Hi folks,

Jerry West has given me permission to mail out his official response to
the now-all-too-famous Jonathan Leger e-mail. Have fun, and I promise this
is the last time I will mention it.

—————————————————————

From the desk of Jerry West:

Note: The following is based on member's request that I review Jonathan
Leger's article that was released about ten days ago. I have nothing
against Leger, and I have never met him. I'm just here to report the facts
…

Beware of "Common Sense" SEO?

Quite a few members of the SEO Revolution asked me to comment on Jonathan
Leger's recent article about themed linking and themed sites. Every once
in awhile I come across an article that has what I like to refer to as
"Mind Crime" but rarely do I read an article that calls the truth "Mind
Crime". This is going to be fast and furious. Try and keep up ….

Now, first of all, as a warm up you should read an article I wrote last
year on a report that placing errors in your code would give you a higher
ranking in Google. Seriously, it will be worth your time and give you an
eye-opening look at some of the reports that come out. It should give you
a new perspective.

Text Link: <
http://www.webmarketingnow.com/tips/link-baiting-article.html>

Jonathan Leger's article ranks right up there. He warns you to "beware of
assumptions" as they are often very, very wrong. I test SEO for a living
and before that I was a software tester for about a decade. Testing is in
my blood. It's what I do. Believe me when I say a tester doesn't
understand the word "assumption".

There are two "myths" that Leger feels are bogus:

Theme-based Linking - Leger's claim is simple: You don't need links from
theme-based sites to rank well. He references the following site as an
example:

Site: submitexpress.com
Keyword: search engine optimization
Rank: #3 in Google

The site ranks #5 today in Google which is about week later than his post,
but that is still a good ranking. Leger states that by checking the
backlinks in Google (link:submitexpress.com) the majority of the links
this site has are not from search engine marketing sites. In other words,
the links are "non search engine marketing themed".

Let me be right up front here in explaining what is wrong with Leger's
theory and paint a picture that's easy to understand.

Showing a few examples to "prove" a point is dangerous. Why? Because I can
show you examples of how a 28% keyword density can rank #1 in Google for a
competitive phrase. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. That is
very true with search results. Instead, you want to know what works ACROSS
the board … with a few dozen, or preferably, a few hundred sites with
keyword phrases that actually drive healthy sales, not just "tire kicking"
traffic.

Let me give you an example of Leger's reasoning, and I am trying to be as
kind as I can while making sure SEOs and webmasters alike don't fall for
incorrect information and assumptions. While this example is an
exaggeration (on purpose) it is meant to bring reality back into the
picture. If an athlete ate at McDonald's and still performed at a high
level, I could state that eating a healthy diet wasn't needed to perform
well. Of course we know this is not true. The hidden issue here is that
the athlete could perform at a MUCH higher level if they had a healthy
diet. That statement you know to be true. It is just common sense.

The same is true with your site. While you can rank well without themed
based links, are you hitting your full potential? Testing results say no.
In a test I ran in the Spring of this year, replacing twenty non-themed
links with twenty theme-based links rankings increased in every instance
on 62 domains. And yes, I went to great lengths to ensure that the swapped
links were as equal as possible. Now, while getting themed links is not
always possible, it should be looked at as "value added" in your marketing
plan.

Let's spin this a little more. Would anyone argue with the following
statement?

To rank #1 for any keyword phrase, publish 1,000,000 pages of unique,
on-topic content and acquire 1,000,000,000 quality links to your site with
hundreds of variations of targeted anchor text.

What you REALLY want to know is:

What is the LEAST amount of work I need to do in order to rank well for my
targeted keyword phrase?

That is why you trust the experts like myself, Leslie Rohde (God of
Linking), Russell Wright (Theme Zoom) and others. It is also why you use
the right tools and focus on understanding how the process is put
together.

So, with that understood, let's break down the article and give you clear
thinking into the ranking process. We left off with Leger doing a backlink
check in Google. He should know better. Doing a backlink check in Google
has never shown an accurate list of links. Google has admitted publicly on
numerous occasions that it does not show all the links they count on
purpose. Oh, and they also show links that they don't count on purpose
too. It is Google's way of protecting their ranking criteria. If you want
to understand the linking process, that is a concept you must remember.
So, what should you use? While not perfect, Yahoo! Site Explorer will give
you fresh results, usually within 6-10 days of acquiring the link. Compare
that to Google who updates their public link information once a quarter.

Fact: Using old, outdated information leads to making poor decisions.

The next problem is Leger focuses solely on the theme of the site instead
of the theme of the page. Focusing on just "link popularity" and
inadvertently ignoring "link reputation" is a mistake a lot of online
marketers make. Remember what Leslie Rohde preaches: pages are on islands.
You must look directly at what the page itself is doing and what links are
coming to that page. While it is true with a large site you can often use
your internal linking structure to enhance a single page's importance, the
bottom line it's the page itself that is graded. This is a benefit of
themed content. It allows the internal linking structure to support all
pages within the theme.

So, what makes a quality link? What will help you accomplish the most with
the least effort?

Let's discuss quality first. Here is what you should consider for a link
to be quality:

Is the page linking to you currently indexed in Google and is the cache
version fresh (within 20 days)?

What is the page linking to you discussing? Is it on-topic?

What is the Title tag on the page linking to you? Is it on-topic?

Where is your link on the page? In the navigation? The gutter? The footer?
In the body text? At the top, middle or bottom?

How many other links are on the page?

Does the page meet YOUR quality guidelines?

What is the surrounding text of your link? Is it on-topic?

What is the PageRank of the page linking to you? What is the PageRank of
the home page? Is there a large gap?

The above is just a small snap shot in the "linking game" and it does play
heavily into the equation of Link Reputation. Do you ever wonder how a page
with just 50 incoming links can rank better than your page that has 400
incoming links? Link Reputation is how. Link Reputation, in my view,
should get the majority of your focus. That is what made Google great,
remember?

I have seen Leslie Rohde rank #1 for a page that was blank (no text and
no, the page was not cloaked). It ranked #1 solely on the merits of Link
Reputation. Before we move on, let me just state that Link Reputation
should NOT be your sole focus in marketing. It is what will give you the
biggest bang for your buck, but there are other areas that are also
important. I don't want you to drop everything and just focus on Link
Reputation. Understand that there is a balance. Let's continue…

Now, if Quality Linking is what made Google great, what about Quantity
Linking? That is where Yahoo! and MSN come in. How are their diminished
market shares working for you?

Yeah, me too. That is why we focus on Google.

KEY POINT: With all things being equal, testing PROVES that a link from a
page that is themed will improve your site more than one that is not. Just
as a link from the Yahoo! directory will provide a bigger benefit to your
site than a link from your neighbor's blog. Remember: theme, authority,
reputation, trust, etc. when it comes to links.

So, how did Search Submit rank so well? Let's look at three strong
indicators that I love to look at: Title Tag, Incoming Link Anchor Text
and Body Text. Two on-page factors and one off-page factor:

allintitle: 4
allinanchor: 5
allintext: 4

How did I get the above results? Simply do a search in Google:

allintitle:search engine optimization

We see from these results that the site has a strong Title and the Body
text is also strong as the site ranks #4 in both of those areas. For
"incoming link text" (allinanchor) it ranks #5 which is also solid and
where the site actually ranks in the SERPs. In fact, if you do the
"allinanchor" search, the results are basically the same (depending on
your datacenter) as doing a regular search. In looking deeper at the
results, the rankings are pretty much in successive order based on
"allinanchor". In other words, the sites that rank the best in Google's
algorithm for this keyword phrase are the same sites that rank well for
the incoming anchor text (allinanchor). Notice also that if you do a link
check on the sites that are in the Top 10, the QUANTITY ranges from 40
million with Wikipedia down to just over 3,000. However, they aren't
listed by the QUANTITY of the links.

Note: The allinachor operator is a great tool to uncover how sites are
ranking in Google. However, it is not perfect, and there are always
exceptions.

The next important aspect to analyze is to determine if this keyword
phrase is even viable in the market. In other words, does is convert? If
it doesn't, who cares about it? I did a week long test with PPC traffic to
five different lead generation programs. The best campaign did 0.12% …
not 12% but 12 hundredths of a percent. One campaign was a "click to call"
and the feedback I received this morning from the merchant was that about a
third of the calls were "phantom" calls . Meaning, it was a competitor
posing as a customer or someone doing research. The quality was extremely
poor according to the companies I sent the traffic to. They weren't happy.

This is why it is vital to TEST the keywords in PPC PRIOR to optimizing.
You don't want to optimize for a dud keyword phrase.

I got distracted again, let's get back to the article. Leger next shows a
smaller site that ranks #1 for a highly competitive term and claims they
achieved it purely on the number of backlinks.

Site: www.younevercall.com
Keyword: free cell phone
Rank: #1 in Google

That is an impressive ranking, as "free cell phone" is a highly
competitive keyword phrase. However, WireFly.com ranks #4 but has 3.1
million backlinks. Yes, that is right, 3.1 MILLION backlinks. Why aren't
they #1? And what about Free-Cellular-Phone-Deals? They have less than
4,000 links and they rank #3? In doing an in-depth analysis on the links
from these sites, it is clear that while quantity is important, it comes
down to reputation. Having less than 4,000 links and ranking #3 for the
keyword term is a great example of how to get a top ranking with the least
effort. And THAT is what we all want in the industry. And while most will
look at 4,000 links as anything but "least" effort, in the cell phone
industry it is. It is a highly competitive field.

This really comes down to: "Get me from Point A to Point B as fast as
possible. No layovers in Atlanta or Cincinnati, just get me there with a
direct flight."

The above example Leger gave doesn't prove or disprove his theory, but it
does show how a smaller site can rank well for a competitive phrase with
fewer links, because they were quality links.

Site: www.hoodia-dietpills.com
Keyword: hoodia
Rank: #3 in Google

In the example above, Leger fails to point out that the Hoodia-DietPills
site also has high grades in the Link Reputation department. The site
ranks #1 in all three criteria (allintitle, allinanchor, allintext) for
the keyword "hoodia". The one aspect that is amazing about this keyword is
the high number of sites in the Top 20 that are 10 pages or fewer: 6.

Site: www.affiliatescout.com
Keyword: affiliate programs
Rank: #1 in Google

The next example Leger gives is Affiliate Scout. With over 24,000
backlinks and a top ranking in allinanchor and allintitle, The Affiliate
Guide is right on its heels with just a third of the links Affiliate Scout
has. In looking at the links, it is clear that the Affiliate Guide does a
much better job with themed links, and therefore is ranking well despite
not having the strong numbers of links. With just a little more effort,
they can overtake Affiliate Scout.

Leger says: "One point that has proven to make a real difference, Google
is discounting reciprocal links more than it used to. They still matter,
just not nearly as much. One-way links appear to be the way to go."

It isn't that reciprocal linking doesn't work anymore, it is the nature of
how it is done that doesn't work anymore. The "link pages" that go on
forever yet provides no real benefit for the visitor is the problem. The
comment about "one way links appear to be the way to go" but besides
buying them (which Google frowns upon) how is the website supposed to
achieve them? Leger gives no advice. You can refer to my 8-part video
series and comprehensive PDF on how to do this the right way.

The Themed-Content Myth

According to Leger: Another "common sense" notion about Google is that all
of the content on your site should revolve around the same theme, otherwise
it won't rank well for the keywords you want because your theme will get
"too diluted". Leger says that the number one biggest proof against this
notion is Wikipedia.org as it covers almost 2 million very diverse topics,
and yet ranks incredibly well for a huge array of keywords. Let's see if
that is true…

If you look at the organizational structure of WikiPedia, the content is
organized into folders, which can be seen as themes and sub-themes. Leger
points to the example site listed below that has many themes but still
ranks well. The referenced site is a web design site that also contains a
"blog" about energy drink reviews. The site has many themes as it has many
clients that it has done web design work for. I look at this folder as a
themed folder. Others may look at it differently. It doesn't matter. If
you search long enough you can find search results that will back up any
methodology you want to prove or disprove.

Site: www.bandddesigns.com/energy/
Keyword: energy drinks
Rank: #2 in Google

According to Leger: "So do you have to have 100% related content on a
site? The facts say no. Even now, with all of Google's "smarts", it's all
about the links."

The reality is that one site or a handful of sites isn't fact, and that's
why I have over 500 sites to test with. With Google and competitive
phrases, links have always been important and I see no reason why that
will stop in the near future. I'll be updating my comprehensive link
document this month to include the testing results mentioned here and
expand with examples and screen shots.

Conclusion: Focus on optimizing for keyword phrases that convert and you
will be far ahead of your competitors as they fight over keyword phrases
that convert at the rate of a fraction of 1%. Because regardless of what
market that you are in or what your Call to Action is, unless you "cash
register" rings, it doesn't matter where you are ranked or how much
traffic you get, you will fail. Put your efforts in the areas that will
give you the best chance to succeed.

Best Regards,

Jerry West
Web Marketing Now

www.themezoom.com