Proper SEO Practices

Proper search engine optimization or “SEO” practices are a hot topic in the online world. With so many people trying to find the quick fix to generating traffic, we often see freelance optimizers that cut corners and veer to the realm of “Black Hat” SEO.

Black Hat SEO is essentially any optimization tactics which violate search engine guidelines governing best practices for proper site optimization. Black Hat SEO is becoming an increasingly large problem with the ever growing number of websites online. This problem persists because clients are not well versed in proper search engine optimization methods. It should be the responsibility of the SEO firm to educate their clients, putting their fears to rest about shady methods and tactics.

In the world of SEO, there are three schools of optimization, White Hat, Grey Hat and Black Hat optimization.

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Why is Google going after sponsored review blogs?

Ever since bloggers and merchants realized that sponsored or paid reviews paid off handsomely, a whole industry has grown up on this. All of which was built on a common denominator - Google’s PageRank.

Advertisers sought to get links back to their websites, with which they hoped would result in better search engine rankings.

Bloggers found out that writing lots of paid reviews resulted in earnings they could not have dreamed about previously - some even went on to make thousands of dollars a month! Google was aware that its PageRank system was being abused, but only recently took action. And that was drastic action indeed.

The most recent PageRank update saw many blogs’ (which had paid reviews on them) PageRanks reduced drastically - to zero in most cases. Some people say Google was acting unfairly, while others saw it as a direct targeting of PayPerPost (which was the biggest sponsored review network).

I for one see this as just a protectionism act on Google’s part - Google is entitled to protect their PageRank from being treated as a currency, which was traded around to manipulate its search engine results. Yet at the same time, I do think the measures taken were too harsh for many small time bloggers, which encompassed many that were only earning a few hundred bucks a month from writing paid posts.

Currently, the dilemma faced by many bloggers who were doing sponsored reviews is whether to keep on doing it, or to give it up altogether and file a PageRank reinstatement appeal. This act by Google has definitely made it harder for many small bloggers to essentially live off their blogging, and can be seen as a direct hit on the entire blogging universe/industry as a whole, relegating many bloggers who had previously been earning a living from their blogging, back to their dayjobs. Unless these bloggers couldn’t care less about PageRank, this move by Google is more than enough to scare many bloggers back to reality, which is essentially that blogging can never be a sustainable profession for the vast majority of them…Sad indeed, and with far reaching consequences than most would realize.

If you’ve been hit by Google’s PageRank slap, here is some advice on how to go about requesting a PageRank reinstatement.