SEO Interviews galore

In an earlier post I mentioned how interviews are interesting, original content and thus naturally attract links. Here’s a couple more interviews you may want to read:

Brett Tabke does a WebmasterWorld interview (free registration required) of Stephanie Leffler, the CEO MonsterCommerce, and at the same time gets to reveal the news that MonsterCommerce has been acquired by Network Solutions. Congrats, Steph and company!

And Aaron Pratt continues his streak by interviewing Greg Boser. My favorite quote:

… there will obviously be times where Matt and I disagree. He’s the gate keeper and I’m the guy trying to scale the wall so I can show everyone a poster with my client’s 1-800 number on it. That fact creates two distinctively different viewpoints on many issues.

If you want Greg’s different viewpoint on things, his blog is here. I have to bounce, so I’m going to save my Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom picture of Greg for later.

What, you want it now? Oh, alright.

Do you remember in the Temple of Doom movie where the priest reaches into some dude’s chest and pulls out their still-beating heart? Well, a few months ago, a Hungarian cloaker taught me how to do that. So I’m at Pubcon, and Greg Boser is standing right next to me, unaware. So I go for his heart!!

Greg Boser has no heart!

I reach into Greg’s torso and root around in there for like 30 seconds before I realize that Greg has no heart!! After a few more seconds, Greg notices and says “Hey, what are you doing?” And I say, “Um, nothing.” And Greg says “Oh, my heart. You’re trying to pull my heart out like in Temple of Doom, right? AltaVista tried to do that once, so I leave my heart at home when I’m going to be around search engine reps.”

Foiled! Just wait till next time, Greg. (BTW, thanks to Tim? Dax? whoever took the picture.)

59 Responses to SEO Interviews galore (Leave a comment)

  1. on the webmasterworld interview, I dont think they offer a free registration page.

  2. Great. So NSI acquires another company, only to likely destroy the product, charge triple the price, and offer half the service.

    Haven’t we done this before? 😛

  3. “on the webmasterworld interview, I dont think they offer a free registration page.”

    Oh, but they do.

  4. Darrell, click the “need to register?” link under the Member Name text box. That lets you sign up for a free account.

  5. Hey Matt, If you’re into SEO interviews, here are some you may be interested in: Brett Tabke, Greg Jarboe, Barry Schwartz, Rand Fishkin and on Monday Andrew Goodman:
    http://www.toprankblog.com/category/interviews/

  6. Good evening Matt

    Rumor has it that Greg has received big $$$$ for promoting Marlboro Light cigarettes on your blog 🙂

    “Smart, very smart” Greg 🙂

  7. RE: “Good evening Matt

    Rumor has it that Greg has received big $$$$ for promoting Marlboro Light cigarettes on your blog

    “Smart, very smart” Greg”

    Oh I don’t know, he has likely paid more over the years for his cigs and he will ultimately pay with his life!

  8. I’m surprised that you – the Spam Killer, of all people, would link to an interview with a company (monster commerce/monsterwebpromotion) with known, uh…let’s say grey SEO practices, such as buying unrelated links for their clients and the duplicated content dubbed the SEO HTML Catalog.

  9. Agree! However, sadly, all SEO conferences are where well known spammers are given a platform and hence credibility. The sooner the SEO industry bans ALL spammers the sooner the credibility of legit SEO will rise.

    IMO, Google should focus almost exclusively on treating the cause of spam (pro spam companies and individuals) rather than the treating the symptom (duped clients).

  10. I tried monster commerce after meeting steph at San Jose SES. I got upset pretty quick at all the hidden fees.

  11. RE: “I got upset pretty quick at all the hidden fees.”

    That would be for the hidden text 🙂

  12. Right Dave. Duped SEO clients are paying in more ways than one for the purchased text links on monsterwebpromotions network of college newspapers, and got an added whammy on the duplicate content. All the SEO service gets is a “Congrats” from the spam killer himself. Sorry Matt. I used to be fan of yours.

  13. Nice quality photographs. Can i know which model used to shoot this picture?!!!

  14. Good morning Dave

    “IMO, Google should focus almost exclusively on treating the cause of spam (pro spam companies and individuals) rather than the treating the symptom (duped clients).”

    Agreed. But I guess Matt & Co are already doing that. For example the SEO company which did this one is no more in Google index as far as I can see 🙂

  15. >All the SEO service gets is a “Congrats” from the spam killer himself

    Maybe he heard the phrase ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies closer still’ …

    Isn’t it the case that where money is concerned some people, usually the dominant, will push the boundries and try and eek that little bit more? Look at practically any aspect of capitalism and you will see similar paralells.Take the world of corporate finance and tax law. Loopholes are exposed and closed practically year on year. The sophistication of which complexifies year on year.Some accountants and companies moan and wail, whilst others shrug and look to find the next exploit, knowing that’ll close sooner or later, when it does they’ll simply find the next…and it so it goes ad infinitum.

    Why should the search landscape be any different to any other aspect of Capitalism?

  16. Supplemental Challenged

    Um, spammers aren’t dominant. They operate on the fringes, making decent livings but completely shut out of the big money. So you better rethink that theory.

  17. Can someone give me the most popular keyword combinations for “pulling out a beating heart”? Thanks.

  18. In an earlier post I mentioned how interviews are interesting, original content and thus naturally attract links. Here’s a couple more interviews you may want to read:

    I don’t want to say anything. I’m just testing blockquote to see if that’s how those boxes are produced here.

  19. I look at that image and see why Matt will be limiting his conferences to 4-5 a year now. You have to appreciate someone who throws themselves in with wolves. Not that Greg is a wolf, more like Viking…heh 😉

    Blockqoutes – Hmm, when you do blockqoutes do search engines see them for what they are and not deny the cut/paste as duplicate content?

  20. Hi Matt

    A theoritical question.

    Suppose a SEO, for example Greg, keeps tweaking the titles and meta tags of of his client’s website pages in an effort to achieve better ranking on Google serps. Would you consider that as a whitehat- or a blackhat SEO?

    Thanks!

  21. thanks Matt, Greatly appreciated!!! 🙂

  22. I can’t help feeling a little nauseated by this “original content and thus naturally attract links” bandwagon theme that is constantly appearing on the elitist blogs. I know it’s true and valuable information and would solve an awful lot of the problems out for a lot of people, especially Google. Or would it?

    I know it’s your job Matt and you work for Google so no problems there, it’s just so easy to attract links and interest from an audience that quite frankly woudn’t give a toss if your name was John Smith and you worked for McDonalds.

    A friend of mine recently wrote a highly original article, thus ended up ranking top of Google (unknown to him) and consequently got him a lot more traffic (and spam) that he what he bargained for. It only lasted a couple of days until Google gave his hard earned worked away to other sites which caused him to ask me the question why?

    I gave him the usual answer’s but he’s not an SEO or remotely interested in Google, as it was his new found audience that told him about it when he asked the question. The question he asked was “when is your own content not your own”, to which i replied it’s always your own if you wrote it.

    So his question then changed to: “So why if i own it and it’s original did Google give it away.” To which i diplomatically changed the suject and he eventually put the phone down.

    I suggested to him that he keeps doing what he does, keep it original, build his site naturally and organically everything will turn out all right. Oh and change your name to Matt Cutts, join the blog elite, get a job at Google and everything will be just fine.

  23. What do you mean by this
    “So why if i own it and it’s original did Google give it away.”

    Who did Google give it to? Are you saying that others stole your friend’s content? If so, he needs to contact those who violated his copyright.

  24. Hi Blazes,

    Google gave it to the sites that caught onto the idea and emulated it, although in some cases copied it.

    My friend wasn’t interested in the specifics, he just couldn’t understand why Google would rank a site higher than his for the same content.

    Remember this is an innocent party who never even used Google before. He saw the power it gave him for a brief moment until other networks came in and rained on his parade.

    It just made me see it in a different way, from a none SEO way, a potential Google user way.

    I understand the concept of why we need to keep it clean and ethical, but try to see it from this non techie persons point of view. He asked me why if Google ranked him high for his own work, they couldn’t somehow keep him there for it regardless of age, domain, links, PR etc….

    Simply question i thought without a simple answer. Does that make sense?

  25. [quote]Google gave it to the sites that caught onto the idea and emulated it, although in some cases copied it.[/quote]Huh? I don’t get what you mean???? How could Google “give it” to other sites?

    [quote]My friend wasn’t interested in the specifics, he just couldn’t understand why Google would rank a site higher than his for the same content[/quote]Because the Google’s algo sees the other pages as more relavant than your clients. BTW, he should be “interested in the specifics”. As they say, the devil is in the details.

    Writing unique, orginal and quality content is always a VERY good idea. However, this is no guarantee that you will rank ALL pages in the #1 spot in Google for your chosen terms. There is no guaranteed way to get to any position in the Google SERP’s.

  26. Test

  27. ^ Testing what?

    Anyways, nice pic — glad to see others are fans of Marb lights 🙂

  28. I’m trying to figure out what the Quote tags are?

  29. My interview with Jeremy Zawodny will be coming up on Monday.

    Jon Wright – I understand where you are coming from, I have a site I did on water gardens and made the mistake of doing it in blog format which sends out RSS to ping services as soon as you post your first article. In a matter of minutes the scrapers and even worse (articlebot scrapers) were served up my original stuff. 🙁

    Since my water garden site is so new it just doesn’t see any traffic because it is lacking an important thing (links from other sites). So, with that being said, how does and ordinary guy who writes about something he enjoys gets found? Simple, pass the good word to others who also enjoy the subject, get creative and involved, join groups, allow others to post on your site, blah blah blah… people will link to the information naturally. If your friend is not an internet person help spread the word for him, it will happen in time.

    Matt has said that Google is working to find who the originator of all content is; I believe this, for blogs they just need to follow ping services and snatch up the data quick and stamp it. Anything resembling it should be seen as duplicate and should fail. Snippets of content if not surrounded with blockqoutes should also be seen as duplicate because scrapers cut and paste. If I do another educational hobby site I will surely be turning off ping services until the search engines have found all my pages and given them credit.

    Well, that is my ideal search engine world, but a time stamp would really kick major ass! Agree?

  30. Not necessarily, Aaron Pratt.

    The problem lies in where and when the original article was syndicated to and/or submitted to after initial publication, as well as if the author originally published the article on his/her own site.

    What happens if the articles I write don’t get crawled and indexed from my own site before one of the syndicated ones gets indexed? Does that mean the syndicated site, in Google’s eyes, “owns” my content and that I’m the duplicator? It shouldn’t; I wrote it.

    That’s why your idea wouldn’t work, unless authors were forced to delay their article submissions by a day or two to ensure that Google would be able to pick up who owned the intellectual copyright to which article.

    I like the idea of ensuring the copyright, but timestamping just doesn’t solve this problem.

  31. Jeremy Zawodny blog link was removed from the PEOPLE page today – this professional disagreement should NOT have gotten to this point!!!

    What did this have to do with anything, specifically the post?

  32. Hi David,

    Sorry i wasn’t being clear 😉

    Google ranked his site no1 for his original content, so he was the first to be indexed. However he was unaware of this until he asked one of his new found visitors how they suddenly found his site.

    So now he discovers Google as believe it or not, some people don’t use it and are not interested in it.

    So now he finds his site is in Google and he discovers a whole new world. But then other sites start appearing for his content/similar content, a clear breach of his intellectual property, above him after a few days. So the people with bigger networks, more links, higher PR, blog elite etc…are now ranking above him and eventually he disappears and loses his audience to peope stealing his material.

    I explained to him the specifics, but hey he doesn’t care about Google and why should he?

    I’m coming from the same arena as you because my job is in internet marketing, but from the newbies point of view, he thinks its a crime and ive got to say he has a valid point.

    Google has changed for the worse because it doesn’t cater for the newbie anymore, unless its a blog or an elite blog at that. I see many sites sitting in the Google trash can which are perfectly legitimate and real sites that are highly relevant to the user and these very same sites rank no 1 in both Yahoo and MSN.

    So i’m writing this article in a feeble attempt to make Google aware of this and so hopefully get back to the decent engine for people like my friend. Hey i love Google and Google loves me, but there are a lot of talented writers out there who aint getting a shot at it because of the current state of play.

    Incidently his work is still ranking high in MSN & Yahoo as well, so they seem to be able to recognise this problem and deal with it a little better.

  33. re: Content Origination

    The major search engines could create a web service which allowed you to post your blog posts to them, to establish who is the original author. It could even be built into the “publish” operation of the major blog sites and software packages; like the way most of them ping WebLogs.com.

  34. So now he finds his site is in Google and he discovers a whole new world. But then other sites start appearing for his content/similar content, a clear breach of his intellectual property, above him after a few days. So the people with bigger networks, more links, higher PR, blog elite etc…are now ranking above him and eventually he disappears and loses his audience to peope stealing his material.

    I believe that you have to establish a reputation and trust in a search engine before you are allowed to play. If I write the best damn article on “splogs” and put it up on a buddies site that hasn’t established itself yet, it will get weak results AND should get weak results! If you want to get better results, submit it to a website that the engines trust (1 copy no duplicates with one author link to originator). This is not elitist, this is the way it has to be because of spam correct? It all seems so clear now…hrm

  35. >The sooner the SEO industry bans ALL spammers the sooner the credibility of legit SEO will rise.

    There would be no one left. If you are any good at SEO and havent “spammed” (violated a vague SE guideline), then you are a) a poor business person for leaving legit money on the table, b) dont know what you are doing, or c) naive for thinking that there is a clear line between white and black instead of just shades of gray.

    >Um, spammers aren’t dominant. They operate on the fringes, making decent livings but completely shut out of the big money.

    This was sarcasm, right? If not, you obviously dont know who the real spammers are, how good they are at this, and the coin they make. Matt does, otherwise he would be titlting at different windmills.

  36. >>>But then other sites start appearing for his content/similar content, a clear breach of his intellectual property

    There is no infringement (breach) of I.P. unless one has taken the necessary steps to protect themselves like filing for Copy Write protection with http://www.wipo.int or the USPTO. Otherwise it is difficult to claim anything. If you have such protection, you can get the SE to remove the infringing page in question as a result of the DMCA which states. – Service providers, however, are expected to remove material from users’ web sites that appears to constitute copyright infringement

    Roberts idea is excellent regarding content theft for publishers; an “Internet Content Service Bureau” might be the only solution to this problem in the future.

  37. Supplemental Challenged

    “If not, you obviously dont know who the real spammers are, how good they are at this, and the coin they make”

    No it’s not sarcasm. I know who the spammers are and know none of them are even “in the game” in terms of Internet income. Spammers are fringe players who are just a nuisance. Spammers don’t make eight figures a year. Spammers are like ants at a picnic. They just make it unpleasant for the real players, and you have to waste time dealing with them, but just because they are a nuisance doesn’t make them anything more than scrambling for crumbs.

  38. RE: “There would be no one left. If you are any good at SEO and havent “spammed” (violated a vague SE guideline), then you are a) a poor business person for leaving legit money on the table, b) dont know what you are doing, or c) naive for thinking that there is a clear line between white and black instead of just shades of gray.”

    I know plenty of SEO/Webmasters that use no black, or even gray tatics. IMO these are the best business people because they are in for the long term, not short lived black hat ways. There is no shades of gray IMO, the SE Guidelines are very clear and there is never a need to go outside them.

    One only has to browse the SEO forums after a Google update to see who the spammers are, they are the ones crying the loudest 🙂

    So, I don’t think it’s niave, or bad business (cannot say the same for the other side of the coin though) to focus long term and have sites that stay in their decent SERP positions year and years after year 🙂

  39. >Spammers don’t make eight figures a year.

    I must be bottom fishing. The good ones I know only make seven figures.

    >SE Guidelines are very clear and there is never a need to go outside them.

    Really? Are you sure?

    From http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html:

    “When your site is ready:
    Have other relevant sites link to yours.”

    From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: 4th Edition. 2000.
    Have (verb)
    To cause to do something, as by persuasion or compulsion
    To come into possession of; acquire:

    The guidelines do not specify how I am to “have” other sites link to me. If I pay someone to “have other relevant sites link to *mine*”, am I violating the guidelines? According to Matt I am. Isnt this what people did with Jeremy? They *had* him link to their sites – for a fee. Others can be ‘persuaded’ or ‘compelled’ if you link back.

    Matt, if Im wrong here, please let me know. Its in the interpretation of this one line in Google’s guidelines that is at the center of most of the debate.

  40. Supplemental Challenged

    “The good ones I know only make seven figures.”

    Precisely. The very very top ones are a trivial influence in terms of income on the Internet. And most of the “top” ones are just six figures earners. That is a good job certainly, but that is all it is, a “job”. These are ants compared to the real Internet companies that dominant the income earned on the web.

  41. RE: “The guidelines do not specify how I am to “have” other sites link to me. If I pay someone to “have other relevant sites link to *mine*”, am I violating the guidelines? According to Matt I am”

    No, nowhere I can see has Matt said if you buy links you are outside the Google guidelines. It’s all quite simple really. If you buy links make SURE you are only paying for click traffic and don’t pay for PR, link pop, or SERP boosting as you likely wont get it?

    RE: Have other relevant sites link to yours.

    Yep, notice the ALL important word “relevant”. If they link because they feel your site page is worth linking to for their visitors you have NOTHING to worry about. The same applies when linking out. However, If you are buying links from PR mongers (and likely not a relevant site) it becomes quite clear to Google that you are attempting to buy PR, link pop and a better SERP possy.

    I would say the same probably applies to MOST directories, paid or free. Let’s face it, your site pages DON’T become more relevant to your targeted search terms because you have submitted (paid or free) to more directories than your competitors.

    IMO, good unique quality Content is what makes a site authorotive and relavant in Google’s eyes. It also becomes a magnet for inbound links!

    Oh how I wish common sense and logic would prevail 🙂

  42. RE: ““The good ones I know only make seven figures.”

    They also wake up every morning wondering if Today is the day Google catches them. I bet they don’t last long term either :))

  43. BTW “Have other relevant sites link to yours” is from Google “Technical Guidelines” and most likely is a way that Google finds your NEW site and can determine what your ‘theme’ is. This likely also why it suggests submitting to directories, that is, Google can then find/index your site and determine what your ‘theme’ is.

  44. I am going to allow my mood to change and say the following.

    SPAMMERS PISS ME OFF, I BELIEVE THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY WEBSITES NEGATIVE RESULTS IN THE LAST JAGGER UPDATES.

    I think we all can agree there is SEO and then there is major spamming, you think you are cool being friends with people who are ruining it for us all? How lame is that? Think about it, the more people spam, the tougher it gets for those not spamming to succeed with basic SEO techniques because there is few left that work.

  45. Sorry, this is not a comment for this post. I couldn’t find any other contact form.. anyway, I have been reading your blog for a little while, and I love what you’re doing. I am a web dev turn (White-hat) SEO. @;-) I know you are always looking for interesting rl scenarios and I found a real interesting one I just had to pass on

    If you do a google search for: Amber Brkich
    Look at result # 4 – Amber Brkich Links (www.sirlinksalot.net/amberbrkich.html)

    once on this page click this link – Unofficial Amber Brkich Website Pics under Photos

    It takes you to a geocities page – http://www.geocities.com/survivorcast/pictures.htm

    Now it’s intereting where all of the links on this page take you…
    http://www.waynetimes.com/

    Keep bloggin Geek! We love it..

    Chip

  46. >THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY WEBSITES NEGATIVE RESULTS IN THE LAST JAGGER UPDATES.

    Aaron, spammers are not responsible for your sites’ performance. Just ask Dave.

    >If they link because they feel your site page is worth linking to for their visitors you have NOTHING to worry about.

    Tell it to Aaron. He is the one with serp issues. I’m fine. My white as snow site hasnt budged more than 1 or 2 positions since before Florida. But Boser is right that getting links is not what it used to be and its naive to believe otherwise.

    >SPAMMERS PISS ME OFF

    Then stop interviewing them.

    >I bet they don’t last long term either

    You lose the bet.

  47. Who said spammers don’t make money?

    1 spammer alone accounts for over 1% of yahoo’s ad network clicks.

    1% in a field of millions of people and billions of clicks is HUGE.

    He happens to be a “domainer”… but that’s still spam.

    If you don’t think they make money, check out last month’s Business2.0 There’s a huge article about domainers and the coin they’re making.

  48. Ryan – I also have a site that was alive during the Florida updates and hasn’t moved a bit, I can’t do anything wrong with it. #1

    BUT Jagger took action against content spam (blogger,wordpress) and if you have a blog that is only a couple months old I bet you saw it move during the Jagger updates. You might have even been tossed in the trash and it could be a slow climb out because there are not enough trusted sites to link to you now.

  49. Nah Aaron, all my sites moved up during the jagger updates.

    (although I’m still waiting for a couple to start showing up)
    I linked my name to a list of all my sites if you’re curious.

    Only think Jagger affected me was by hurting noslang.com with the canonical url thing… But I put the code in place to fix that, and hope to have the index page back to it’s pagerank soon.

    But I think you meant to address that to “what a maroon” instead of “ryan”… 🙂

  50. >there are not enough trusted sites to link to you now.

    Sure there are, but you make Boser’s point that “compelling” or “pursuading” sites to link to you out of the goodness of their hearts isnt the world we now live in. Which brings us back to the question of what is an acceptable action to take that results in “have relevant sites link to you”.

    The reality is that it isnt “build it and they will come” for most sites out there. And now that Matt has confirmed that the “sucking sound” that Ross Perot heard wasnt jobs going away but page rank, links have an even greater intrinsic value. Call it a vote Iif you will, but even politicians get votes from the electorate by promising something of value in return. Same with links.

    The question is whether or not Google thinks everyone but them must be altruistic in their online business and will punish them if they are not.

  51. RE: Making eight figures a year! Right, few if any spammers have *ever* made over ten million annually, in fact I don’t think there is a single Internet CEO salary in that range (excluding option/bonus values which would go very high but only for the big players). Matt deserves it but I doubt he’s hit the eight figure mark…yet?

  52. he he he just like the forums only with Google as the arbitrator.

  53. RE: “You lose the bet”

    No arguing with that spammers friend logic, I concede 😉 Yeah right!

    Black hats have about as much potetial as a moth flying about a light bulb.

  54. not to defend the black hats, but if there wasn’t any money in it do you think they’d still be doing it?

    It’s obviously paying their bills.

  55. Supplemtal Challenged

    Sure it pays the bills, and is a decent job in terms of jobs in this world, but there is relatively no money in it.

  56. I don’t think anyone here has said black hats make no money?? If I missed it, please point it out 🙂

  57. and exactly how a “free registration” page will be good for SEO? since googlebot will probably bounce on it.

  58. Well the time will come for the leading search engines to increase their artificial thinking to cut down the black hat seo techniques. Well, enjoyed your photographs and the total discussion.

  59. Matt, I could not find a blog post of yours that had to do with Greg Boser’s SEO Contest, so forgive me for putting this comment here. But, it kinda has something to do with “SEO Interviews” if you stretch the meaning of those keywords (smiley face). So, here goes:

    Bill Hartzer said in his comment on the WebGuerrilla blog:

    “I’m sure it will be very informative for the engineers at Google and
    the other search engines-all they have to do is analyze the results and
    find all the tricks SEOs are using. Furthermore, I’m sure it will be
    fairly easy to identify all the SEOs out there involved in the contest.”

    As a non-insider, but observer of the SEO-SEM industry since 1997, I’m
    curious how true Bill’s statement is? I’m not questioning Bill’s vast
    knowledge and experience. I’m just wondering if Matt Cutts (who I
    respect) isn’t going to suggest to someone in Google that they should
    use this “contest opportunity” to do exactly what Bill suggests? Matt
    certainly has the right (and maybe “personal obligation”) to do that.
    For all SEO’s following the Google Webmaster Guidelines, no problem.
    But, how “competitive” will this get?

    Was the 2003 contest used by the search engines to do the same?

    http://www.webguerrilla.com/seo-contest/ Bill Hartzer’s comment is #16

css.php