SEO and business website misconceptions Archives

The truth about those annoying SEO emails

June 19, 2020October 27, 2013 by Patrick Barnes

Can they really get you on Page 1 of Google?

If you have a website, chances are you get bombarded with emails from Search Engine Optimisation ‘specialists’ offering to get you onto page 1 of Google. But can they really help your site do better in web searches? We look at the truth behind the claims of the SEO email spammers.

We thought we would take three of them up on their offer of a free report and website analysis.

Can they really get you onto page 1 of Google?

For the test we used a hobby site of ours, ApriliaFutura.co.uk. The site isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough and most importantly sits at the top of Google searches for lots of the appropriate search terms.

It also gets probably one email a week from an SEO company touting for business, so we didn’t have to wait long for them to come to us. In a previous blog post we covered how another of these spammed us without first doing their homework.

Can they really help your website?

Unsurprisingly each of the companies found a lot wrong with the site and offered to do lots of totally unnecessary work to put right problems that didn’t exist.

Their claims – and the true position – are posted here so that you won’t fall for them if someone tries to tell you this is what you need.

1. Backlinks

All three reports we received insisted there were no links anywhere on the web pointing at our website – they included a screenshot of a Google link search – i.e. the result of typing link:www.apriliafutura.co.uk into Google.

The truth about backlinks and SEO

This method does not display all links pointing to the site but it’s a great way to make people think they have none at all.

In fact only the owner of a website can see how many links point at it, and that’s through the Google Webmaster Tools account. Actually there are 2,593 links pointing at the site.

Annoying SEO email. We get two or three a week.

We pointed this out to one of the companies and they told us they were talking about ‘Google backlinks’, which are different from ordinary backlinks. There is, of course, no such thing.

It’s true that links pointing to your site are important and can help your site do better in searches – but they have to be from the right places. Above all they should be relevant to the subject matter and ideally from a site Google thinks is authoritative.

For years SEO companies have seized on this as a way of pushing sites to the top by posting links on all sorts of sites. For a long time it worked, but Google can now detect dodgy backlinks and downgrades or even black lists sites that use them.

Creating backlinks remains one of the favourite tactics of dodgy SEO companies, and if you use them you may well regret it.

2. Dmoz listing

All three of our reports (two with identical wording) insisted that getting a link from Dmoz was essential as Dmoz is the ‘most authoritative site by far’.

So what’s Dmoz? http://www.dmoz.org, also known as the Open Directory project, was an early attempt to put all of the web on a directory. But while it was important when the web was young, it’s not these days.

The truth about Dmoz and SEO

These days a link from Dmoz isn’t really worth any more than a link from many other sites. Today most sites aren’t listed on it, yet still do fine in searches. But it’s a great way for someone looking to do unnecessary SEO work to find fault with your site.

As Google engineer Matt Cutts puts it: “It used to be the case that people would have a check list of the links they really wanted to get. And it’s not that there’s something special or different about the Open Directory Project. It’s a very well known directory, but it’s not a requirement. It’s not the sort of thing where you have to get a link from Dmoz.”

More information on Dmoz listings and backlinks

Google Webmaster Help video: What role does being in Dmoz play in rankings (this video also covers the backlink: issue)

Note: Dmoz was closed in 2017 but we’re leaving it here because this still crops up in dodgy SEO emails.

3. Yahoo Directory/Yellow Pages listing

Two out of three claimed we needed links to our site from both of these online directories. One also mentioned Alexa, another directory site.

The truth about directory listings

All these directories are seen as authoritative but links from them are not essential to do well in searches. Again, it makes unnecessary work for our SEO companies. Getting links from these sites won’t make much difference, if any.

4. Reverse IP

Our site currently shares its IP address with many others sitting on the same server. Two out of three of our SEO companies suggested the site should have its own IP and claimed search engines prefer this.

The truth about shared IP addresses and SEO

In short, this is totally untrue. There are reasons why a dedicated IP is necessary for some site that we won’t go into here, but SEO is not one of them. It has absolutely no effect on search and never has.

This is another great way of creating demand for your services as the vast majority of websites are on shared hosting and therefore share their IP address with upwards of 1,000 other sites.

It’s easy enough to look up and sounds technical enough to fool the average business owner.

More information on shared IPs

WP Engine: The myth of the dedicated IP address for SEO

Other dubious SEO claims

Generally all the reports did their best to mark the site down with false statements and subjective judgements – remember this is a website that scores in the top of the first page for hundreds of relevant search terms.

But they still managed to mark it down for quality of page content, a couple of errors in the code, keywords (which Google doesn’t even look at now) and even not having a live chat feature on the homepage of the site!

The interesting part came with the follow up email conversation where we asked one of the firms which search terms they would optimise the site for – something none of them had mentioned.

They came back with a list of terms most people wouldn’t use when looking for the information on the site, missing out on the most obvious ones, possibly because the site is already on page one for them!

How to pick a good SEO company

As we said at the beginning, if you own a website then you will have received emails from these SEO companies.

We know a few people who have fallen for them and ended up paying hundreds of pounds per month for no obvious benefit.

The site we had assessed is in the first page of dozens of Google searches because we followed some basic rules when building it – they are in Google’s SEO guide for everyone to see – and because it’s useful to the people it is aimed at, who helpfully post lots of links to it on social media. And because it’s relevant.

And here’s the key: Follow the basic rules, make your site relevant and useful and have some good links pointing to it and you won’t go far wrong.

There are plenty of good SEO companies to choose from, but most are too busy to send out masses of emails to random website owners.

A good company will ask you straight away which search terms you want your site to do well at, and tell you whether that is realistic. No-one will guarantee you a page 1 listing for any term you choose, especially if there is a lot of competition.

Search Engine Optimisation is a young industry and it seems there are plenty of companies ready to take advantage of changing requirements and confusion over what matters and what doesn’t.

Get your content right and the rest will follow

We mustn’t lose sight of the most important factor in search engine optimisation – content!

Good content trumps many of the factors our SEO companies picked on – and by good we mean relevant to the information searched for.

And in the race to get people to find our website we mustn’t forget one crucial fact: Getting people to the site should not be an aim in itself – it’s what happens when people get there that’s most important.

More information

Google webmaster help video: How can good sites that don’t know SEO rank well?

Photo credit: Stéfan via photopin cc

Cookie Law: Dead in the Water?

May 11, 2017January 28, 2013 by Patrick Barnes

At last the Information Commissioner has bowed to the inevitable and further watered down the UK Cookie Law.

As of today websites can officially accept set cookies without asking first, rendering more or less meaningless one of the most pointless – and unenforceable – laws in recent years.

So hopefully that will spell the end for one of the most annoying features ever to have to hit the web: the cookie consent widget.

These annoying little blighters have been springing up on websites for the past year or so – asking everyone if it’s okay to set cookies.

The Cookie Law just annoys people

Some would disappear if you ignored them, others refused to go away and tracked you right through a site and others popped up again as soon as you said yes or no to their insistent demands.

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Goodbye Cookie Control – We won’t miss you[/caption]

As a website owner, if you set yours according to the letter of the law then your site would not record statistics until the site visitor agreed, and social media add ons like Facebook Like buttons would not work.

So until people agreed you could not measure them, meaning your website statistics only recorded some of the visitors to your site.

We always advocated a lighter approach in our blog posts on the Cookie Law and Complying with the Cookie Law.

To be fair the Cookie Law was the biggest bane on usability since the arrival of Flash websites.

Cookie warning notice

But now it is dead. All you have to do is have a cookie notice on your site – and that’s it. Not even an annoying widget.

It would appear to be a victory for common sense, although the ICO is portraying it as ‘job done’. More likely that it was a totally unworkable piece of legislation that has been nothing but a gigantic pain for everyone as it changed, changed and changed again.

So will you miss the Cookie Law? Was it a good thing? Add your views below.

More information

ICO to change cookie policy to recognise implied consent – Out-Law.com

Changes to cookies on our website – Information Commissioner’s Office

Optimising my website for Google

May 11, 2017November 16, 2012 by Patrick Barnes

Google screenshot showing Aprilia Futura top

A few days ago I received a spam email from yet another Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company offering its services for one of my sites. If you’ve ever received one of these emails yourself then you need to read this.

Though better worded than most it was the same old story: An SEO ‘expert’ offering to get much more traffic to my site and increase my sales, and return on investment by improving its position in Google etc etc.

The site in question is www.apriliafutura.co.uk, one of the first sites I built for myself as a hobby for a motorcycle I used to own. The site is an online reference for owners of what is a rare bike and I keep it going because it’s still useful to people – I’ve never made money from it: That’s never been the point.

[caption id="attachment_513" align="alignright" width="300"]

Look! I’m top and I don’t need your rotten SEO services![/caption]

It’s not perfect by a long way and I haven’t changed it for years, but the main thing about it is that if you do a Google search for Aprilia Futura or most associated terms it’s top, even beating Motor Cycle News and Wikipedia.

For most other associated terms it’s in the top three or four results.

I don’t think you can get any better search engine optimisation than that and that’s good enough for me.

But apparently it’s not enough for these search engine optimisation ‘experts’ – I get at least one email a week for the Aprilia Futura site.

So how does this company (who shall remain nameless) think they can improve the search engine position for my website when it is already top of the pile?

SEO claim

Here’s what the email says:

“I’ve noted down some important things as I looked at your site. I see you have Google analytics installed, which is excellent, but there are lots of things I would recommend you do to increase the number of visitors that find you in Google.”

ApriliaFutura.co.uk gets maybe 600 visitors a week from all over the world, not bad since only 4,000 or so Aprilia Futuras were ever built. There are only 80 registered in the UK. This is a niche market!

Further down the email gushes:

“If you like I can analyse your competitors with our in-house designed software which will give you an instant insight into how easy it would be for you to achieve a dramatic increase in website visitors, and a matching increase in your business. I can tell you a few sneaky facts about your competitors and see how many people are searching Google for exactly what you do.”

Errm. It doesn’t have any competitors, it’s not a business, and if people search on Google for ‘exactly what I do’ they find my site. How can you improve on that?

And besides, this convenient wording ignores one thing – you can get an increase in website visitors but that counts for nothing – it’s what those visitors do when they get there that counts.

Official Google search engine optimisation guide

That’s not all. Our SEO ‘expert’ says:

“If you’d like a copy of the official Google SEO (search engine optimisation) guide that we normally only send out to clients I’d be happy to ping you back a copy”

Actually, the official Google SEO guide is available to anyone. Here it is: Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF download)

The email goes on to say:

“Alternatively do a google search for “optimising my website for google” and you’ll find all the details you need.”

The implication is that you’ll find the company responsible for the email’s page. Now I can never resist a challenge so I did exactly that. You can do the same.

Spam email

The first two places are taken by web design companies who had received the same spam email and had decided to make a point of it. Obviously, this blog post is a shameless attempt to do the same.

And what of our search engine optimisation ‘experts’? Where are they when you search for ‘optimising my website for Google’?

They are half way down page three – i.e. nowhere.

So what do we learn from this?

To be honest I’ve given up on being offended by these emails but aside from mocking these countless SEO ‘experts’ sending out thousands of emails a week there is a serious point here.

If you have a business website and you feel you need to get your site further up the rankings this sort of offer can no doubt sound very attractive.

But often their claims do not stand up to scrutiny. Only last week we came across a website owner who paid an SEO company around £200 per month with no effect.

Search engine optimisation is not rocket science!

The truth is that SEO is not rocket science as you can see from the Google guide. Just follow a few simple rules and make sure your site is relevant and you’ll be well on your way. You do not need to pay thousands for this.

But most of all these emails always claim to have looked at your site and claim they can offer all sorts of improvements in performance and search engine rankings.

However if they had bothered to do that – for example by Googling Aprilia Futura – they would have realised they could not improve my site’s search engine position.

Also if they had really looked at my site – even for a second or two – they would have realised it’s not a business.

And finally it doesn’t say much about their abilities if they tell you to Google them and they are not even on the first page!

The easy way to comply with the EU Cookie Law

May 11, 2017July 4, 2012 by Patrick Barnes

There has been much talk about the EU Cookie Law, which came into force in the UK in May this year, as well as scaremongering about big fines for non-compliance.

Since this post was first written in July 2012 the interpretation of the law has been relaxed again. See our latest blog post on the issue. But the position changes repeatedly, so see webdevlaw.uk for the latest updates.

The truth, while a little hazy at times, is somewhat simpler and a lot less intimidating. It’s really not that difficult to set yourself on the road to compliance, which is what the authorities are looking for.

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Cookie Monster[/caption]

The following is our interpretation of how to put yourself on the road to complying with the new EU Cookie Law and should work for you as long as you are not using any overly intrusive cookies that gather sensitive data.

It is not intended as definitive advice and if you need that you should consult the Information Commissioner’s Office(ICO) directly or see a lawyer. For full advice see the ICO’s latest guidance (PDF download)

The law is far from clear and it’s early days yet. The position may change but right now complying with the law – or at least avoiding unwanted attention from the ICO – is relatively straightforward for most of us and should not involve a great deal of work.

Remember that the ICO will be satisfied if you are ‘working towards compliance’ and to do that you need to follow the steps below. The good news is this need only take an hour.

Do a cookie audit

As a website owner, you need to understand what cookies your website is setting and what they do.

The way to do this is to use a free tool that checks your site. There is no need to spend a fortune on doing this – or even any money at all.

If you use Google Chrome a simple free browser extension is available from Attacat. Full details and the extension itself are available on this page: http://www.attacat.co.uk/brain/cookie-audit-tool-v2#axzz1xOHSYlZ1

You don’t have to register to get it, and it will also give you an indication as to how instrusive any cookies you use are.

Another solution, especially if you use Mozilla Firefox, is the Firefox web developer toolbar, which includes a cookie auditing tool. The extension is available here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-developer/

Remember, it’s not an exact science and a cookie audit may not pick up everything your site generates. You only have to show that you are taking steps towards complying in full.

When you have done your audit you need to assess each cookie and what it does. If there’s anything you don’t understand you will need to talk to your web design company.

You can also Google the name of the cookie to find out what it does.

Publish the information

It’s actually been law to publish cookie information on your site since 2003, something that many people have ignored.

It’s usually hidden in the site’s Privacy Policy (if you have one) but now you have to make it easier to find.

It should also be in plain English and easy to understand, so there’s no room for legal jargon and geek speak.

You will need to create a new page for your Cookies Policy. You need to tell people what cookies you use (not necessarily naming them all) and what each one does.

It’s helpful to point people to instructions on how to turn cookies off using their browser controls. This page at aboutcookies is useful.

This page at whoishostingthis.com offers a comprehensive guide for the lay person and the developer.

Consent

The ICO’s line on this is clear – you must have consent. But that seems to extend to implied consent, where you can assume consent has been given, so long as you make it easy for people to withdraw their consent and not accept cookies.

But while the law makes no distinction between ‘good’ cookies and ‘bad’ ones, in practice the ICO will. So for many sites that do not collect sensitive information, covering the first three steps should be enough for now at least.

What are others doing?

It’s a good idea to look at what the big boys do. If you have visited any of the sites below before, clear your cookies first before using these links.

The BBC went live with their cookie advice a few days before the May 26 deadline, but when the emphasis went to implied consent they scaled it back. The banner appears only once and assumes consent.

ITV is doing even less. Its cookie statement is in their website footer, and again assumes consent.

BT uses lots of cookies and therefore spent a lot of time and money on developing their solution, with a sliding scale where users can set their preferences, but even they are assuming consent has been given.

John Lewis adopt the same approach, with a subtle banner at the top that disappears once you move to another page.

See The Cookie Law made simple – for more background on the law.

photo credit: nettsu via photopin cc