We’ve all been duped at least once. You need some information and turn to Google. Maybe you are looking for plane tickets or a new pair of shoes. You trust Google to make the decision of which website is most trustworthy and relevant, so you click on one of the top results. Far too often, these sites are phishing scams or affiliate marketing sites or, perhaps worse of all, a retailer who will sell you something that they know nothing about.

For a long time, one of the easiest ways to rank highly for a search term in Google was to purchase a domain name that contained the keyword you were trying to rank for. So, if you wanted to rank highly for “green lightbulbs” you would purchase a domain like bobsgreenlightbulbs.com. As more and more domain names were bought up, scammers and spammers became desperate and bobsgreenlightbulbs.com turned into bobs-green-lightbulbs-inc.com. Hyphenated domains started showing up everywhere.

Google has done a decent job of filtering a lot of these domains out in recent years, but hyphenated, keyword dense domains undeniably still work. Look at these common search queries:

It is rare for these hyphen-heavy domains to provide useful information or a trustworthy ecommerce experience to searchers. Sure, everybody knows of an exception or two but would you honestly recommend nike-outlet-store-online.com over Nike.com or Eastbay.com for a pair of cheap Nike shoes? I know I wouldn’t.

It should be a slap in Google’s face to see so many domain names like these near the top of search results. It’s obvious that the entire domain is purchased and built to rank for a few keyword phrases. The entire founding of the website wasn’t based on the idea of creating an amazing online shoe store or passing along quality information on colleges. It was designed from its inception to rank highly in Google by any means necessary.

The worst part is that these domains should be easy for Google to filter out. While many legitimate websites and companies have one hyphen in their domain (virgin-atlantic.com and post-gazette.com come to mind), not many have two hyphens; and those with three or more are even rarer.

Why not penalize sites with hyphens? Any site with 2 hyphens gets a penalty and it goes up from there. So ugg-boot-superstore.com gets 1x the penalty (2 hyphens) and ultra-best-ugg-store.com gets 2x the penalty with 3 hyphens. (The only exception is http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/ which should d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y be mandatory reading for high school and college students)

Domains with 2+ hyphens have no site or brand name. They exist solely for SEO benefit. While some may provide some quality content, the site owner’s end game is often less than noble. If you wanted to organically build up a readership, choosing a lengthy and brandless domain name is a terribly misguided decision at best.

Google is encouraging people to forego building legitimate online companies by continuing to rank hyphen-heavy domains so highly. Why go to the trouble of building an online brand when you can just buy ultra-top-best-store-ever.com and start getting traffic and making money faster than everybody else?

“The Most Interesting Man in the World” is a genius ad campaign by Dos Equis beer. All of the commercials end with The Most Interesting Man in the World saying, “I don’t always drink beer. But when I do, I prefer Dos Equis”. It’s a killer campaign and that catchphrase has become an internet meme.

So here’s The Most Interesting SEO in the World:

***Make your own at Meme Generator and post in the comments!

I have been obsessed with alignment for the past few months. I never played Dungeons & Dragons growing up (in fact the first time I saw it played was in this season’s awesome Community episode), but the concept of alignment has fascinated me since I learned about it. Which characters personify each alignment? Where do I fall? Where do my friends fit in? I have a long commute so I have a ton of time to think .

So in the spirit of obsession, here is my stab at an alignment chart for the SEO community. Notes, embed code, a detailed explanation of alignment, and references follow below.

Notes

• Lawful vs. Chaotic was determined by adherence to Google’s rules.
• There are really no public “evil” SEOs, so the non-Lawful Evils had to be blackhats. Sorry guys, you had to fit in somewhere.
• Matt, the similarities to Darth Vader were too strong to ignore. But I don’t really think you’re evil .

Embed me!

<p><a href="http://www.webpagefx.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/alignment-chart.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2358" title="SEO Alignment Chart" src="http://www.webpagefx.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/alignment-chart.png" alt="SEO Alignment Chart" width="650" height="700" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.webpagefx.com/">Internet Marketing Services</a> – WebpageFX

Alignment Explained

There are two axes; Good and Evil, and Lawful and Chaotic. Each character’s motivations fall somewhere on both axes. Good is having good intentions towards others, evil is bad intentions. Lawful reflects respect for and adherence towards authority, chaotic means actively trying to overturn systems and authority. Neutral is outside of either motivation.

So someone who has good intentions and follows the rules (Lawful Good) would be Superman. A good character who tries to upend the system (Chaotic Good) would be V from V for Vendetta.

A character with bad intentions that seeks to overturn authority (Chaotic Evil) would be the Joker from the latest Batman films. And an evil character operating within the rules (Lawful Evil) is Darth Vader.

True Neutral is self-interest as the primary motivation. House is a good example.

The other Neutrals fall in between the other motivations.

If you were wondering, I’m right between True and Chaotic Neutral .

List and References

• Lawful Good – Rand Fishkin – “My hat is as white as Google’s background.”
• Lawful Neutral – Jill Whalen – “It’s only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.”
• Lawful Evil – Matt Cutts – “What is thy bidding, master?”
• Neutral Good – Bruce Clay – “No SEO practitioner will intentionally do harm to a client.”
• True Neutral – Rae Hoffman – “My primary focus is on my own companies.”
• Neutral Evil – Martin MacDonald (quoted here)- “Any SEO that does not test the boundaries is not an SEO.”
• Chaotic Good – Rick Skrenta (quoted here) – “We’re applying the Wikipedia model. Users can make their own additions and put on sets of sites to a slashtag.”
• Chaotic Neutral – Aaron Wall – “You see, tricking people is bad. Unless you are Google. In which case you have to hit the quarterly numbers.”
• Chaotic Evil – Kris Roadruck – “Your strategy is based around wishful thinking and hoping that someday Google will do your job for you so you don’t have to.”

Photo by YoHandy

Christopher Wallace was a lot of things. Drug dealer. Businessman. Best-selling music artist. Biggie Smalls. The Notorious B.I.G.

Add to that list: link building guru.

Yeah, it isn’t one of his better known qualities, but Biggie knew his stuff when it came to building links…he just didn’t realize it at the time.

One of The Notorious B.I.G.’s greatest hits was “Ten Crack Commandments,” released in 1997. As the title suggests, Biggie rapped through his 10 commandments for selling crack in the 90s. I have no clue how ‘effective’ his tips were for his chosen trade, but it turns out they work pretty well when applied to link building.

Let’s take a look at one of Christopher Wallace’s greatest lessons to both hip-hop and Internet marketing lovers alike! Here are the 10 crack commandments of link building (PG version), as told by The Notorious B.I.G…

1. Never let no one know how much dough you hold

Modesty is a valuable principle for any business to practice, but it is especially true in the link building world. If you start bragging about rankings, traffic or clientele, you are just asking for trouble.  There are way too many tools out there for people to take a peek in to your backlinks and figure out exactly how you got your link dough. Which brings us to…

2. Never let ‘em know your next move

It’s important to always stay one step ahead of the competition. Best practices in the SEO and link building industry are constantly evolving. Tactics that are effective today might not be next week and websites that are working to find new strategies will always be a step ahead.  Never reveal your best secrets until they are mainstream!

3. Never trust nobody

There are actually plenty of trustworthy people in the link building industry, but you do have to be careful. Avoid working with fly-by-night companies and individuals promising miracle, overnight results. Quality campaigns can take time and there is no bulletproof way to highly rank every single website. If you use proper judgment and common sense you should be in good shape with rule number 3!

4. Never get high on your own supply

Let’s say you follow all of Biggie’s rules and your link building campaign is thriving! It can be tempting to use all the power you’ve built up on your PR7 domain to spread the wealth around to some other websites, but don’t do it. You can quickly waste all of your hard work by putting a few text links for “Buy Viagra cheap” or “best seo company” on your homepage. It looks unprofessional and too many outbound links can take away some of the power you’ve diligently built up.

5. Never sell no crack where you rest at

This is directly related to the fourth commandment: don’t sell links for SEO purposes on your site! It’s against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Any links you are selling should include the rel=”nofollow” attribute and be placed for referral traffic only. You don’t want your site to end up in the (Google) slammer!

6. That god dang credit, dead it

Credit plays a bigger role in the link building industry than one might expect. Reciprocal linking is still a popular practice that is based on credit — you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. When it comes to reciprocal linking…just dead it! It carries very little power and is extremely easy for competitors to duplicate. And if you have your heart set on exchanging links, always make sure you verify that your link is actually listed on the other site. There are lots of webmasters out there with poor reciprocal linking ‘credit.’

7. Keep your family and business completely separated

If you are a link builder, chances are very few of your friends actually know what the means. It is always tempting to ask them to link to your blog post or website, but don’t do it! Keep your business and personal life separated for the most part. There’s nothing more annoying than having somebody beg you for a retweet or a link. Build great content and watch the links roll in naturally. You’ll get awesome results and your friends won’t hate you.

8. Never keep no weight on you

We’ve already been over selling links on your own site, but it’s important not to buy links on other websites either! Google does keep track of which sites link in to yours and you don’t want to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.

9. If you ain’t gettin’ bags stay away from police

The ‘SEO Police’ (AKA Google’s Webspam team) aren’t quite as scary as the real police knocking on your door, but you definitely don’t want to receive any sort of punishment from Google. Follow their Webmaster Guidelines to the T. Don’t do any automated link building or other black hat techniques. You want to obey all the laws or it is game over.

10. If you ain’t got the clientele say heck no

Here’s a rule that too many SEO and link building practitioners overlook — don’t promise results that you can’t deliver! Lots of websites would like to get hundreds of in-content links from PR6 homepages, for example, but how many companies can really deliver that result, if any? It is too easy to bite off more than you can chew and get caught up in impossible projects. Do adequate research into competitors and industries and know what you are getting into before you take on a new project.

Photo by YoHandy

Writer’s Block; we all get it. In fact I find myself having it right now…

I think it’s a safe assumption that none of us are immune to the syndrome, much less the symptoms.

Writer’s block causes us all frustration, and this frustration leads to additional symptoms. No, I’m not talking about physical symptoms. I’m referring to what it causes us to do, or how we react to that frustration.

When I have writer’s block, I have the tendency to Google the topic I’m writing about. Google has become my resource for additional information and a reference guide to better understand the topic I’m writing about. Why? Because I trust Google will provide me with the best, most accurate, most relevant and most authoritative and trustworthy content available on the web. I know I’m not alone in this; otherwise Google wouldn’t be the #1 most visited website according to Alexa Traffic Rank.

So what does writer’s block have to do with being unfriendly to SEO?

The action of having writer’s block in and of itself is not SEO-unfriendly, but what it causes us to do is. Just as I mentioned before, users trust Google to provide authoritative and accurate content to provide users with the best content possible. Google continues to combat “scraping” tactics and “content farms.”  In layman’s terms, this is publishing unoriginal content taken from another website as your own.

In an effort to continue to provide authoritative and original content, Google is constantly bettering their algorithm to showcase unique content. After much anticipation, Google released and announced a major update in late February now known as the “Farmer Update” in a continuing endeavor to favor sites rich in unique content in search results.

So what does Google consider unique and original content? Content found nowhere else. Google frowns upon what is referred to as ‘duplicate content.’ It’s as simple as going back to the idea of writing college essays and not plagiarizing.

Need an example?

Wikipedia serves as an excellent model of what a content-rich site looks like. Since it’s open to editing by users (which ironically is the same reason some still find it less than credible), when Google crawls this site, it finds unique content not found anywhere else on the web on a very specific topic (in other words, each page talks all about one subject or issue). When Wikipedia was first launched, I was still in school and teachers would constantly reiterate “Wikipedia is not a proper reference!” Since then, it’s changed; it is now controlled and monitored much more closely; so much so that many scholars have expressed its reliability and accuracy. The result? Results! (In Google that is). Not only does Google trust Wikipedia as a site overall, but Google frequently includes Wikipedia pages in its results due to the reliable, original content it is believed to possess.

This all being said, writer’s block is obviously less than ideal during a time when the desire to attain high rankings in Google is equivalent to the desire of attaining the American Dream in the 1920s.

Here are a few ways I work to avert the effects of both writer’s block and unoriginal content:

1.       Write what you know! You are the expert on your industry. It’s safe to say you keep up on your industry and what is going on in it, along with experiential knowledge of course.

2.       Step away for awhile. In my experience, stepping away and working on something else and coming back to your writing project allows you to look at it from a fresh perspective, and perhaps even think of additional ideas that you didn’t think about before.

3.       When you have to research the topic, don’t just use one source. When you must “Google It,” don’t just use the first result or even the first page. Explore a large variety of sources.

4.       Know the ultimate goal of the page you’re writing. When you are looking to write a new page for your website you should keep the end goal in mind. What do you want people to know? What is the desired action after they read that page?

5.       Don’t procrastinate! OK, so this one may not work for those of you who actually thrive under pressure. I’m certainly in the minority when it comes to procrastinators. As in I’m not one… at all. In fact, I was the one in school who had my projects done a week in advance (OK two). But seriously, it gives you a lot more flexibility in stepping away and coming back to the task at hand with a fresh perspective!

6.       Be reader-focused. The most important thing to consider is your readers, or your target market. What do your readers want to know? When someone finds you in Google, what are they hoping to learn? THAT is what you should write about.

Happy writing!