seogenius - 'The debate'

[Frog]

They have over 70,000 high quality links to that page (excluding internal links). Virtually impossible to compete with :/

WW.

At one point in the last couple of years bigmouthmedia were above them for a month or so I think...

With an exact match domain and a massive budget you could do it, without the domain it just wouldn't be viable. For "seo" I don't know what the domain status is, but for "search engine optimisation" wiki aren't going anywhere.

Out of the 5 exact match domains available, 1 is penalised, 1 is targeted to Australia, 1 is owned by someone who doesn't understand what a quality link is, 1 is owned by an Acorn member who (imo) isn't putting in any effort to rank it, and the other is owned by me and I have no interest in trying to outrank wiki.

 

[WigWam]

At one point in the last couple of years bigmouthmedia were above them for a month or so I think...

With an exact match domain and a massive budget you could do it, without the domain it just wouldn't be viable. For "seo" I don't know what the domain status is, but for "search engine optimisation" wiki aren't going anywhere.

Out of the 5 exact match domains available, 1 is penalised, 1 is targeted to Australia, 1 is owned by someone who doesn't understand what a quality link is, 1 is owned by an Acorn member who (imo) isn't putting in any effort to rank it, and the other is owned by me and I have no interest in trying to outrank wiki.

As I said earlier although the amount of traffic would be very nice from "seo" it wouldn't be high quality (most of the traffic would be people wanting to learn or know what seo is).

WW.

 

[denchomsky]

I love browsing through the source code of top seo companies and checking out their HTML.

Just looked at big mouth media's home page HTML, it validates but it is not semantic and div and class naming conventions are not good, and the choice of HTML elements for some of the HTML are wrong.

For example the promobar section (3 graphic icon boxes below navigation) each one of those is 6 <div's>, <div's> are page dividers not random elements to attach random items, 3 <dl's> could have been used here with one <div> containing the whole area.

There are also element with names that describe layout, like 'left-this' and 'right-that' this is not good practice, especially when building for a client as what if the client decided that he would like what is on the left moved to the right of the page, the names would then make no sense, HTML should not describe layout, that is the job of CSS.

The coding is not bad, but if I ran an SEO company I would make sure it was perfect.

 

[Frog]

I love browsing through the source code of top seo companies and checking out their HTML.

Just looked at big mouth media's home page HTML, it validates but it is not semantic and div and class naming conventions are not good, and the choice of HTML elements for some of the HTML are wrong.

For example the promobar section (3 graphic icon boxes below navigation) each one of those is 6 <div's>, <div's> are page dividers not random elements to attach random items, 3 <dl's> could have been used here with one <div> containing the whole area.

There are also element with names that describe layout, like 'left-this' and 'right-that' this is not good practice, especially when building for a client as what if the client decided that he would like what is on the left moved to the right of the page, the names would then make no sense, HTML should not describe layout, that is the job of CSS.

The coding is not bad, but if I ran an SEO company I would make sure it was perfect.

Realistically, none of what you mentioned has a thing to do with seo...it has no effect at all on rankings.

 

[denchomsky]

searchengineoptimisation.org

HTML does not validate, CSS using hack !important, this is lazy CSS, specificity would sort any hierarchy issues out.

Wrapping <h3> elements in <div's>? why, shows a lack of understanding of HTML.

next.....

 

[Frog]

searchengineoptimisation.org

HTML does not validate, CSS using hack !important, this is lazy CSS, specificity would sort any hierarchy issues out.

Wrapping <h3> elements in <div's>? why, shows a lack of understanding of HTML.

next.....

Again, whats your point?

 

[denchomsky]

Realistically, none of what you mentioned has a thing to do with seo...it has no effect at all on rankings.

Semantic HTML
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An important type of web agent that does crawl and read web pages automatically, without prior knowledge of what it might find, is the Web crawler or search-engine spider. These software agents are dependent on the semantic clarity of web pages they find as they use various techniques and algorithms to read and index millions of web pages a day and provide web users with search facilities without which the World Wide Web would be only a fraction of its current usefulness.

In order for search-engine spiders to be able to rate the significance of pieces of text they find in HTML documents, and also for those creating mashups and other hybrids, as well as for more automated agents as they are developed, the semantic structures that exist in HTML need to be widely and uniformly applied to bring out the meaning of published text.

 

[denchomsky]

Again, whats your point?

My point is that if you are claiming you are an SEO expert, A good understanding of HTML is needed as this is the foundation of your web page, how can you analyze and advise a client about their website if you do not understand how to structure a valid HTML document.

 

[Frog]

My point is that if you are claiming you are an SEO expert, A good understanding of HTML is needed as this is the foundation of your web page, how can you analyze and advise a client about their website if you do not understand how to structure a valid HTML document.

I never coded the website myself. If you care, you can read my less than glowing review of the person who did here. It wasn't done by me, or anyone who works for me.

Perfectly validating code is nothing more than a scam peddled by web designers wanting to squeeze some money out of clients by telling them they need it for seo....

What do you think harms the site its on more? My non valid code, or your spelling mistakes in your home page title tag?

 

[denchomsky]

I never coded the website myself. If you care, you can read my less than glowing review of the person who did here. It wasn't done by me, or anyone who works for me.

Ok, I didn't even know it was your company, not a clue, just thought you were adding your opinion to a post, I read your review, and you say your coder has rectified the issues, though the issues I highlighted are still present.

Perfectly validating code is nothing more than a scam peddled by web designers wanting to squeeze some money out of clients by telling them they need it for seo....

That's your opinion, it's rubbish but your opinion.
So are you saying a developer would say, ok I can do it badly for this price, but if you want it done properly (for SEO )it will cost you more?

There are coding standards for web development, something for the client to check the work against (if they can be bothered) and I try to work to them, are there any official standards for SEO, nope, so who has the best opportunity to scam people?

What do you think harms the site its on more? My non valid code, or your spelling mistakes in your home page title tag?

Both

 

[Frog]

That's your opinion, it's rubbish but your opinion.
So are you saying a developer would say, ok I can do it badly for this price, but if you want it done properly (for SEO )it will cost you more?

I am saying a lot of designers try and justify pricing with outright lies that properly validating code helps from an seo perspective, when thats not the case.

 

[denchomsky]

I am saying a lot of designers try and justify pricing with outright lies that properly validating code helps from an seo perspective, when thats not the case.

If a developer neglected to add alt tags to images it can negatively effect SEO., and it wouldn't validate.
If a developer used the <h1> 5 or 6 times in a page this can negatively effect SEO and wouldn't validate.

So there are cases when properly validating code can positively effect SEO.

My original points were more about the structure and naming conventions of the HTML, and I am right, the wrong HTML elements are being used and elements are being named in a way that describes layout, most clients don't give a hoot about this as they would rather pay less and get poorer quality work (i think you may have experienced this)

As for designers justifying prices, it should not cost anymore to get it done properly as it does not take any more time to do it properly, it would actually take less time as less code would be involved.

I am not an SEO genius, but I know my HTML.

 

[mat]

I have never seen so much willy waving in one thread before.

 

[Frog]

most clients don't give a hoot about this as they would rather pay less and get poorer quality work (i think you may have experienced this)

Sure, I couldn't care less if it was valid code - I just wanted it to look exactly like I wanted. (and the coder never even managed that anyway)

 

[Pred]

.

 

[DomainManagement]

well well well

Look what happens when you go in hospital you miss all the fun

is there any you tube footage of this tag team handbag fight

after watching "The Godfather" last night i think i would not want to tangle with

welsh domain mafia , just joking there great lads

one thought does come to mind though " Icarus "

 

[JMOT]

Who ruined the thread title?!

 

[julian]

How can people who've been doing seo for about 3-5 years know shit? imho you need to have seen g and the like evolve over the the last 10 years to understand whats going on and have access to resouces of that past era.

Using someone with a few years seo experience would be like letting a junior doctor operate on you rather than a surgeon..

 

[WigWam]

How can people who've been doing seo for about 3-5 years know shit? imho you need to have seen g and the like evolve over the the last 10 years to understand whats going on and have access to resouces of that past era.

Using someone with a few years seo experience would be like letting a junior doctor operate on you rather than a surgeon..

I would rather have someone who knows the ways that google currently uses to rank website (and a good understanding of past & future ranking factors). Even seo's can get stuck in their old habits and fail to 'adapt' to the newer ranking methods.

A good percentage of website designers only have a few years in the industry (many are still students), yet it is normally them who bring with fresh, innovative ideas that prove to be popular (fb, milliondollarwebsite, etc).

How about all of the catchers on acorn who have only been in the game for a few years, yet they are catching some of the best domains dropping. Same principle.

WW.

 

[StudioVision]

Using someone with a few years seo experience would be like letting a junior doctor operate on you rather than a surgeon..

I totally disagree

I've only been involved in SEO for around 4 years, but I have worked on websites that are now ranked in the top half of the first page of Google for terms such as mortgage broker, offset mortgage, self cert mortgage and bad credit mortgage to name a few. As you can imagine, these are highly competitive terms to rank for.

If you're good at something, you're good at it, no matter how many years you've been doing it.

Craig