  My old company used to moderate comments for the NFL and other leagues; it was quite managable.  In the past I had clearly marked rules and regulations for my own sites, where I would clearly state what kind of comments and guest posts I would allow (or turn on the “dofollow” for).  If someone gave enough of a damn to leave me a comment and engage me, I’d like to see them get a little token of my appreciation.  

I think the whole nofollow thing is a Google protocol that has gotten out of hand, and in light of Pandas and Penguins, I think we need these good editorial links back.  I think we need a fundamental shift in this industry, but I don’t have the voice to declare it.  

What do you think?

Popularity: 2% [?]

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I learned about Zemanta at a Distilled meetup, where they were praised highly by Tom Critchlow – something about how no company has ever sponsored a Distilled meetup before, but Zemanta is special enough to have the honor.  I also saw a referral by Rand Fishkin on their site.  Maybe some of the 18 million is going to this company?  Anyway, a few of the Zemanta sales team were in attendance.  I spoke to a rep (who later coincidentally became my rep) – sounded like a good model.  It’s not a paid linking service; instead, it’s a pay to be promoted against hundreds of other content providers.  In the end, it’s up to the publisher to determine your value and give you a link.

See, Zemanta is a plugin for WordPress.  Any blogger can get it.  It’s free.  Once installed, on your “new post” screen, as you write a topic, this new module will provide “relevant” images, related pages, in-text links, and tags.  At this point, the plugin is pretty useful – read more here.  If you are a company who wants some links, Zemanta allows you to sign up as a member, pay a CPM, and your site pages and images can show as a preferred resource.  As bloggers write about things related to your website, they’ll see your “recommended” link and idealy click to embed your link into their post as “related articles.”  Very clever.

But did it work as expected?  Technically, yes.  Did it work well?  Not for me.

First, I don’t know the adoption that Zemanta has across WordPress bloggers.  I never heard of them, and I’m a WordPress plugin junkie.  But after running for 2 months and spending almost $800, i received 11,450 recommendations (ie, impressions) and 37 links.  

Only 37. 

I wasn’t feeling good about this.  After 2 months were over and I chose to get the hell outta’ Dodge, my rep emailed me, “I see our average number of links for a $500 (monthly) spend is 25 Links which your campaign was right on target.  If you require more links, Zemanta is not a fit for your content.”  Thanks for the great info after the fact.  Oh, and your math is off.

So it didn’t work to my standards.  No noticeable rank increases.  But that’s why you test things.  Our topic surely played into the lack of chosen links, but for $800 dollars I know from experience that I can pay a link builder to get me 3x’s more links on chosen blogs and websites.

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Well, since I slept through April in its entirety, and missed April Fool’s Day, I’m dedicating May 1st as its make-up day.  Yup – that just happened.  

We all know about the Miserable Failure Google Bombs, but I started to think about other pranks.  There had to be more, right?  Yup.

Smack The Link Finding Tools

Update your websites terms and conditions to include a “service fee” for automated scraping without written consent.  Send Open Site Explorer, Majestic, etc. an invoice with reference to the T&C’s.  Just don’t stand by your mailbox waiting for a check.

Share Analytics Code

Copy the Google Analytics code from the source of a website, and paste it onto one of your crap, spam sites.  Hilarity ensues as they start to notice traffic for Viagra terms.  (Ok, I don’t know if this really works, but I’ve been told it does, and that’s just ridiculous on Google’s part).

Mess With Keyword Reports

Not too unlike the last prank, start Googling terms that will force the target website to appear, while appending funny movie quotes.  When the website shows, click the listing, and laugh at the thought of the SEO looking at their keyword report and seeing “target.com Do You Like Movies About Gladiators?”

Have any of your own pranks to share?

Disclaimer – This post is for entertainment purposes only.  If you actually do this stuff, you have way too much time on your hands, and probably need to find a relationship.  Quick.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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I submitted this tip for a chance to win an 8 minute presentation at the Search Church through SEOmoz.  I didn’t win.  Am I bitter?  Hell yeah I’m bitter, but instead I’ll probably be sitting in the audience with a basket of tomatoes ready to peg anyone with a worse tip than this.  

As a link builder doing white hat work, you know it’s about PR, the pitch, and the R&D (researching prospects and developing relationships).  It’s time consuming, and takes a lot of organization.  ”Did I follow up with that prospect?  Did I just email him twice?  Damn!” Sometimes you just want an easy way to get a few links.  There’s always blog link networks… wait, scratch that.  Well, there’s also CommentLuv.  

What is CommentLuv?

CommentLuv is a WordPress plugin. With 73 million WordPress blogs out there, there’s plenty of people who might be using this relatively popular plugin.  To get the benefit of this tip, you need to be visiting a site with CommentLuv installed.  You don’t need to have CommentLuv installed on your WordPress installation, but you do need a WordPress installation.  Yup – it’s a WordPress thing.  Edit: Apparently CommentLuv will pull in posts from other non-WordPress sites.  I didn’t know that.  More joy!

Check it out on YouTube.

A site that has CommentLuv installed looks something like this, typically after the standard WordPress comment box.

Now watch what happens when I enter a comment, and use my GreenlaneSEO site as the website (that’s right kids, I use WordPress.  Now go ahead and hack me.  I have nothing left to lose!)

Boom.  CommentLuv reached out to my WordPress blog, saw the last post I had created, and created this link.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the blogger approves this post.  And since I’m a white hat SEO (for this post), I actually took the time to read this blog post and comment with something that added to the conversation.  I used my real email address so I don’t look spammy to the blogger.  I even used my real name because I’m, well, cocky. 

So what does this look like once the blogger approves the comment?  Well, let’s take a look with a nofollow checker on (firefox, chrome).

Why are some of the CommentLuv links nofollowed, while others aren’t?  No clue.  It’s blogger preference, and a setting in their plugin.  If the blogger opted for the paid / pro version of CommentLuv you’ll get even more option available to the commenter, notably the choice of a few other recent blog posts to link.  You’ll see that from time to time.  That’s right – some bloggers are actually OK giving you PageRank in your comment links (hint – I’m one!!!).

A side note on submitting comments on WordPress.  Some installations will clear the comment once you submit, and some will show your comment in a moderation state.  I’ve even seen the CommentLuv link get nofollowed while in the moderation state.  Don’t panic. Drink a beer and relax.  You have to be patient and wait for the blogger to approve your comment.  If you leave a stupid comment, prepare to get canned. 

How Do You Find These NoFollowed CommentLuv Blogs?

Google, of course.  Just ask the all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing algorithm who seems to get everything right but how to make use of social signals.  Enter this query into Google’s search box:

inurl:”2012“+intext:”CommentLuv badge”+”recently posted”+”keyword“

The items in bold are knobs, meaning you can change them.  So what are we looking at here?  The inurl operator tells Google to return back a page with 2012 in the URL string.  Wordpress by default likes to post dates of your posts, and since you’d prefer more recent posts (so you know the blogger is still alive), you can enter 2012.  Or, you can enter in a keyword that you think will be in the permalink.  For example, if I just wrote a post about stratocaster guitars, I’d probably want my link to appear in a blog post about stratocasters.  More relevant link juice could get passed.  It’s possible I’d enter “stratocaster” in where “2012″ currently is, that way I could bring up posts like http://www.jag-stang.com/faq/general/will-a-mustang-neck-fit-on-a-stratocaster/.

The next knob is the “keyword” knob.  You want to dig up some posts with some similar keywords not just in the URL, but in the body as well.  Enter that here.   In the case where my inurl is “stratocaster,” my keyword might be “guitar” or “Fender” or “Eric Clapton.”

But we’re not done.  By doing this you’ll get lots of potential (and relevant) CommenLuv pages.  But are they fresh?  Sure Caffeine is supposed to make the results fresher, but not as fresh as humanly possibly.  But don’t worry.  We have a filter for that as well.

Let’s recap:

1. Install a nofollow checker into your browser.
2. Use the search query I provided – tweak as necessary to find relevant blogs.
3. Scan the page quickly to see if the CommentLuv links are followable.  If not, go back to the SERPs and pick the next link.
4. Once you find a good page, read (scan) the post and leave a thoughtful contribution.

Will this get you the ban hammer?  It shouldn’t if you play it right.  If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to get banned from Google (hey, everyone needs a hobby).  But going into this with the actual intent of adding editorial value is what Google’s vague Webmaster Guidelines want.  

If you wanted to go a little gray / black on this, there are scripts that can overwrite your RSS feed (where this info is being pulled) and change your titles so that the anchor text that shows in the links is more of a keyword.  But if an exact match anchor text is what you want you want in your link, I suppose you could also just name your post with that keyword.  Done deal.

I actually find this to be a pretty fun tactic.  Not only do I discover good content, but I get to engage in conversations that are relevant to my site and interests.  I get to find content ideas, and I get to archive some new potential link prospects for guest posts.  I’ve created a shared Google Doc with a few of my close SEO friends where we share a bunch of the good sites that we found using this technique.

Happy link building.   

Popularity: 9% [?]

I’m an SEO for a living, but even I get pitched.  I don’t know if it’s a stale lead list, business directories, or random phone dialers, but yes – I get calls too.  They always seem to know what’s wrong with my site – not just this SEO site, but my other websites as well.  They’re clearly not always paying attention to who they’re pitching.

Oddly enough, every site I own seems to have the same issues according to the canned emails.  Absurd.

Legit SEOs know they have to deal with the snakes in our industry, but if they weren’t successful, they probably wouldn’t be trolling businesses with largely scaled SEO offers.  For the millions of spammy emails they send, they do hit some targets in the form of small to medium sized businesses.  I’ve gotten many calls from old friends who work at, or own, a business that got hit with this pitch.  ”Bill – we just got this email.  Have you ever heard of them?  This seems too good to be true!”  It is.

However, good SEO companies do outreach too.  You can get pitched by good, reliable, talented SEO companies.  But you’ll benefit by asking them the right questions, to make sure you’re weeding out the snakes.  To my SEO readers, what would you ask and why?  Add it to the comments.

1. Can you guarantee rankings?
   If they say yes, be suspicious.  Any SEO can get you some rankings, but even the best SEOs can’t guarantee every ranking.  I’d warn you against any SEO that says they can guarantee a top ranking for any term.  First, you can’t make Google do anything (SEOs are influencers, not negotiators).  It’s possible that their favored rankings and universal results are immovable.  
2. What would you consider a successful campaign?
   If they say “lots of traffic,” ask them what they think about being held to conversions. Any SEO can get you traffic.  They can spam through Twitter, or create irrelevant doorways.  But what good is traffic that doesn’t convert?  The great thing about SEO is it’s inbound by nature.  It pulls in the searchers who are looking for you.  People can be tricked into visiting your page, only to realize that they’re not where they wanted to be.  They’ll bounce in seconds, but your SEO serpent will strut around like a hero.  Hold them to conversions, and you’ll find out pretty quickly how confident your SEO is.
3. What tactics do you use?
   Some SEOs focus on link building, some focus on on-page contextual work, some focus on content marketing, and some focus on sitewide technical optimizations.  If you have an SEO that only does one, you may be missing some necessary ingredients.  Very few sites can be fully successful without all these ingredients – though it’s possible.  If an SEO approaches you without giving you a real sense of skill in those areas, you may have someone who’s creating a quick, automated package that doesn’t have a lot of substance.  
4. What does your reporting look like?
   The reason to ask this is obvious, but sometimes the obvious escapes us in times of need.  Once you see a report, you’ll start to ask a lot of questions.  You’ll be inspired.  The reports that an SEO provide can be a real indicator into how deep their engagement is going to be.  
5. Can you provide some references?
   It’s awkward to call a stranger, but this is really important if you’re banking on an SEO.  You need a review of the SEO.  If they can’t create happy clients that are willing to share their experience with you, then you have to raise a red flag. 

If you’ve been hit with an SEO and you’re wondering if they’re legit, feel free to drop me a note in the comments, on Twitter, or in email.  I’m happy to help save people from bad SEO.

Popularity: 3% [?]