SEO 101 | The Beginning SEO Podcast �

Greetings Brian, David and Carolyn,

You’re Questions from BrainBugg show was great, one of the best shows so far.

Answers to questions is what we need!

Below are some questions and comments that come to mind.

Question 1

Google Tool Bar Page Rank (TBPR) Update - At the time of writing its being 156 days, what is going on with that? I know all SEO experts suggest that page rank is unimportant, but still mention it proudly when a site they are working on, shoots up in the Page Rank stakes.

So, can we expect to ever see a TBPR update again and if so when?

I wrote a lengthy explanation of why I feel Google TBPR is important on Matt Cutts blog at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/more-info-on-pagerank/.

I would add to that post by saying, if the reason for not altering the TBPR is to hamper the efforts of people selling links or even domains with high published Page Rank, I feel the reverse will be the effect, in that lengthening the space of time between updates, gives these “unscrupulous” people more time to benefit from historical PR. My preference would be to see TBPR undated at least one a month, keeping us all on our toes.

Question 2

In the Brainbugg show, you mentioned paid listings sites such as Business.com, where no longer going to deliver much value in terms of link juice. Is it possible to know which directories are affected? As nearly all directories (DMOZ been the notable exception), have some form of paid listings or reviews. Does this make all our directory submissions a waste of time? Bar off course the very occasional click through you get from them.

A Comment

I have to comment on one of the points you mentioned in answer to a question about country domains. You might have guessed by my name I am Irish. My site, http://www.cpdwise.com, has a .ie domain as well as .com and .co.uk. My target audience are spread across the world, but the in addition to Ireland, the UK would be a natural market for the site. Our position in Google.com, Google.ie, Yahoo.com and Yahoo.co.uk are all improving. However Google.co.uk is very different.

So I have done quite a bit of research on the subject. To do well in Google.co.uk you must have you site hosted on a server that is physically located in the UK. Often even UK ISP’s host their servers outside the UK. You have to check before signing up with a new ISP.

Having a .co.uk will help your position in Google.co.uk, having links from sites based on severs with UK based IP addresses and .co.uk extensions will also help more than links from outside the UK.

I felt your answer to the question, did not strongly enough emphasis these points. They are so important for any site seeking a UK audience.

Because, I did not know any of the above when I started out and because US ISP’s are cheaper, offer higher spec’s, are faster and have friendlier support. I got the site hosted in the US. To change would now be a big deal.

As an example of the effect of this decision, for a particular search term, http://www.cpdwise.com is No 1 in Google.com and Google.ie and a depressing 18 in Google.co.uk and that is before users even click search UK only results.

To find out where a site is hosted, place your url after the equals sign in the URL below.

Here is the report for your site: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.podcast.neo1seo.com

Amusingly if you try the same search for Google.co.uk, you see it is hosted in the US.

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.google.co.uk

I am not sure if Google.co.uk is the only “country specific Google” which adopts such a stance.

I hope this comment helps some of your listeners avoid a mistake that I have made to my cost.

Love the show.

Kindest Regards and keep up the good work.

Diarmuid