How Affiliate Programs Can Affect Search Rankings

Interesting article from ClickZ relating to link strategy and the position Google takes against certain back links.

This is something to definitely consider with deals similar to Commission Junction & Overture. http://www.clickz.com/

Key snippets from article:

Rapid Link Expansion
Google reveals in the filing its ranking algorithm is organized to thwart overly aggressive marketers. It confirms something search marketers have long suspected: Google watches how fast new links to a site appear as a way to detect and penalize search engine spam. If too many new links appear in too short a timeframe, the site may be penalized, or even banned, by Google.

According to the filing, Google also watches how many new links with identical anchor text emerge. This is another clue links may be suspect or mass-manufactured.

Quality vs. Quantity
Before scuttling your existing affiliate network, remember: it's link quality, not quantity, that counts. We've seen two or three high-quality links very quickly catapult a site's rankings into the top-10 results in all major engines.

Be cautious and go slow. Alternative affiliate network strategies are fine, but any decision to work with a particular network provider should never be based solely on the ability to increase links. Link growth that leads to increased rankings and traffic can be realized in all affiliate networks.

Meta-Tag Optimization Tips

A long time ago, stuffing the meta-tag description with keywords often resulted in a top ranking in Infoseek listings (remember that search engine?). Today, this strategy no longer works. Very few search engines use meta-tag content to determine relevancy.

So why are meta tags important for search engine visibility? Because meta-tag descriptions are often used in SERPs - BY Shari Thurow
Meta-Tag Optimization Tips

Google Debuts Satellite Images

Google has added high-resolution satellite images to its Maps and Local search services, offering a birdseye view of millions of locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. More details in this story. See also from Gary Price on the same day, Super Cool: Interact With Satellite and Aerial Images With NASA's World Wind Program [http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050405-121616]. (Google: Maps | Search Types: Maps)

Google Tips

Here are also some insider tips I've recently discovered relating to Google optimization techniques that we have not taken advantage of yet. Source:
: http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/Google-Optimization-Secrets-From-The-Trenches/

Google relies first and foremost on its “PageRank,” and other factors for determining your position in Google’s results are secondary.

Google has become rather savvy to the frequency a site is updated with new content, so you’ll want to continually add new “stuff” to your site, again using the H1 tag, so that Google will come back to your site and re-spider. The more frequently Google thinks it has to come back to re-spider your site, the higher your site will rank.

And as a side benefit, Google can (and does) read/use the OPML file if your site has one. It will use that file to obtain more indepth heirarchial information about the way the data on your pages are laid out.

You can get the entire OPML spec at http://opml.org/. Understand that the whole issue with OPML is still one of those "hush-hush" things within Google, so you’re really getting the inside scoop on this one.

With that said, the folks over at Google aren’t stupid. First, your OPML file must be used to describe content that actually is on a page that can be reached from your site's main page. Second, the OPML file must be a reasonably close representation of the actual page, and third you must provide a link from the page to the OPML file so the Google Spider can find it.

If you adhere to these rules, then Google will use the additional information that can be obtained from the OPML file, and that will help to drive up the rankings for your site, because of the additional meta data within the OPML file that can’t be found on an HTML page.

Personal SEO resources

I've come across way to many sites and tools that it's beging to be hard to manage. What better way to keeps all these tools at my finger tips than to post them here, for everyone to gain access to and benefit from them as well!