What are the Parameters in Google Algorithms?
I am sure Googlers should be enjoying this: hardly can they say a word, there follows a wealth of guessed and speculations. This time Matt Cutts is said to have mentioned that their 200 variables in Google algorithm and already plenty of people started looking for them.
Anyway, I stumbled across this forum thread and made up my mind to share this discussion at SEJ by providing my own list of variables (the SEO perspective, please note that, like one of my best friends pointed out, this post is not intended as the list of search algorithm variables but rather as the list of SEO parameters) and asking you to contribute.
Currently there are fewer than 120 130 variables in the list, try to make it 200 
Update: I created a Google Wave for that: please Tweet or email me to get in there and participate!
Parameters we are almost sure (with different level of confidence) to be included in the algorithm (for your convenience I linked some of them to our previous discussions on the topic):
Domain: 13 factors
1. Domain age;
2. Length of domain registration;
3. Domain registration information hidden/anonymous;
4. Site top level domain (geographical focus, e.g. com versus co.uk);
5. Site top level domain (e.g. .com versus .info);
6. Sub domain or root domain?
7. Domain past records (how often it changed IP);
8. Domain past owners (how often the owner was changed)
9. Keywords in the domain;
10. Domain IP;
11. Domain IP neighbors;
12. Domain external mentions (non-linked)
13. Geo-targeting settings in Google Webmaster Tools
Server-side: 2 factors
1. Server geographical location;
2. Server reliability / uptime
Architecture: 8 factors
1. URL structure;
2. HTML structure;
3. Semantic structure;
4. Use of external CSS / JS files;
5. Website structure accessibility (use of inaccessible navigation, JavaScript, etc);
6. Use of canonical URLs;
7. “Correct” HTML code (?);
8. Cookies usage;
Content: 14 factors
1. Content language
2. Content uniqueness;
3. Amount of content (text versus HTML);
4. Unlinked content density (links versus text);
5. Pure text content ratio (without links, images, code, etc)
6. Content topicality / timeliness (for seasonal searches for example);
7. Semantic information (phrase-based indexing and co-occurring phrase indicators)
8. Content flag for general category (transactional, informational, navigational)
9. Content / market niche
10. Flagged keywords usage (gambling, dating vocabulary)
11. Text in images (?)
12. Malicious content (possibly added by hackers);
13. Rampant mis-spelling of words, bad grammar, and 10,000 word screeds without punctuation;
14. Use of absolutely unique /new phrases.
Internal Cross Linking: 5 factors
1. # of internal links to page;
2. # of internal links to page with identical / targeted anchor text;
3. # of internal links to page from content (instead of navigation bar, breadcrumbs, etc);
4. # of links using “nofollow” attribute; (?)
5. Internal link density,
Website factors: 7 factors
1. Website Robots.txt file content
2. Overall site update frequency;
3. Overall site size (number of pages);
4. Age of the site since it was first discovered by Google
5. XML Sitemap;
6. On-page trust flags (Contact info ( for local search even more important), Privacy policy, TOS, and similar);
7. Website type (e.g. blog instead of informational sites in top 10)
Page-specific factors: 9 factors
1. Page meta Robots tags;
2. Page age;
3. Page freshness (Frequency of edits and
% of page effected (changed) by page edits);
4. Content duplication with other pages of the site (internal duplicate content);
5. Page content reading level; (?)
6. Page load time (many factors in here);
7. Page type (About-us page versus main content page);
8. Page internal popularity (how many internal links it has);
9. Page external popularity (how many external links it has relevant to other pages of this site);
Keywords usage and keyword prominence: 13 factors
1. Keywords in the title of a page;
2. Keywords in the beginning of page title;
3. Keywords in Alt tags;
4. Keywords in anchor text of internal links (internal anchor text);
5. Keywords in anchor text of outbound links (?);
6. Keywords in bold and italic text (?);
7. Keywords in the beginning of the body text;
8. Keywords in body text;
9. Keyword synonyms relating to theme of page/site;
10. Keywords in filenames;
11. Keywords in URL;
12. No “Randomness on purpose” (placing “keyword” in the domain, “keyword” in the filename, “keyword” starting the first word of the title, “keyword” in the first word of the first line of the description and keyword tag…)
13. The use (abuse) of keywords utilized in HTML comment tags
Outbound links: 8 factors
1. Number of outbound links (per domain);
2. Number of outbound links (per page);
3. Quality of pages the site links in;
4. Links to bad neighborhoods;
5. Relevancy of outbound links;
6. Links to 404 and other error pages.
7. Links to SEO agencies from clients site
8. Hot-linked images
Backlink profile: 21 factors
1. Relevancy of sites linking in;
2. Relevancy of pages linking in;
3. Quality of sites linking in;
4. Quality of web page linking in;
5. Backlinks within network of sites;
6. Co-citations (which sites have similar backlink sources);
7. Link profile diversity:
a. Anchor text diversity;
b. Different IP addresses of linking sites,
c. Geographical diversity,
d. Different TLDs,
e. Topical diversity,
f. Different types of linking sites (logs, directories, etc);
g. Diversity of link placements
8. Authority Link (CNN, BBC, etc) Per Inbound Link
9. Backlinks from bad neighborhoods (absence / presence of backlinks from flagged sites)
10. Reciprocal links ratio (relevant to the overall backlink profile);
11. Social media links ratio (links from social media sites versus overall backlink profile);
12. Backlinks trends and patterns (like sudden spikes or drops of backlink number)
13. Citations in Wikipedia and Dmoz;
14. Backlink profile historical records (ever caught for link buying/selling, etc);
15. Backlinks from social bookmarking sites.
Each Separate Backlink: 6 factors
1. Authority of TLD (.com versus .gov)
2. Authority of a domain linking in
3. Authority of a page linking in
4. Location of a link (footer, navigation, body text)
5. Anchor text of a link (and Alt tag of images linking)
6. Title attribute of a link (?)
Visitor Profile and Behavior: 6 factors
1. Number of visits;
2. Visitors’ demographics;
3. Bounce rate;
4. Visitors’ browsing habits (which other sites they tend to visit)
5. Visiting trends and patterns (like sudden spiked in incoming traffic)
6. How often the listing is clicked within the SERPs (relevant to other listings)
Penalties, Filters and Manipulation: 12 factors
1. Keyword over usage / Keyword stuffing;
2. Link buying flag
3. Link selling flag;
4. Spamming records (comment, forums, other link spam);
5. Cloaking;
6. Hidden Text;
7. Duplicate Content (external duplication)
8. History of past penalties for this domain
9. History of past penalties for this owner
10. History of past penalties for other properties of this owner (?)
11. Past hackers’ attacks records
12. 301 flags: double re-directs/re-direct loops, or re-directs ending in 404 error
More Factors (6):
1. Domain registration with Google Webmaster Tools;
2. Domain presence in Google News;
3. Domain presence in Google Blog Search;
4. Use of the domain in Google AdWords;
5. Use of the domain in Google Analytics;
6. Business name / brand name external mentions.
What To Make $$$$$?
The best way to get started in internet marketing is to promote someone elses product or service. When you do this it is called affiliate marketing. You do not need to come up with your own product idea, you do not need to ship products and you do not need to contend with payments or customer service issues. It is a low cost way to start an online business and if you are successful it can prove to be quite lucrative.
Here are 3 ways you can profit by marketing affiliate products:
Blogging
You can get started blogging for free. However, I would suggest if you are going to promote products that you at least pay for a domain name and host your own blog. It can costs as little as $7.00 per domain name and you can get hosting for as little as $10.00 per month.
Becoming an affiliate is a great way to monetize a blog. If you are blogging about motorcycles for example, you can post an affiliate page to ebay and list all the motorcycle auctions that are going on or it can be as simple as reviewing a product on your blog and including a link to that product. Incorporating affiliate products into your blog is easy and can earn you some extra cash.
Email Marketing
If you dont have a list of potential customers than you should definitely start one. For those that already have subscribers to a newsletter it is easy to make recommendations to your readers. Once you have established trust with them they are more likely to take what you say to heart. This includes recommendations. If a product offers an affiliate program than it costs nothing to mention it in your email.
The one thing that is important here is to remember that the product should be of value to your readers and related to what you do. All you need to do is include a special link to the product in your newsletter and earn a nice commission. If you have a large enough list your commissions can get high very quickly. This depends on the type of product of course. Some products offer more commissions than others.
Review Websites
Its easy to start a small mini site that reviews products. You want to do your research and keep it focused of course. You can recommend anything from web hosting providers, credit cards, insurance companies to what is the best educational toys for kids. The list is endless of all the different types of products you can review.
The more value you can add to your website the better. You can add value by including a comparison chart, past customer reviews, ratings and comparing features. When people are looking to make a purchase they often do some research on the internet. What better way to provide value to a new customer than to provide them information about all the different products in one area of interest.
If you are good at writing reviews people are more inclined to click on your link. The link that they click on is a special affiliate link that goes to your affiliate website and if the person decides to make a purchase off of your recommendation than you will earn commission on the sale.
It is important to remember when marketing affiliate products to make your recommendations as stream- lined as possible. What I mean by this is, when you are putting your affiliate link on your site, blog or email make it look as though it is originating from your own site. You can do this through redirects and link cloaking software for example. It can be easy for someone to bypass your affiliate code and go straight to another website without using your affiliate link. After putting in all the hard work and research into your website or blog you would not want to lose your commission.
As you may remember, we recently launched Sports Fan 4, a sports site focused on delivering Boston sports news and opinion with the voice of a fan. We launched the site on March 31, 2009 and kept our expectations reserved. While we felt we had a great team of writers for the site and knew that there is no satiating the thirst for sports talk in the City of Boston, we also knew from past experience how tough it is to get a new site up and running.
Well, a few days ago Google updated their public Page Rank for the first time since we launched SP4 and low and behold we were ecstatic to see we were upgraded to a PageRank 5!
While we knew we had optimized the site well for our readers (which also usually corresponds to good SEO too), we weren’t quite expecting our first Page Rank update to land us with a nice juicy 5. To be honest, a 3 or a 4 would have had us high-fiving. So you can imagine how pumped we were when we saw the Google Page Rank toolbar halfway full.
How we got a Page Rank 5 in Two Months
But enough talk about how happy we were, what you’re really interested in is how we did it. As with most SEO tips, the real truth is locked inside Google’s walls but here’s five steps we took that likely helped us achieve such a nice Page Rank so soon.
- Comments, comments, comments
When Josh and I were sitting down and hashing out ideas for the site, one point I made repeatedly over and over is that Josh had to take initiative and comment on other blogs. Simply put, you cannot blog on an island (figuratively) if you want to have success. A huge misconception with blogging is that it is a solo activity, where the blogger just pumps out content isolated from the outside world.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Blogging is really about building a community with your readers and fellow bloggers. Commenting is thus a great way to build backlinks, expose your brand, and connect with other bloggers.
I could easily devote a whole post to this topic, but Brett Borders already wrote a fantastic guide on creating a solid online presence by commenting. Commenting is a big reason we have over 3,000 links pointed to the Sports Fan 4 domain as of this post.
- Twitter, twitter, twitter
We set Josh up with a Twitter account on May 15 and he immediately began using it to connect with other sports fans. The key here is we setup a strategy for Josh to connect and communicate via Twitter.
Promoting posts was a secondary aim. It’s been a great strategy so far as Twitter has delivered traffic, guest writers and backlinks to his site. When you approach Twitter with the goal of communicating with others, the promotion will happen organically. We also installed a Twitter widget which kept fresh content flowing to the homepage.
- Thesis Theme
Out of the box, Thesis theme is relatively well tuned for SEO. We tweaked it and tweaked it until we were comfortable that it was very finely tuned. Here’s a great SEO tutorial for Thesis theme. Also check out our guide to showing all posts in a category on one page.
The quick tips I’ll give are to show only titles outside the homepage and to enable teasers on the homepage. Also, show excerpts on the homepage. These three tweaks will keep duplicate content penalties to a minimum.
- Unique content
A big boost to Sports Fan 4 came when we progressed from writing game wrap ups to producing unique content not commonly found on other sports blogs. I wrote a post about Five Life Lessons From “He Hate Me”, Josh wrote a post on How to Spot Steroid Users and began producing player profiles, while Matt published a list of things to do when the Sox game is rained out.
For the most part, these posts were content you could not find elsewhere and we all know that Google loves unique content. Not only does Google love it, but other bloggers and readers do too. These were some of our most highly trafficked and linked to posts on the site.
Our Network
A tip that really only applies to some of our audience. At The 42nd Estate we have a network of sites and on all those sites we post links back to our other sites. It makes sense since all the sites are part of The 42nd Estate’s network. Most of these sites have Page Ranks of 3 or 4, which gave Sports Fan 4 quality links right from the start. In other words, utilize your existing sites when launching new sites.
As you can see, there were no black hat (nor grey hat) SEO methods used here. Neither were any of them complicated or tough to initialize. Having said that, there was a lot of time spent in producing solid, unique content, reading and commenting on hundreds of blogs, connecting with over 1,000 people on Twitter. It required time and energy, but luckily those are the only two real costs to our strategy. That means you too can implement these tips and watch your Page Rank soar!
Now there were other steps we took that played a role in our Page Rank increase, but for space considerations I’ll leave it at those five. If you enjoyed this how to post and want to hear more about how Sports Fan 4 increased its Page Rank, or you have your own Page Rank/SEO tips, leave a comment below and let us know!
Affiliate marketing isn’t that tough… if you’ve got attention and trust.
You can gain attention and trust through your relationship with people who agree to receive content from you. And you can gain attention from people via search engines because Google trusts your content.
Ideally, you want both.
Of course, there are ways to make money with affiliate marketing that don’t involve content at all. You can use search marketing to send traffic to pre-sell landing pages, and sometimes even directly to the merchant offer (see Affiliate Project X for those strategies).
Different strokes for different folks… but I like to build online assets. Building a subscriber list is a valuable asset, because you can market to these folks over the long-term with multiple offers if you preserve the relationship. Likewise, a site well-positioned for valuable keywords in search engines is an asset that can bring targeted traffic and revenue for years.
Let’s take a look at three affiliate marketing strategies that build assets and sustainable businesses. The first focuses on list building, the next on link building, and the last on both.
List Building with Paid Traffic
This is a classic online list-building strategy that still works wonders in email-friendly niches (and things are still more email friendly than some of you might think). The goal is to drive traffic to a landing page that persuades the visitor to opt-in to your newsletter, either with effective copy or a sample of the content. Targeted traffic should ideally come from search engine pay-per-click ads, but other advertising methods can work if they’re cost effective.
List building is all about opt-in conversion rates and the value of each subscriber over the life of the relationship. This is where valuable content comes into play… you’re not going to get someone to give up their primary email address unless you promise and deliver valuable content in return. And your lifelong customer value will be lower if you don’t maintain a good relationship with your list.
Here are 3 quick tips that make this affiliate marketing strategy work:
1. You can’t be shy about promoting, or else you won’t make any money. But you also need a balance between solid content and affiliate offers to maintain a positive relationship. Crafting content that offers independent value but also naturally leads to a product recommendation is one smart way to do it (more on this in the next installment of the series).
2. You’ll do better with Google Adwords by having a high quality score for your landing page. The best way to do that is to host the page on a domain with plenty of content and a decent amount of inbound links. So consider marrying this tactic with a blogging strategy that provides the content links you send to the list.
3. Beyond opt-in conversion rates, your main concern is recouping advertising expenses as soon as possible. One way to do that (and also make immediate profit) is to send the new subscriber to a highly-relevant affiliate offer as soon as they opt-in. Read more about that from Patrick Coffey.
Link Building on Keyword Domains
This is primarily an SEO strategy that takes advantage of two key factors: Google’s current algorithmic preference for exact-match keyword domains, and social media link attraction strategies (aka link baiting). The idea is to build up link equity and trust in the domain itself and then rake in search traffic for lucrative keyword phrases.
Your first task is to invest in the right keyword-match domain. I say “invest” because if it’s an exact-match keyword phrase that pulls significant traffic, someone already owns it. And I say “right” keyword-match domain because these keywords must revolve around a topic that is supported by lucrative affiliate programs.
Next, you must come up with a social-media friendly content strategy. So while the main portion of your site is professionally designed to make authoritative affiliate offers (say for credit cards), your blog must contain a steady stream of Diggable and bookmarkable content. What you’re after are the links more than the direct traffic, because you want to build the overall authority of the domain from a search engine standpoint.
To pull this off, the content strategy is just as crucial as the domain name, and it has to be aimed squarely at what people have demonstrated they want. Social media news sites love big resource posts related to getting ahead and getting things done. So if you’re promoting a credit card site, you need to promote content with financial “life hacks” that show people how to get more for their money, eliminate revolving debt, and live life well for less.
Building Authority Sites
Building an authority site allows you to enjoy the benefits of subscribers and search traffic, and it can be done without advertising or expensive domain names. You’re more focused on building a real brand and a site that also ranks well in search engines. If you take the time to do it right, you have a truly defensible online business that can’t be crippled by an algorithmic alteration.
Authority sites come into being because they deliver great content that people have demonstrated they want, and they make money by covering topics that can be supported by (among other things) lucrative affiliate programs. Your overall strategy involves matching up desirable topics with profitable products and services.
You don’t need a huge audience to make good money from affiliate marketing, but you do need a strong relationship with the right people. Publishers often worry that they’ll lose part of their audience if they make affiliate offers, even if those offers are highly relevant.
My response to that is, unless you’re using the wrong tactics (which we’ll explore in the next installment), people who desert you for making relevant offers are not the right kind of people. Put another way, would you rather have an audience of 5,000 that makes you $10,000 a month, or an audience of 40,000 that makes you $3,000 a month?
Sure, you want subscribers… and when you dish out great content on a regular basis, you’ll have them. But when it comes to making money with affiliate marketing, what you need are buyers. People who won’t even consider buying are not good for your business.
First off, Just in case you dont know what e-Commerce is..
It’s Electronic commerce, commonly known as (electronic marketing) e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks
Now, a good Basic Start.
STEP 1
Get a Good Domain Name and Web Hosting Server:
GoDaddy.com 
The Best One.
TMD Hosting cPanel, For Advanced Users.
$5.00 / Month Free Domain Name.
Be sure you have a PayPal Account.
STEP 2
Now do a Search for Zen-Cart. Its a Free Basic e-Commerce Program. It’s a PHP Script that has a Step-by-Step on how to set it up.
STEP 3
Once you’ve installed it on your Computer and you have your Hosting and Domain, Upload the whole script to your site and run the Installation Program.
STEP 4
Sign up for the DropShip Program.
The DropShip Program is a Warehouse that lets you sell their Products (They have over 1 million products) at whatever price you want to sell.
When a Customer orders their products from your site, they do all the work. They fill out the paperwork, which will show that its from your company and your name. Then they will dropship direct to your customer.
It’s very simple and easy. You dont have to stock or shipping products. You dont have to deal with the Paperwork or anything like that. It’s like having your own warehouse.
Then there you go. Your VERY OWN Store that will get listed on Google and other Search Engine as being a useful site.
STEP 5
GET Traffic. (See other Articles on ‘How To Get Traffic On Newly Made Sites‘)
NOTE: Even if you dont do the Dropship and you have your own Products to sell, Zen-Cart is still a good program for that.
It calculates shipping, creates receipts, has built-in shopping cart, links up with paypal for secure payments, select quantities, and many more.
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