At Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization we know that knowledge is power. That's the reason we started this SEO blog. We know that the better informed our visitors are, the better the decisions they will make for their websites and their online businesses. We hope you enjoy your stay and find the SEO news contained within this blog useful.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank all our blog and article subscribers and just our visitors for helping me make the list of most influential writers on link building in a poll over on the Eightfold Logic blog. Of course, I’ve always tried to educate and hopefully entertain in my works and I’m definitely glad it has been well-received. So thanks to you all for voting and be sure to stay tuned, if anything this inspires me to write more often on this important topic and many others.
Sharing the honor with me is a great list of writers that I’d highly recommend following as well. they are:
- Eric Ward
- Wiep
- Debra Mastaler
- Dave Davies
and a tie for fifth;
5. Rand Fishkin
5. Ralph Tegtmeier – Fantomaster / “Fantomeister”
SEO news blog post by Dave Davies, CEO @ 5:15 pm
As they mentioned over on SE Round Table – the discussion regarding reciprocal links has been had hundreds – and maybe even thousands of times. At least once per week I get asked about them either whether they’re part of what we do or if te person on the phone should do them, etc. etc.
I won’t pretend to have the hard-and-fast answer that is true 100% of the time ind in fact – my belief is that there is no answer that is right 100% of the time. It’s one of those pesky times where one has to use their common sense. Rather than trying to find a hard-and-fast “recip links work” or “recip links don’t work” one should rather look at each link and ask, “should this link work?” If you’re getting a link on a page with 143 links ranging from real estate to blue widgets then it doesn’t matter whether it’s recip or not – it shouldn’t be counted. On the other hand, Beanstalk has a link on the WebProNews site where they’re references our blog posts, etc. Similarly – I’ve also linked to them as a great resource. Should these links be ignored because we happen to link to each other? Are they recip links?
Here’s the long-and-short of it:
- Recip links are not in-and-of-themselves horrible if it’s an exchange of references with sites you’d actually recommend.
- Recip links can be a royal pain to try to manage. You might find one-way links easier in the long run
- Recip links should NEVER be the only link strategy of a campaign. Of course, the same can be said for any link building strategy. A site that stands on one leg will soon fall.
The debate continues over at Webmaster World at http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/4151507.htm.
Good luck to you. 
SEO news blog post by Dave Davies, CEO @ 7:44 pm
The first thing I’m going to discuss today is the discount being offered by my favorite paid directory Best Of The Web. They always offer good value for the money in regards to both trust enhancement AND just plain old traffic but for the month of May they’re offering a $25 discount on submissions of both your site and your blog. Both the Beanstalk site and blog are in there so I’m not recommending anything I wouldn’t put my own money behind.
So if you’re looking for a good quality link from a solid and respected site, BOTW is a good place to head and I’d recommend doing so before the end of the month. Submission is typical of an advanced directory (find your category, click “Submit”). They charge both annual and one-time fees depending on your short vs long term goals. You can visit their site at http://botw.org/.
Google’s New Face
Some of you may have already noticed that Google is displaying their results differently with a left hand navigation allowing for some advanced tailoring of the search results. I’ve actually been seeing it on my work computer for a couple weeks now on and off. Basically the default results set is the same as always but with a click you can tailor your results by time, type (blog, regular, news, etc.) and they even offer suggestion additional searches to consider.
As an SEO I of course have to consider that this is yet another factor in clickthroughs that I have to consider and that will likely put more work on my plate BUT on the plus side – t also may reduce the bounce rate of sites by allowing people to tailor their results more specifically. Oh – and as a searcher I do like it which (I suppose) is what Google’s trying to do. You can read Google’s post on the new face on their blog at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/spring-metamorphosis-googles-new-look.html.
Once again Google, you’ve made my life a little more complicated but I have to commend you on a job well done.
SEO news blog post by Dave Davies, CEO @ 6:36 pm
Well, today on Webmaster Radio I presented the finding from the first rel=”nofollow” test. A few minutes later in the chat room I was presented with a link to another blog. The post read as follows:
Blogspam works, but only in large quantitiesDave Davies did some research on whether nofollow links still pass some linkjuice, and as it turns out (which we knew of course) it does, a bit… So, for your blogspam to be useful, you have to do it in very very large quantities
Posted on http://yoast.com/
Alright, not exactly what I was getting at. In retrospect however, this is a fairly logical conclusion (not the only conclusion but a logical one). That said, there are a myriad of other factors at play which fortunately will trip up many of the would-be spammers hoping to use this tid-bit of info to their advantage.
The second round of testing will continue as planned. We’re not saying to sp@m anything and certainly not blogs, these tests are run to determine all the available tactics and sometimes just out of curiosity (I don’t fish and everybody needs a hobby 
. If we know that posting in forums WITH LEGITIMATE RESPONSES OR COMMENTS will help our site or a client’s site in the rankings then it is a useful tactic. I’m hoping not to see a flurry of bots now ransacking blogs and forums with “guaranteed lowest rates on mortgages” or the oh-so-useful Viagra ads.
SEO news blog post by Dave Davies, CEO @ 5:10 pm
