The Social Elements of Relevancy

The Social Elements of Relevancy

Since many of you who have bought will not read all of it, I need to make sure I deliver great value in the first few pages to ensure you get your money’s worth.

Relevancy is never static. Due to commercial market forces, search is CONSTANTLY broken. Thus, if you think of this e-book as a literal guide, it too will always be broken. Instead of thinking of the web and search in terms of algorithms it helps to think of the web as a large social network. Ask yourself questions like

•       What are people talking about?

•       What stories are spreading?

•       Why are they spreading?

•       Who is spreading them?

•       How are they spreading them?

The reason search relies so heavily on the social elements is that page content and site structure are so easy to manipulate. It takes a mind well-tuned into marketing to be able to influence or manipulate people directly.

There are ways to fake authority, and when you are new it may make sense to push the envelope on some fronts. But invariably, anything that is widely manipulated is not a strong signal of authority.

Google wants to count real editorial votes. Consider the following:

•       It is not common for news sites to link section-wide to an online bingo site.

•       Most of the ads are irrelevant to the content of the pages.

•       There are a large number of paid links right next to each other.

•       The site has amazing authority.

Given all the above, it makes sense that Google would not want to count those links. When I posted about how overt that PageRank selling was, Matt Cutts, a leading Google engineer, hinted that Google had already taken care of not counting those links.

And since UPI is a slow moving, 100 year-old company, the fact that they are selling PageRank should also tell you that Google’s relevancy algorithms have moved far beyond just considering PageRank. I have PageRank 5 sites that get 100 times the traffic that some of my PageRank 7 sites do, because they have better content and a more natural link profile.

If you do buy links, think of the page as though you were an editor for a search engineer. Does the link look like it is a natural part of the page? Or is it an obviously purchased link?

What if instead of thinking of ways to try to create false authority, you looked at the web in terms of a social network, where the best ideas and the best marketed ideas spread? Now that might get you somewhere.