Issue: In optimizing a client’s website, I came across some images that might seem unsuitable for children. Not vulgar or crude, and were there in a health care sense, but were still not suitable for children.

I wanted to find a tag that I could place in the image or on the page that would let the search engines, especially the adult filters of the images side, that the images were not suitable from the get go. The client had noted it on their site as well, but on the entry page, not on every page that the images appeared.

Short version: There were no tags that I could find, and no one knew the answer. So I emailed a friend of mine … Matt Cutts (no, I am NOT giving anyone his email address). See Matt, for those of you that don’t know, is one of the minds behind SafeSearch and is now the Head of the Web Spam team at Google. Who better to ask right?

Turns out there are meta tags that can be affixed to the page with ratings that are much like movie ratings. These ratings work with browser filters to ensure that kids do not see specific content on the web. Reading between the lines, I am thinking that this might also be a way to signal to the SEs that there are things on that page that should be behind the SafeSearch wall.

How to Tag Adult Content

The best resource for adult rating that Matt pointed me to had examples of how to use all the rating systems. Major downside: this means 4 additional meta tags on my page. This area of the world has not been condensed, so there are many way to rate pages. For my client, I added them all. Better safe than sorry in my opinion.

I won’t go over every one, but basically for most of them you place specific codes within the meta tag that let bots and browsers know exactly what type of content is on that page that might not be suitable. In my client’s instance, it was partial nudity on a woman that was health care based.

It might have taken some time and a little more work, but I know that parents and search engines will like that my client is trying to help protect children on the web. I just hope that the various organizations can come together on ONE rating system someday, but that might be as possible as all of the browsers rendering the same way (stupid IE …).

UPDATE: I had a question (PRO Membership Required) the other day in the SEOmoz Q&A that gave me another thought about how to use the adult content tagging. If your images have ever been placed behind the SafeSearch filter, and you think it isn’t warranted, you might TRY (read: hasn’t been tested) placing these meta tags on the page where the image is hosted, and use the tags for safe for children. Don’t use this to get around the filters, I don’t think that will work. If hand checked, and the images are in fact NOT kosher, you might get removed/banned. No bueno here people. Karma, remember karma. If you don’t want your kids, your nieces/nephews, or godchildren looking at those images, then other kids shouldn’t either.

Tagging Adult-ish Pictures is a post from: Kate Morris

But now there seems to be a trend (and it could be because I live in my little hole called SEO) recently where good SEOs are being suspended on Social Media sites.

Case #1: Jill Whalen (@jillwhalen) was suspended on Twitter on September 22 at about 1pm CDT and reinstated a few hours later. No reason, nothing. Community support and twitter contacts helped.

Case #2: Rishi Lakhani (@rishil) has been suspended as of September 22 at 3:34pm London time and not yet reinstated was reinstated later that day. A twitter search for rishil shows the large amount of support for his reinstatement. Update: We got the story of why, written up by SEOptimise.

Case #3: My own Yahoo! Answers account has been suspended for “spammy” activity. None of which has ever happened. I have appealed three times, and gotten nothing. Yahoo seems to just not want to hear it. So my efforts to remove spam on Answers, and my support of that site are all for nothing. I am still not sure if I will ever return.

So what is the deal here? Are we being identified and purged no matter what? Yes, this is taking three small cases and making a HUGE assumption. But why are these accounts being marked and taken down? All have been in good standing and done nothing wrong.

Anyone else seen this happen? I’ll update as I learn more.

Fake Spamming by SEOs? is a post from: Kate Morris

Now … that really isn’t what this post is about. Sorry.

Google Caffeine Update

Google’s caffeine push (nothing to do with coffee, unless the engineers named it for the mass amounts they consumed when programming) is all over the news. SEOs are running to find the differences, and clients are freaking out about any changes to their rankings. This wasn’t helped by a CIO article (which sparked a question from one of my clients).

So what is the big deal? Nothing. Yet.

Caffeine changes things, yes. But Google changes things all the time. This is just another attempt on their part to make search results better. You can see Google’s Matt Cutts talking about it on WebProNews. John Battelle suggests it has more to do with Real Time search than anything. I am personally holding back and waiting. But what it comes down to is:

If you have a good site, architecture, links, and content, you are fine. Stop running around trying to change things. Nothing about your site is going to have to be changed if you have a smart SEO running your site. The foundations of good SEO have not shifted.

In time, we will figure out what is different, what aspects might be a little more powerful in the algorithm, but that is a ways away. Need another reason to not worry? It’s not live yet. Google is allowing power users to point out any boo-boos. When this does go live, it’ll be in stages.

Keep creating good sites with great products, services, and linking portfolios, and you will be fine in the long run. Take short cuts … and this or another update might really affect you. If your SEO is really worried right now, ask them why. You might find out some things that you need to address for the health and safety of your own business years down the road.

Caffeine is Good is a post from: Kate Morris

I recently asked Matt Cutts about topics he thought I might research for my Master’s thesis. I thought paid linking and he said it was going to be sooo 2007. I disagreed because I had seen so many people still doing it. When we got to Seattle, what I said was backed up.

Now I am a seasoned veteran of sorts in this space. Not a leader by any means, but I’ve been around the block a time or two. Hearing black hat things at the show did not bother me, I enjoying hearing some of them. It was more something Jay Young said: “We are marketers not moralists.” Jay is a smart man, and a great guy from what I hear, but that kind of thinking is so irritating to me.

I almost left business a few years ago. I was tired of the BS, the backstabbing, and the greed. I wanted to be somewhere that I could use my talents for the betterment of other people, not myself. Does that make me pathetic or a bad marketer? I don’t think so. It makes me a good person. And I really don’t like being made fun of for it.

But the rest of his speech made some good points about fear. No one should fear Matt Cutts. No one should fear link brokers. They all have their jobs, and they are not out to mess with anyone else. Matt does what he does for society as a whole. Trying to give them the most unbiased answers to their questions. Putting the small company on the same playing field as the big ones. The internet is not about who has the bigger marketing budget and that is what I see as Google’s standpoint.

But the link brokers are just helping small companies play the games that the search engines set up themselves. Links are needed and they are helping people get them. Is paid linking going to die totally? No. But should the search engines stop trying to discount them? No. That is their job, they are going to do it. This industry is risky at times. It’s like gambling, if you want the short term fast results you have to put a lot on the line. And sometimes, and more recently a lot, you get burned, bad. That’s the game.

Fear shouldn’t have a place in our industry – good business sense, ethics, and all that should. Do your job the right way, and with some patience, the best results will win out.

Fear and Paid Linking is a post from: Kate Morris

I started with a new auto refinance company (It’s my blog, I can link to who I want), and presented my 24 Hour Strategic Plan to them yesterday. That’s my plan I came up with in 24 hours. Well, in that plan I mentioned that in marketing material (website copy and ad copy on AdWords) does best with numbers in it. People love numbers, and in resumes they are solid gold.

Well this Wired Q&A with Matt posted today asks the question: Does SEO (search-engine optimization) work? Well … Duh. But his answer was priceless:

It does to some degree. Think of it this way: When you put a resume forward, you want it to be as clean as possible. If the resume is sloppy, you’re not going to get interviewed for the job. SEO is sort of like tweaking your resume . . . It’s helpful if you just think about which words people would use to search for your content. If you’re writing something about Mount Everest, for example, people are probably going to look for ‘How high is Mount Everest?’ . . . If done responsibly, [SEO] can be a great thing.

Love it!!!

All About the Resume is a post from: Kate Morris

Matt Cutts has said that Google will not count link love from a paid source. You won’t be banned, but that money will have gone to nothing when it comes to your Google rank. Okay. I get this. Google is trying to keep money out of relevance as much as possible. Score one for the underdog white hats that don’t have the arsenal of money behind them.

What every posting I have seen says is that Google can’t catch everyone. But here is what every post has missed so far: Google is aware that they can’t catch everyone. It’s impossible. It’s like trying to catch every kid that steals a piece of candy.

The other point has been that you shouldn’t just think about Google in your SEM efforts. While that is true to a point (I tell my company that they need to focus on the end user religiously), Google still holds the market. You have to give them more consideration until someone else takes over that top spot.

And then I go back to what Matt says (I am not saying verbatim, but I did hear him say something like it) “Don’t build your site for us, build it for your end user. You have the right to ignore our guidelines, there are no laws online. But we have the right to take you out of our index as well.”

Will I do paid linking? Not really. I don’t see true value. My company happens to have a fantastic base of affiliates to link build with. Content rich related sites that we can get to link to us. Does everyone else have this? No. Should they do paid linking? Maybe. It’s your choice. But Google makes known what they like and don’t like. You are free to go against it, but it’s your choice.

You take the risk. With risk comes with great reward sometimes, but also great loss.

Paid Link Debate: Taking Risks is a post from: Kate Morris

There are just so many trips I can take each year when I don’t work for an SEO firm. I am going to be watching the blogs closely. So please everyone keep me updated. And have a drink for me at one of the many after parties I am not sure I would have ever found. But can wish I was at.

And Matt, I still want to see the utili-kilt around Halloween time. I’m sure your wife would get a kick out of it too. Along with the rest of your readers. Now I’ll shut up about it.

Missing SES San Jose is a post from: Kate Morris

The real news though comes from the Google Dance NW last night. It was a great party put on by Google, with glow in the dark cups, Google SMX shirts, and glowy necklaces. But again, not the real news.

I ran into a nice gentlemen while getting into the elevator. He took one look at my tag and exclaimed “Kate I’ve been looking for you.” That worried me. Who in the hell knew me at this conference? I just started blogging (though I am planning to continue) and have very little personal presence on the web.

Turns out he knows someone I work with, one of the executives (later I find he has met everyone: Jeff, Ed and Al). So I spent the night talking to Jason Robey and his crew from Gardner Publications.

The nights events included two things: seeing the new Ask.com launch live and talking with Matt Cutts in person.

Ask.com
We ran into Patrick Crisp, PR from Ask.com, sitting in a corner typing furiously. After we mistook him for someone else, we got to talking about what he was working on. Apparently Ask had just launched their new site, but stuff wasn’t working. So he showed us around. I must admit I was impressed. The new site is very well laid out, navigation options to the left, content and paid in the middle, and cool stuff that changes based on the search on the right.

Since he was kind enough to do that, we let him in on a few secrets on how Ask can do better. High points:

• Tell us more, talk about yourself, we are rooting for you!
• Talk to the webmasters; Google is great at that and no one else. Pick that up!
• Get a face for Ask like Google has Matt Cutts
• Take share away from MSN, it’s going to be so easy (yes I said that)

Matt Cutts
Poor guy was being cornered by this very pretty lady from Webmaster.fm who had a few too many Google drinks (she admitted it!). So my new friends and I pulled him away. I must say, Matt is a very easy guy to talk to. Even though I am an adoring fan. He was very interested in what I had to say, what I was interested in, etc.

The highlight though was seeing a guy in a kilt (Seattle loves kilts apparently) and telling Matt that it would make a great picture for his blog of him in a kilt. He laughed and smiling (devilish if you ask me) and said “Okay. So what will you do for me? I double dare you.” So now I have to come up with something so that Matt will find and wear a kilt to work some day.

I left the party, said bye to Matt and everyone else with on guy noting “You are one of 10 woman here [Not true] and you’re leaving, that’s sad.” That made me feel better.

Google Dance and More to Come is a post from: Kate Morris

It all started with Danny stripping down to his … casual outfit. He took off his coat, then his tie … then his shirt … talk about love of SEO Men. But alas, there was a Disneyland T-shirt underneath. Then the pants went — to reveal shorts underneath. Nice socks Danny!

Highlights

• The QA started with supplemental versus main index results. The conclusion was Matt would like the “supplemental” label removed due to all the unnecessary heartache!
• Geotargeting and how close we are to seeing where people really are. Matt responded that he thinks with a 90% accuracy, we see where people are. Interesting. There was some debate about that in the next paid section.
• Google guidelines might need to be rewritten soon, but were developed to be a broad look at what to do and what not to do.
• Paid links are still bad but getting more popular. But Note: It’s STILL NOT GOOD!
  Matt “Do what you want as a webmaster, I support that idea. But as a search engine we get to do what we want to get relevant results for our searchers.”
• Outbound link good for results? Matt says what is good for your audience is good for you, but has not bee discussed just yet.
• Indexing of SERP pages – on a site by site basis, but probably not going to happen. Use Categories.
• Impact of click thru – only on personalized search – metric is too irrelevant in most cases
• Google + Wikipedia= Love?
  “Regular people like Wikipedia. it’s meant for them, not you guys.”
• Your other domains can have effect on your results – if your other domains are blacklisted.
• Mahalla? Spelling? Matt is not commenting on this new search engine. Too early to tell.
• Page Rank=Playdoh You get a set amount and it goes from there. If you spread it too thin, it doesn’t work as well.
• Google Bomb detection is algorithmic, not human

There was more said, but this was the most relevant. A great session. Now off to the Paid Search Roundtable.

Me and Matt Cutts is a post from: Kate Morris