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PageRank Sculpting

Matt Cutts had an interesting post on PageRank Sculpting. He states that he wouldn't recommend it, because sculpting isn't the most effective use of time or utilization PageRank. He says that he would let PageRank flow freely within a website.

He goes on to say that the art of PageRank sculpting, "has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us (Google)." Matt Cutts says that he recommends your primary focus should be 1) making great content that will attract links, 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike, and 3) making money or a profit.

That's exactly what Web Your Name® decided to do. We focused on the primary objectives of creating a unique website with excellent content, and after everything else was in place, we decided to focus on PageRank sculpting. If you are a blogger and run a blog, you can forget about PageRank sculpting. PageRank sculpting is best left to professionals that really understand website optimization and Google marketing.

How can I increase
my Google PageRank?

To increase PageRank, you need to get relevant websites to link to your website. However, getting people to link to your website is by no means easy, nor is increasing PageRank. Link longevity is the most important factor gaining PR. High PageRank is essential to a Top 10 Google ranking. A new link is nearly worthless, a link that has been in place a year or longer will help significantly. Google link longevity cannot be manipulated. The maturity of content and the maturity of links is many times a huge factor in ranking success.

Another problem is that many of the sites that are relevant are most likely your competitors. Obviously a competitor is not going to link to your site. People then turn to places to purchase links. Purchasing links is a bad idea. If you already know that Google penalizes paid links, you wouldn't consider this option. Many places advertise all over the place about buying links and getting your PageRank increased. If these businesses actually worked, how come their PageRank is always so low? Free directories are not going to help much if any.

So, your competition's sites are out of the question, buying links is out of the question, and irrelevant sites are out of the question. Where can you possibly get quality links from to help increase your PageRank? You need to be innovative, you need to think outside of the box. There are only two good ways to get quality links. One way is to work with your marketing agency to see if some of their clients would be interested in exchanging links. The other is to seek businesses in the related industry in other states or geographical regions that are not competitors of yours. An example would be to get a deck company in Atlanta, Georgia to exchange links with your deck company in Dallas, Texas.

One way links are more valuable than reciprocal links. However, one way links are going to be harder to achieve because most people's attitude is going to be "What do I get out of it?". Back in October of 2007, let it be noted that a Google spokesperson told vnunet.com that "Our opinion of the forward links for a site can play a role in a site's pagerank.". This confirms my theory that linking out to quality sites is just as important as receiving links in from quality sites.

In 2010 Google included the loading speeds of a webpage into the PageRank. The theory is that the speed of a webpage is directly related to the quality of user experience when visiting a website. This is AWESOME that they incorporated "page speed" into PageRank score. To all those bloggers who have blogs that have pop-ups, advertisements, and junk all over their website, this is hopefully going to decrease their ranking abilities.

Internet Marketing 101.
Marketing Basics.
Do you have AUTHORITY?
But are you an AUTHORITY?

It is now 2010, and the key to running a successful marketing company is to be successful with search marketing and Internet marketing. Long gone is the days of having to create eye-catching billboards and telephone book ads. Today's best marketing companies dominate the digital medium. Internet marketing is something that every business must be able to outshine their competition in. Hiring the best Internet marketing company is going to pay huge dividends in the long run. Google is the #1 search engine on the Internet and Web Your Name® wants to be the marketing company that helps you reach the TOP of Google's search results.

Part of being successful with marketing online, requires to be authoritative on a subject. Google thinks very highly of websites that are authoritative on a particular subject or topic. Yes, mature links are definitely valuable, but authoritative content can be just as valuable. Google believes that websites of a feather flock together. Therefore it is critical of a website to try to maintain Topic Sensitive content that is similar and relevant. For example, a fence company website that had pages about parenting would likely not do quite as well as two other websites that divided up the information topically.

Another example would be a site discussing the history of war and specific wars, would likely not want to contain pages of information regarding geometry and high school math. A good marketing company will also know how to create a hierarchy for the content and to distribute a website's PageRank effectively, efficiently, and creatively. May marketing companies want you to rely on pay-per-click advertising and tend to overshadow PageRank and Internet marketing from the natural results aspect.

More Marketing SEO.
Do tag clouds work?
Does it affect PageRank?

On September 21, 2009, Matt Cutts stated publicly that, "Google doesn't use the keywords meta tag in web search. Google uses over two hundred signals in our web search rankings, but the keywords meta tag is not currently one of them, and I don't believe it will be."

He also stated that this is something that Google has been ignoring for many years. That is good news since I have never wasted any time on using the meta keywords tag on Internet web pages, despite many clueless SEO agencies telling clients that it is important to use. I would have been pretty pissed off to have spent years installing keyword tags on client web pages only to find out that I did it all for nothing.

Although Google has not publicly addressed the tag cloud debacle. Any semi-intelligent webmaster would have to assume that Google overlooks tag clouds as important. Tag clouds basically took over when the meta keywords tag died. People started using tag clouds to try to manipulate search engines.

A tag cloud (also called a word cloud) is a group of words arranged visually in the shape of a cloud. A tag cloud is a visual depiction of user-generated "tags". Basically, the tags are representative of the content of a site. Tags are generally single words, and the importance or relevance of a tag is shown with various font sizes and colors. It is our belief that tag clouds are worthless and do nothing to help a user's experience and definitely play no factor into PageRank.

PR also means public relations.

Does +1 affect my site’s performance in search?

Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers.

Great, now we officially have to worry about +1 affecting Google's search engine results. Well, +1 this page if you "liked it". PageRank can no longer be easily manipulated, and is not the biggest factor in ranking in search results. There are so many variables, it has become impossible to manipulate short-tail keyword search terms.

"The past is the torch that lights our way. Where our fathers have shown us the path we shall follow. Our faith is the weapon most feared by our enemies. For thereby shall we lift our people up against those who would destroy us." -Gangs Of New York