SEO | Internet Marketing Blog

How should publishers respond to link removal requests?

Thanks again to Panda, Penguin etc, it seems many webmasters are panicking about links they have obtained in the past, or have been pulled up by Google as a result of over-zealous link building.

As a result, we are receiving many more link removal requests than we ever used to, ten or so in the past couple of months.

To be frank, these requests are annoying, and I'm also a little put out that they see this blog as a risk to them. Chris Lake touched upon this recently and, as he says, 'a lot of folks seem to have a bad case of The Fear'.

I thought it was worth exploring this issue in more detail, so I've asked a few SEO experts for their views...

by Graham Charlton 16 May 2013 10:34am 8 comments

Is guest blogging becoming risky?

After Penguin hit a lot of sites hard last year, it seems many SEOs have turned to guest blogging for alternative methods of link-building.

I see this in the volume of requests I get for guest posts on this blog, and Google presumably sees this in the volume of new links it is seeing from guest blogging.

It seems that Google is now taking a serious interest in guest blogging, so what are the risks for the bloggers and the sites hosting guest articles?

I've been asking some SEO experts for their views on the potential risks and how to avoid them...

by Graham Charlton 13 May 2013 11:23am 26 comments

Why SEO still has a place in a content driven world

It isn’t the first time SEO has been squared up against another discipline as if they are in opposition with each other.

I’m sure you remember this post in Smashing Magazine, The Inconvenient Truth About SEO, where a deep misunderstanding of what SEO actually is, expressed itself as a diatribe against the industry.

I see posts like this, albeit not quite as high profile, popping up all the time.

by Peter Meinertzhagen 03 May 2013 09:55am 13 comments

Start Me Up! A profile of 87 seconds

Are you using video in your business content and SEO strategy? If not, you may be missing out on organic search, as well as ecommerce ROI.

Luckily startup 87 seconds is here to help you inform, pitch, sell, and explain your business through video.

by Ryan Sommer 02 May 2013 15:22pm 1 comment

Baidu: the opportunity for European businesses

The value of online transactions in China reached $190 billion in 2012 and the country is predicted to overtake the US as the world’s largest ecommerce market at some point this year.

So it’s no surprise that European businesses are eager to try and break into the marketplace.

As with any ecommerce market, search is a vital source of building brand awareness and attracting traffic in China. This means you have to optimise your site for Baidu which has around 83% market share.

Baidu recently signed a deal with CharmClick that gives the company exclusive rights as a resale agent in Europe, which subsequently partnered with Net Media Planet for Baidu ad sales in the UK and Ireland.

by David Moth 29 April 2013 13:38pm 1 comment

This week's finest digital marketing infographic

Regular readers of the Econsultancy blog will be used to seeing our ‘top six infographics’ roundup each Friday, but it is my sad duty to report that it has been discontinued.

The reason for the post’s demise is down to the fact that quality infographics have become increasingly thin on the ground, so finding six each week was a difficult task.

But fear not, because though the ‘top six’ post is gone, in its place we’ll now publish the best infographic of the week every Friday. Unless we only get rubbish infographics, in which case we won’t bother to publish any at all.

by David Moth 26 April 2013 10:51am 11 comments

Q&A: Ian Monk of Bathrooms.com on a PR-focused approach to SEO

Bathrooms.com was launched by Ian Monk in 2004, and has just recently relaunched with a fully redesigned website.

Part of the relaunch included a focus on social and a PR-centric SEO strategy. I've been asking Ian about the thinking behind this approach and the results so far...

by Graham Charlton 23 April 2013 11:07am 5 comments

Simplifying content marketing confusion

Content Marketing is the new buzzword. And as with buzzwords, every agency is trying to capture a slice of the action – but this means they all have their own definitions. Which leads to confusion.

Naturally SEOs were the first to jump on Content Marketing as content and links are so intrinsically linked to success, but there’s a lot more to it than SEO.

So to try and ease this confusion I spoke to our resident SEO specialist, David Freeman and we came up with this advice.

by Darren Goldie 18 April 2013 13:34pm 0 comments

Three reasons why publishers hate living in a post-Penguin, post-Panda world

It sometimes sucks, being a publisher in a post-Penguin, post-Panda world. It’s great that Google is cleaning up webspam, but it’s not so great to be on the receiving end of stupid demands from people who give the SEO industry a bad name.

What am I talking about? Dubious links, that’s what. Or should I say dubious links on a supposedly authority website (ours), that have been flagged up by dubious SEO tools. Emails with ‘please remove this link’ make our hearts sink.

What else? Dubious expectations. Why is it that publishers like Econsultancy are expected to clean up the mess? This is the last thing I want us to be doing. “It will be good for both of us,” they say, with various degrees of menace. No it won’t. It’s a cost to our business, and to the publishing industry more broadly.

We have always been hugely supportive of the SEO industry, and as a web business we’ve always tried to stay on top of SEO best practice. As such it is deeply frustrating to be on the receiving end of requests to remove ‘suspicious’ links, or to add no_follow to links that I think are perfectly acceptable.

I’m not planning on revealing any names here, but let me explain what I’m talking about. There are three areas for concern. The first two are linked to stupid, short-term thinking, and needless panic. The last one might indicate that Google is changing the goalposts around guest blogging.

Is this the tip of the iceberg, or a few isolated incidents that we’re experiencing?

by Chris Lake 18 April 2013 11:31am 49 comments

Seven SEO tools to improve your online PR efficiency

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of training a number of PR agencies on how they can work Search Engine Optimisation into their service offerings.

It’s no secret that lots of SEO agencies and teams are trying to do the reverse at the same time.

While this merging of disciplines is no big surprise, something that I hadn’t anticipated is just how useful SEO tools can be for people carrying out online PR.

by Kelvin Newman 09 April 2013 10:40am 5 comments