SANTA MONICA, CA — In a perfect web world, quality links are a big stamp of approval received from another site (or many sites, sending many, many clicks back to you). But, especially in the early days of link buying, before it was made such a huge ‘don’t', there were some pretty funny gimmicks out there, as pointed out in a humorous comic strip by BigOakInc.com.

But, the idea of selling links is still out there, even though Google addressed it years ago by putting Google’s Webspam team head, Matt Cutts, on the case. According to an in-depth blog entry by Cutts, the basic problem with selling links is that it makes a link-based reputation seem shallow, and, even worse, it can even make a Google search less reliable if not discovered. Cutts gives an example of the early link buying days, and what went wrong.

“Selling links muddies the quality of link-based reputation and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results,” Cutts says. “When the Berkeley College newspaper had six online gambling links [back in 2005] (three casinos, two for poker, and one bingo), on its front page, it’s harder for search engines to know which links can be trusted.”

In fact, the mass buying of links can ultimately render a site unsearchable and get it cast out of Google’s search results, especially if the site is selling links, as Cutts explains. So what should you do to get links? Do you turn to the dark side of SEO practices (as discussed in our Black Hat Vs. White Hat SEO tactics post), and if not, what do you do?

According to Cutts, links will come when you have great content on your site, which will help it to rank well on Google. Although, as Ali Husayni somewhat agrees with Cutts that great content is king but he believes that leaving your great content out there without any hands-on link-building efforts will get you no where.

“Great content may attract inbound links but only if your site has good popularity (did the chicken come first or the egg?)” Husayni says. “But since your competition is not sitting back waiting for inbound links to appear, you cannot either.”

In this case, you need to consult a professional white-hat SEO specialist to help you understand what you need to do.

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NASHVILLE, TN – If you’ve been on the Internet at all in the past few weeks, chances are you’ve seen posts or news articles about two piracy bills that are swarming around Congress: SOPA and PIPA. SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA is the Protect IP Act. While these bills may have good intentions – stopping copyright infringement – they could be detrimental to information sharing and the Internet as we know it today.

In a 24-hour protest on Jan. 18, many websites blacked out their content, including probably the biggest and most influential participant Wikipedia. Fight for the Future, whose tagline reads “a non-profit working to defend online freedom”, reports that more than 115,000 sites participated in the Jan. 18 blackout. Their numbers show the progression of Senators publicly opposing PIPA, which grew from one lone Senator on Nov. 16, 2011 to six on the morning of the protest. On the evening of the Jan. 18 protest, 34 Senators publicly opposed the anti-piracy bill.

You may have also heard that, for now, these bills have been postponed in Congress; they were scheduled for a Jan. 24 vote. It’s hard to tell if Congress has heard the pleas of many Americans to stop these censorship bills, or if the postponement is a way to shut us up temporarily. Will the bill slide back into Congress with revised text? Will they try to slip it by us?

Clay Shirky, in a very telling TED Talk (which I highly recommend watching), speaks about the history of copyright infringement legislation and its chilling future. He begins by explaining the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which basically said copying content such as songs from the radio to share with friends is okay (i.e, making personal mix tapes). It also said that taping high-quality versions, making multiple copies, and selling these copied tapes is not okay. The media companies wanted Congress to stop all copying, but Congress didn’t go that far. Now media companies, especially those who produce music and films, are spearheading these anti-piracy bills once again with SOPA and PIPA.

Shirky states: “The real effects of SOPA and PIPA are going to be different than the proposed effects. The threat, in fact, is this inversion of the burden of proof, where we suddenly are all treated like thieves at every moment we’re given the freedom to create, to produce, or to share. And the people who provide those capabilities to us – the YouTubes and Facebooks, the Twitters and TEDs – are in the business of having to police us or being on the hook for contributory infringement.” Some businesses may not want the job of policing their content, which could result in the businesses walking out, leaving us no place to voice our opinions or share our findings.

In the same talk, Shirky also enlightens listeners to an even deeper-rooted problem that SOPA and PIPA propose. He explains how the bills threaten our freedom and an inherent human right: “And because the biggest producers of content on the Internet are not Google and Yahoo, they’re us; we’re the people getting policed. Because in the end, the real threat to the enactment of PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another. So what PIPA and SOPA risk doing is taking a centuries old legal concept – ‘innocent until proven guilty’ – and reversing it –’guilty until proven innocent.’”

The real problem, as Shirky so eloquently states, is that SOPA and PIPA will make everyone a criminal. Without a proper trial, without gathering significant evidence, the government would be able to shut down your blog or website. The government could shut down your favorite websites. Forgoing the foundation of our basic rights – our Sixth Amendment right to a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury and our First Amendment right to free speech – the government will be able to censor our content seemingly without reason and without a proper check of power. Shirky goes one step further, deducing that media companies don’t want us to produce, but only to sit on our couches and consume. The producing is what threatens their livelihoods.

The hacker organization called Anonymous has shown their disdain for SOPA and PIPA by attacking major websites. Anonymous supposedly hacked the Department of Justice in retaliation to the shutdown of Megaupload.com, a major file-sharing website, and the arrest of its operators. They also hit the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Universal Music, and the Recording Industry Association of America, according to a Forbes article. These organizations are supporters of SOPA and PIPA.

Facebook’s Washington, DC, office has a Facebook page where they discuss their views on these anti-piracy bills. While Facebook is sympathetic to the music and film industry on this copyright issue, they think SOPA and PIPA “are not the right solution to this problem, because of the collateral damage these overreaching bills would cause to the Internet.”

For now the bills are tabled, but Wikipedia writes, “SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows.” This isn’t the end of the fight.

Master Google Ali Husayni has this to say about these two piracy bills and what they mean for website content sharing as we know it today:

“I’m all against piracy and hacking. But being raised in Iran, I’ve seen what censorship can do to freedom of the flow of information. You ‘censor’ only when you feel unable to verbally ‘engage’ and ‘encounter’ your opposition. Censorship by its very virtue puts you on the defense and the weaker position. And we don’t want to be portrayed as weak.”

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Google’s climb to search engine prominence over the years has been subtly dotted with algorithm adjustments in order to stay current. In November, Google supplemented last year’s caffeine indexing system with the freshness update, making an algorithm that favors content that is both recent and relevant.

“Different searches have different freshness needs,” says software engineer Amit Singhal on Google’s official blog. “This algorithmic improvement is designed to better understand how to differentiate between these kinds of searches and the level of freshness you need, and make sure you get the most up to the minute answers.”

Although the freshness update is estimated to impact 35 percent of searches (at least one result on the page), it will only be noticeable to the average user among 6 – 10 percent of searches. In other words, the update is more effective than will be noticed.

So how is freshness and relevancy measured by Google’s standards? SEO expert and Master Google founder, Ali Husayni, points to respective topics.

“For ‘news’ items, the later a page has been created and content developed, the better rank it will have,” Husayni says. “For other topics such as ‘historical events,’ Google may include old pages along with new analysis.”

Account Director at Punch Communications and Huffington Post blogger Philip Keightley explored the same question in a recent post.

“What constitutes relevance? In Google’s eyes, hundreds of factors, with freshness being a recent development,” Keightley says. “What constitutes freshness? Real-time social networks such as Twitter and to some extent Facebook and Google+ have added additional tools to Google’s armory, since it can now crawl the content from these networks and deduce which content people are interested in, what it is and if it is relevant for its search results.”

The freshness update has not only affected search results, but has already begun to affect the methods of developers and writers as well. Former Master Google writer Kristen Peters has expressed how the freshness update influences her approach.

“Google’s freshness update has certainly affected our writers’ methods here at Master Google,” Peters says. “We always knew that content was a huge part of optimization, but this development has made it all the more important to write quality blog posts more often and has encouraged us to keep an eye on industry news, as the timeliness of the content is also a crucial component.”

Keightley shared thoughts on the immediate future as well.

“This presents a number of opportunities to marketers, regardless of their size and ammunition,” Keightley says. “Essentially, by creating a digital social object, whether that is in the form of an application on Facebook, a microsite or even a blog post, the buzz around that content will have a far greater benefit in search.”

Husayni does not believe any one component to a site warrants particular care and attention, but notes the importance of general consistency as with such formats as blogs.

“Blogs seem to be an important part of any site because they get updated on a regular basis,” Husayni says. “I suggest site owners should write for their sites on a regular basis. The more fresh, quality and relevant content they post to their sites, the better chances of exposure and inclusion on Google search results they will have.”

© 2012 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Master Google is credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this press release is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

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SANTA MONICA, CA — Why wait until the New Year begins to declare a business-related resolution? Resolve to try these five free SEO tips today. From Facebook Fan Page optimization, to using YouTube effectively for Video SEO, the options are endless, and exciting.

1. Using YouTube for Video SEO: Do you have a YouTube business page yet? Don’t worry, an entire How-To Make a YouTube Business Page support forum has been established on the subject. Video SEO is all about original content, after all. Content that sets your business apart from the rest, when done correctly, will be more than enough of a reason for a viewer to click on your site, and to become a customer.

2. Read SEO News Daily: You are what you read, it’s true. Just ask Ali Husayni, CEO of the SEO service company, Master Google. Simply looking at sites that connect the latest trends of SEO, (like our blog), Search Engine Land, and SEOMoz.org, will keep you afloat in the world of ever-changing SEO tips and news.

3. Never Allow a Duplicate Batch of Information: It might seem like a time saver, but don’t be fooled by the idea that more content is better, no matter what. Less is more in this case. Duplicate content, according to Google webmaster central is simply described as “substantive blocks of content” or “content within or across domains” that are similar or the same. According to Husayni, this can mean the end of a website’s previously high ranking, as rankings will drop to 10+ pages due to such practices. While there are many other types of duplications, this is a big offender for many businesses.

4. Optimize Your Business Facebook Page: In a recent Search Engine Watch Article about Facebook SEO, Kristi Hines suggests approaching Facebook SEO in a fresh way. She asks users to imagine that a Facebook fan page is you or your brand’s website.

“If you want to keyword optimize your Facebook fan page… pull SEO elements from your page’s content for additional optimization,” Hines says.

Here is what Hines says your Facebook Business Page SEO should look like from an optimization standpoint:

SEO title: The name of your page plus | Facebook.

Meta description: The name of your page plus the About description of your page, followed by | Facebook.

H1: The name of your page.

The process is pretty straightforward, and much more accessible to small businesses now than in the past.

5. Follow the Trend of Finding time for SMM and SEO: Believe it or not, the two can be very happy together. According to a recent Constant Contact Survey, 45% of small business owners said that social media marketing (as part of site traffic generating) doesn’t take too much time out of their day to make it viable. This attitude is a complete reversal from just six months ago, when time was cited as a big concern against doing any type of marketing. But social media marketing only goes so far. The next step is SEO, which is going to drive targeted visitors to your site, according to Husayni.

“We measure our success by the number of targeted visitors who find our clients’ sites using their keywords – main keywords as well as secondary keywords,” Husayni said.

© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Master Google is credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this press release is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

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ORANGE, CA-Since Google+ opened up its pages to corporate accounts on Monday, a number of businesses have jumped on the opportunity to market themselves to users of the new social media platform.

Owner and founder of Master Google, Ali Husayni, affirmed that this is the smartest move that business executives could make to bolster their Internet marketing campaigns.

“If you don’t have one yet, set it up,” he urged. “It’s absolutely essential. Get people interested in your Google+ page. Attract as many fans as you can to add you to their circles and then add them back.”

Husayni said that Google’s decision to allow businesses into the social networking site was a great move. “It’s a real step in the right direction,” he said. “Initially, they said that they weren’t going to add that component, but they needed to have it from the get go.”

According to a blog post written by Google Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra, a lot of businesses, brands, corporations, musicians and sports teams have already joined, including Burberry, H&M, the Dallas Cowboys and The All-American Rejects.

Google+ Pages has brought with it new implications for Google searchers, which Husayni said has “opened up a new window to the future of search,” as well as brought about unforeseen effects upon SEO.

“First, any business now needs to have its own Google+ page,” Husayni explained. “Second, these pages will be listed on Google search results. And third, people can search for your Google+ business page by adding ‘+’ before their search query.”

Combined with the impact of Google’s +1 button, Husayni said that Google is really harnessing the power of social media.

“It is obvious that Google understands the power of social media and its possible effect on influencing search results,” Husayni said. “If I’m looking for a dentist and a few of my friends in my town have +1’ed a particular dentist’s site or Google+ page, then that Web site is going to rank better than its competitors on my search results.”

“This is even without powerful back links, Google Places reviews, optimization or the other SEO techniques used in the past,” he added. “As a potential customer, I’m more likely to consider him than other dentists that rank well on Google, but have no recommendations from my people in my networks.”

For SEO professionals, this could mean drastic changes, Husayni lamented. “My initial thought is that Google is shifting the power from SEO companies toward networks and circles,” he said. “It’s kind of like the past, when word of mouth was more important than anything else. We’re almost moving in that backward direction, but on the virtual world of the Internet.”

Husayni said that, if SEO companies are going to weather this change, they have to be willing to adapt. “Social media is more important than ever,” he said. “Google+ is competing head on with Facebook and Twitter, but they’re not going to sit idle and watch. The war is ongoing.”

“And SEO is now more relevant and more sophisticated than ever.”

For more information about how the experts at Master Google can improve your Google ranking and help manage your Internet marketing campaign, be sure to visit www.mastergoogle.com. For inquiries or to set up a free consultation with Ali Husayni, call Master Google toll free at 877-932-6559.

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August 15, 2009 — BOULDER, CO — Sinai Marketing, an industry leader in SEO, is offering free SEO services on its newly launched affiliate Web site:  www.mastergoogle.com. In addition to free Google SEO, Master Google provides Top of Google Guaranteed packages and 1st Page of Google Guaranteed packages.

Launched in August 2009, Master Google’s Free SEO program, found on its Web site, means to serve startup companies looking to establish a presence online. Sinai’s free SEO services include Web site optimization, keyword(s) analysis, Web site traffic reports, and weekly Web site ranking reports.
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