From aggressive link building campaigns to outbound links pointing to bad sites, Google search engine penalties are alive and well.  And we certainly can learn something from those that have been penalized and recovered from such penalties.

In September of 2007, there were quite a few Web Directories that were hit with a penalty.  The penalty caused even their site names to be nearly dropped from the Google index.  There was quite a bit of buzz in the Webmaster community because many of the top and most respected directories could not be found in Google’s SERPS.

Many in the Webmaster community have been complaining of reduced Google Adsense earnings since the beginning of the year.  It appears we may finally have some answers as to why earnings are down.

Data released on Monday by comScore reports that in January, surfers clicked on 7% fewer ads then the previous month.  Additionally, paid clicks were flat compared to the same period last year.

As most Adsense publishers know, late last year Google modified Adsense ads by making only the Title and URL of the ad clickable.  While reducing accidental clicks and improving value for the advertiser, this has resulted in lower income for Google and their publishers.

Every blog owner, including myself, has to deal with a certain degree of comment spam.  But used properly, blog comments can add value to a blog while helping you to build quality backlinks and traffic.

There are search engines specifically designed to locate “do follow” blogs that pass pagerank.  Instead of jumping on the same train and following these people, let’s look at some search phrases that can be used to find niche specific blogs that are not saturated.

At Google, try the following search phrases.  Replace KW with your chosen keyword.

There are quite a few ways to get backlinks, but unmoderated guestbooks are often overlooked or thought of as an ancient link building method.  Believe it or not, guestbooks are still around and many of them have the cherished pagerank so many webmasters seek.

First, the key to discovering guestbooks is to look for a search operator that will help you find plenty of them.  Searching for “sign guestbook” at Google will return a large list of guestbooks.  Or a search of “guestbook.html” will also return a list of guestbooks once you get past the first page.  For most, it’s probably easier to search for specific guestbook scripts (ones known to not be moderated).  Below are some search phrases I used.

I always get a kick out of the Pagerank (PR) debate that occurs in the webmaster community.  This is one of those hot topics where about half the people say Pagerank means nothing while the other half believes it does.  I personally side with those that believe Pagerank is important.

It seems that most everyone refuses to look at Google’s own explanation of Pagerank.  A quote from this page notes:

PageRank reflects Google’s view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that Google believes are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results. 

First, I would like to thank you for stopping by.  As you can tell by the name of this site, my focus is on Search Engine Optimization.  But I will cover additional areas regarding Internet Marketing and revenue generating opportunities.

My primary focus will be link building since it is such a large part of SEO these days.  I will cover what works for me and what does not.  Feel free to comment with your opinions and/or personal experiences.

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