SES London: Organic Listings Forum

Speakers: Chris Sherman (searchenginewatch.com), Barry Lloyd (Make Me Top), David Naylor (Bronco), David Turner (Ambergreen Internet Marketing), Jill Whalen (High Rankings), Mike Grehan (Smart Interactive)

This session was the most fun of the day and had a Q&A character. David Naylor was hilarious, Barry Lloys didn’t talk much. The most useful insights were given by David Naylor and Mike Grehan (who b.t.w. has a fantastic voice).

First question from the audience is about web sites ending up in the much dreaded supplemental index. Dave N. explains how Yahoo dislikes affiliate lead sites that match one of their properties. Mike G. elaborates on how Yahoo would like to show the 10 most unique and relevant results, not affiliates with more or less the same content in the first positions. Yahoo would rather put users directly into the store instead of to someone who shows you where the store is.

Next question is about buying links
Mike G. says that he doesn’t buy links because you don’t know what you are getting, he instead prefers to put his time into getting 1 great link. David T. says buying links is a short-term method. Dave N. advises to write great content with links embedded, then buy a link. He further explains not to use the same anchor text over and over again. Mike G. recommends editorial links by creating good content. Dave N. recommends link baiting (laughter from the audience). He further recommends to not use the same meta description for a lot of pages. Jill W. recommends different domain names for different countries.

Buying old domain names
Dave N. recommends to hold the registration in the same person’s name and to change just the administrative contact and DNS information. This way, you make it look like something natural has happened.

Is there any action you can take against scraper sites?
Dave N.: NO

The discussion goes on and takes an almost anti-Google tone. About how by using Google toolbar and sitemaps and other Google accounts you are giving data away to Google. Privacy seems to be an issue on everyone’s mind and paranoia is riding high.

Chris S. continues to say that nowadays with Google listing desktop results and news above the normal results, you have to be in the top 5 to be above the fold.

Dave N. goes on by explaining (very interesting b.t.w.) how malicious competitors can harm your site (aka as Google Bowling, despite the fact that Google in its guidelines claims they can not.

Quote of the day, by David Naylor:
“Matt Cutts does not lie”

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