Hall Of SEO

Archived Posts from this Category

SEO Facts

Posted by admin on 11 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

The internet is the largest market place on earth. It offers unparalleled access to an international base of consumers - and referrers. However, the internet is also an extremely overcrowded place. With such an opportunity to make a business presentation to the world, many companies seek to take advantage of this unique chance for global exposure by creating a website. Yet simply having a website is not enough. A website alone will be lost in the crowd - a crowd of over 4 billion webpages indexed on the Google search engine alone. A website needs to be visible, and in a highly targeted manner, so that a company can connect specifically with potential customers. If any company is serious about generating sales within the largest marketplace on earth, investment is required in one form or other of internet marketing.

Probably the most desirable internet marketing options are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-click (PPC) campaigns. According to BBC research, 70% of internet users will turn to a Google search engine to locate web sites covering any particular subject. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of ensuring that these internet users, who search for keywords and phrases directly associated with your business market, find your website ranked among the top search results. The process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) thus creates visibility, and can clearly mark out a site from the crowds.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves the building highly targeted internet links to key site pages on your website. At the heart of this process is the building of an Independent Back-Linking Network (IBLN), an artificially created network of sites that imitates the wider linkage patterns of the wider internet. Dozens of websites and tens of thousands of pages can be involved in an IBLN, whose sole aim is to promote a particular client’s website(s). Because of the variability of the Search Engine industry it is impossible to make any estimates as to what positions may be ultimately achieved on these search engines. However, an IBLN takes into account the algorithms and patents owned by Search Engines, and thus is able to account for future changes in the industry, and can create solid sustainable results. It’s a laborious and time consuming process and also takes time to take effect. Add to that the fact that even Google can take up to 8 weeks to locate any particular link, means that a properly conducted SEO campaign should be expected to take place over a six-month period, to ensure proper results. The primary aim of the SEO campaign would be to achieve targets agreed between ourselves and the client. The secondary aim would be to then exceed these results to ensure wider high rankings across Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

More on:

http://www.silverlion.biz
http://seo-book.blogspot.com

Laws of Similarity between Material and Organic Entertainment

Posted by admin on 17 Dec 2009 | Tagged as: Domain Snapping, Hall Of SEO, Safaris + Travel

Similarities ‘tween material and graphic amusement

The show must proceed as they state and so it will be in both interpersonal media and entertainment in social living. Weather you run a blog or an amusement parkland like Rollercoaster Park, Tivoli or Universal Studios, you will want dealings and visitors to your entertainment ballpark or your blog.

To achieve the quantities of visitors you will want to advertize your entertainment institution or your blog. Especially for your web log it is as well very important to meter the dealings and study the visitors behavior. Dealings sources are also highly important and you must measure and examine keywords and SE visitors, this can be done for free utilizing Google Analytics or the Free Trial SEO Support.

No matter if you have a website or a material world amusement park you must present your visitors fantastic experiences, something they will commemorate and something they will come back for. There are some similarities ‘tween real and virtual entertainment and both meet a role in modern day life. It would be wrong to argue otherwise.

The most serious entertainment web sites draws exactly as many visitants as do physical amusement parks like Universal Studios or Lego Land. There are, of course, divergences in the manner the amusement will come out, online you only have a screen to produce the experience but the approachability is very much broader on the net, which can be found in every household, while entertainment parks are only found in the vicinity of larger cities and the upper order amusement parks can just be observed in a few spots in the world.

Optimise Your Meta Description for a Better Clickthrough Rate

Posted by admin on 09 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO, Tips, Web + Hub

Although it is a fairly basic concept, the meta description tag is one that is consistently ignored and/or mis-used.

First of all, it is not a replacement for the no longer used keywords tag, yet on a daily basis many an SEO Company will work on sites and use this simply to display a load of keywords that are supposedly relevant to the page, presumably on the understanding that the meta description can be used to increase a site’s rankings.

It will not.

That is not to say when optimising a site you should not include keywords relevant to the page within your description, but remember this:

Meta descriptions are for clickthroughs, not rankings.

The meta description is the advert for your site’s page in amongst all the other sites listed in the SERPs. In a competitive list of search results, it can be the key to driving traffic to your site/page.

Therefore, when writing your meta descriptions for your site’s key pages, a few points to bear in mind:

  • Make sure the text is succinct and compelling whilst remaining descriptive and relevant to the page.
  • Ensure that it contains relevant the keywords for that page, they will be made bold in the SERPs and will draw a user’s attention to your link, just don’t over do it.
  • Use different descriptions on different pages, it’s ok to use a site-level description on the home page but avoid doing so on sub pages of your site.
  • You don’t always need to write a description tag. Whilst they are undoubtedly important on key pages on your website that target high volume searches, if you run a blog it maybe wiser to let the search engines display the query-relevant text from within your article to make the descriptions more relevant to long tail search queries.

Link Popularity: Why It’s The Best Investment You Can Do For Your Business

Posted by admin on 10 Feb 2009 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

More and more search engines rank your web pages based on the number of links that point to your web site (link popularity). Google uses link popularity as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas.

In the near future every major search engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining good link exchange campaigns are essential to the success of your business. Also, finding the right partner to exchange links with is equally as important as becoming a member of a link farm can be devastating to your long term search goals.

Your exchange link partner should be reputable in the industry, and should provide links back to you on pages that have a high page rank.
The end goal is to have the greatest number of websites pointing to you saying on the link itself, “Your Company - Offering (insert your key phrases here)”.

For a good ranking on Google, Inktomi and Altivista, you need good links that point to your site. If you develop a strong content oriented site you can persuade thousands of other webmasters to link to you or to trade links with you. If you want to do it yourself, all you need is the right content, the right email letter, and a keen eye for finding sites that well link to your site.

The key is to develop content people want to link to and then get out there and make the contacts by visiting people’s sites, sending out personalized emails to webmasters of sites you have visited, and networking in discussion groups.

You can also make posts in forums related to your industry to increase your link popularity. Just do a search on any search engine with your industry + forums or discussions and you should be able to find a few discussion boards where you can make posts.

Make sure that you find a way to participate on the discussion as opposed to just posting an ad that’s not related to what people are talking about.
Another way that you can greatly increase the link popularity of your website is by publishing articles. There are literally thousands of ezine and newsletter publishers that would love to publish your article on their ezine.

Again, if you search for ezines related to your industry you should find plenty of places where you can submit an article and see it bring lots of targeted traffic. Make sure you place your resource box at the bottom of the article and require publishers to keep it there.

That’s it for now. For more info on how you could Get a High Ranking on Google in 3 Days, Visit www.WebProfitSecrets.com/FastonGoogle

Marcio Dias is an established Web Marketing Specialist who has taken
dozens of sites from obscurity to millions of visitors per year in as little
as a few months. Visit his main site at:
http://www.webprofitsecrets.com?s=ea

Google Groups

Posted by admin on 08 Feb 2009 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

Some very early users of the Internet - not the worldwide web as we know it today - but the Internet from the early 1980s, will have heard of, and likely used, Usenet. This was the collective name applied to text-based electronic bulletin boards that were used to communicate in the days before the web and email existed, and that are still in use today. The Usenet posts were first collected and organized for worldwide web use in 1995, by a company called Deja News. In 2001, Google bought Deja News and applied their considerable search expertise to Usenet posts. The result is Google Groups.

There are well over 30,000 Google Groups today. These are hosted on servers all over the world, and Google Groups provides a browser-based interface to them, as well as creating searchable archives. From a very clean interface, users may search any of the various subsections of Google Groups. In the same way a clothing web site may be divided into sections for men’s, women’s, and children’s wear, Usenet is divided into sections such as biz (business related), comp (computer related), humanities (art, literature related), and so on. From there, subsections may be divided into more specialized sub-topics where necessary.

Sadly, many Google Groups are now spammer hangouts more than anything else. Widely available web access and programs that can automatically post to thousands of newsgroups in just a short while have destroyed much of the original spirit and usefulness of the Usenet groups. And parents need to know that on some sections of Usenet there are some very inappropriate topics that have been started over the years, so they should exercise due caution in protecting their children from those sections.

For those who don’t mind a bit of digging through the virtual trash can, there are still many, many useful and active Google Groups, full of friendly, helpful people, so be sure to check out this often-overlooked resource.

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

Site-Digest 7 Simple Steps To Place Your Site Map On Steroids

Posted by admin on 04 Jan 2009 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

The Site Map is a too often overlooked piece of the Search
engine Optimization Puzzle. Here is a Simple Step 7 step
approach to create a Super Charged Site Digest on Steroids
that will get your web pages indexed faster and more often.

Step 1 Use Pseudo Directory Naming Convention

A Recent Article (’See How Using a Pseudo Directory Can
Increase your Page Ranking and Organize your Web Site’)
discussed how you could increase your Page Rank scores by
using a Pseudo Directory.
(http://ewguru.com/pseudo-directory).

Briefly keep all your web pages in one Directory but append
a Prefix to the name so you could organize your pages like
a Directory structure and still get the Page Rank Boost for
having all your pages nearer the root.

As an Example For a Web Site about Pillows may have

    ‘Buck’ as Prefix for Buckwheat Pillows

    ‘Fea’ as a Prefix for a Feather Pillow

    ‘Poly’ as a prefix for Polyester Pillows.

Files would now be named:

    Buck-QueenSize.html

    Fea-QueenSize.html

    Poly-Queensize.html

Step 2 Keep Your Pseudo-Directories Small and Manageable.

An Efficient way to use this method is to find and republish
10 to 20 articles at the same time with the same topic. All
articles on the advantages of Buck Wheat Pillows would be
named:

    buck-article1.html

    buck-article2.html

    buck-article3.html

    ….

    buck-article10.html

After 10 to 20 Articles are Published to the Web-Site a
Table of contents is created as per step 3. A few
days later more articles about Buck Wheat Pillows are added
and are assigned a Prefix ‘buck2′. All these new pages are
now named:

    buck2-article1.html

    buck2-article2.html

    buck2-article3.html

    ….

    buck2-article10.html

A Table of Contents is Now Created for ‘Buck2′

Similarly next time Articles about Buckwheat Pillows are
collected ‘Buck3′ would be used as a Prefix.

The Main advantages of this method are:

    Google will easily find and index all your new pages

    Lots of Small manageable Pseudo-Directories Each with their own Table of Contents.

    Your Site-Digest in Step 4 is always Fresh and Changing changing.

Step 3 Create a Table of Contents for each Pseudo Directory

So Lets say under Buckwheat you have the Following Pages

    Buck-QueenSize.html

    Buck-TravelSize.html

    Buck-NeckPillow.html

    Buck-isBetter.html

    Buck-releivespain.html

Create a Table of contents for your Buckwheat Pillows
Listing only your Buckwheat Files and Call it
‘Buck-Table-of-Contents.Html’. Similarly you would
have a Table of contents for your Polyester and Feather
Pillows.

Step 4 Create a Site-Digest with all your Products

Create a File and name it Site-Digest.html and list the
Buck, Poly and Feather Table of Contents Files. Of course
this Site-Digest File would also contain your Mattress
Table of Contents and Towel Table of contents and
anything else you may sell.

A Sample Site Digest may look like this

    Buck Wheat Pillows Table of Contents

    Feather Pillows Table of Contents

    Polyester Pillows Table of Contents

    Mattress Table of Contents

    ….

    Bath Shop Table of Contents

Step 5 The Google Sitemap File

You would now create a Google Sitemap file. Be sure and
tell google that your Site-Digest File Changes often. This
way google will grab this page and Index your site
(http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/googlesitemap.html)

Step 6 Step Keep Your Site-Digest Current

Every time you create a new pseudo-directory and Table of
contents for that pseudo-directory simply add it to your
Site-Digest. Now when Google grabs your Site-Digest it
will Spider all your new Table of Contents and Magically
Index your new pages.

Step 7 Super Charge your Site- Digest

If you would like to Super Charge your Site-Digest Name
your Hyperlinks with descriptive Keywords. Add A Summary
about each item in your Site-Digest

    Buck Wheat Pillows Table of Contents - Description

    Buck Wheat Pillows Table of Contents - Link

    Feather Pillows Table of Contents - Description

    Feather Pillows Table of Contents - Link

    Polyester Pillows Table of Contents - Description

    Polyester Pillows Table of Contents - Link

    Mattress Table of Contents - Description

    Mattress Table of Contents - Link

    ….

    Bath Shop Table of Contents - Description

    Bath Shop Table of Contents - Link

By Following the above simple steps and creating a Super
Charged Site-Digest you will make it easier for Google to
index your current and all of your new Web Pages.

EzineArticles Expert Author Mike Makler

Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 and
has built a Huge 100,000 Member Organization in a Popular
online Program.

Subscribe to Mike’s Newsletter here http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/list-sign-up.html

Get some useful Free Downloads Here: http://trafficninja.com,

Some more Articles from Mike: http://weeklytipsandtricks.blogspot.com/

Mailto:weeklytips@kioskcities.ws

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler: all rights reserved.

Google, Adsense, SEO, and How It All Works

Posted by admin on 08 Oct 2008 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

Google uses an algorithm to determine the search engine results (SERPS). The algorithm is based upon certain factors that include keyword density, Meta Tags, anchor tags, image tags, back links, etc etc etc.

If your site is optimized for specific keywords than you will rank better in the search engines. There are many factors but onsite optimization is a must. You can research and fine out the information yourself or hire and SEO. I have put together some Free Basics on www.seo4dummies.com

Overture shows you the bid price of certain keywords. Wordtracker show you the amount the term is searched. You can use www.nichebot.com a free tool to see all this at once.

You can research keywords free online with these various tools.

www.nichebot.com ( my personal SEO Favorite)

http://www.webmasterautomation.com/cgi-bin/keywordtool.cgi

http://www.keyworddensity.com ( Keyword density analyzer )

Adsense / Adwords.

Google Adwords have a bid price to display certain “keyword terms”. Think of Adwords as TV commercials. Webmasters can put Adsense on there websites. Think of Adsense as the TV Program. If a viewer of your webpage clicks on one of your ads, you get a commission. That commission is based upon the price of the Adword. Google keeps about 60% of the bid price and passes about 40% to the webmaster or Adsense account.

The way the Adsense ads are displayed is determined by the Keyword Density of your individual sites. If you site is prominently about “say Dogs” then the Adsense will display ads about Dogs. However, Google in its new business model is now tracking IP numbers and providing more local ads. Think of the local TV commercials. They are not as expensive as the National Ads. Therefore you may have local ads that are displayed on your site that have only a$0.03 payout rather than a $5.00 payout.

If you optimize you site for your theme, or content, then you can generate more traffic to you sites based upon your keywords. The Google Adsense, will display ads relevant to your topics. If they are not displaying ads to our topic, then you must adjust your Density of your keywords in the body of text of the page.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of changing your website, so that it is spider friendly. If your site is brand new it will take a few months for Google to index your site and be visible in the SERPs. This is known as the “Google sandbox theory”. Aged sites should already be indexed as long as the site has something for the spiders to grab. Excessive graphics, java scripts, PHP sessions are all not spider friendly.

To get spiders to come to your site often and grab your data, you must have links from outside websites to your site. This is the Coveted Page Rank factor. Page rank is only a factor of the amount of incoming and outgoing links to your site. Only a small percentage of Page Rank is attributed to the Google Algorithm for Search Engine Results at this time.

Spiders follow links, once there are links established the spiders will Crawl, your sites. They will gather minimal information. Several Weeks to months later, the spiders will Deep crawl you site and index all that is available. To speed this process along, back links or links to other sites is a must. The more links the spider can travel to get to your site the better. Linking to like minded topics is always best. You don’t need to buy LINKS. You can acquire links via posts in forums, writing and submitting articles, using a Blog post, submitting to SEO friendly directories.

To view the spider activity on your site, first go to your traffic stats. Look for the googlebots. See how often they come and the amount of data they have “grabbed”. You can also go to Google itself and if you are indexed view the Cache of your page. That cache date is a good indication of the last true crawl of your site.

To see if you are indexed go to Google and type in the search box, site:www.yourwebsite.com ( make sure the word site is not Capitalized and you replace he words your website with your actual URL). View the results. You should also repeat the process and this time leave out the www. , and just enter the site:yourwebsite.com

Sometime webmasters leave out the www., but then look for Google using the www. Or link to sites using the www. Either way is fine, just pick one version and be consistent with www. Or non www throughout your website career.

As the spiders come to your site they will start to grab information, that information is sorted and returns the SERPS. Did you know that there are different DataCenters throughout the world that Hold that information? If you ask a friend on the say East Cost to search for a term and tell you where you site is in the SERPS, they result on the West cost may be completely different. As much as 5-10 or more positions depending on the activity of that keyword.

Ok that’s enough for today.

EzineArticles Expert Author Eric Gehler

Eric J Gehler

Search Engine Optimization Richmond Va

New Niche websites monthly

Permission is granted to publish all or any portion of this article. Author’s name and website must appear with any publication.

Linking for Traffic not Positioning!

Posted by admin on 07 Oct 2008 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

With more and more experts and search engine enthusiasts
claiming the right way and the wrong way to handle link
swapping, link exchanging or reciprocal linking!


You can tell something is important when there is more than
one name for it! GRIN!


There are also two schools of thought on the reasons link
swapping.


The first reason for link swapping has always been to carry
favour with Search engine rankings. Have a good site with
lots of links and this is seen as a good thing and
therefore Search Engines will rank you higher.


Sadly, like all things in life, this system can be abused
and taken to the extreme. Sites are buying in hundreds if
not thousands of links trying to “boost” their ranking
artificially. This is fine in the short term but we are
starting to see a fundamental shift in Search Engine
algorhythms.


My last article of link swapping , If Content is King, then
surely relevance is Queen! explains my personal view of
relevant linking which is still follow.


There is now a second and perhaps more disturbing reason for
swapping links.


To build a useful link resource or directory for your
visitors.


With working with similar themed sites, swap links to build
a directory service which can share and drive traffic to
sites within it. Some have even claimed this can drive more
traffic that a Search engine ranking.


So how do I create this vision of loveliness.


Simple, build an on topic directory of your major site
content.


There are a couple of great tools you can use to automate
this process.


http://www.j2-squared.com/linking-101.htm


http://www.j2-squared.com/power-linking.htm


These tools will add new sections, manage your directory
structure, and allow you to add links or even allow others
to add their own links which you just approve.


This can all be run from a web browser so you can be
swapping links sat on the beach or in fact from anywhere.


They are so simple to use you could get family to help out
too! GRIN!


In terms of places to find links try:


www.linkpartners.com


as a good start point.


Remember, Search Engines change their algorhythms all the
time and you could fall out of favour at any time.


Your visitors are also getting more sophisticated and
demanding at the same time. Give the visitor what they want
first and let the search engine sort the rest out!


Good Luck!

Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists inInternet consultancywhose specific aim is to drive more revenueto websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.

Google Loosing Fan Base?

Posted by admin on 25 Sep 2008 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

“Nothing last forever but the Earth and sky.” - from Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

Google has spent the last year evolving from a search engine to a giant media corporation. At birth Google was worried about only one thing, search - and that focus is why it became so successful. As Google spreads out many are wondering, are they doing it too fast? Are they letting quality slip? As any company evolves it will make mistakes, but has Google lost sight of its goals?

Google gained large distribution when Yahoo switched to it to drive down Inktomi stock price, only later to buy Inktomi. Google then came to power stealing traffic from Yahoo by providing clean, relevant results, and good search tools for surfers and webmasters alike. Many estimate that Google controls in excess of 75% of the search market.

Microsoft is still working on its search engine. Yahoo recently acquired Overture and is working behind closed doors in much the same way as MSN is. LookSmart has not updated Wise Nut in a long time, is hated by a large portion of the internet community, and is soon set to loose most of its distribution. And Ask Jeeves (owner of Teoma) has its top results powered by Google AdWords. With Google powering Yahoo, AOL and many other sites Google lacks a clear competitor today.

Right now Google can take its huge lead and extend it, or let it slip. No system is perfect and there will always be complaints, but I have to wonder if Google has forgotten why or how it became such an icon.

Many people have reported their Google Toolbar has been failing to return PageRank 90% of the time. While the hysteria around PageRank is somewhat overrated, it would be more assuring if the feature worked often.

One of the biggest problems search engines face today is a lack of quality content on the web. Earlier this year Google introduced a program called AdSense which displays its pay per click AdWords ads on many mid sized web sites. AdSense was designed to help pay to produce better content sites. Soon after Google introduced AdSense they included a related searches link set underneath the ads which made webmasters angry. This technique was siphoning off traffic from websites back to Google with no payment of any kind. Quickly Google had to repeal this move.

Google has also signed its AdSense members to a gagging clause. Beyond that gagging clause many have complained about getting kicked out for reasons they could not even challenge. Then for these same members to see how much money Google had owed them up to that point they had to agree to another set of terms that prevented them from criticizing the AdSense program. But the ads get worse.

Google was in a race with Overture to be the first to provide broad matching on its search terms. Google got there first. The idea behind broad matching is that it will allow Google to sell more of its ad space by providing ads on similar terms that were not yet sold. Overture allows different bid prices on different levels of matching. Google sets a single price on the ads, and this causes a huge problem for those who do not know how to use the system.

First the broad matching ads are less relevant. The term broad indicates far reaching and is self explanatory to its end effect on relevancy - which is in the exact opposite direction of Google’s roots. This new type of broad matching matches many remotely close search phrases to those paid for by the advertiser. Couple near matching with the fact that ad sites and pages are scanned for relevancy (which is frequently inaccurate) and a big problem starts to come about with how to provide relevant ads on the syndicated results.

While many of the SEO experts know how to use negative keywords, tracking, and other advanced features, the smaller advertisers do not always have the resources or understanding to effectively use this new, more complex medium.

Now instead of rewarding businesses for hunting out the phrases that exactly match them (and thus providing higher quality search results), Google is rewarding the largest companies by allowing them to be lazy. Google is shooting itself in the foot by degrading relevancy for short term profits.

Large companies bid on generic cover all terms at prices where they loose money on every transaction until the competition goes under. Not only do these name brands enjoy higher click through rates (due to brand recognition), but those with stockpiles of cash can afford to burn through thousands without a blink. Many small sites can not, thus the sad state of internet media is that it is now consolidating much the same way as offline media is.

It gets even worse for the small website now though. These same ads which they are using may now appear on pages that sometimes do not even remotely fit the ads. I was looking at the GMT clock time zones to ensure my clock was set at the right time today (so I missed daylight saving time). The page which had the different time zones listed a few cities and a group of AdWords. Most of these AdWords were targeting Las Vegas (most likely the most expensive US city). Las Vegas was not even one of the cities mentioned on the list. Not a relevant ad set. Bad for all parties involved.

What is the result of this change to AdWords? Lower quality ads at a higher price. Nick Denton predicted that the expansion of these ads across the web (especially coupled with decreased relevancy) that users will start to ignore them. Much the same way as banners have faded, only a few years may be left before this advertising medium chips away and destroys itself.

What about the regular Google search results? At least they are strong, right? Sometimes they are rather week. Some clients have had search results dominated by the same sets of interlinking sites. Aiming to fight spam, Google is acknowledging this fact by incorporating a new major algorithmic change on the web live. My site went from #17 to #7 to not in the top 1000 websites for “search engine marketing”. While I still have customers that need work done on their sites, this sporadic re mixing is not refreshing in my mind, as well as in the minds of many of my customers.

I have already had concerned emails arrive from friends worried about loosing thousands of dollars a month as their top listing evaporated. All I can tell them is wait and see.

Much of what people have feared would happen to Google after it goes public has already happened. It is clear that competitive open source alternative search engines such as Nutch are not desired so much as required.

About The Author

Aaron Wall

author and owner of Search Marketing Info

http://www.search-marketing.info

aaron@search-marketing.info

Is This A “DMOZ Killer” In The Making?

Posted by admin on 22 Sep 2008 | Tagged as: Hall Of SEO

Is building a Human-Edited Fully “Democratic” Search Directory Possible?

The independent creators of the non-profit “BuildtheHive” (www.BuildtheHive.com) think so, and I think they’re on to something. Here’s why:

As a webmaster, I’ve long been frustrated by a certain human-edited directory (and you know who I mean) that has inexplicably refused entry of some of my clients, while accepting others without a second glance.

The problem (as I see it) is the same thing that makes these resource potentially great - human editors.

Let’s face it…for some people, the power of being an editor of their very own category in a major search directory is simply too much for their character. Many a webmaster (myself included) has complained of the abusiveness of some of the editors, both in the way they perform their duties, and (at times) how they interact with the public.

To be sure…being a volunteer editor can be a thankless job, with the number of “Spam” submissions (i.e. those outside the guidelines) far outweighing the legitimate ones.

What’s worse, and far more disturbing, are the “rogue” editors of certain categories that are abusing their “power” by adding their own commercial sites, and excluding their “competition”. Think that’s an isolated case? Think again. This writer found instances of this type of abuse in over 2 dozen different commercial categories. In fact, some editor’s were so blatant about it as to add dozens of “mirrors” of the same exact site, essentially “taking over” the category with their own content.

After essentially ignoring this abuse for years, the editors (in a nod to the fact that it DOES exist) independently setup an abuse reporting system for users. However, the fact that they need such a system (in my opinion) just exemplifies the weakness in the current system of human-edited directories. What about the abuse that goes un-reported? The fact that you even need a abuse-reporting system to me says that you’ve already lost the battle. To be truly fair, a volunteer directory editing system needs to be IMPOSSIBLE to abuse. Unfortunately, no such system currently exists.

But one IS being built, and it looks like it may just revolutionize the world of human-edited directories.

Using a proprietary “voting” system, BuildtheHive will be (according to it’s creators) a “directory built the democratic way”. No one single editor can add, delete, or change a submitted website. All submissions & changes are voted on by multiple editors with the decision as to whether a site “makes it in” based on a simple premise of “majority rules”. This removes the ability of a single editor to deny ANY site, as it takes several editors to either approve or deny a site.

This democratic system has even been extended to the acceptance/denial of new editors. Anyone will be able to apply to become a BuildtheHive editor. Once submitted, an editor’s application is voted on, and acceptance/rejection is once again determined by majority rule.

The BuildtheHive creators have even solved the “expired domain” problem (i.e. sites that remain in a directory after being picked-up by domain speculators after their previous owners failed to renew the domain with their registrar) . Any site that gets accepted is automatically placed in a queue to be re-reviewed (and voted on again) after a specified period of time. This cool feature not only cures the expired domain problem, but it also eliminates the need for a category editor to manually monitor all the sites in their category (a HUGE plus for editor’s of very large categories).

At this point, if you’re like me, you’re saying to yourself “Why didn’t I think of that!”

The good news is, you can still be a part of it.

In an effort to remain completely independent, the creators of BuildtheHive have avoided seeking venture capital, and have been funding this project out of their own pockets. For a limited time, they will be accepting a very small number of editor’s who will not have to go through the “voting process” to be accepted, in return for a small donation of only $19.

For a chance to be part of what could conceivably become the “buzz word” in human-edited search, take it from me…it’s a bargain. If the creators of BuildtheHive only accomplish half of what they set out to do, it will turn the world of human-edited search on it’s ear!

About The Author

Amber Snow is an independent freelance web designer and search engine optimization expert.

To read more, go to http://www.BuildtheHive.com.

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