Search Engine Optimization

read part 1…

Dealing with Duplicate Business Listings

Dealing with duplicates on Google Maps is a bit of pain in the butt, as you have very little control of what happens. The process is again different for Canadian and US users.

US Users

Claim the most prominent listing you would like to keep. Find all other listings and claim them as well, but make sure to delete all information from those listings except the business name, address, phone and contact info. Also make sure the duplicates have the exact name (title) as your prominent listing.

Give Google few weeks and it will automatically delete duplicates.

Canadian Users

Dealing with duplicates in Canada is a lot trickier. Since there is no option to claim the listing right from the maps, you have add new listing on Local, claiming the duplicates in the process. Be careful here, since you might end with more a lot more listings, and end up with 3 – 5 duplicates! I am still researching on how to deal with duplicates in Canada and will update you as soon I find a solution.

• Dealing with Multiple Listings for One Business Inside Google Maps

SEO on Local Business Listing

Doing SEO on a local business listing is straight forward. Make sure the title contains at least one of your keywords, as well as some in the description. Make sure that area code of the phone numbers is in the same area that you’re targeting.

CATEGORY – it is crusial to select correct category for the business. If you’re a limo company, then “limousine company” is the right category, not taxi, or transportation.

Other factors are pictures, videos, reviews and details about the business, such as the payments you accept and work hours. It’s straight forward from here on.

OFFPAGE - off page is an important factor in local rankings, so Yellow Pages and other authoritative citations definitely help out. Submit to local directories and to local municipal websites.

Good luck!

• Local rankings factors 2008
• Local rankings factors 2009

read part 1…

Wallstreet Journal, All Things Digital and Advertising Age report that Microsoft is about to strike a search deal with Yahoo, in which Microsoft will power Yahoo search, while Yahoo will sell text ads, splitting the revenue with Microsoft.

According to All Things D Yahoo will continue as a text link retailer, using Adcenter (probably merger of Adcenter with Panama). Obviously the transition will not happen overnight, but over the course of next months / years.

The deal gives Bing approximately 30% of the search engine market share, against Google’s 65%. Most advertisers are happy with the event, since Google needs a stronger competitor in search and PPC space.

Some interesting quotes:

• Yahoo comes in with a larger share of the search business than Microsoft, but it doesn’t have as much financial firepower as Google or Microsoft, and observers say it will have trouble defending its share without a deal. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a vast capacity to spend on search, but an unproven ability to take share from anyone but Yahoo. Yahoo declined to comment on the deal.
• The deal will take Yahoo out of the search-technology business so it can focus on media, marketing services and sales. Microsoft, especially if it can cede search sales duties to Yahoo, becomes more of a technology and infrastructure company, its disciplines better aligned with its strengths. (It would still, however, have a massive global display-ad sales business.)

Yahoo Search Algorithms and Data

What is going to happen to Yahoo search technology? There is no answer to this question yet, but I’m pretty sure it will be passed to Microsoft for improvement of Bing, along with the merger of Yahoo`s search department. Since Inktomi (which Yahoo purchased in 2003 and went into search business) was founded in 1996, Bing will get its hands of some really old data.

read part 2…

Google Local Business Center allows local business owners control their listings on Google Maps. The center can also be used as an SEO tool, since it allows you to control the category and title of the business.

Questions

• Do I have to have local business center to show up on Google maps or in local search results? – No. Google spiders the web and extracts data from Yellow Pages, directories, contact us pages and other sources. It then cross references this information and features it on Google maps and in search results.
• What is the purpose of local business center? - with it you can control features such as operating hours, payment methods, pictures, video, and add additional descriptions, such as services or merchandize you offer.

Setting up Your Local Business Center Account

Warning: IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A PROMITENT BUSINESS LISTING ON GOOGLE MAPS, BUT YOU DID NOT PUT IT THERE, THEN SKIP TO “CLAIMING A LISTING” SECTION OF THIS ARTICLE.

Go here and sign up with your Google account for local business center. Click on the “add new listing” link and proceed with instructions (Google will ask you to provide the following information):

• Country:
• Company/Organization:
• Street Address:
• City/Town:
• State:
• ZIP
• Main phone:
• Email address:
• Website
• Description

Click “next”, and depending on whether Google already has your business information in the database, you should see one of the 2 options.

1. If Google did not have any information about your business in the database, then you will be simply given option to add more descriptions about your business (instructions below “Adding detailed business description).
2. If Google already has your business in the database, but you did not put it there, the read the next section of this article “Claiming a listing”.

Claiming a Listing

If you have a website with contact information such as a phone number, address and email address – it is likely that Google has already automatically created a listing. Even if you do not have a website, but just Yellow Pages ad, it is sufficient to be included as a business in Google maps.

Go to Google maps and put in your business name.

If Google is aware of your listing, it will return some results. In that case, you simply have to claim it. The process differs from US maps to Canadian maps. Below are the instructions for both countries (i think process for Canadian maps is the same as in other countries, except US).

US Users

If you see more than one business listing which reference to your business, than select the most prominent one. To find out which is the most prominent one, go to regular search and type your business name there (sometimes you will need to add the city you’re in, for example “Tony’s Pizza Montreal”.) The most prominent result is one you want claim.

To find other indicators of a prominent listing, go back to the maps, click on “more info”. There you should see tabs such as: Overview | Details | Reviews | Photos and Videos | Webpages and more.

This is a big indicator of prominence, and the more additional features the better.

• How to Claim your Business Listing in Google Maps

Having the selected the listing, simply click on “Claim This Listing” link and follow verification instructions.

Canadian Users

The process is different for Canadian users. There is no “Claim this Listing” link like in Google Maps US, so we have much less control.

First of all, do the same research as if you were a US user, and find the most prominent listing you would like to claim. Once through, go to Google Local, and add a business as if Google did not have it in the first place. Once you fill out all the information and click on next, Google will show you all other businesses with the same address and phone, with an option to claim them. IMPORTANT: make sure to select the most prominent listing, and then claim it (ignore others for now, if any).

Verify everything and now if you’re in control of the listing.

read part 2…

Click fraud is a type of Internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud

2 Independent agencies that keep an eye on clickfraud have released statistical reports for the second quarter of 2009 and their findings differ by 10%. Anchor Intelligence reported that the click fraud rate is at 22.9%, up from 21.7% last quarter, by 1.2%. On the other hand Click Forensics put click fraud at 12.7%, down from 13.8% in the first quarter by 1.1%. Who do you believe?

Anchor Intelligence Report

You can download the report for free. Here is the heat map. The distribution excludes countries which are not in the top 30 list.

According to this heat map Vietnam is the place with the most click fraud activity, followed by Australia, Canada, US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, while Mexico and Japan are the most valid in terms of clicks.

I was not able to find out where Anchor Intelligence get their click data.

Click Forensics Report

View Click Forensics Report.

Click Forensics tells a completely different story. Here we have Russia and China colored all red (ironically), which means most click fraud occurs there. US is the most “honest” in terms of clicks, followed by Australia.

I very much question Chinese stats, since Chinese internet is an isolated network, monitored by chinese authority (aka thought police) for any criticism of the dictatorship. I doubt ISP’s would share their data, while search engines definitely have a lot of restrictions.

How much is 22.9% or 12.7% in dollars?

Let’s take Google’s revenues as a starting point. Here’s are the facts that we know:

• Google makes 98% of the revenue from text link ads on search results and on the contextual network.
• Google controls roughly 70% PPC share in the US (combined with AOL and Ask.com).
• Google made $21 billion in revenues last years with 13$ gross profit.

Lets estimate the other 30% of the PPC market share. If Google controlled 100% then the revenues would spike up by 30% to $27.1 billion (the number is by no way scientific, but rather something to speculate with, since keywords cost more on Google than any other search engine. Also, Google does not have much market share in some counties, while it enjoys a monopoly in others).

So if the number is $27.1 billion than here’s how the click fraud stats look:

• 22.9% – $6.2 billion dollars
• 12.7% – $3.4 billion dollar

Click fraud cost businesses anywhere from $3.4 billion to $6.2 billion dollars per year!

Link building is one of the most important, if not the important piece of search engine optimization. There are different ways to acquire links, including directories, link buying, buying through link brokers, link baiting, PR submissions and more. Below you will find some useful resources on link building:

• Link Building Wiki - the Wiki was founded by Textlinkbrokers.com.
• Large-Scale, Crawler-Based Link Building – a must read by a fairy new company in the field of link building. The best tools to use would be the Majestic SEO or SEO Moz’s Linkscape.
• 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity – written by Aaron Wall and Andy Hagans, this is another must read.
• How To Research, Create And Distribute Highly-Linkable Content – one of the best pieces to come out in a long time, this guide will help you develop content that attracts links in your niche. 100% white hat link building.
• Five Link Building Strategies That Work – link building tips from a copywriter who holds #3 for the word “copy writing”on Google.
• Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009 – a good guide for 2009
• Link Value Factors – 17 well respected link building experts are interviewed on link building factors.

Link Building Blogs

Follow those blogs in your RSS reader to learn new link building techniques from the experts. Generally once you follow several good SEO blogs, you will always be up date on latest and best articles, since they cross link each other all the time.

• Stuntdubl’s Link Building/SEO Blog
• SEOMoz Blog
• Grey Hat News
• SEOBlackhat
• MarketingPilgrim – Andy Beal’s Blog
• Search Engine Watch Blog
• Promotion Data Blog
• Jim Boykin’s blog
• Inside Google Blog
• WebProNews Blog
• Marketing Punk Blog
• Oilman’s Blog
• WebGuerrilla aka Greg Boser’s Blog
• Searchnewz
• SearchEngineGuide
• Jeremy Zawodny’s blog
• LinksManager Blog

Link Building Tools

Link building generally is a tedious task, that requires you to do the same tasks over and over again. Here are some of the tools that ease the process, and some must have equipment.

• Arelis
• SEO Elite
• Optlink
• Link Harvester -
• Hub Finder
• Back Link and Anchor Text Checker
• Link Appeal
• Link Analysis Tool
• LinksManager
• Link Explore
• Link Validator
• Webuildpages.com C-Class Backlink Analyzer Tool
• WebrankInfo Class C checker
• Yahoo Site Explorer

All Things D and 24/7 Wall St. report that Yahoo and Microsoft are in talks about a search partnership, and that the deal is very close on the horizon:

• Sources at a major client of investment house ThinkEquity say that the firm considers a Microsoft (MSFT) link-up with Yahoo! (YHOO) in the search business to be “imminent”.
• Sources beyond ThinkEquity speculate that under the terms of the arrangement, Yahoo! will be paid $3 billion upfront and will get 11o% of the revenue that its searches provide after traffic acquisition costs in each of the first two years. In the third year, that figure would go to 90%.
• …one person close to the situation, “It is down to the short strokes, for sure, it is just a question if we can finally close this.”

Microsoft Bing Search Share

Comscore stats for June 2009 put Bing at 8.4% which is a 0.4% increase from May.

The $100 million advertising campaign has won Bing some points, but so far failed to create significant gains. Speculation is that Bing might lose its gains once the marketing budget runs out.

Yahoo – Microsoft Deal

Having launched Bing, which so far got positive reviews, Microsoft is much more confident about the product. If the partnership goes through, Microsoft will leap frog to 30% search share, which will put in a much better position against rival Google at 65%.

From the rumors of the search deal it is clear that Microsoft is making a strategic long term investment, which will take years to recoup, while Yahoo might be getting its long awaited “boat loads of cash” as CEO Bartz requested from Balmer.

J.P. Morgan published a report and shared it with Search Engine Land – Understanding the Impact of Bing on the Search Industry.

• The bottom line: Of 763 people (ages 18 and up) surveyed, roughly 98% will not be making Bing their primary search engine.
• The J.P. Morgan study shows that Microsoft’s publicity blitz worked to some degree: 59% of respondents had heard of Bing.
• out of that group, only 42% had tried it — that represents only 25% of the overall survey respondents.
• It suggests that Microsoft’s ad campaign reached people, but didn’t convince many to give Bing a try.

• According to the report, Microsoft’s biggest barrier is that most searchers are happy these days.

Which is absolutely true. Google came at the time when search engines were spammy and not very relevant. It gave users when they longed for – a quality search engine, that found the right information, when they needed in a blink of an eye. As Eric Schmidt put it “you earn that. You don’t just buy it with ads. You earn it, and you earn it customer by customer, search by search , answer by answer. And we believe that today we beat our competitors because we’re so focused on comprehensiveness, speed, freshness and having the depth that people really care about.”

This was the strategy Google used as they entered search engine game with Page Rank, and it continues to be their strategy to this day.

Perhaps the biggest challenge Bing faces today is the Google habit. Apart from that, search relevancy is now expected, so the battle must be fought with incredible innovation. Incredible enough to brake the Google habit:

• J.P. Morgan estimates that Bing will only see a 2.3% growth in overall market share going forward.

Report: Google Has Nothing To Fear From Bing Itself

Microsoft and Google are going head to head. It is going to be a bloodbath, with many casualties, acres of destroyed landscapes, broken hearts, and nuclear devastation. Prepare your patriot flags (aka Google or Microsoft) and support the troops fighting for… emm… market share.

The official declaration of war from Microsoft:

• Microsoft launches Bing - Microsoft Corp. today unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine and consumer brand, providing customers with a first step in moving beyond search to help make faster, more informed decisions.

The official declaration of war from Google:

• Google announces Google Chrome OS – …today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Strategic Assault From Microsoft:

• Microsoft plans free, online version of Office – On Monday, Microsoft said it would offer a free version of its popular Office software suite that would run on the Internet.

The online office will go head to head with Google Docs, which was initially pocking at Microsoft Desktop Office Suite. Though Google was the first one to move against Microsoft with Google Docs, Microsoft is launching a counter attack scheduled for 2010.

Wars do not start in one day. It may take several months or years before full conflict breaks out.

Sometimes a country that desires war may turn to covert operations and stage attacks on its own soldiers/territory/people and then blame it on the enemy in order to get the war rolling ( Roman Empire, Third Reich, etc), which once started is hard to stop. Sometimes opponents are just too big to go head to head, and both realize the devastation of a full scale war, so they poke each and call names, without ever getting into a fistfight.

This time however, 2 Giants are going head to head and its going to be fun.

Will Anything Happen?

Though I wish to see lots of meat torn on both sides, big wins and big losses, I doubt anything big will happen. Google and Microsoft get their income from completely different sources. Microsoft pulls billions from Office and Windows, while Google gets cash from tiny text link ads in search results and content web sites. The verticals do not compete with each other. Though Microsoft has some market share in search – it is too small, with their search engine mainly used by novice users who search any search box they can find. Bing has changed things a little, but has a long way to go. Microsoft still does not make any money from search. Google Docs on the other hand is used by broke students and recently Washington DC, which is the most notable customers. Docs and other Google paid services contribute small 2% of total Google profits.

I personally think that Google will maintain its status as the undisputed leader in search, simply because Google and search are now synonymous. Microsoft will stay as the undisputed leader in OS, because its synonomous with desktop and most people will go WTF as they get a new computer and do not find Microsoft on it, but some weird unknown OS, on which half the applications cant run!

Google has officially lifted the veil, it is working on an operating system, and will release it in 2010. The first version of the Chrome OS will be limited to smartbooks.

• Introducing the Google Chrome OS – Official Google Blog

Head to Head with Microsoft

It’s on. Microsoft has set sights on Google’s revenue stream with Bing, and now Google is setting serious sights on Microsoft core profit cow – Windows. It will be fun to watch two giants go to head in their core markets. I would love to see large armies, advanced weaponry, big battlefields, and lots of blood on both sides, but for some reason have a feeling it will be a cold war, with two giants poking each other all time, without ever doing too much harm.

Will Google Chrome OS Succeed?

Chrome is used by ultra high tech guys and Microsoft haters, with rest of the browser market (big majority) shared between Internet Explorer and Firefox I personally think Chrome OS will go down the same path, where a small number of extremely big geeks will use it, along with really big Microsoft haters, leaving out the rest of the population.

• The Google Operating System Is Real: Google Chrome OS Announced.
• TechCrunch
• BetaNews
• Computerworld
• Mashable
• BuzzMachine
• Ars Technica
• Bloomberg
• ArsTechnica
• Google Watch
• MediaMemo
• Linux-Watch.com
• Google Operating System
• The Register
• TheNextWeb.com
• Black Web 2.0
• BloggingStocks
• Gadget Lab
• Computerworld Blogs
• ContentBlogger
• Lockergnome Blog Network
• About Mobility
• PC World
• CNET News
• Search Engine Watch
• AllThingsD
• ZDNet,
• InformationWeek,
• Techdirt
• Traffick
• SlashGear
• MacDailyNews
• SmoothSpan Blog
• BBC
• TheStreet.com
• eWeek
• GigaOM
• Venture Capital Dispatch
• The Microsoft Blog
• IntoMobile
• Between the Lines
• Mercury News
• Seattle Times
• ReadWriteWeb
• TG Daily
• Googling Google
• New York Times

Microsoft released a new 24 page document detailing Bing updates, and giving some SEO tips to webmasters. On the important part (obviously SEO ), there’s not much meat to eat. Here’s a quick summary:

• Due to the fact that Microsoft breaks down search results page to several sections, webmasters have a better chance of getting on the first page. For instance, if you search for “Britney Spears“, first 5 results are most relevant for that keyword, but if you scroll down you will see subsections such as “Britney Spears Songs”, “Britney Spears Tickets” and so on. The subsections are simply related searches that Microsoft decided are the most relevant (based on their data). In the document Microsoft says you should optimize for related searches as well, in order to increase your chances of showing up in search results.

Other Interesting Information From Microsoft Bing Document

• Microsoft will keep MSNBot name for the crawler.
• Site limit of site maps has increased from 10,000 URLs to 50,000 URLs with maximum size of 10MBs.
• There are no changes to the webmaster center.

In large document explains Bing features, as opposed to giving search engine optimization advice. It touches the subject of search tabs, which are simply related searches located on the left hand side. Document also mentions Search History, which users can see on the left hand side.

Best Match – A new feature to Bing is “Best Match”. Whenever Bing decides that your search query is best represented with just one website it will turn on the “best match” feature and show one listing with sitemaps and sometime an option to search the site.

Unlike Google, which on top of the best match shows other links, Bing limits results to one, with an option to explore the web, by clicking on another link. Here Microsoft may be missing some revenue, since Google makes money on obvious brand keywords, from brands that are willing to bid on their own names. Microsoft may take the initiative to do the same later on, and feature 2 links for best match keywords, one organic and one paid. It doesn’t make much sense though to pay if there’s one correct link on the page anyway.

Instant Answers – the feature answers questions directly in search results. The number of answers is limited.

Document Preview

Google has also released SEO starter kit for webmasters. Here are some links:

• Google’s SEO Starter Guide
• Bing: New Features Relevant to Webmasters white paper
• Search Engine Optimization Toolkit

Google is making a larger entrance into real estate, with Google Maps. Now if you search city name + real estate on Google maps, you will see an offer for an expanded search in your area:

If you do not click on the link, Google will show regular results of real estate brokers and brokerage firms in the area. If however you do click, Google will load a map with all real estate listings it is aware of in the area, as well as a filter mechanism to help you pinpoint properties.

Expanded results for “Tampa Real Estate” search on Google maps.

Search box with more options

Options include price range, number of bedrooms, bathroom, and square footage. Additional filters allow visitors to view “foreclosure” and “non-foreclosure” home, as a sign of bad economic times in America.

You can also send the results to your email, cell phone, car or GPS unit.

Where do Results Come From?

Google is pulling information directly from brokerage firms and real estate agents who upload their listings to Google base as part of their marketing. Google is also getting info from real estate web sites which feature home listings, such as Homes & Land, The Real Estate Book and others.

Is Google Competing With Big Real Estate Boys?

Is Google looking to get a chunk of advertising dollars spend at MLS, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Craigslist and others? Yes and No. I doubt that Google will go directly head to head with the big names in online real estate search.

The big names in online real estate search have called Google a “scraper” and showed their desire to block the crawl bot. Google has a thin line to walk here. It needs real estate search engines as the data provider and it has to build a system which brings the big boys profits in order to get them to share that data. After that it will have to figure out a way to make money itself.

What might happen is Google Real Estate Search may become a traffic source for the big names. If successful, Google will work on monetizing that position, without directly interfering with traditional real estate listing business model.

We might see paid listings on maps, which will charge per click. The listing may be highlighted with some features that make it stand out from the rest (while rest of the listings are free, and are pulled from different databases).

All is my speculation at this point though. Google already has PPC ads on maps, and showcasing real estate PPC ads seems like a natural extension.

Another option is commission, but that is a complex process, so I doubt Google will get into it.

Google Real Estate Search in Canada

The feature only works in US at the moment. Searches for “toronto real estate” or “montreal real estate” do not give the results as Google.com does.

part 1 | part 2

About Matt Cutts | Blog

Does the position of keywords in the URL affect ranking?

To clarify the question, does it help in any way if the keyword goes:

example.com/keyword/London

or

example.com/London/keyword

Matt’s answer is – keywords in the URL definitely help a little, but just as a bit. As far as the position, do not stress about it too much. Make sure the keyword you want is there and leave it at that. Focus energy on content and link building.

Do site load times have an impact on Google rankings?

The answer given to the question on April 28, 2009 is NONE. Quote from Matt: “What might happen in the future, I don’t know”. Matt also states the obvious, is if a website takes a year to load up that Google cant even fetch it, then obviously it will affect the rankings, however for now speed has not ranking impact.

The answer to the same question, but with regards to Adwords is different. Here’s a quote http://searchengineland.com/google-adds-page-load-time-to-quality-score-algorithm-13513

A Webmaster World thread tipped both Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Roundtable (that’s me) off on the fact that Google has added an additional quality score factor to the AdWords ranking algorithm. The new factor is page load time. If your destination URL is a very slow loading page, then Google will give you a poor “load time grade.” The load time grade will be part of your quality score and if you have a poor load time grade, then it can impact your AdWords rankings.

Does anchor text carry through 301 redirects?

The answer is yes, however Google reserves the right to decide how it passes weight on redirects. Matt explains that Google logs all the redirects to a website, just as links, and if there’s an abnormal number of redirects it might set off red flags.

Another part of the question was, what if all or most of the links are redirects. How does Google treat it? Matts answer is – it would be very abnormal and probably fall into the same box as manipulation for the sake of rankings, so don’t do it.

What’s a preferred site structure?

The question is – how does Google treat content buried deep within the root of the website. For example:

http://www.optimization.ca/Learning/search-engine-optimization/link-popularity-enhancement.html

Matts answer is not SEO advice, but rather conversion rate advice. He recommends putting important information at the root page, in the most obvious spot, since the more click people have to do, the less number of visitors will do it. Brian Eisenberg of Future Now always talks about the 3 click rule, is that anything past 3 clicks from the initial visit will not be discovered, so make sure to put the important stuff at the root, and just minimize number of clicks in general.

As far as SEO advice goes, I personally recommend putting your content closer to the root, since some of the content I buried in our website about a year ago has not been crawled yet, event though site ranks well on SERPs.

part 1 | part 2

part 1 | part 3

About Matt Cutts | Blog

More than one H1 on a page: good or bad?

The answer is short and sweet. You can use it on the page more the once, where it is needed and there are no negative consequences. Google has also developed an algorithm to catch the abuse of the H1 on the page, such as cramming tons of H1s and styling them with CSS to look as regular text.

The word of advice is – use the H1 once as the main title with main keywords. Use H2 as sub headers. Easy to do, does not cross any guidelines and works well.

Two questions about the link: operator

In this video Matt Cutts discusses “link:example.com” command for websites as a way to get link data about a website. Matt is very clear on the fact that Google shows a VERY limited and randomized snippet of links for any link:domain search search. So for instance if you search link:www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca you will see a very small, random sample of links that we have. He also mentions that Google used to show highest PR links in the sample, but has since change this, and now shows trusted links along with links it considers spam that do not pass any power at all.

The reason for this, as confirmed by Matt, is to protect webmasters from spammers and competition who would like to back engineer search rankings for your website. If for instance competitors can type link:yourdomain and see all the links you have, then go after all those links (with whatever strategies) and gain similar search rankings.

Another reason Google leaves out link data is the fact that links play a KEY role in ranking websites, thus showing it would mean releasing too much proprietary data to the world.

If you want to get complete or nearly complete backlink profile for a website, then register with Webmaster Tools. There Google willingly shares nearly all link data (as Matt said) with webmasters.

If you still want to see links that competitors have, then try Majestic SEO or Linkscape. Yahoo Site Explorer is the free tool for the job, but results are limited to a 1000.

My reviews of the Majestic SEO and Linkscape on SEOChat.

Paid text Link Ads: What Google and Matt Cutts Say

Matt clearly states – if you want to sell / buy links there are ways to do it without breaking Google guidelines. One of the ways is to use redirects or Javascript. If however you do sell links for the purpose of passing Page Rank then Google takes action.

So don’t do it, or if you do it then don’t get caught.

Matt Cutts takes a bribe….. (sort of)

LOL. This is a funny one. A guy walks up to Matt Cutts with a suitcase saying there is $500,000 in it. Can you fix me a first page ranking? Here’s Matt’s Answer:

No, you cannot guarantee a ranking on Google. There’s no amount of money you can pay to guarantee a ranking on Google. Even in the ads, because we sort not only by amount of money, but by the amount of the click through, so if someone says they can guarantee you a first place ranking, they cant, not even me…

We should show this video to he clients.

part 1 | part 3