5 Ways SEOMoz’s Newest Backlink Tool Could Improve
SEOMoz is currently allowing free, full access reports from their brand spanking new Open Site Explorer link popularity checker. The online tool has a sleek, intuitive design, and has the potential to pull in many new SEOmoz PRO Memberships, including mine. I highly recommend that you check out the full version for the remaining 24 hours of the free access preview.
One of the first places I headed to look for a review of the tool – before actually looking at it in depth – was SEO Book. Expecting the worst, I was pleasantly surprised to see Aaron Wall cast aside political industry differences, and give the tool a thumbs up. It’s nice to see search resource leaders on the same page sometimes.
I won’t go into all the features of the tool (I urge you to check them out for yourself), but I will cover a few points I’d humbly like to see addressed or improved upon sometime in the future.
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On the ‘Linking Pages’ Tab, the title URL of external links are displayed, along with referring page anchor text, page authority, and domain authority.
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The first search filter gives you the option to filter followed, no-followed and/or 301 redirected links – this is great.
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The second filter allows you to view links from internal and/or external pages – also great.
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The third filter allows you to view links to either the page you specify, or ‘all pages on the subdomain’, or ‘all pages on the root domain’.
What I believe is missing here is the ability to view which of the individual pages on the domain are receiving links, should you choose to filter results by ‘all pages on the root (or sub) domain.
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When results are given on a domain, they’re displayed at the top of the page in the following format:
Page Authority [x] – Domain Authority [x] – Linking Root Domains [x] – Total Links [x]
However, when you filter the results according to your preferences, the new data correlating to those filtered results isn’t displayed at the top of the page; therefore to see the number of results of your filtered data set, you must go to the last page of results to find out. At the very least, it would be a good idea to update the number of ‘Total Links’ on filtered results.
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Numbered results would earn another point for usability.
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When looking at the tab for ‘Full List of Link Metrics’, in the ‘Domain-Level Metrics’ column, ‘Total links’ s defined as:
All links including internal, external, followed and no-followed to any page on the given website. Two or more links from the same URL to a single page are treated as one link.
I’d like the option to view these actual links, as bloated and redundant as a lot of this data can be.
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The ‘Linking Domains’ doesn’t give as much information as it could, but SEOMoz has addressed that already – we’ll see some more data in this section in the coming months.
SEOMoz wisely chose to wait until after the 48 hour free-for-all preview to enable .csv export. You’ll have to go Pro for that.
You have 23 hours and 20 minutes left to data scrape and test the full version of this exciting new tool to your heart’s content – for free.
The Cynic’s Guide to Interpreting Google
Okay, we like to find the hidden meaning behind what google says poke fun at google, right?
Yesterday, Google’s Non-Profits Team Google Grants published a post on their official blog, about a training session they held recently in Washington D.C. Their blog entry details the material that was taught to campaign managers on how to move sites up in natural search results.
We’ve taken this opportunity to test the beta version of our soon to be patented Google PR Cynic translation application (GCTA), AKA Goognic™, on the Google Grants Team‘s recent post.
| Google Grants Team wrote: | Goognic™ Translation |
|---|---|
At a recent non-profit training held in our D.C. office, I got the chance to teach a group of issue campaign managers the basics of “search engine optimization” (SEO), or how to earn a spot for your content that is closer to the top of Google’s natural (left-hand side) search results |
At a not-immediately-profitable training session, our Google Propaganda Team got the chance to explain how to organize website content in order to help the successful targeting of Adwords campaigns. |
It was a rewarding experience because we were able to take what’s often a technical conversation and make it feel like something everyone could (and should) do. |
Our strategy here was two-pronged. From those of whom that will achieve results by following the guidelines, Google shall reap the rewards of better organized sites added to the index (we’ll profit when they switch to Adwords, once their site gets buried on page 6 a couple of “updates” down the line). Those that are overwhelmed by the whole “SEO thing” will realize there is really only one way to go. Did I mention Adwords? |
Indeed, when most people hear the words “search engine optimization,” they figure it’s too technical for them or that it doesn’t apply to them. But if you’re running a long-term education or awareness campaign, you need to know how to improve the chances that interested users will find your information through natural search results. It’s just as important as learning how to use your Google Grant effectively. |
See previous section. Oh and by the way. The Adwords store called. They want your rankings back. |
Fortunately, much of what you can accomplish with SEO doesn’t require any programming or technical skills, but it does require a big-picture awareness of your issue. Because ultimately, you’re not trying to rise to the top of any one search results page, but rather to make your site more relevant to the whole search picture, which means designing your site, sections, and sub-pages with the most high-demand search terms related to your issue in mind |
Don’t be intimidated by all this SEO stuff, because if after all your hard work your site still doesn’t rank, well hey, that’s ok, because an Adwords campaign will probably work REAL sweet now! |
Doing well in high-demand search results pages requires that you first know what search terms or keywords are most popular. Take concepts and terms you discuss on your site and test them against related terms using tools like Google’s Keyword Tool and Insights for Search. Make sure you’re developing individual pages centered around what people are looking for, using the language they use |
Lets get to know some of the tools you’ll be needing to run your first PPC campaign! Sktool, Analytics, Google’s Keyword Tool. Mmmmm, do you smell what the Goog is cooking? |
Use these high-demand keywords where they accurately describe your content, especially in page titles, section headings, and in URLs. If you have lots of images or interactive graphics, make sure your most important content appears in text too, because the Googlebot doesn’t read images. |
Googlebot has been able to “read” images for over a year. Nobody’s seemed to notice so far, so we’ll hold out a little longer from telling you, we don’t want to have to deal with curtailing a landslide of image sculpting. Well not until we endorse it first. (Ok, that was cheap, sorry, I couldn’t resist) |
Finally, understand that the number and quality of other sites that link to your content determines much of your ranking in search results. Make sure you know the other online players on your issue, and encourage them to link to you. Starting a blog or Twitter feed is a great way to keep users abreast of the latest updates to your site and encourages them to link to you too |
We’ll be acquiring Twitter soon. Get ready to transfer all your Twitter profiles to your Google accounts, suckahhhhs! |
Ok ok, maybe I went a little far this time. But how could I resist? Google has a working++ business model, and I respect that. They’ve done many great things for the search industry, and will continue to do so, while making a profit (Go figure). But who says we can’t entertain the troops in the meantime.
In case you passed on clicking through to the Google Grants site, here are the slides from the recent training session. Enjoy!
Google Announces Search-based Keyword Tool
Yesterday evening, Google announced the release of their Search-based Keyword Tool (beta) (SBKT), a nice little addition to their ever expanding suite of free internet marketing and keyword research applications. Google’s SBKT suggests terms that are semantically related to the content of any provided URL – ones that aren’t currently part of an AdWords campaign associated with that particular site.
If you don’t run an AdWords campaign on the website that you’re doing KW research for, the tool can still come in handy by providing you with a list of related terms; similar to Google’s regular Keyword Tool, but with somewhat broader, yet highly relevant results. If, however, you are logged into your AdWords account when you perform the search, SBKT will display only the keywords that you aren’t already advertising for.
For each keyword or keyphrase displayed in the results, columns representing monthly search volume, competition, and suggested bids are offered, as they are in some of Google’s other tools. Some extremely valuable information is offered in the data column that displays what percentage of time you’re showing up in search ad spots for the AdWords campaign you’re running.
SEOs will be glad to know that Google says the Search-based Keyword Tool doesn’t generate keyword ideas from AdWords accounts associated with any websites, and that data is derived from aggregated and anonymous Google search data
from Google users in several different countries.
Comments, as usual, are welcomed. Let us know what you think of Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool!
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