Totally Zenned
- Join Date:
- Apr 2010
- Posts:
- 900
- Plugin Contributions:
- 0
Hoping to pick the brains of some old pros!
I'm hoping that this is what our experiments will prove/disprove... not whether it is a positive/negative result, but whether it is significant either way.
In fact this is about the only thing we will be able to determine with any degree of confidence, because if my stance is correct, then I'd expect all stores in the experiment will end up with roughly equal rankings. If my stance is incorrect then I'd be expecting quite a noticeable difference in rankings, with the SEO optimised sites taking top spots. If we can't observe this differential effect then it must be assumed that this form of SEO doesn't work, or is insignificant.
I wanted to follow suit and make my expectations clear also. Like you, my expectations are relatively simple.
• First, I think that SE's will have no problem indexing re-directed urls (category A). This appears to have been proven already.
• Second, I do not expect to see dramatic sorting of native URLs over redirected. I believe they will more or less rank (initially) on a first come, first served basis.
• Third, I think that actual traffic (honor system here; I will specify some caveats when we get to that) should cause the lower rank listings to climb.
To be honest, since the first point is proven (do we agree on that?), I think little else matters. From that point on, a webmaster wishing to optimize should follow instructions given by SE's (see the pdf from google that I provided earlier) to the best of there ability. Since a re-directed ZC url can get listed (quickly, I might add), allowing Google to add more bold 1) does not hurt the listing and 2) will have a positive psychological effect on human traffic.
If my second point proves true, it only provides an exclamation point to the interpretation I just provided. If it is proven resoundingly false (all application generated URLs move instantly to the top rank and are not budged by actual traffic), then I begin to rethink the value of inserting keywords into URLs via redirect. If my native sight beats my first Ceon listing dramatically in rankings, then I will definitely be nervous about redirected URLs (both sites on same server, both ZC150).
If my third belief proves true (actual traffic causes ranks to change) and the second belief is false (native URLs probably won't automatically outrank redirects), then redirect still cannot be dismissed. Further study, done over time and against real competition (maybe with a real prod as has been suggested) should be done before throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Nobody has to restate positions (though it might be interesting if everyone does as Rod and I have), I'm just clarifying mine.
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Incidentally, I just did a search, still only 3 returns indexed, all from redirect sites. I point it out because more than 8 hours has passed since bn17311 went native with the product on a site that uses Sitemap XML. Since he updated the sitemap, I expected his listing to, at a minimum, match the indexing speed of my sites.
Can we say that having an XML (updated or not) is not terribly relevant to this discussion? Well, maybe not. Should wait to see how long it takes for the other 2 native sites (mine and Rod's) to index.
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One more quick thought. Rod you say that: "In fact this is about the only thing we will be able to determine with any degree of confidence, because if my stance is correct, then I'd expect all stores in the experiment will end up with roughly equal rankings. If my stance is incorrect then I'd be expecting quite a noticeable difference in rankings, with the SEO optimised sites taking top spots. If we can't observe this differential effect then it must be assumed that this form of SEO doesn't work, or is insignificant. "
Your expectations (in bold) and your conclusion (in red) don't seem to match what I thought was your point: that apache redirects suffer penalty and thus are inferior app generated url's, thereby rendering redirects automatically inferior.
It seems to me that if the subject of the experiment is a postulation that Category A links are inferior to Category B, the onus is on the Category B to get stacked at the top. If A and B simply get sorted in together relatively equally, then the only thing we have shown is that the penalties associated with redirects (which will all agree occurs) does not automatically render such efforts as "snake oil".
On that note, I promise not to qualify future statements using things like "I respectfully disagree" (though I meant no harm with that :D). But I would ask (intentionally not saying 'respectfully') that you don't use the term "snake oil", it makes my skin crawl. I now use the strategy for clients, but prior to that I used it for my own endeavors. I have used the strategy (just one tool in a bag of many) to create well over a million dollars (USD) worth of sales. The term "snake oil" implies an unethical sliminess that simply is not warranted.
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As a re-fresher so we don't have to go back so far to reference (put here mainly because I have no memory and I'm lazy):
A) http://mysite.com/user_freindly_URL (With Apache redirect to http://mysite.com/complex_URL)
B) http://mysite.com/user_freindly_URL (Application generated)
C) http://mysite.com/complex_URL_with_keywords (Application generated)
