So this post is part informational and part test.

I noticed a certain poor quality website was ranking for my client’s brand name and because this particular website was new to me, I looked into why this was happening. The site in question had no inbound links and from what I can tell, no social mentions.

There is simply my client’s brand name in their meta keywords. Nothing in the title tag, nothing in the copy or the meta description etc etc…

And I have it on good authority from a colleague that an ex-Goog told him that meta keywords have always been a ranking factor.

So yeah, pretty sure many will have tried before but this post will include some Googlewack –esque meta keywords. I may even throw some in the meta description, you never know, if I throw enough shit at the wall, some might stick.

Ignorance is unforgivable by people who abuse their position of authority.

I understand sometimes mistakes are made but the articles I have read recently have show clear ignorance and quite despicable.

Danny Sullivan writes a great article tearing apart the paper released by US Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. I don’t need to ad anything to Danny’s article – so I won’t.

One piece of ignorant journalism I read yesterday by Foxnews.com titled “Google and Others Embrace Vile Attack on Santorum”. I won’t link to it for reasons that will become obvious later in the post.

Dan Savage’s great piece of work ranking a definition for the word “Santorum” over Rick Santorum’s official website has caused a storm of publicity.

What many journalists including Dan Gainor writing in Foxnews.com don’t understand is SEO and the ranking factors that effect search engines. Dan writes that the sole reason that Spreadingsantorum.com ranks for the search term “Santorum” is thanks to an extensive lefty campaign to discredit opponents of gay marriage. What Dan makes the mistake of is linking to the website in question with no less than a followed link with the keyword in question “Santorum” within the anchor text.

That’s a nice little high authority link from a global news corporation.

And they wonder why Spreadingsantorum.com ranks so damn well? You are just adding to very reason you are writing the article.

Back to the drawing board Dan.

 

******UPDATE******

So I’d thought I’d tweet Dan Gainor and invite him to read my post and offer him a SEO 101, for him to broaden his knowledge on inbound marketing. Unfortunately after reading the post he chose to block me from Twitter.

It isn’t the biggest surprise. I would be likely to do the same.

But Dan, the offer is still open to guide you through some of the basics to enhance your knowledge and therefore the quality of your journalism.

First of all, this post has been a long time coming. I originally began this post some months ago when my employer was still Branded3, a super awesome digital agency based in Leeds, UK. On the 15^th August (yes, it’s that late) I joined super awesome digital agency Reprise Media as an Edmonton SEO consultant based in their Melbourne office. So now I look back and reflect on the great time I had within the past two years with Branded3.

In my time there I saw our SEO team triple in size. It is a great agency with sound ethics and an ambitious outlook; in fact the company has expanded so rapidly not even the internet has been able to cope (a little internal joke there guys).

Branded3 owes it all to the positive, imaginative and motivated mentality of each and every individual sat in their crowded Aberford office. It is not often you work in an environment where every employee shares the same view of the determined leadership figures at the helm.

It would be lazy of me not to show some individual love to my ex colleagues, so here it is in no particular order:

Patrick Altoft – SEO guru extraordinaire, nuff said.

Tim Grice – SEO sage, mentor, co-conspirator, lunch fiend, Wing Chun master.

Vin Chinnaraja – Inspirational hands on leader, chief skylight closer.

Matthew Jackson – Skilled SEO, excel king, general of Branded3.

Dave Smith – SEO prodigy, Hung Gar sensei.

Michael Auty – Internet warlock, head of meme & troll.

Julian Kay – Lead software developer, fellow mechanical pencil lover, keeper of the cool list.

Phil Broadhead – MotoGP expert, SEO Groover.

Douglas Radburn – Web developing deity, principal pub lunch coordinator.

Ben Jones – Branded3′s right brain, strategic social SEOer, worry to society.

Steve Shaw – Dev leader, chief designer/excavator of bear costumes.

Max Shearer – Web design engineer, owl lover.

Andrew Radburn – Talented SEO architect, games master.

Emma Barnes – Search artist, gaming reviewer, head of Mum jokes.

Mike Jeffs – Search poet, guitar hero.

Liam Stilgoe – PPC protégé, fantasy football novice.

Fiona Dunphy – Creative starlet, social/copywriting pro.

Steve Creek – Creative genius, tennis champ, vegi.

Mark Bowering – Writing divinity, amateur soccer fan.

Andrew Parker – Budding SEO master.

Craig Surtees – Keeper of the internets, chief rambler.

Sanjay Zalke – Technical magician, head of cake.

Felicity Crouch – SEO copywriting goddess.

Andrew Machin – Design champion, award winner.

Scott – Copywriting god, pedal assassin.

A special thanks to Emma for the amazing drawings of all the Branded3 peeps.

And congratulations to Branded3 on a whole for their fantastic DADI Award win.

 

It was emotional.

In a recent post about Mega Site Link Meta Descriptions Character Length I pretty much stated that the character length for the new mega site link was 34 characters.

This came from thorough research into a large number of brand search terms. I then implemented this strategy to one of my financial clients here at  Reprise Media.

Unfortunately my method did no work entirely as it should have. The last word within the 34 characters of my optimised meta description was missed from three of the six mega site link.

This suggests that Google grants a larger number of characters to be shown depending on the website/brand. I am not insinuating that they are biased in any way just that the influencing factor in what is showed in the meta description is not chartacter length.

If it isn’t character length then I am unsure what it could be…answers on a postcard please!

To be safe, I would stick to 30 characters.