Diarizing

Do you know all issues you can have when doing SEO on multi language websites? Or, simply, when you have to do SEO for non english websites?

Don’t think it’s an easy work just because english is more competitive. You could damage your ranking if you don’t take care of language related issues.

I just found out (via Achille) Multilingual SEO Forums, a forum focused on multilanguage websites topic. If you need (or just want, uh) to do SEO on non english websites, keep it in mind.

Nobody doubts backlinks are very important for SEO. Links are like votes, for search engines, but every vote has a different value. This value depends on many elements and the Pagerank is only one element.

Knowing what makes a link good or not is priceless. These ten tips may worth more than two cents.

1. Quality, not quantity. Remember your run is on quality, not quantity. Stop watching how many links you and your competitors have with link: operator on Google (even asking why Google shows low numbers) and others search engines. You have to see which links your main competitors have, and try to get even better. But looking for quality, not quantity.
2. Anchor. Nobody doubts anchor text is (still, yes) very important. And it works (Googlebombing still works, yes). But don’t focus on a single keyword; try to get different ones.
3. Text around link. A link with text around it looks more natural. Just think about it and you will agree. And don’t forget words give a context to links.
4. In topic. Which one would you prefer for your SEO company website? A link from a popular SEO Guide or a link from a popular food blog? Ok, you got it.
5. Pagerank matters. A bit. When looking for links, many webmasters and SEOs look at the green bar of Pagerank. But that’s just a number. And neither so much accurate and updated. However, if you want to look at Pagerank, look also at number of links on that page. The more the links, the less the Pagerank distributed with every link.
6. No poison words around it (sponsor, adv, etc.). Words like “sponsors”, “advertisers”, “link exchange” and so on are just a way to tell search engines links are not so natural. And they will devaluate those links.
7. Different anchor texts. It’s pretty hard all natural backlinks can use the same anchor text, even if it’s the name of the website. Think how people links Google, for example. This is a perfect example, since surely all of these links are natural (does Google need SEO?). Most of them will have “Google” as anchor text. But maybe someone will use “Google.com”. Or “Mr. G.”. Or “Big G.”. Or “Big Brother”. So, when you can decide anchor text on backlinks, try to use different anchor texts, so that links look natural.
8. Backlink to internal pages. It’s not natural all of backlinks goes to homepage. And it’s not usefull as well. Using another example: you have a website about fruit; if you can have a backlink on a website talking about apple, you should choose a link to your internal page that talks about apple.
9. ODP. Dmoz is the most important directory in the world. So, you should get your link in it. But you can rank well if you are not in it. So, don’t waste your time asking why your site has not been reviewed or when it will be. When your site is done, submit it to ODP and stop thinking about it. Accidently, this is the best way to get your site on Dmoz.
10. Language of pages that link to you. Links pass informations about many things like topic, trust, and language. For example, if you have an italian website, don’t get backlinks from english websites, because your site won’t rank on Google.it (and people won’t look for italian keywords on Google.com).

I’m not a coder or a security expert (at least, not so expert), so i don’t know if this is a bug or a feature (2.0), but many wikis using PBwiki have the same problem right now. In case you are wondering, PBwiki is used in a lot of websites, including the notorious BarCamp.org. And Pbwiki.com hosts tons of wikis on subdomains. And maybe all of them have the same problem. So, let’s see what’s the problem i’m talking about.

A lot of these wikis have a directory (it always has the same name letter) with tons of doorpages (ugly pages with javascript redirect). This is already against Google (and others?) guidelines (and i wonder how the hell is possible Google isn’t able to detect them automatically yet…). These doorpages rank pretty well on Google, since they are on strong websites.

Content of these doorpages goes from porn to ringtones, passing by viagra and other drugs.

Now, i’m going to point you to those pages, but before doing it i have to remember you need to disable javascript in your browser if you want to see doorpages. Otherwise, you’ll get redirected to other pages on other domains.

Done? Ok. You are ready to see doorpages on barcamp.org.

Doorpages are (often) in italian, so we know spammer is here in Italy.

If you want to find all other doorpages on other pbwikis, i’ll let you as excercise. You know all you need to find them:

1. pbwiki is the platform used
2. “/f/” is the path for directory containing doorpages

In the meantime, someone please tell Matt Cutts to remove all these pages from Google index. I think this asshole earned enough money I spent so much time writing and tuning this post, doorpages have already been removed. But not everything: you won’t see standard 404…

P.s. credits for this discovery goes to a SEO expert.

Are you still checking your keyword density? Are you still put tons of keywords on meta tags? Are you still looking for Pagerank update? Come on…

The point about paid links and spam report is that Google is already able to understand which links are paid and which not. And Google is already devaluating paid links.

Asking users to be a spy on paid links won’t work too much. Yes, ok, someone in the world knows for sure about a website who’s buying/selling links, but most of them can know about links only if they are involved. They should admit “I buy links” or “I sell links”. It won’t happen, of course. And most of spam reports about paid links will be just undemonstrable.

Google won’t be able to know about tons of paid links. As long as you don’t use Google Checkout to pay/cash or Gmail to negotiate…

But they are pushing SEOs to most sophisticated paid links. For example, no links on footer anymore, but instead put a link with the right anchor in a paragraph that speaks about the right topic. They already work better today. And tomorrow we’ll see much more about this phenomenon.

I think Search Engine Optimization is easy. You just have to create a spiderable and usable structure, write good content and get popular. That’s it.

Did you ever notice Google Webmaster Guidelines are a sort of summary of W3C Quality Tips for Webmasters?