If you've ever asked two SEO professionals a probing question, you're likely to have recieved at least three different answers.

Search is never truly a precise science, because it's conditions are set, not just by the mighty G force, but also by the behaviour of everyone else using their services.

And because neither Google or its' users are never still, it makes for a compelling adventure, intellectual headscratching and a fair amount of good ole detective work when things don't pan out.

And in some quarters recent Search events have not panned out as expected.

7 lessons I learned while being banned in Google for 12 hours - seerinteractive.com/blog/7-lessons… if you missed the drama.

— wilreynolds (@wilreynolds) April 20, 2012

How could it be that a highly respected SEO agency from Philadelphia would succumb to some sort of Google search maelstrom that would result in it being obliterated in search results so suddenly?

Every half decent SEO pro possesses an inate curiosity and of course this statement by Wil set off a whole chain reaction from SEO people as to the cause and remedy for Seer Interactive's plight.

Was it a result of the parked domain slip up recently admitted by Matt Cutts?

Was it the result of nascent Negative SEO?

Heaven forbid, an over optimised title tag or the velocity of link acquisition?

It could be some or none of those, one of the equal joys and frustrations of Search is that it's not straight forward to conclusively prove a theory either way.

Wild goose chases and red herrings are all par for the course.

And often that leads to drastic action being taken.

So what did Seer Interactive do?

They acted fast and reading between Wil's blog lines and comments we can definitely see two actions Seer took to specifically combat the situation.

• A 301 redirect from the previous company name of Seer Interactive was ruthlessly severed, taking with it years of legacy backlinks, of all sorts.
• And a link to a client site was also removed from Seer Interactive.

Forgive me if I have a rummage with some SEO tools to delve a little more.

Using Link Detective the classification of links to Seer are itemised for the current domain and their legacy one.

It's revealing to see at a glance, may I stress, the emphasis of link strategies that the company has pursued over time.

Previously, the back links to Seer were very much SEO keyword focused, and what looks like the deliberate departure of that tactic is evident with a very different proportion of anchor text links for seerinteractive.com

Let's be clear though, this is only one of probably a plethora of checks and tools that evidently the Seer lieutenants and close pals would have used to diagnose matters.

After all, three eyes are better than one.

Baggage and ties

In severing that 301 redirect, in one swoop Seer may have disassociated themselves from their baggage and simultanesouly removed the effects of a mixture of probable quality and lesser quality links.

Some of the quality of those legacy links may well have deterioated over time and with the advent of an algorthmic change by Google recently, may have tripped a certain threshold, and possibly an attempt by Google to penalise abnormally low volumes of branded anchor keywords.

Put another way, there may have been insufficient naturally worded links to the Think Seer domain in the past, using the keyword term Think Seer.

Thin links to big sites

The other action Seer did was remove this page from their blog.

This screenshot cache is a quick blog entry with a link to a prominent client of Seer Interactive.

During the intial frenzy of SEO excitement many friends of Wil were looking up if seerinteractive was ranking for it's own name.

Yet often it's worth looking at things from another perspective all together.

That famous supplier of email marketing software has on the face of it, a huge link profile with some of the highest scores possible.

How could it be that such an industry stalwart has a page 2 position whilst a lesser known rich snippet spammer occupies the number º1 spot?

Is the SERPs for email marketing software as obtuse of that for SEO companies?

At that point I've not dug any further. Others will do so.

However I find this particularly fascinating that Seer chose to remove this somewhat thin link.

And yet in some respects, Seer have with immediate effect and by (mis)fortune of circumstance, actioned of much of what SEOMoz's latest white board friday video championed, that is:

1. Use Authentic Titles
2. Avoid manipulative internal links
3. Forget crappy footer link stuffing
4. Don't cram irrelevant text with links on the page
5. Avoid links from penalty likely sources
6. Get links from distinct pages not near clones

To rename or to rebrand, that is the question

One of the most significant wider issues to rise from this SEO event is the implications for marketers with respect of any rebranding exercise.

Too often the term rebrand is substituted for the the word rename, when they are wholly a different order of magnitude.

It's something I have raised with SEO agency colleagues and I do question how effective or risky any such exercise is in future.

A mere name change of your domain with classic 301 redirects in place, may not be enough, indeed it may, subject to your link profile be somewhat risky, compared to a full scale true rebranding exercise where you do amass branded keyword links.

Of course, Seer could revisit and cherry pick modification of the most significant legacy backlinks with a view to preserving some of their weight to the power of their domain, but that is a huge exercise with questionable outcome.

It's an interesting dilemma that far from begs of a formulaic answer.

Negative SEO or The Perfect Storm

Of course speculation, informed or not, never ceases online and even more so when SEO is involved.

Wil refers to Negative SEO as something to be aware of in his blog post, but does not infer this was directly a cause in Seer's case.

I'm less inclined to believe Seer were explicitly a target, but perhaps if anything, an inadvertent victim of the same effects of Negative SEO rather than any malicious intent.

In any case there are other targets, including ones cited on this page openly courting attempts to bowl them.

If SEO navel gazing industry talk about Negative SEO does one thing, it is to disproportionately steal attention of the positive Search successes that have come out of the last few weeks and reassociate marketing minds with shady SEO practices yet again.

That is not to say you should turn a blind eye to it.

Of course if you are convinced of the adverse effects of Negative SEO, you'll speak up and show the evidence, much like Seer did with their heads up sharing of their short lived predicament.

And forget not what Peter Falk did in his pre Columbo days when playing baseball as recounted to Cigar Aficionado magazine.

"I remember once in high school the umpire called me out at third base when I was sure I was safe. I got so mad I took out my glass eye, handed it to him and said, 'Try this.' I got such a laugh you wouldn't believe."

Some people really have to see it for themselves.

So if you have overwhelming evidence about Negative SEO, bring it on.

That's when Search marketers can revel in the detail to test theories and prove/disprove notions.

Oh, just one more thing...

I've detected a Columbo spirit in many SEO characters and a penchant for detail.

Take this last quote from the actor Peter Falk himself:

"I have an obsessive thoroughness. It's not enough to get most of the details, it's necessary to get them all. I've been accused of perfectionism. When Lew Wasserman (head of Universal Studios) said that Falk is a perfectionist, I don't know whether it was out of affection or because he felt I was a monumental pain in the ass."

The Search marketer is an intellectually restless animal.

Don't ya think?

I am melancholy.

My wife and I just took the decision at the veterinary clinic to put down one of our two cats.

Maasai was a fantastic Seal Point Birman.

Like many cats of his breed, at the age of twelve, Maasai had developed a kidney dysfunction which had rapidly reached a chronic stage, and after two days under care it was apparent his condition was irreversible.

Regardless if you are a dog or cat person the loss of a pet companion is a wrench. If you've gone through similar with your pet, you may know how awful it is. 

This pic is when he was only a couple of months playfully old at the start of the millenia.

Stuck for a name at the time we acquired them, we named the pair of Birman cats we bought in London, Maasai & Mara, having recently returned from a trip to Kenya.

That second picture is Mara - the titanium hip plated sister to the 6+kg Maasai - atop a hot router.

Children and the idea of death and renewal

It's not my first time I have experienced this situation, as I unhappily recall the moment as a child, however this time the ordeal was as a parent which was even more testing with a nine and three and half year old accompanying my wife and I at the vets.

My son Alexander (9 years) was old enough to comprehend the situation yet evidently sad about it. I feel it important that the notion of death is not concealed in his upbringing.

He is at the age where curisosity abounds in anything he learns and is immediately pondering and querying aspects of the cat's final moments.

He has developed logic and yet can be abstract in thought and exercise wonderful imagination.

My daughter Olivia, at three and a half years old, was expectant we would return home from the vets with Maasai and naturally was bewlidered, upset and yet equally rapidly distractable.

Guilt about guilt

The relationship between human and animal is a strange one. We develop affections for a pet animals while they depend on us during their lifetime for food, shelter and attention and yet the majority of us, myself included, comfortably remain meat eaters for example.

What has played on my conscious though has been putting this episode into perspective in the midst of far greater difficulties that afflict our life and that of many others in these times.

I know that family health of other relatives is more important and recent news has certainly reminded me of that.

It can seem absurd to mourn yet as the vet explained, you've spent all that time being attentive to an animal who devotes and seemingly adores its' owners and the loss evokes memories of past stages in your life that you cannot easily dissociate.

Today I feel guilty about feeling guilty. I am confused. Is that wrong?

Children are your love

Can you really love an animal?

Language carries a lot of weight and whilst a bond is developed with a pet, it never surpasses a human relationship.

If there was one moment of joy today, it was the indefatigable inadvertent humour that a three and half year old brings to your world.

As I talk spanish with my already bilingual daughter, I explained that Maasai was sadly not coming back home as he was going to heaven.

And heaven in spanish is cielo, meaning sky.

Alas, Olivia nonchantly replied to me:

Maasai is not going to heaven, he doesn't have wings papa.

No papa, Maasai no puede ir al cielo, no tienes alas.

This picture was snapped just moments after she convincingly told me that.

Love family.

El pasado noviembre tuve el placer de acudir al Congreso SEO - también conocido como el SEO Pro - como ponente invitado en el Hotel Olympia de Valencia, aquí en españa. Prefer English?

El organizador, Miguel Lopez, de Marketing Online Valencia casi el solo, organizó con un esfuerzo tremendo, un evento fabuloso que reunio la mayor peña de los mejores talentos SEO españoles para machacar ideas y fortalezer amistades durante tres intensos días.

No voy a detallar las presentaciones. Eso ya se hizo en su momento tras el evento por varios otros ponentes y asistentes de todas partes del mundo.

Basta con decir que el nivel era altísimo y las presentaciones fueron todos un éxito. Ya lo ha confirmado más que uno quien viajo desde lejos para vivirlo.

Been incredibly impressed with #seopro & the Spanish SEO community. Very open, great stuff shared. Learned more here than any UK conference.

— Samuel Crocker (@samuelcrocker) November 12, 2011

Por suerte mi trabajo y mis raices hace que amenudo viajo entre españa y inglaterra y como siempre caigo en la tentación que comparar lo bueno y lo malo de cada uno, me atrevo aquí hacer una comparativa de los eventos SEO entre españa y el Reino Unido.

¿Realmente importa o no si hay muchos eventos para elegir? En el Reino Unido el panorama SEO es más grande. Bueno, no voy aquí a indagar en estadísticas, comparando empleados por agencia, ingresos o métricas de Search o PPC, pero si me arriesgo en algo, me atrevo a decir que el SEO como una profesión está más establecida dentro del mundo del marketing en el Reino Unido que lo está en España. ¿Y que? Pues, al tratar de la magnitud de conferencias, el aforo, y frecuencía de eventos, el Reino Unido tiene un montón para eligir. Desde lo gratis, a lo muy marchoso, hasta el precio VIP y eventos SEO que forman parte de un mayor evento de marketing, hay mucha variedad.

En cambio, españa tiene menos eventos pero no quiere decir eso que sea una desventaja ya que todo depende como cada evento le saca partido, ¿o no? Durante el Congreso SEO en Valencia, los setenta o asi asistentes tuvieron más que suficiente tiempo para verdaderamente hacer enlaces estrechos profesionales y reforzar amistades.

En cambio en el Reino Unido, yo por lo menos me he encontrado debido al tiempo limitado, que he tenido que investigar con mucho cuidado de antemano los asistentes y empresas al que quisiera hacer networking para que pudiese desvirtualizar a todos los SEOs a tiempo. Lo cierto es que existe un buen rollo entre SEO españoles que aún recuerda aquellos tiempos de SEO en inglaterra antes de la época de Google.

Y seamos claros, solo porque seas es primero en inventar algo, no te confiere el título de ser el mejor practicante de ello. Los Ingleses ya conocen esto a tope, el futból por ejemplo...err ¿Quién coño gano el último Mundial?

Inglaterra golea de un tiro libre con un rebote algo chanchullo

El marcador a los 20 minutos: Inglaterra 1 España 0

Organización del Evento

Por supuesto un evento de gran envergadura requiere bastantes recursos para garantizar que todo transcurra bien y esto inevitablemente contribuye al precio de la entrada.

Durante el SearchLove en Londres de Distilled, hubo un montón de gente para llevarlo todo a cabo, el audio visual, toda la grabación y lo todo lo demas que exige sacar adelante el evento.

No es solo el evento en si, sino todo su promoción previa y despues que pone a prueba a los organizadores y sus capacidades promocionales.

El SearchLove de Distilled hizo bien en generar interés antes del evento en octubre y crearon un librillo para los asistentes repleto de entrevistas con los ponentes.

En españa Miguel Lopez del SEOPro sin embargo armo un buzz varios meses antes con un uso listo del blog y Feedburner poco a poco enviando correos de entrevistas con los ponentes durante los meses previos.

Esto mantuvo un hashtag hilo continuo durante las semanas previas al evento. Los asistentes no se marcharón sin cosillas mientras que algunos asistentes y empresas ponentes repartieron regalos y mas importante códigos e invitaciones a pruebas gratuitas de herramientas SEO y lo demás. No fue una versión cualquiera de shitforlinks.

Es cierto que SearchLove punteo bien repartiendo los PowerPoint poco despues del evento, con la grabación de video de las ponencias - eso si a la venta -  en cambio SEOPro solo repartio los .ppt entre los ponentes de forma privada y sin audio o video.

Como ya han pasado cinco meses desde que di mi presentación (Representación de datos para SEO o Infografía para atraer enlaces) Miguel ha permitido que lo publique.

Puedes pillar todos los enlaces de la presentación o leer y comentarlo en una versión foto albúm Google+. Descargatelo entero desde mi Dropbox pero ojó desafortunadamente los videos de YouTube no se reproducen en Dropbox.

Relativo al tema del networking y la marcha, diría que Valencia triunfaba por encima de Londres.

A pesar de que tanto SEOPro y SearchLove montarón el evento continuo en una sala, de presentaciones con una duración de 45-60 minutos (y no de forma multi-canal), el horario de Londres era brutal con menos opciones para hacer networking comparado con Valencia.

Es cierto que hubo una fiesta networking despues del evento principal en Londres, pero no todos atienden ya que hay que desplazarse del local de la conferencia al bar.

Claro, la cultura del sandwich, o tapear de pie en Reino Unido se considera normal, y no es para declarar que la comida no estaba bien -  ¡que va! - y al fin del cabo la gente no viene para la gastronomía, sino para las ponencias, pero aún así, la comida en Valencia durante los tres días era de gloria.

Asistentes se sentaban en un restaurante, con amplias oportunidades para conocerse uno a otro y las ponencias volvían a empezar a las cinco de la tarde y acababan a las ocho.

Ese parón de medio día permitía que asistentes SEOPro pudiesen ponerse al día con sus temas de trabajo o tomarse una siesta bien merecida.

¿De que otra forma vas a recuperar esas horas perdidas de marcha hasta las tantas? Basta con decir que Valencia gano cualquiera comparación de marcha nocturna.

Centrocampistas españoles deslumbran con un tiki taka de muerte y un toquecito de película para marcar un empate merecido.

Marcador a los 45 minutos: Inglaterra 1 España 1

Champion & Premier league SEO

Entonces, vamos al grano y preguntamos ¿como compara la calidad del SEO entre los dos eventos?

Ambos eventos pueden presumir de una calidad de presentaciones muy altas.

La gente había hecho sus deberes, y compartía sus datos y trucos aprendidos, al menos parecío que los asistentes de SEOPro y SearchLove salieron en ambos casos muy satisfechos.

Ambos eventos han sufrido críticas de gente quienes malinterpretaron comentarios que se difunden por Twitter o que se convierten en medio mentiras, gente quien juzgan el evento sin haber asistido en persona.

Por supuesto en ambos eventos, el tema del Panda dominaba aunque en españa el elemento más común fue un homenaje casí mítico al scraper.

Edit: una mención de Panda merecida fue la coincidencía que seleccione una infografía para mi presentación de una empresa llamada AttachMedia. Sin saberlo de antemano, el autor de la infografía estaba presente en la sala y se introdujo despues. ¡Había venido desde Peru solo para el evento!

Los ponentes SEO de SearchLove en Londres, incluían nombres destacados de EEUU y Brítánicos, en contraste en Valencia con alguna excepción eran casí todos de españa.

Creo que hubo varias ponencias en Valencia que se merecían una mayor audencía como por ejemplo, las presentaciones de navegación de facetas avanzadas de Fernando Macia y Rodney Cullen. Me gusto especialimente la charla de SEOcial media de Jose Llinares.

En españa la gente no tenía pelos en la lengua a la hora de hablar en alto de técnicas del lado oscuro, en comparación cuando algo parecido ocurre en Reino Unido viene con advertencias de no probarlo a solas, de no retweetearlo y todo se habla en voz baja. ¡Ssssh!

En cambio en españa hay mucha soltura del tema, quizas porque tampoco las declaraciones se amplifican fuera del entorno SEO comparado con el Reino Unido.

Yo no soy partidario de lo gris/negro aunque no puedo denegar que a veces sea éxitoso, pero eso si, desde noviembre del año pasado algunas ventajas de las técnicas mencionadas en Valencia han disminuido con los cambios algoritmicos de Google, incluso diría que algunas ya son contraproducentes.

El año pasado me alegre ver que renombraron la descripción del puesto de Matt Cutts, al ser reconodico como un ingeniero distinguido en vez que el Jefe de WebSpam en Google.

Imagínate si llamaramos al equivalente del mundo de Marketing Directo como el Jefe de correo basura. Vaya.

Bueno, lo que quiero decir es que mientras que el SEO en mercados anglo-sajones madura, la disciplina es cada vez más aceptada como una práctica típica de marketing y su definición engloba el inbound marketing, denominado tambien en castellano como el marketing de atración.

Hay un esfuezo colectivo por líderes del SEO en el mundo anglo-sajón de posicionar el SEO más como una práctica normal de marketing en vez de continuar sufriendo una mala reputación e evitar una percepción de una imagen del SEO en crisis.

Incluso el debate de la definición del Inbound marketing se ha acelerado desde noviembre del año pasado y poco probable se calme en adelante.

Is there a phrase (besides "inbound marketing") that describes combined processes of SEO, Social, Content, CRO & Analytics to earn traffic?

— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) March 9, 2012

Si contrastamos con la situación en españa, yo siento que la profesión del SEO está aún algo más lejano del centro de marketing online a que debería estar.

Parece haber un roce entre la comunidad SEO en españa y su equivalente de Community Managers tan ruidoso.

Los esterotipos contienen algun grano de verdad, el Community Manager tiene que demostrar el valor de sus acciones y los SEOs tienen que practicar más acciones sociales.

Hubo un momento en Valencia durante las ponencias que se vio una diapositiva contrastando los salarios web 2.0 y se producio alguna reacción de alarma y algo de irritación en la sala.

Esto fue a pesar de que diapositivas previas de casos de éxito habían demostrado el valor disproporcionado comercial que el SEO había ortogado a las organizaciones.

Incluso hubo un evento más orientado al Community Manager en Sevilla ese mismo fin de semana (EBE) y se sentía algo de resentimiento mientras se cruzaban algunas palabras sueltas entre ambos campos por Twitter.

Un clásico repetido

Quizas no sea justo comparar eventos SEO en cada país. Creo que SearchLove y Congreso SEO fueron igualmente un éxito y si tienes alguna oportunidad de acudir, deberías ir a cualquiera. En serio.

A mi me resulta muy raro a la hora de comparar paises y decantar por España o Inglaterra en estas circunstancias. Incluso cuando los equipos nacionales compiten en algún deporte, suelo respaldar al que pierde en ese momento más que nada para que haya más competición.

...a la selección española le niegan un penálti en los últimos instantes e Inglaterra pilla un gol en el minuto 93!

Marcador final:

Inglaterra 2 España 1

Of course this post is also available in English.

La conferencia Distilled de Linklove fue la semana pasada en Londres y Boston. Aquí hay un resumen (en inglés). Si te lo perdistes, habran videos SEO de la conferencia a la venta.

El Congreso SEO se celebra este año en Madrid, el 6 y 7 de julio 2012. Las inscripciones con descuentos se acaban muy pronto.

¿Que opinas?

¿Inglaterra triunfa a españa en conferencias SEO o al revés?

¿Tarjeta amarilla para mi juicio o qué?

Last November I had the pleasure of attending the Congreso SEO - also referred to as the SEO Pro - as an invited speaker at the Olympia Hotel in Valencia, here in Spain.
¿Lo prefieres en español?

The organiser, Miguel Lopez from Marketing Online Valencia, had made a herculean near solo effort to put on a superb SEO event that united a devoted bunch of the finest Spanish SEO minds to knock heads and hearts together for three days.

I won't delve into a detailed round up of presentations. That was already done in the afterglow of the moment by several other speakers from Spain and attendees from around the world.

So Search is changing, what's new?

SEO is ever more morphing to inbound marketing.

Sometimes advantages in Search last only as long as the professionals privileged to have tested their thesis, discovered a prize technique, exploited a flaw, escaped punishment of one, or preferably gained a massive reward for successful inbound marketing efforts.

And before not too long, often the cat is out of the bag and that advantage becomes standard fare.

Step forward Rich Snippets.

Rich Snippets are the prized gold stars and descriptions a search result can boast of adjacent to the URL in Google's search results.

Last week, Joost de Valk, aka Yoast, blogged about rich snippets everywhere in a self fulfilling post detail, since Google started applying seller extensions more liberally in the search results in recent weeks.

The original GoogleBlog Spot post about Rich Snippets infact seemed to garner less attention or engagement than the post from Yoast.

Search Engine Land reported the videos in a quick post, but miserably failed to cast any analysis on the matter.

Star Wars, the next frontier

So the theory is that seller extensions, to you and me, gold stars, help users separate the wheat from the chaff when we Google.

And welcome that they are, in that we demand ever more social proof of content on the web, they are worthy of caution.

do you trust a starred result because the publisher has earnt it through merit or because they have managed to have it display through ingenuity?

Yes, seller extensions - gold stars - are also a superb device for publishers to display collective social proof of customer reviews, ratings and so on, irrespective of the sector they compete in.

And the click-through rate of results with stars is no doubt higher than those without.

But are they infallible? I mean do you trust a starred result because the publisher has earnt it through merit or because they have managed to have it display through ingenuity?

The truth is at the moment, there is little way to verify the authenticity of those stars, and indeed Google do not appear to, as of yet, pre-vetted the search results that sport them.

In those snippet video tutorials Google hint at reserving the right to control the display of starred results, however the initial results of webmasters' efforts suggest this is a worrying loophole that has no discrimination in place.

The plain fact is that publishers can fabricate them and just mark up their pages with technical precision, just as they have embellished customer testimonials since day one.

Google has just made it easier for site owners to display stars for all their results

In many instances starred reviews link to 3rd party sites of the publisher so that is acceptable, but the difference now is that Google has just made it easier for site owners to display stars for all their results, on all pages if they so choose.

There are services for Business Owners that can assist you to garner verifiable reviews such as TrustPilot which I recently trialled for a client with great success. Therein lies the crux of social proof, it must stand up to scrutiny to really offer you legitimate long term advantage.

I suspect the whole Schema bandwagon, which is really in it's infancy in some ways, is likely to be a real differentiator in the future as publishers and aggregators scramble towards a more meaningful web.

If anything, 2011 has professionally taught me that it's now less about rank anymore than richness and trust of search results.

Part of me cannot believe there is no Mountain View checks and balances in place for this. Yoast concludes in his blog that he "very much doubts whether this will continue to be as easy as it seems to be now though".

It seems we'll all be seeing the stars soon even if some of us are not.

Are you star struck when you view search results?

ps. I read this Dr Seuss story to junior Gailey probably every week to his delight, here's the full version 12min video of the The Sneetches.