Search Engine Submission and SEO

When Paypal’s official Web site no longer ranked #1 in Google on a search for “paypal,” it was obvious that Google had become more aggressive in penalizing sites with “unnatural” backlink anchor text. Although the high-profile Paypal example has since been rectified, thousands of webmasters are suffering the consequences of not ranking for even their official company name, let alone their top keywords. It is important for search engine optimizers to understand both how anchor text penalties are being applied and how LSI ensures that anchor text variance will not dilute a link popularity building campaign.

Anchor Text Penalties
In the past year, webmasters have found that the aggressive link popularity building tactics that work well in search engines such as Yahoo! do not fare well in Google. Google has implemented several features to filter out sites that appear to have an unnatural backlink structure; one of these features seems to be specifically penalizing sites with unnatural backlink anchor text.

It has always been an SEO best practice to use descriptive anchor text in both external and internal links. But search engine optimizers have often focused on a single keyword phrase when choosing anchor text, especially if their topic has one keyword that receives vastly more traffic than any secondary keywords. Since good links are hard to come by, they do not want to “waste” any of those backlinks with anchor text that does not contain their main keyword.
The drawback to this approach is that it can be interpreted as unnatural by a search engine. A site with organic, passively-obtained backlinks will have a wide variety of backlink anchor text variations such as: “official site title,” “keyword,” “keyword synonym,” “www.thesite.com” and even “click here.” If the vast majority of a site’s backlink anchor text is simply “keyword,” it is obvious to an algorithm that the link popularity was not obtained organically.
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Basics

Let’s now touch upon the myth I mentioned before, that if a backlink’s anchor text does not contain your Web site’s main keyword, its power is wasted. The concept of latent semantic indexing, which may be more fully implemented by major search engines in the near future, will prove this myth to be false.

Latent semantic indexing can help overcome the “vocabulary mismatch” problem when a human uses a search engine. Individual words do not always provide reliable evidence about the conceptual meaning of a document. For instance, a Web page that is highly relevant to the term “laptop” may never use the term “notebook,” however it is clear to a human being that “notebook” is often used as a synonym for “laptop.”

While it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the mathematics behind LSI, its implications for search algorithms are simple. LSI can use statistical techniques to create a semantic analysis for any given query topic. In practice, this means that a page can be considered relevant for a particular keyword, even if it does not contain that keyword. For instance, a page that is considered relevant for “laptop” can also be considered relevant for “notebook” even if it does not contain the word “notebook,” if LSI determines that “notebook” is semantically related to “laptop.”
The principle can be applied to backlinks as well. Backlinks with anchor text that do not contain your Web site’s main keyword, but instead contain a synonym or related word, may still be giving your site a bonus for the main keyword.
Link Popularity Building Best Practice: Vary Your Anchor Text
The recent increase in penalties given to sites with unnatural backlink anchor text, along with the possible implementation of LSI, should give webmasters motivation to vary their backlink anchor text heavily. Rather than seeking to only obtain links using their main keyword, webmasters should include synonyms, variations and related words. Certainly no single keyword variation should be used the majority of the time; rather, the text of all links should vary widely, just as they would if the links were obtained passively. This will ensure a site’s improvement in the SERPs, without drawing a penalty flag.

One of the best things a business or individual can do to promote a web site is contact a link building service. Needless to say, high-quality, relevant links are very valuable, and a solid link building campaign has the potential to have a high return on investment. Because of the importance of links in todays search algorithms, businesses and individuals should not take choosing a link building service lightly. The following are a few tips to help sort out the good link building firms from the bad.

1. Webmasters seeking a link building service should look for expertise first. The link builder should have a grasp of advanced link building algorithms (such as VIPS and TrustRank). Reading through the link building services web site with the utmost care is a must. Quite simply, the link building service should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of SEO, marketing, search engine algorithms, and appropriate business practices. Experts in the field of link building will undoubtedly make their expertise known on their web site.

Additionally, it is advisable to look at the link building services web site as a whole. Is the design professional and user friendly? It may seem like a waste of time investigating the web site design of the company, but it can be a very telling representation of what type of link building service owns that site. Experts in any field take the highest pride in their work. An expert link building service would want to present itself in the most positive light. Since the web site is indeed the portal from the link building service to the customer, its design and usability are quintessential. If a link building service is haphazard with their web site design, they will certainly be more likely to haphazardly build links.

2. When searching for a link building service, one should look for examples of proven success. A solid link building service will make past successes available for all to see. When coming across the proven success statements on the web site, be sure to follow up on the claims of the link building service. If the service claims to be ranked number one in Google for a widget,  be sure to follow it up. Search widgets in Google and see if the service is truly number one. If it is, then that link building service might be a good choice.

3. The reputation of the link building service should be taken into account. People in the SEO industry understand high quality link building, versus low quality. A recommendation from peers should be considered to be very valuable, because colleagues can often be the best judges and offer the most objective opinions. The SEO industry is relatively small, and most SEOs are familiar with others work. A link building service that is well known in the industry is certainly worth consideration.

4. Any link building service should be honest about how links are obtained. There are straight foreword ways of building links (observing search engine guidelines) and there are ways that are considered to be black hat (not observing search engine guidelines). Depending on preference, one should consider how the link builder would obtain links. If your web site has a reputation to protect, then hiring a black hat SEO could be a gamble. Additionally, search engine algorithms are always improving