I'm glad to see a lot more SEO firms like my own are taking purely white hat approaches, which are not only more ethical but more reliable for the long term rankings.

It is NOT fair to say that links account for 70% of how search rankings are determined.

Nor is it fair to say that links account for 70% of the work involved in search engine optimization.

SEOs mistake their own opinions for what search engines are actually doing quite often — but the outrageous claims that Rand makes about the importance of links to ranking algorithms are completely without credible support.

Here is a link to a Search Engine Land report where Sergey Brin said that links are only 1%: http://bit.ly/eeqwI

Keep in mind that for every monetized query where SEOs resorted to inflating the value of sites through links, there are thousands more where no links have been used. The search algorithms get along just fine without all the spammy links.

The problem with relevant content is that lots of people have it. Sure, getting 100,000 links to a blank page won't make it rank for the search “credit cards”, but neither will writing the best analysis of credit cards ever written. You need relevant content to be one of the millions of results returned for most queries, you need links to be at the top. Links convey authority, they convey trust. If 100,000 people are linking to an article on credit cards, then that is a good article about credit cards in a search engines mind.

In that respect, I don't think its unfair at all to say links are 70% of “ranking” because the things that are ranked well, have the links to prove it.

@Michael – Two points here. It's rare for Google to ever disclose parts of it's ranking algorithm simply to stop potential spamming.

Second, the algorithm constantly changes. The internet is constantly changing and Sergey Brin (although founded Google) is unlikely to be kept up to date with every single algorithmic change.

NB: SEOmoz ran a big survey on possible search algorithmic factors and came up with this: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/ranking-factors-vers… – anchor text, 'trust and domain authority' and link popularity all imply (some) root in link building.

Is it possible to send a link with Sergey's comments? How long ago was it?

That is absolute BUNK, Rand. Links are more important to the SEO community, not to the search engines.

Unless you can show where the search engineers establish the 70% weighting for links in their algorithms, you're once again confusing the importance you place on links with what is actually happening in very complex algorithms.

Several Googlers — including Sergey Brin — are on record as saying the link part of their algorithm is about 1%.

Good post btw – I learned so much from the comments too.

#1 – Bounce rate is an exceptionally noisy and easily manipulated signal (think Mechanical Turk with lots of Google account logged-in clickers). Spammers watch these “usage data” signals all the time, and the minute Google makes them a big part of the algo, they'll pounce.

#2 – Pages with lots of text have the opportunity to earn dramatically more search volume via the diverse range of queries users perform (the long tail principle holds up almost perfectly in search/SEO). It's also the case that you may be conflating some metrics as I'd guess that pages with more text are also on more interesting/valuable subjects and have more contributions/content/links/attention than their text-poor colleagues.

#3 – Yes; this has been written about quite a bit lately in the SEO sphere, and it's one of the reasons Google's been a bit more diligent of late about tossing pages out of its index form large sites that it deems to be providing lower value.

I think I might try to write a post about all this myself, as it's always interesting to see how folks outside of SEO see and perceive our field (particularly those who bring strong backgrounds and an open mind – a tragically rare thing).

In working on natural search for Hunch, while things have generally gone well (hundreds of thousands of inbound organic clicks per month a few months after launch), some things that has surprised me are
1) pages with really low bounce rates aren't getting rewarded the way I would have expected. If I were building a search engine I would make this a strong signal.
2) pages with lots of text seem to be disproportionately rewarded, even when all other things (inbound links etc) seem to be equal
3) in general we seem to get rewarded for sheer volume of pages indexed, creating perverse incentives to simply generate more pages even if the quality is lower

The web's link graph isn't a meritocracy – like everything else in life, it's a popularity contest. Those who find the best ways to distribute, promote and market their works to the audience most likely to link to it are going to succeed much more so than just the “great content” producers.

Just think of it like politics. The best, most rational, reasoned, intelligent arguments are the exception, not the rule. Instead, the conversation and media attention (and thus, public awareness) is focused on concepts that are easy to grasp, virally distributable (which often puts rumor and innuendo above fact) and fit a compelling narrative (rather than add complexity).

A post on this topic – http://j.mp/4tYThK

Read the article you link to btw and am in complete agreement.

The goal for these professionals is to present a site in a way that is most compatible with Google's interpretation of their site content. I say interpretation, because Google is neither omniscient or all-powerful, and they're still decades from being able to view and understand a page of content as a human user would. Instead they use a series of interpretations to reduce a page to something that is mathematically understandable. Given this interpretation and the broad set of standards people use to publish content on the web, there's a lot of room for misinterpretation and resulting reduced ranking if you happen to choose the wrong IA, CMS, etc.

I'd argue that good, white-hat SEO is the process of minimizing these potential mismatches between Google's relevancy interpretation and the content on a site. Until engines are able to view and assess a page 100% the same as a human user would, they'll remain imperfect tools. Adapting to these imperfections is what good SEO focuses on. Implying that this adaptation is somehow unethical, or that Google's algorithms are sacrosanct is something I've never understood.

But, I do think there is one exception. Let's say that you're starting a niche site in dating. A “SEO expert” (or whatever you call them) that have extensive experience in that niche could save you a lot of time (e.g. they know what keywords convert better in that space). Your in-house staff could learn this by trial and error, but external consultant will save you a lot of time.

I would argue a 50/25/25 initial goal for traffic generation for the first year — i.e. 50% search engine traffic, 50% referral traffic, and 25% direct traffic. It might be hard to achieve, but I think it's a worthy goal.

With the increasing numbers of “spammy”, tail content aggregator sites such as Demand Media, search engines are getting more and more noisy. A more diversified traffic generation strategy will help protect the downside, and reduce reliance on Google.

I guess you can call me the Google Pessimist.

A while back I got riled up about the lack of SEO in startup marketing and wrote about it – http://j.mp/4q9zkh – might be relevant/useful, though I did write with a bit more anger than was likely deserved.

Your's perhaps is the only blog which keeps the cryptic link name and not the title of the post as its permalink. You said it helps you use the complete link in twitter without having to shorten it. But aren't you losing out on some SEO points?

That means building a ubiquitous web presence, commenting at each opportunity to find like minds, and creating virtual landing pages/signs to make it easy for browsers to find me.

Crowd source sites like Hacker News and reddit quickly and ruthlessly filter subpar content thanks to the attention of many thousands of curious readers.

I found your blog from Fred Wilson's virtual bar/coffee shop, AVC. I found AVC from Hacker News. I found Hacker News from reading Paul Graham, and I found Paul from googling startups, then hacker on another occassion.

I seek out the best communities of shared knowledge. There's a vibe of optimism, of change, and altruism. Those in a position of flow are helping out the folks that are just getting started or changing career paths. Startups have become a Zen/compassion creative space. It's amazing to see the juxtaposition of such critical judgement combined with a super charged sharing network of rich information.

It seems Google is the engine with the most knowledge about how to work with it.

Your doing the 'SEO thing' in-house makes perfect common sense. Derek Powazek (ex Blogger & Technorati) had an insightful post on SEO, which opens explosively as:
—
Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.
—
Here is the link to his post: http://powazek.com/posts/2090.

And my own take on SEO scamsters: http://vsagarv.posterous.com/against-the-great-…

Not sure what your policy is w.r.t posting URLs as part of comments. Delete them if it is an issue.