Search Engine Optimization And Matt Cutts

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Wednesday, 18 of June , 2008 at 8:44 am

In recent posts I have looked at search engine optimization and link building and the effect it has on search results. With these posts in mind it was interesting to read a post on SEOmoz reporting on an interview with Matt Cutts.

I wont rehash the interview itself, however there were a number points that I thought were interesting when it comes to search engine optimization and link building.

The first point that I found interesting related to Digg, the assumption from the writer was that Google likes links from Digg. From Matt Cutts:

Whenever you pay money to a social media consultant to try to show up on Digg, you are not paying for links. You are funding some creativity;

I wonder if the reference to Digg was a direct reference or a general reference. Surely links from most of the social sites would be treated fairly equally. Digg will ended up with a flood of posts attempting to get ‘dug’.

Of more interest was take on internal links and anchor text. Whilst good keyword anchor text is considered good search engine optimization strategies, perhaps there is such a thing as too much. From Brent Payne, the post’s author:

…..don’t get too many links pointing to your domain/page with specific anchor text. Change it up a bit. Have some with anchor text “blue widgets,” some with “widgets,” some with “blue,” and some with “domain.com/page.”

Finally, a little noise on link swapping. What has been considered a search engine optimization no-no may not be that black and white now. Again, from Matt Cutts:

We tell people to avoid excessive swapping; and the nice thing is that people have a pretty good idea of what excessive is.

The emphasis being on ‘excessive swapping’ and that we know what excessive is. From what I have quoted in this post, search engine optimization strategies can include a link swapping, just don’t overdo the anchor texts. Let your readers link to you they way they want to, just don’t try to hard to manipulate those links. Finally, get a link back from Digg for extra oomph.

It interesting to see Google starting to loosen up a little on what will help a site increase their rankings within the search results pages. One gets the feeling that Google has decided that rather than fight search engine optimization, release what is required and really level the playing field. Everyone has the same song book to sing from then. It’s a pity they are just letting it out one dribble at a time.

                      Category: SEO                      

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