Which direction next?

Which would you prefer: more SEO 101-type posts that explain how I would organize and optimize a site that’s just starting out? Or more super-duper power SEO posts that talk about how you can use the translation proxy to check for cloaking, or that talk about the SEO controversy du jour?

247 Responses to Which direction next? (Leave a comment)

  1. How about SEO 201 stuff?

  2. How about both on an anlternative basis?

    SEO 101 to help the webmasters starting with SEO and to give the old ‘dawgs’ a refresher

    and

    Super-Duper SEO to keep the same old ‘dawgs’ untertained

    Cheers, Leo

  3. Why not both?

    -jay

  4. A mix of 101 and super-duper πŸ˜›

  5. Hi Matt,
    I think all types are useful… You could arrange a way to post one type each week… like “Weekly SEO controversy” or “Weekly SEO 101″… or monthly if you think it will be a tight agenda πŸ™‚
    Nice work… keep on!

  6. I think a combination of all three would be best. Whilst I would hope that I’m beyond SEO 101, I think a lot of new webmasters turn to resources like yours to get a grasp on the industry, and I’d like to see them pointed in the right direction (ie ethical practices and building content for the user.)

    On the other hand.. a lot of your regular readers are fairly savvy when it comes to SEO, and so some more advanced posts will be interesting for them. SEO controversy is the least important I feel, but it can be a real boost for a hard working ethical SEO’er to see that the big boys occasionally get caught red handed doing something naughty! πŸ™‚

  7. Super-duper power SEO posts please.

  8. Personally, I’d rather you include a mix of hard-core optimization posts mixed with whatever recent ‘search news’ interests you. So far I’ve been pleased to read most of your posts, even the SEO 101 type posts provide me with something of value: a link to give to those clients who question my techniques that ultimately generates a level of authenticity to the things I’ve been telling them for years. While this is rare, it makes explaining to those that want to understand what’s under the hood much easier.

  9. All of the above sound good to me. I like the variety, whether it’s learning something new, or even just having some of the basics confirmed by a reliable source.

  10. More SEO 101-type posts please Mr Cutts if you don’t mind.

    But whatever you decide, just keep on posting!

    Jon R

  11. Both please. I find your posts very interesting and educational. It’s great to read posts related to search engine optimization that are not pushing any particular service or product.

  12. I am with Shaun on that, More hard core stuff. Along with some post based around where you see the future of SEO.

    Where do you see the future of SEO going.

    No matter what you post i am still reading.

    All the best!

    Shane

  13. Super duper SEO please πŸ™‚

  14. Hello Matt,

    I would like you to post about Google.

    You recently posted about how Google has changed the way it crawls and indexes the web, but since a search engine is a combination of indexing and sorting, I would like to know a bit more about Google’s sorting algorithm.

    I understand that you are not allowed to explain it in depth, but I’m very interested in how Google tries to get rid of spam, i.e. what kind of filters exist, what ‘penalizations’ does Google apply to the spam sites, and how much time lasts a penalization, does a bad page penalize an entire domain?, etc…

    Also, it could be very interesting to know if Google is not only focusing on ‘obvious’ spam (artificial link schemes, hidden text, doorway pages….), but also if you are trying to know the quality of the content on a page.

    I know I’m asking you too much, but now we can start to haggle πŸ™‚

  15. I’d love some SEO-101, but what you’ve written about previously is great … I mean, that’s what got me to subscribe in the first place πŸ˜‰

  16. Matt

    I think you do a fantastic job as it is, and would love to read whatever you have to say. You decide what the best things for us to read are – use the Force, Matt.

    Henry

  17. Hi Matt,
    I would prefer the high-level SEO stuff. There are already so many SEO-101-type pages out there, that can be used as a reference for people who just start out. I need information about what’s going on with Google in order to be able to adapt to changes and to avoid pitfalls.
    So, please keep up your good work! πŸ™‚
    Cheers,
    Airportibo

  18. SEO controversy du jour SVP.

  19. More help for people with problems and commenting on 301 handling, 302 handling etc and why for some Google are not able to correctly identify the root would be great.

    But for now – can you just confirm if we have had that other data refresh you talked about being 3-4 weeks after the June 27th problem – has that data refresh happened yet ?

  20. I think ‘SEO 101-type’ info is available elsewhere but ‘super-duper power SEO posts’ are not. So can we have the high-end please Matt?

    – Michael

  21. Hey Matt,

    Why not start at 101 and work you way up to the super duper stuff with more pics of spam detection tools you find in Happy Meals πŸ™‚

    Do a mini-series on 101 through to super-duper power SEO with constant reminders of what those Happy Meal Spam-o-Meters (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/spam-o-meter/) will do to the darkside

    BTW, been curious as to why you are ordering Happy Meals πŸ™‚

  22. I’d be interested in a series of SEO-101 posts.

    Concerning a series of posts, I was thinking of an inital post summarising the most prominent SEO issues, including a couple of introductory paragraphs and then a reasonably long bulleted list highlighting the main points, for example:

    – no cloaking
    – use 30X redirects instead of 30Y redirects

    The list need not be too detailed. As long as each point is suitably worded, others can then search around on the web for more detailed information.

    The inital post could then be followed up by a set of posts, each focussing on just one of the listed points, or perhaps more than one if they’re closely related, allowing each of the points to be opened to discussion via comments.

    Maybe this format could then be carried forward for other topics, allowing a range of topics to be covered first by a summary and then by more detailed information and discussions.

  23. Hi,

    The SEO community reads your blog and many people post about it, so I find it particularly interesting when your posts either provoke meaningful discussion or respond to particular discussions going on in the blog space around you.

    I particularly enjoy posts that you are uniquely positioned to make like:
    – named examples of spam and why it’s spam
    – things that have changed or will change in the way Google crawls, ranks and filters pages
    – specific examples of people doing things right and being rewarded for it

    Thanks for your commitment to this blog in any case,
    Kate

  24. i will opt for seo 101 type posts.rather then posts which talks about translation proxy to check for cloaking.

  25. Hi Matt,

    Would like to hear your take on the Google Adwords and Landing Page Quality Scoring updates and the anguished claims of massive CPC hikes. From reading a number of recent blogs it’s hard to decide what’s true, what’s assumptive, and what is the right way forward with AdWords and Landing pages.

  26. Personally I like seeing spammers outted in the way only Matt can do. πŸ˜‰ How about a few more insights into some of the spam detection methods you use (well, as much as you can without giving the game away)?

    MG

  27. Dave (Original)

    Matt, does it matter? I mean each post you make turns into “why is my site….” anyway πŸ™‚

  28. I’d prefer more advanced topics, but explained simply and without (unexplained) jargon.

    And it’s great to get those unique insights into “best practise” from Google’s perspective.

    Thanks!

    James

  29. Just keep giving us direct human insights from a Google experience. No one else is doing it, the official Google blog is too much like another outlet for press releases. So that includes everything from SEO stuff to statements on Google China censorship to whatever’s on your mind πŸ™‚

  30. Hey Matt,

    Honestly speaking I will like SEO 101. Also if you can add littlie bit SEO for Web 2.0 then it is nothing like it.

  31. I would say NO to cloaking or any other types of spamming. The only people interested in this would be people wanting to spam. I would say posts on anything SEO that would help white hat webmasters is the way to go.

  32. Not 101 please Matt, there’s more than enough of that around.

  33. super duper SEO, but the SEO 101 doesn’t hurt …. everyone needs some “refreshers” every now and again!

  34. Quick answer: yes

    Longer answer: Both please

    Even longer answer: Intro’s are nice reminders for all folks (like me) who sometimes forget to see the forest for the trees. But the more detailed topics are the fun ones that I bet people really enjoy. More technical details on Google would be great as well as comparisons to other search engines. It might be hard to stay objective in competitor search engines – but it would give us more insight into Google specific “things” (meta odp, regex in robots.txt) as compared to a competitor. Even though Google is #1 in search engines – people might do some 101 tricks just to accomodate Google’s spiders and leave their site open to other crawlers which might not be as savvy as Google, or have different methods to include/exclude/follow content.

  35. i would be happy about more spam outing & power SEO posts …

  36. I want to know about your tennis shoes.

  37. If I may define it that deeply:
    – 20% 101-type posts
    – 70% super duper mega thrilling power posts
    – 10% other interesting stuff
    Please… πŸ™‚

  38. would be cool to lear a bit more about your (googles) “supplemental index”.

    Also your “All over google” posts are welcoome – lets get rich with your shares ;-).

    Markus

  39. Hey Matt,

    I would defenitely be interested in the more advanced techniques, but I must say, I enjoy all of your writing.

  40. I know many webmasters, including myself, would be interested to have some feedback from inside google about the Sitemaps utility. There is quite a lot of confusion about it in the google groups, and some serious questions have been raised about whether it may be harmful to use it. All the while, no one at google has made any comments on these issues whatsoever.

  41. I’d be interested in a series of SEO-101 posts. πŸ™‚

    post it ASAP.

    Ravi.

  42. Power SEO please ^_^

  43. both. totally.

  44. I would like to see you explain the various “Google du jour” issues, such as why the multiple datacenters are returning such different results. There appears to be at least 3 distinct indexes right now that are rotating through google.com (with fairly drastic differences in pages indexed numbers).

    This is not a new phenomenon, but is seems more pronounced recently (post Big Daddy = Aprilish?).

    Then I would like to read about Power Seo topics.

    Thanks for a great job. I missed your posts while you were on vacation! πŸ˜‰

    martin

  45. SEO 101 please; it’s great to find up to date intro stuff, as well as the super SEO.

    Then again the SEO controvery du jour sounds good; do you do a mixed grill?

    Whatever you’re most interested in at the time works for me πŸ˜‰

  46. Anything that helps! πŸ™‚

  47. I’d like more Sith Lord-like powers, please. Advanced SEO, the latest news, the stuff that will help us move up or at least not lose ground in the SERPs. My competitors like to play some evil tricks (splog!) and I need more ammo to keep up while staying legit!

    Chris
    The Financial Aid Podcast

  48. I would say mix it up, then over time you’re pleasing everyone (well apart from Barry who apparently has a shoe ‘issue’…) πŸ˜‰

  49. Hey Matt,

    I would like to see more advanced seo posts. But that doesn’t mean you can mix them up, which would be the best choice…Of course if you have time πŸ˜‰

    Manca

  50. I’d like to know more about how the automatic ‘penaltizations” occur and how often they accidentally remove valid sites.

    I’d like to know why I’ve got a legit site that seems to have been banned from the index. I’ve created a sitemap for that site and sent in a request for reinclusion. It seems that all my requests seem to go into a black hole (other than getting a canned response). Other than following the reinclusion requests you mentioned earlier, I’m at a loss of what to do.

  51. Hi Matt:

    1) Discuss the latest Google Labs Accessibility work and how this might “leak” into the standard algo. W3C may be importnt in the future?

    2) Power tools for picking up SPAM. We all have competitors that are doing “it” with something other than good organization and quality inbound links. How do we figure it out so we can soundly rat them out!

    Ted

  52. Hi Matt,

    I’d agree with Philipp that you are the only human being giving insight into google without much canned information, FAQ or PR-Scum.

    Much more important than posting 101 or hardcore seo is that you ACTUALLY KEEP posting and give those desperate webmasters a chance or illusion of being heard.

    Of course it would be better to establish some more employee blogs since that seems to be the most efficient way of bug-reporting, dialogue marketing and user support that you can ever get.

    not many XX-billion corps are so lucky to have their customers fed and made lucky by posting some miracles in an employee-blog.

    just keep on posting and improve your role as googles only bridgehead into is customers. (although i know that wabmasters are just a little amount of your customers)

    brgds,
    the other Philipp

  53. As long as your posts are pleasant to read, as they have been, informative and about SEO and Google, i would be happy to read them.

  54. I’m with the people who are asking for both. While most basic stuff is too basic for me (the stuff on the AdWords blog is waaayyy too basic), I can see how useful it might be to some. And hey, I may have overlooked something myself.

    Mid-range and power-seo tips are strongly welcomed.

  55. Hi Matt,

    I would like to know why the Google Sandbox effect is so long.
    I have recently (3 months ago) added a site to the Google index, which is a valid site selling stress balls. Why is it that I have to wait 6, 9, 12 (who knows how long) to get into the Google index under competive terms, when my site adheres more to the google guidlines, than any other site out there.

    Would love to know, as this is really frustrating. If I had any hair, I’d be pulling it out now.

    Thanks,
    Dan

  56. Hi Matt,

    I would like to know why the Google Sandbox effect is so long.
    I have recently (3 months ago) added a site to the Google index, which is a valid site selling stress balls. Why is it that I have to wait 6, 9, 12 month(who knows how long) to get into the Google index under competive terms, when my site adheres more to the google guidlines, than any other stress ball related site out there.

    Would love to know, as this is really frustrating. If I had any hair, I’d be pulling it out now.

    Thanks,
    Dan

  57. may be a summarization algo would work both ways

  58. I think that a mix of both SEO 101 and power tricks and tips is best. Your writing has always been informative no matter what the topic.

  59. I would love to hear about anything related to the June 27 issue so many of us with white sites got hit by. Should I be looking for new job (the changes are permanent) or is it known by Google that white hat sites got hit too and things will change back to white sites?

    Along with this…. What exactly is a “data refresh” if it doesn’t have to do with indexing and it isn’t an algorithm change. I hear you saying “data refresh” in reference to the changes some people saw on December 27 and then again on June 27 but nobody seems to understand what that means.

    If June 27 wasn’t an algorithm change then how can a site which had hundreds of pages ranking in the top 20 for their topics suddenly be pushed down to position 400? It is not as if Google suddenly found 380 pages it didn’t know previously that are better. So this certainly feels like an algorithm change.

    Another quick comment. It seems weird that if I do something really bad like hidden text, cloaking, etc that Google will supposedly alert you with a note in your sitemaps account. Or if you do something really bad you can clean up your act and then file a reinclusion request. Google seems to be providing mechanisms for communicating with webmasters…. but only black hat webmasters. Those who are white hat webmasters are left without any mechanism for communicating with Google and are left bombing you with off-topic questions in your personal blog.

    This seems backwards… Google should be trying to help white hat webmasters and offering more communication tools for them and not to the black hat SEOs.

  60. Hi,

    this is what i would like most:

    SEO 101-type posts that explain how I would organize and optimize a site that’s just starting out

  61. What I find most helpful is when you confirm or deny the rumors and theories — especially when you back them up with facts. This is different from using examples to prove your point however since you can always find other examples to the contrary. We also tune in for your early warning system of sorts: these changes will take place in the algo, be prepared type of posts. Please keep up the great work. Despite our complaints, we really like you.

  62. I’m not interesting in cloacking stories.

    I have some link related questions. I wonder how Google looks at the following.

    Am I allowed to put some links from one domain to other (in my control) to get its indexed? Links are so-so relevant. What about ‘supporters’ page? What about some deep links? How many links you recommend?

    Could you give some examples of link schemes which Google doesn’t like and some links which are OK to Google. (probably news papers, forums and blogs without spamming, dmoz, what else?).

    If we aren’t allowed to put any link to out site anywhere, how Google would index more than main site page? No much sense.

    Summary:
    I want to know more details about allowed links and types of linking we should avoid.

    I know that I should avoid running any computer program or web service which creates links.

    What does Google mean by ‘link scheme’?

    Thanks for your answer in advance,
    Mladen.

  63. More cat pictures..

    no, I prefer the super duper stuff.. you can only say “follow the guidelines and write good pages for users” so many times.

    That’s SEO 101 in one sentenece.. make your page accessible to the user.

    Unless there’s an interesting google employee perspective about the seo101 stuff, then that’s cool too. I read them for your insight, not the facts.

    the more technical stuff that I didn’t notice however, would be fun.

    Speaking of, I’m not sure if it’s fixed or not.. but for a while it appeared that the adsense spider was caching sites of mine while i was developing them, then when I submit the URL to google, it used the old adsense cache, and actually took me longer to get my finished page spidered after I submitted it to Google.

    you should add some sort of check on there that tells googlebot NOT to use the adsense cache if it’s the first time a page has been cached, As many webmasters like to toy with things on the live server (including ad placement) before submitting to Google…. but that’s just nitpicky.

    anyway.. its’ more technical stuff that’s interesting to me… but I’m only one person.

  64. Super-duper power posts about controversy and spamming…schadenfreude really helps pep me up.

  65. definitely the hardcore stuff, please. πŸ˜‰

  66. I vote for both. The super-duper stuff can be overwhelming. It’s nice to mix in some 101 stuff too.

  67. My two cents would be more “super-duper power SEO posts” – great stuff when you get into the nitty-gritty of things.

    For example, in this day-n-age of scrapers and replicated content, how do you determine who the original writer of “stuff” is? And along those lines, how do you handle infinitely-deep auto-generated sites – i.e. the infamous 5 Billion pages in the index from one website that cropped up while you are gone – still hope you’ll talk about that. The specific Black-Hat examples are hilarious … especially when it is someone big and well-known like BMW.DE.

    Also, how ’bout some infrastructure information? Not sure why it’s a big secret, but how many data centers are out there, typical number of machines per datacenter, total number of machines, how many search queries/day, GoogleBytes/day bandwidth, GoogleWatts of power used, etc? And discuss how you handle data replication – i.e. how quickly does/can a change ripple across your infrastructure and sync up.

    Finally, how ’bout getting Adam/other Googler’ers to guest-blog occasionally? I know this is your personal blog, but since you focus on your employer, seems relevant, and good way to introduce them and have ’em gain exposure … plus one less post for you to make – put those Cuttletts to work! πŸ˜‰

    alek

    P.S. Ditto other comments about June 27th (Tim had some good comments above – I too can provide an an excellent example of a decade old white-hat site that also took (I assume?!?) major collateral damage live never before by this) – maybe consider doing something like the Yahoo Weather Reports when major data pushes/algorithmic changes are done, with insights into what you are targetting, although that might give away too much secret sauce.

  68. Matt,

    I recently found you while researching SEO tactics, it seems as if your audience is the hard-core SEOptimizer. It would be great to see a “SEO 101” category for us newbies. Can you provide some tips directly related to optimizing blogs (specifically blogger)? Thanks!

  69. How bout both? Im barely more than a newbi to SEO but through reading the forums and blogs ive learned to at least understand what the super duper seo blogs mean. I may not know exactly how to use the info, but i learn it and eventually will use it.

  70. Both, and how about a submit and review, someone submits a url and you review it for seo purposes……we’d get to see a whole range of sites and see what the seo best practices could be πŸ™‚

  71. I like it all mixed up, would like to here more about the nuances that can make your site stand out. Maybe some more Google weather reports, but no more Hoagie talk (it’s a sub).
    What’s going on with the Google directory? are they going to update? I finally got into dmoz but now I see Google has not done a directory update in a long time.

  72. Some SEO 101 stuff that perhaps is missed by most people writing about SEO.

  73. Talk about whatever you wish Matt, I enjoy reading your blog on all the subjects you write about.

  74. Hi Matt,

    How about a new infrastructure weather report and when do you expect the next PR/BL update?

    Thanks!

  75. Super-duper power SEO posts that talk about advanced issues. Most of the readers of this blog are already pros.

    More inside things would be nice too. Like telling us about things not yet released, or explaining certain unknown facts.

  76. Hi Matt,
    Just keep posting. High level us great but sometimes its great to see the basics outlined – keeps the boys from missing the forest for the trees. And outing spammers is great, do like a lot of the stuff to do with linking and indexing one of the boys in the office is asking about textual evaluation all the time so some of that would be great πŸ™‚

    TY
    Mike

  77. Both. My guess is that you have a wide audience. But if you need ideas – how about how Google _should_ handle IDN domains, not how it’s currently done? πŸ™‚

  78. Matt … both would be good. This way you’ll draw both novice and advanced SE marketers.

  79. SEO controversy du jour.

    Scandals rock. Plus I love when people think anything they do is SEO then realize they’re wrong πŸ™‚

    Really, it doesn’t matter much what you write about Matt. We all read it religiously anyway!

  80. I’d say do both, but on about a 3:1 basis (rough estimate.) For every basic SEO-type post, do 3 power-type ones. That would still give the newbies enough to chew on, while giving the people with some experience and knowledge enough to read as well.

    And would it really hurt you or the Google legal team to open up the occasional can of whoopass? Come on, man, go postal on a blackhat once in a while. If need be, borrow from the book of Austin and stomp a mudhole in someone’s ass and walk it dry. πŸ˜€

  81. Brian Robinson

    more super-duper power SEO posts and a few SEO 101 tips here and there πŸ™‚

  82. How would you organize and optimize a site that was just starting out?

  83. A site that’s just starting out ofcourse. Basics.. it is always nice to see how you would handle such task.

  84. Super doooooooooooper stuff please, 101’s are all over the net. I’d much rather have your highly regarded opinion on advance stuff.

    Tim i couldn’t agree more with you on the sitemap’s idea. It would be great if Google would inform a webmaster (via sitemap) that their website is under some sort of penalty. I understand Google’s discretion to not indulge details however a vague message indicating a penalty is just courteous.

    Further more , as per popular request , if you would be kind enough to touch on the June 27th Issue, that would be great.

  85. I would like to see some information on finding our why a site is under a penalty, and how to fix things up to get it removed.

  86. If possible, both would be just perfect … nice greetings from Vienna

  87. Hi Matt,

    Both would be good.

    You’re an important link between the world and world’s biggest search engine, so the more information you share the better, in my opinon.

    (plus more on the 27th June change please. I just don’t get it!) thanks.

  88. Matt,

    I would love to see a continued combination. As someone who has studied many different fields I find it best to challenge the newbies with advanced information while laying a solid foundation of reference articles.

    This was especially true when I started in PHP. It is great to learn syntax but if you aren’t exposed to advanced security issues or development strategies you may not see the direction to head.

    Same goes with SEO if you don’t get a glimpse of advanced topics the basics seem endless and without horizon.

  89. Both but I would like to see two different categories set up. One thing I hate about blogs as a CMS is the way some real great articles get buried over time.

    Super-duper power SEO but maybe some SEO101 is cool too. For example I just set up an site and the script had the capabilities to mod_rewrite. I crawled the site with a link checker and it found a leak to return normal urls with query strings. So a spider could find
    site.com/gallery1/tires.php and
    site.com?type=gallery&page=tires.php

    Back in 2002 or so this type of an issue was not a concern since the page with the most pagereank would be found. You didn’t need to be so paranoid about duplicate content.

    I think that’s why a poster in another thread asked about RSS feeds and if they are treated as duplicate content. People are paranoid.

  90. I’d like to hear more kitty posts….

    We don’t hear enough about your cat, how is she? (he?)

  91. Barry, the tennis shoes on my feet are *not* bright yellow like Rand’s. I normally go for as white as I can get, e.g. right now I’m wearing New Balance 608’s.

    Colin, there’s a McD’s on the way home, and a happy meal is just about right–a tiny bit of hamburger, a wee bit of fries, and a slurp or two of milk (gotta think about your bones when you’re playing hockey).

    Doh–I should have realized that folks would ask for both. πŸ™‚ These are really helpful. Thanks, Dean Clatworthy.

  92. super duper please

  93. As long as you post interesting tidbits that are unique to the web, I’m a happy camper.

  94. Both. There is a lot of 101 type information on the net but accurate and consistent information from a known a respected source (Google/Matt) would help out those new to SEO and give give those of us who report to SEO illiterates a place to back up what we do. i.e. “Spam blogs and blog link spamming are bad. See Matt says so!!”. πŸ™‚

  95. I think the more technical stuff and let your understudy (btw where is he) do the 101 stuff

  96. How about the 5 million page subdomain spammer that keeps coming back into the index everyfew weeks? That would be an interesting subject. Most of us webmasters struggle getting 100 pages cached in google yet this guy slid by few million in less than a month.

  97. Hi, MuttCutt, I want to know SEO would have a future or a dead end. Also like to know some SEO geek’s stories, that’s intersting.

  98. Happy Birthday Matt!!!

  99. Super Duper Hardcore please.

  100. Yeah, I’d really like you to tackle current issues that have been widely publicized but not really sorted out. The huge supplemental index thing which is affecting white hat sites, the subdomain thing, penalties etc. The kinds of things that affect us all, yet we never really discover the reasoning behind.

  101. Both – and the questions people before me asked were good too!

  102. I’d like to hear more kitty posts….

    We don’t hear enough about your cat, how is she? (he?)

    No offense, Matt, but I’m gonna have to take the contrary approach to this. Tech stuff is cool. SEO stuff is cool. The cat thing…sorry, but some of us out there can’t stand cats because some of them are the most miserable creatures on the planet. I’m sure yours is very well-behaved other than crawling in wires and things like that, but still…

  103. I’d be very interested to find out how the Google algo treats the accessibility of a website.
    Do clean code and accessibility features mean anything … you say that Google prefers sites that are good for users, does that include making the accessible?

    Keep it up

    Cheers
    Webecho

  104. More of Both, please.

  105. I vote for super duper posts! There are a lot of places for basic SEO info. Many of us tune in because we are big geeks who love to hear your insider explanations on the art and science of running a search engine. You’re on the cutting edge of a major technological revolution and we want to ride along.

    Oh, and more kitties.

  106. More information on SEO and penalties for bad webmasters.

  107. I would prefer more Google SEO blog posts.

    I love it when you talk about issues such as ranking higher in Google and tips on how to make a good website.

  108. Just keep the communications flowing, Google needs more ways of communicating. Right now we all want to now about the 27th, next week the next thing, it’s just good to know there are ways of finding out what’s going on.

  109. Hey Matt, Great Blog, just found out about this valauble resource a couple months ago so I dont know if this has been done before or how you feel about it.

    What about doing a case study on a site. Say once a month, take a site and disect it and and let us see where they went wrong or where they got it right. I often wonder if I am being penalized for something I am unaware of, etc.

    Whatever you decide to do will good info anyway, so thanks.

  110. Just list every site that gets banned and why they got banned.

    I know you can’t do that for tons of reasons… but it WOULD shut up a lot of people, and probably cut forum postings in half.

  111. Hi Matt

    Please go with SEO 101 with a detailed post on the almighty link. Everything about them like the top 10 types to have in order of priority and types never to have. If I remember correctly, about 5 months ago in a post you said one day you would give advice on different methods of acquiring natural links and asked for a reminder.

    If you can include how many links on the WWW and how many are created every second – that might be interesting trivia.

  112. Russell,

    Great idea! Matt Cutts should to do that.

    It would probably put Digital Point Forums out of business. I’m sure everybody would learn alot from the post, although, realistically, it won’t happen.

  113. Another vote for “super-duper”, there’s many more people who can write “SEO 101”.

  114. Hi Matt,

    I would love to read whatever you decide to write regarding SEO.

    But I also would like to take this opportunity to ask: Does Google have a plan of releasing/including a search modifier like “site:” so we could query those in the SUPPLEMENTARY INDEX? I think it would be a nice idea to have “supplindex:” or something equivalent so webmasters would have a direct clue which pages gets into the supplementary and which to the main index….

    Keep on posting Matt. You’re helping us a lot in the SEO and Legitimate website/e-commerce business…

    Thanks,
    Wesley

  115. Let’s talk about SEO 101:

    Try this search on Google and the other two major SEs, “virtual iron software”. The “other” two have the same first result which is the correct one for the query.

    I don’t think anything you care to let us know about SEO 101 will explain the problems with the results being displayed by Google.

  116. Hi Matt,
    I generally read but do not respond. However, I can answer this question. Put me down for SEO 102 (Not 101). If you are a 101 person, you have not heard yet of Matt Cutts. Keep your focus around the area where you bring value – your inside track on Google and spammy sites.

    Keep up the good work. Your security codes are case sensitive?

  117. SEO 101. Tell us how to avoid supplemental hell.

  118. Matt we need SEO 101
    Their is SO much misinformation on the web, we don’t know what’s TRURLY seo.
    We need the right info. So we can put an end to the so call β€œseo experts”

  119. Try, linkdomain:www.virtualiron.com on Yahoo to see the inbound links.

  120. I’m going to beg for logic in this like Marc Grobman did, and vote for super-duper SEO. Don’t waste your time posting on SEO 101 stuff!

    You could direct people to SEO 101 content that many others have done, likely even on searchenginewatch. Why expend time writing stuff that people could/should find elsewhere?

    It’s much more useful overall for you to write about the less-apparent ideosyncracies or new methods. Write about the subtleties or things which others haven’t covered properly.

    Thanx!

  121. Hi Matt

    I think you know it better which kind of information could be helpful for the majority, dependent on the actuality.

  122. New subscriber, Matt (via Randy Charles Morin). I’m probably beyond the most basic concepts, but you can toss them in anyway if you like (it never hurts to review). Mostly, though, I’d like intermediate to advanced, please.

  123. Whatever you want but keep it simple.

    I do not have a PHD in computing (not even an advanced knowledge of web design) but with the way you are explaining it I get a view of what the impact is of what I am doing (my site is doing very well and better from update to update so I don’t have a problem to relate but it is good to know what to do to prevent one in the future).

    It’s like a “Internet marketing for dummies” and I like it. Other forums are sometimes so technical that you would not even be able to follow it to your site without having to hire a specialist.

    In the end, like any basic learning, start with 101 and then you can try to explain the hardcore things with links to the 101 things so that people can make themselves a picture.

    Maybe something that would interest me: I have 2 sites for 2 languages version. Site 1 is doing very well and site 2 had hardly been optimized and hardly appear in google. Yet I would like in some years to redesign the whole lot into one unit, using site 2 (because of the name) as a bloc for both versions.
    How can I properly redirect site 1 to site 2 so that site 2 takes the place of site 1 in the results without being trashed away for one year or more.

  124. SEO 201 please.

  125. I ‘ d prefer “how I would organize and optimize a site that’s just starting out”.

  126. June 27, please. πŸ™‚

  127. I’d like to hear how to use the Google translation proxy to find cloakers. Why doesn’t it work when I try it?

  128. Some more hardcore is my preference. It’s easy to find 101 stuff on the internet, a bit more difficult to get into the details of complex subjects. I think the majority of your readers are beyond the 101…

    Thanks,

  129. Both!

    More more SEO 101 – & – Super-Duper Power SEO Posts.
    Teach us how to set up FireFox the way you have yours set up as well or post a “Matt Cuss FireFox Plug-in”.

    I also like the guest posts from your Google co-workers.

    And more pictures of the cat please.
    You should contribute a photo to the infinite cat project.
    http://www.infinitecat.com/

    People take a picture of their cat looking at the newest cat picture and so on, and so on, and on and on, etc. I think they have over a thousand cats in the gallery.

  130. SEO controversy du jour, please. It is always interesting to hear your take on the latest SEO gossip πŸ˜‰

  131. Share your insights on how you would prepare a site for ranking 2-4 years down the road πŸ˜‰

  132. optimize a site that’s just starting out

    Cuz seo’s do enough bragging about spammin’ and jammin’ from their blogs anyhow.

    BUT please respond to claims from SEO’s that are incorrect about Google, it s*cks getting incorrect data and some of us really do just want to know how to build compliant, useful websites.

  133. I would like to see more of the power SEO posts.

    SEO for beginers is ok, But it’s something that can be done by other bloggers. The way i see it, what’s the point of reading a google employees blog to see posts about h tags and backlinks?

    With that said though, It is still interestinig to hear Matt’s take on SEO for new sites.

  134. I like the current mix of topics that seem to cover it all. You’re gaining a more mainstream (read: less techie) group of followers that like to be able to talk the talk with our IT counterparts. Thanks for making it universally appealing.

  135. I would love to have some info about sudden traffic losses… what happend June 27 for example… we just sit and wait for Google to fix its errors or we start making experiments with our sites?

  136. As a new web 2.0 entrepreneur lately I have nearly been brought to tears with frustration over getting my site properly indexed so … more SEO 101 would be great and potentially add years to my life by helping me sleep better πŸ™‚

  137. 101

  138. It’s been a long time, Give it to us good and hard!!!

  139. Advice about:
    – Frame web site that cannot be solve with server side include.
    – Huge left menu that doesn’t change (static)

    I know frame is bad for many reason but under some circumstances the left frame can get to 7-8 megs… and makes no senses to get re-download each page.

    Javascript include is fine for crawler?
    Is there any other good solution that can works without a complex server (those generated report are intended to works also locally)

    Huge report like: http://familytrees.genopro.com/appleshaw/NorthBradley/

  140. If you spend more time on advanced SEO, I’m sure there are plenty of folks to help translate it into terms newer folks can understand.

  141. Let’s have it all, Matt!

  142. Soul Caliber room-related anecdotes.

  143. Google is just shifting from its original game plan.. to use simple ideas.. Nothin has changed since last 5 years.. the only thing that has changed is no. of intelligent minds working for or against any problem.. think simple Google.. tht’s the mantra

  144. The Adam That Doesn’t Belong To Matt Said,

    “The cat thing…sorry, but some of us out there can’t stand cats because some of them are the most miserable creatures on the planet.”

    C’mon… I guess we are many here find the “cat things” very entertaining and sweet. Of course in addition to the Gadgets πŸ˜‰

  145. Hi Matt,
    I would like to support Bontar in asking for more about the principles behind Google -what is considered good content and what is not -seems to me a grey area at the moment with people not understanding what google considers to be spam, what triggers a penalty, and most importantly, how to set things right. I sense most website owners want to work with Google rather than try and second guess.

  146. Like the first poster said, why not both? Cause people from different levels are here, they both get something.

    Have a nice day!

  147. Super-Duper Power SEO posts. Especially posts on out of the ordinary stuff that comes up. πŸ™‚

  148. More Extreme SEO Posts – and ALGO RELEVANCY talk πŸ˜€

    Also more room for other points of views about Banning or Spamming Policies – it is imperative that the public be allowed to influence Google’s Webmaster Guidelines & Policies

    Passionate comments should NOT be taken personally πŸ˜•

  149. Matt —

    More of the same — my favorite of the blogs I subscribe too. But if I have to choose, hard core SEO, or in particular, ways that you guys are squelching spammers.

    Tom H

    P.S. The hard drives post was, well, less than compelling. But that’s just me, since my box is bigger than yours πŸ™‚

  150. I vote for super duper SEO stuff and 101 stuff. Rather than SEO as a seperate process trying to soley push up rankings; how about if you could cover SEO in a way that could help increase value of our sites. Possibly how the symantic relationship of words on your page and other topically related sites beyond just continuously dumping keyword phrase/stem here and here and here…in links/h-tags/bold/metas and that crap. How about promotion of a site in an SEO/SE friendly way — Anything to keep in mind here?

  151. Super-Size it, yo!

    I always wanted to know about your shoes, too… I was just afraid to ask. Good one, Barry!

  152. Anything on Google’s current handling of 301/302 redirects would be super (so I guess I’m for super-duper power SEO posts).

  153. I would like to see some more posts outlining some of the problems that seem to be occouring for small webmasters, such as the site referenced in the URI field. In the past you’ve posted examples of offending sites, and they usually are blatantly breaking the guidelines (tons of affiliate links, cloaked pages, etc..). Can we get some examples of why it seems that smaller sites with no apparent violations are being penalized? The Google Sitemaps group seems to be filled with similar problems to ours.

    Google has taken our site for a wild ride this past year. We got our Pagerank back in Feburary, then we joined sitemaps and completely dissapeared from the index, then removed sitemaps and our results have slowly climbed back, though they have not reached their pre sitemaps positions. We had a PR 7 and after last weekend it is now a zero. The bot has been hitting many pages on our site every day, and the number of the pages in the index has been climbing, yet our rankings continue to jump all over the place.

    Given that we are at an average of Page 1 Position 3.5 for our four primary keyword phrases on both MSN and Yahoo, we are at a complete loss as to why our Google rankings are so poor (average page 5 position 3.25). It doesn’t make sense to us or any of the SEM’s we have talked with, so hopefully you can shed some light on the subject.

    Regards,
    Casey

  154. Since Rocketboom has taken a different direction maybe you could fill the void and start RocketGoogle? That way the cuttlets could get a dose of you in living color.

    Actually, I think it would be interesting if you would post some screencasts in addition to, or instead of screen shots when you out spammy sites or explain some aspect of super duper power SEO.

  155. Mix it up. I would be interested to see your response to the Fortune Interactive report that was released recently that tried to figure out the importance of various elements, specifically the various external link parameters.

  156. I would like to have a philosophical analysis from the geeks point of view for the next 12 month about search in general and the meaning of SEO in the things to come. SEO today: fine, but what about tomorrow?
    πŸ˜‰ cheers from germany, good to have you back!

  157. I’d love to see more 101-type stuff, as I’ve just started using Adsense and would like to start setting up some better sites. I may be in the minority, though (too tired to go through comments and count the votes πŸ™‚ )

  158. That’s a really tough call Matt. I like it all and I think you’re pretty tuned in as to what’s hot so fire away.

  159. So Matt.. can we look foward to a bump in cat posts?

  160. There’s a need for all three …. how about 3 sub headings covering them all. Sorry about the extra work !!! πŸ™‚

  161. I appreciate both. You’re posts have helped me greatly!

  162. I agree, a nice mix of 101 and advanced would be great!
    Thank you,
    Matthew

  163. Hi Matt,

    I’d like you to post about the Hardcore stuff – there are a lot of other people posting on the Basic Stuff, and I’d rather hear from you things that I could not hear from them.

  164. I’d like to know a little more about how google decides how much of a site it wants to index. I would also like to know if there is a certain “level” a site can fall under that is better than being banned, but still pretty bad. For example, maybe there are some trust rank factors that can really hurt a site, yet not go so far as banning it?

  165. I would appreciate some SuperDuper SEO posts. But why not do both–in separate threads.

    “I would say NO to cloaking or any other types of spamming. The only people interested in this would be people wanting to spam”

    I for one would like more information on cloaking or any other type of hijcking or spamming because I spend a lot of time looking for Hijackers of my 30+ web clients and also searching for good sites to submit their websites too and I don’t know how to detect cloaking. It is getting harder and harder to find a site with clean links to submit to–most of them have 302 redirects, put the data in frames, have rel=nofollow on the link or put all links in Javascript, etc. I even found a site last week that had all links in a frame that was not detectable unless you searched the source code.

  166. How about starting another blog (on blogger, obviously) for one type of post and keeping this one for the other? Add a link, “for posts, look here” on the main page.

  167. Can you tell us if canonical problems were fixed to Google’s satisfaction?

  168. one word:

    Supplimental

    Thank you.

  169. Most people reading this blog know simple SEO, so I vote the higher-level anti-cloaking/doorway use-the-same-tricks-as-the-big-guys-to-make-your-site-succeed SEO. πŸ™‚

  170. Disappearing pages. 301 redirect issues, Supplemental Index. I have a white hat site, did a “by the book” mod-rewrite 301 redirect from www. to just mysite.com so Analytics would not lose visit data during Analytics startup and all my normally indexed pages went into supplemental, my PR dropped, and only 10% of my sites pages are in the normal index. White hat and all that but now I’ve disappeared. Can’t decide to wait it out, or do another 301 back to www.

    I had reasonable visibility (#2 listing importantance-wise in Google directory for my catagory but that listing still has www. in URL. 301 was in around March 1 or so.

    I’m not trying to get specific help for my site, I think there are a million site owners like me who’ve disappeared and are trying to understand why. I read your prior blogs on this and appreciated every word. I’m spinning around like a top – so any post you write that helps people understand “why” and “what they can do” is invaluable. Thanks!

  171. Dave (Original)

    See Matt, you give a choice of either “A” or “B” and the majority pick “C” πŸ™‚

  172. More super-duper power SEO posts please.

  173. Am with having an alternate postings, a super-duper SEO following a basic 101 and so on. Something like –
    1. Duplicate content issue, a 101.
    2. Mod-rewrite, doing it the right way.

    Thanks for asking suggestions Matt.

  174. Doesnt matter which one for your next post, but keep posting Mr Cutts πŸ˜‰

  175. Super duper, please. I can get the 101 stuff anywhere.

  176. Basic 101 first, but not too long because this kind of information is already redundand.
    And then Super duper all the way, if you please πŸ™‚

    By the way, thanks from a lurker.

  177. How to use the translation proxy to check for cloaking.

    Thanks Matt!

  178. A Super dude and a mixture of both would do

  179. More gadget posts! πŸ˜›

  180. I have waited till now.. where my question is almost on topic πŸ™‚

    I would like to know how one can get permission to use the Google WebAPI in software. As it is now, noone can get permission anymore. Not even a webmaster using it for his own purposes (since that could be considered commercial usage as well, at least that is how I recall having read it).

    I personally would like to include it in my software where the users would have to supply their own API keys. I know many people got this permission back in time, but… A las, I was too late. Now Google does not give anyone (at least auto response email says so) permission to use the WebAPI πŸ™

    Anyways, in conclusion, that was a nay to 101 stuff, and yes to advanced stuff πŸ™‚

  181. Hard code SEO should be the next episode, or else shut the blog down πŸ™‚

  182. The second position seems good for me.

  183. You have the newbies, the middle man, the experts and the die hard seo’ers, oh lets not forget the spammers that read your blogs so I vote to mix up the 2 topics.

  184. explain how I would organize and optimize a site that’s just starting out?

    Matt, when did you become an SEO? πŸ™‚

  185. SEO 101 =) it really doesn’t matter how well your sites are doing you can always do something more… i don’t think 101 as just for starters but as something you have to keep doing in order to grow =)

  186. I am all ears,

    302’s and which evil bots to block to prevent them doing any damage a priority.
    The sup filter needs to grow up and show some muscle to all those stealing content.

    More advanced SEO stuff for the geek.

    Thanks!

  187. Matt,

    I would vote for 2 things, from which one is not on the menu: πŸ™

    – Firstly: super-duper power SEO posts that can help us to understand Google better and adhere to the guidelines and make things easier for all of us
    – Secondly: Information how you are going to build your team and improve communications with webmasters; Your Blog is great, all our experience with Adam is great, but is’t a drop of water in an ocean of sand. I am especially interested in how your team and the Sitemaps team are working together to give us, webmasters, better guidance and tell us what we are doing wrong.

    I really enjoy your posts here and try to learn as much as possible from it, but there is a ‘real life’ connected to it: Hundreds (in my case) or better ten-thousants of people all over the world that depend on their management to make the right descisions about their E-Commerce sites and that are out of options (Read: Will be layed off) when these descisions are not in line with the Google ‘vieuw of the world’. Life is easy for us, as paid high level management, but my thoughts go out to the guy that makes $250 per month and has to tell his wife and children that he has to look for another job and that there will be no income for many weeks to come….

  188. I vote for 20 % 101 types, 60% super stuff, and please 20 % on whatever is the latest BIG headache which ruins webmasters’ sleep. You know which ones they are. The ones which make the more sensitive among us want to retire to the village and become shoe shop owners! I know you can’t do much about some of them often, but see if you can find a way.

  189. more SEO 101-type posts that explain how I would organize and optimize a site that’s just starting out… please

  190. Well, this will probably get lost in here… but I am interested in the theories of Visual-block Page Segmentation and if you think a model along those lines would work in a Google model to fight link/vote spamming (usual link buying stuff)?

    It is a conversation I can’t get into with anyone (even on WMW waaaaaah)

    That’s it

  191. I’d vote for the more technical stuff. The newbie stuff is good, but I think you could offer some good insight on the more technical side of SEO.

  192. How about some International SEO stuff once in a while?

  193. As I asked before you removed my post from earlier, why not replies to existing questions about sites that lost all listings 3-4 months ago, that sent all the emails suggested by you and by googleguy, that never got a reply from either, and that don’t have the money that bmw of germany had to get your attention?

    Removing these kinds of critical or challenging posts and leaving those about the shoes you wear says a lot about you, your blog, and finally the firm that allows you to lead this sad communication forum with your firm’s users.

    People would not come to your blog if you were not a google employee. Try opening another blog to speak about your sneakers and see how people will read it and reply.

    Your firm killed hundreds or thousands of small businesses in America alone and refuses to even address their questions. Comparing yourself to Microsoft is a joke. Suing them in Europe for not opening their code to you is an even greater joke. Thankfully, they are in a league you will not reach.

  194. Hey Matt,

    Re: Happy Meals

    Matt Said:
    Colin, there’s a McD’s on the way home, and a happy meal is just about right–a tiny bit of hamburger, a wee bit of fries, and a slurp or two of milk (gotta think about your bones when you’re playing hockey).

    You forgot to mention that the toys are really cool – I am always in a struggle with my kids as to who gets to play with the toys –

    Great! You are out “passing the puck” at the Plex!!! Awesome!!!!

    Let me know if you need some expert “Canadian Beer League Hockey Advisor” to oversee things πŸ˜‰

  195. Hi Matt.

    I would like to hear more about how Google actually ranks pages and if it takes other things into consideration, like the number of times a page is viewed (measured by people with Google toolbar installed??) or how many times a link is click in the search results? Do these things have any bearing on the ranking?

    Andrew.

  196. I’d prefer more comments/articles about why good sites, with good practices and good content are listing lower than Crap sites.

  197. I should add: And have far more incoming-links (quality links) than those listed above it.

  198. Concerned Webmaster

    Hi Matt

    Quick question, If you remove your site from google using the automatic removal tool, does your site have a completely clean start after the period of 6 mouths. ie. All penalties removed etc.

  199. Matt, I enjoy the blog as is, you make it interesting. I would like to see more case examples, maybe users can submit sites and you make recommendations on how they can improve their ranking and users can chime in.

    101,201, 301. I’ll take it all.

    Thank you and keep up the great work!

    -Victor

  200. Great! You are out β€œpassing the puck” at the Plex!!! Awesome!!!!

    Are you referring to the hockey puck or the bacon cheeseburger that’s been sitting in the holding drawer for about the last six years?

  201. wHY NOT BOTH??

  202. I moved some .co.nz domains hosting to au over 9 months ago in the hope of having them listed on google.com.au au sites only. However, they are not showing up.

    I thought the formula was based on a combination of tld and hosting? Seems like it is recalculated very infrequently. How does it work, why not refresh more frequently. A UK client changed hosting of a .com back to the uk and is now showing up.

    This effects a number of people, and so a reasonable seo 101 question to talk about.

  203. Please more SEO 101-type posts about organizing and optimizing new sites and established sites as well.

    Theo

  204. I would say bot bceause they both sound good! I would like to learn your way of optimizing new sites and also more “super-duper power SEO posts” that would be interesting to know.

  205. After over 8 years of directory operation I find that basic 101 will be best received and understood by the largest majority of web users. I’m sure I don’t need to tell an expert as yourself we now have the least web savvy users ever now as webmasters.

  206. I would rather see the power-user issues.

  207. How about the influence of quality code and the web standards on search engine results?

    Here are a couple of threads on the same topic:
    http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39217&hl=
    http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39192&hl=
    http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=36226
    http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=38874&hl=xhtml

    Do people need to fret about the web standards from the search engines perspective or not? Insight on this topic may be helpful, as it is not covered anywhere.

    Thanks in advance.
    Yuri

  208. I would like to have a specific sub-section on how to optimize a site so that Latin speaking Teletubbies can find it easily without rupturing the earth’s core.

  209. Give us the dirt on Google πŸ™‚ Does Larry really walk around the office in his underpants?

  210. I can find SEO 101 everywhere. You are the only credible source of valid SEO 201 !

  211. Stuff about IPs in different countries and how they affect ranking in country-specific searches and vice versa! πŸ™‚

  212. Both please, Matt! πŸ˜€

    Oh, and if you could just explain the entire Google ranking algo in simple terms, including all the confidential bits, that’d be great. Purely out of academic interest, you understand…

    Thanks in advance πŸ˜‰

    R

  213. Basically we want seo! more so, as much as possible seo, but not for overnight success but how to build step by step long term biz that would last 10-20 years and beyound.

  214. How about more information on why pages go supplemental and how they can be recovered?

  215. Definitely the more involved, complex stuff – the basics can be gleaned from a vast array of sources; the more technical stuff direct from the man inside is what we’re after! πŸ˜€

  216. What’s an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?

    Off-course not.

    Above is the quick answer but there are some guideline for all by Google if you only study Google guideline or follow you will find success!

    While Google doesn’t have relationships with SEOs but does offer recommendations via AdWords this really some what mixture.

  217. My 7 year old, white hat web site dropped in the results for it’s usual keywords from the #4 spot to dead last. Any chance you would post articles to help us understand what has happened when the world turns upside down like that?

  218. Both would be good I think.

    The Basics – Yes you can get lots of info from the web re the basics but it would definately be good to hear the concise relevant bits from the man inside. Fast tracking sort of thing.

    The Complex – How do you raise your game? Play with better players and push yourself beyond your existing limits.

  219. How about some best practices for building sites targeted at a number of countries using the same language, e.g. UK, USA, Canda, etc.?

    Could a country tag be introduced and read by search engines?

  220. Personally prefer a focus on the more technical aspects of Search marketing from Googles perspective, in essence the sort of information that would be aimed at the intermediate to high end search marketeers.

  221. both would be just fine mr. cutts. but if you can add more of the super-duper l337 seo skillz, that would be better πŸ˜€

    coz i personally think those seo 101 type of articles are everywhere these days. no need to repeat the same stuff…

  222. Most of the people in the SEO world could use an SEO 101 for Google series of posts. They won’t appreciate my saying so, but that’s the truth.

  223. 1 vote for super-duper – sick to death of the same-old SEO 101 crap.

  224. howdy matt,

    I wolud like to go for super-duper power SEO posts.

  225. How about a “side-blog”…”From Zero to Hero” aka what to do over the first 30 days (and before) of a new site going live, then review at 60, 90 and 120 days…a bit workload intensive over the first month for you but then you can relax and “maintain the rage” over the follwoing six months…

    Perhaps you could actually do it “real rime”…www.mycatemmy.com and focus on some really competitive feline keywords…

    Finally, add a PayPal button requesting donations from SEO’s who visit and give the money to your favourite charity, the old cats home, Dr Cutts Home For Wayward SEO’s and Charlatans…remember, old SEO’s never die, they just remain in the Supplemental Index forever…

    Best wishes Matt…

    KP

  226. Hi Matt,

    If you do go down the 101 route, please could you consider doing a writeup about what to do if a homepage’s PR is less than inner pages, and typically why this happens?

    Thanks from the UK!

  227. holy crap this topic got popular..

    Matt, here’s a topic idea for you..

    can you dispell some crazy SEO myths that some of my previous bosses held..

    example: we run 10 websites, we can’t host them all on the same server it’s bad for SEO

    or “the ips of these 2 sites are too similiar, we can’t link exchange with both”

    or “all of our sites contain the same javascript tracker… we don’t want google to know they’re all related”

    some have even gone so far as to register each domain under a different person’s name.

    of course, I tell them all “we’re not doing anything against the guidelines, we have nothing to worry about.. all of these things are a waste of time”

    but thenI get looked at like I’m an idiot.

  228. Matt, I agree that a beginner should buy “SEO for Dummies” and you shouldn’t use your time writing about that.

    But I want to support the “SEO 201” concept– things in between what only an uber webmaster would understand (“super duper”) and what an idiot would understand. Say, 6-8 on a scale of 10 if 10 is “Matt Cutts” level of advanced.

    Hope that helps, and see you at SES!

  229. Both – a mixture.. I like the idea of targeted weekly posts.. One superduper on a Wednesday and maybe two 101s monday and friday.

    What do you mean you need sleep???

  230. How about penalties on legit websites like building too many links too fast, how does the penalization and unpenalization process works. Example, if a website got too many links in a white hat way and still hit the penalty would it ever be overtime.

    What other types of penalties are out there and how they present themselves and what should a webmaster do to find out what is the situation with your website.

  231. Well Matt, if you wanted lots of comments, you certainly picked a good comment bait subject. πŸ˜‰

    Given your obligations to Google, I just don’t see you being able to write on the really meaty SEO topics and debates. Personally; however, I’m much more interested in super-duper SEO posts. It would be really nice to lay some of the more outlandish SEO myths to rest.

  232. “more SEO 101-type posts that explain how I would organize and optimize a site that’s just starting out?” But not for people that are JUST starting out…

  233. SEO 101 for start up companies like mine that are paying an SEO marketing firm and want to make sure I am asking the right questions and managing my money!!

  234. Here’s one about the 27th June/27th July which you might be able to advise on: if you have a number of sites which were trashed in the index and haven’t reappeared, but you also have some which have been unaffected, would it be a good idea to abandon the trashed sites and move the content to the unaffected ones?

  235. Matt,
    Listened your video about SEO , that is amazing with lot of excellent stuff, but please explain things more wider and clear instead of mentioning. This will be useful for new people in SEO. My website http://www.earnfreedollars.com/info is optimized further according to some of your tips.

    Still to apply some more in some other pages.

    I knew you from David A Vise told me about you and how you had come to Google

    Thanks a lot.
    Pockan

  236. Hi Matt,

    Enjoying your videos a lot so far. Can you address the best way to use sessions on my site whilst still ensuring that search bots can visit every page for which sessions are not absolutely necessary. I might start a session on every page for my shopping cart, but to view my products you don’t need a session but in some cases it is necessary for the shopping cart to function. Would submitting a comprehensive sitemap get around this issue altogether?

  237. Is there anywhere to download a demo of SEO 101?

  238. I would mostly likely prefer the new site optimization first then you can touch some on black hat or NOT TO DO SEO.

  239. Do you have a link to SEO 101 other than the usual “Google guidelines for Webamaster” ?

  240. SEO 101 would be the most useful for webmasters, please.

  241. SEO controversy du jour would be the most helpful. Getting the most current info from someone in the know would be great, there’s piles of guides on basic SEO for beginners (and that doesn’t change as often).

  242. I’m thinking SEO 101 would be interesting to see. What about some intermediate stuff.

    Seems to me SEO comes down to quality content and quality inbound links.

  243. SEO 101 would be the most helpful πŸ™‚

  244. Hi Matt

    It would be very nice with a bit of both please πŸ™‚ – but if I have to chose, SEO 101 would be most helpful for me.

  245. More SEO 101 please

  246. I like it all. Ive been practicing SEO for 7 years, and always find myself revisiting the basics, because those basics can sometimes change too. But the advanced is always very very valuable. Its all good. Thanks Matt.

  247. SEO 101 please … because there are plenty of good websites which go wasted because of lack of SEO knowledge of webmasters

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