Getting Granular: The DigitalGrit Blog

Question for Rand? What happened to the “third-party” PR tool idea?

Back in May of 2005, I interviewed I interviewed Rand as part of an SEO Chat featured articled titled The Need for a New Gauge: Moving Beyond Visual or “Toolbar” PR Rankings. The gist of our question-answer session revolved around the need for a third-party tool that is not affiliated with Google or any of the other engines, which could be used to measure the overall rank value of a given web document.

Sort of like an alternative to toolbar PageRank values.

Title Attribute: What is it and does it have any real SEO value?

No, we're not talking about a SEO media darling known as the title tag. We're talking about it's red-headed step sister, the title attribute.

According to W3.org, the “title” attribute offers advisory information about the element for which it is set. W3 goes on to state that “setting the [title] attribute on a link allows user agents (visual and non-visual) to tell users about the nature of the linked resource.”

Unfortunately, what W3 does not say is whether or not this fairly obscure attribute is of any use to enterprising webmasters. The question of SEO value, as it relates to the title attribute of a textual hyperlink, has been around for years, but to date, there has never really been any real consensus on the matter.

Matt Cutts has never directly blogged about it. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines doesn’t mention it. Even the various industry forums have rather long threads that debate the matter but don’t agree upon a specific resolution.

So what gives with the title attribute?

Adverb Media Becomes One of the Largest Independent Digital Agencies [Press Release]

New Entity Combines Three Leading Internet Companies, DigitalGrit, Temel, and RelevantNoise, to Offer Full Suite of Online Marketing Services and Technology

LAS VEGAS, NV (no, we haven't moved! We're just at Shop.org) --(MARKET WIRE)--Sep 19, 2007 -- Three leading interactive companies have combined to form Adverb Media Inc., one of the largest independent providers of digital marketing services in the U.S. The new privately held company provides a comprehensive set of integrated digital marketing services including search engine marketing and optimization, online advertising, Web site design and development, online relationship management programs, and blog and social media monitoring technology, all designed to increase awareness, acquisition, and customer retention.

Get the rest of the big news here....

Yahoo's keyword tool down; webmasters at a loss

For years, Yahoo's (a.k.a. Overture's ) keyword suggestion tool has been a Holy Grail of sorts in terms of researching potential target search terms.

Recently, Yahoo decided to completely disable this tool, leaving many SEO folks in a state of keyword limbo. Discerning webmasters will tell you that this is essentially a non-issue considering that the folks over at Yahoo haven't update the Overture keyword tool data since early in 2007, making the tool an outdated resource at best.

Understanding why content is king

“Our site is mainly used for marketing and branding, so there’s no way that we’re going to add any written content to the existing pages.”

“I’m busy trying to do SEO for my site and/or we’re an e-commerce portal, so why would I spend time building new content?”

“We’ve undergone a link-building campaign but most of the sites we’ve contacted aren’t interested in linking to us.”

“We’ve done all of the on-page and off-page stuff, so why don’t we rank well in Google?”

These are some of the typical responses an SEO professional faces when trying to pitch the idea of building out fresh content for an existing website. It’s frustrating, demoralizing, and in some cases, flat out moronic.

Do you feel like you’re up against a brick wall when trying to push the content initiative? Or have you simply given up? Perhaps you just need a fresh perspective on exactly why content was, is, and will always be king.

SEO - Makes perfect logical sense

As a search engine optimization specialist, I can honestly say one of the greatest things about SEO is that Search Engine Optimization makes perfect, logical sense. No doubt if you read any number of SEO articles, you'll see the tons of "Top Ten" SEO Do’s and Don’ts lists - tons of lists.

Throughout my SEO career, I have learned whether from SES conferences, colleagues or hearing any of the industry experts speak about a particular idea within SEO talk about what you should avoid or what you should do, it always makes perfect, logical sense.