In Search of Optimization

My highest achieved placement in Google, Yahoo, and MSN for the keyphrase Mike Lopez was #2. I thought, why not tweak my site to make my website #1? So I changed my blog’s title from “Mikee’s World” to “Mike Lopez Blogs” and in less than a week, my site now ranks #1 for Mike Lopez in all three major SEs.

I’m not sure how long will I be able to stay on this spot so I took some screenshots for the sake of history.  Click image to enlarge:

Google

Yahoo

MSN Live

Ain’t that cool?  This merely proves that sometimes, little tweaks on your webpages can make a big difference.

I know I shouldn’t be saying this but being the talkative guy that I am, I can’t help but announcing that finally, Marc Macalua met Matt Cutts and though it was a short mention in Matt’s blog, I’m still glad to know that Matt actually remembered our very own Marc Macalua so as to mention him.  Here’s that ’sentence’ in Matt’s blog:

I got to meet Marc Hil Macalua for the first time (we briefly discussed Filipino SEO contests)

I bet they discussed Isulong SEOPH and Ituloy Angsulong.  Hehehehe.   This is one small step for Marc, one giant leap for Filipino SEO’rs
To me (IMHO), this proves to thing, Matt is a good guy who remembers those he meet and Marc is a good guy who is actually worth meeting.  I hope you too can discuss more plans regarding SEO and stuff like that for the Filipino community - whatever it may be.

Now Marc, where’s the photo of you and Matt?

I just got an email about Mike Filsaime’s Free Report called - “The Death of Internet Marketing”

I will admit, like you may be feeling now, that I thought it was some hyped up offer to get me to join for free and get some offer…

…Turns out I was wrong. Way wrong.

The bottom line is, this report really opened my eyes to what really is the death of Internet marketing. The good news is, the report also shows you what you need to know to succeed in the near future.

The times are changing and I it would be a shame for anyone to not read this report and fail like many will.

I read it, and I wanted to share it with you ASAP.

I recommend you take a break from what ever it is you are doing if you can and get access to this report now.

Consider your future success by downloading it today and since it’s free, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. CLICK HERE TO GET THE REPORT NOW.

Mike Filsaimer says it will only be available for a few weeks at most so do not delay…

It’s a common practice among SEO practitioners to get as many inbound links as they want.  Furthermore, it is believed that inbound links from websites with a different IP than the website being optimized are given better points by Google.  But is this true?

While browsing through all my RSS subscriptions, I came across Matt’s post which dispells this myth.  According to him, links from domains with the same IP are treated the same as links from domains with different IPs.  In other words, there could really be no reason why one should worry about the IP address of the sites linking to him.

Matt quotes a section of a particular Slashdot interview with Craig Silverstein (Google’s Director of Technology) which says:

Why in this day and age does google continue to penalize sites that are virtual hosted? With ip addresses becoming harder to get/justify every day why does google discount the relevance of links that don’t come from a unique ip address. Please don’t just deny it, I think the Internet community deserves an explanation.

Craig:

I can’t just deny it? What are my other choices? [:)] Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you’ll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception–thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth!

Furthermore, Matt confirms Craig’s reply by saying this in his blog post Myth busting: virtual hosts vs. dedicated IP addresses…

I’m happy to affirm that this statement which was true in 2003 is still true now. Links to virtually hosted domains are treated the same as links to domains on dedicated IP addresses.

What does this mean?  How does this affect SEO professionals?  Does it mean that all the effort made to gather links from different IPs were wasted?  Well, I guess not - they’re still links after all.  Nonetheless, this gives me enough reason to breath slowly and calmly when I try to get inbound links from other bloggers like me.

Setting realistic expectations on search engine optimization is a pretty tough thing to do. It’s tough because the subject itself is blurry. In fact, it’s so blurry that even a SEO experts disagree at one point or another. In the end, you just have to experiment.

Anyway, I would like to share with you this 4-minute video that discusses just that - Search engine optimization expectations.

Personally, I don’t see anything new in this video but I do believe that it will help a lot of you who are trying to set foot on the holy ground of search engine optimization. One thing I find funny though is point #1. He said that if you have a new domain, don’t expect google to come up with your site on any particular keyphrase for at least 6 months to 1 year. I find this false because I see Ituloy Angsulong new domain entries coming up on Google. There are a few others that I don’t agree with on this video but as I say, the subject is blurry and it would be hard to state hard facts.

What about you, what are your search engine optimization expectations?

Nope, I’m not talking about some Japanese search engine and how it handles the Ituloy Angsulong SEO contest.  What I’m talking about is how an Ituloy Angsulong contestant found out about a good insight on how the Japanese search engines work.

I was so surprised at how they do it and I can’t still comprehend until now the power of Japanese technology.  Read about this amazing Ituloy Angsulong discovery here.