Google Wants Brands Not "buyhairlossformulax.com"

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I think I have been guilty of following the EMD brigade and profiting quickly over the last 2 years but the effect has been a few sites getting hit here and there after every update! SEO is unpredictable but what Google wants isn't! Artificially building links will always be risky but building a brand is what will stand the test of time! Yes, there will always be good sites that tumble but to lower risks you need to focus on branding!

Instead of 301 redirecting hit sites after every update and spinning your wheels it is time to focus on a brand! Ironically, my first site was on a branded domain and I had plans to build it up into something big. I got that site to $1000 after 2 and 1/2 months and Google was just loving that site but it took its biggest hit after the blog network deindexing early this year! After that heartache I was following the "churn and burn" approach which relied heavily on EMDs! I still have a large number of sites standing but these can disappear at any time - they are not built on a solid foundation which can evolve into a brand!

I dug up an article that actually gives you exactly what Google wants for the future and guess what - it was written in 2008:

The article covered Eric Schmidt addressing a group of magazine execs. Here are some of the takeaways:

Source: Google's Schmidt Says Internet 'Cesspool' Needs Brands | Media - Advertising Age

The awesome aspect about building an online brand is that it is really fun! You get to choose an awesome domain name which is catchy and memorable and it doesn't look like "buyhairlossformulax.com" and you get to go about creating a real social presence and you can promote your business with pride using various channels besides SEO! You concentrate all your efforts on one sites and delivering quality in every regard and your focus is not split in a million different directions.

The other benefit is your costs can actually be lowered because you will not be paying for 10s or even 100s of domains, articles for every site and SEO for every site.

Think about it:

If you have 20 micro-sites with 10 articles on each site:

10 articles x 20 = 200 articles @ $5 each = $1000.00
(and that is for really low quality stuff)

20 domains @ $10 each = $200/ year

That is already $1200 dollars spent without even considering the SEO costs, the time taken to build these sites, and then there is the risks of losing it all at the next algo update.

But if you are building a brand it will firstly have to be in an area that you are knowledgeable (or you can spend the time gaining the knowledge in an area that interests you). You will have one domain, you will write the articles yourself and do all your on-page SEO (in the early stages) and then you can invest in promotion of the site!

The costs of building one large site will actually be less over the long-term, the risks will be lower and you will have a site that you are proud to share with the world. This is what Google wants! They want you to forget the "churn and burn" 10 page EMDs and to focus on delivering value to the internet via a brand!

I am back to where I started and I am focusing on building an online brand again and I am having fun choosing the domain, designing my logo, planning the structure of the site and the marketing plan which goes beyond SEO.

If you not having fun in this industry and you are pulling your hair out after every update then you should consider changing your approach!



https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+a+brand

:

Mona Elesseily: 5 Easy Steps to Build Your Online Brand

http://mashable.com/2011/05/25/entre...rand-building/

Building Online Brand in a Post Google Panda World

These are just a few articles that I found helpful!
#search engine optimization #brands #building a brand #buyhairlossformulaxcom #google
  • Great information, thanks for sharing!
  • I hope you aren't talking about building a content website and calling it a brand.
    • [1] reply
    • You should click the link at the end of the post if you want to know what a brand is! And by the way: a content site can easily become a brand... ever heard of Huffington Post?
      • [2] replies
  • I don't really think it is Google that wants brands. I think it is search engine users that want it.

    Despite what many of its detractors would want you to believe, Google is not simply a fly by night company. They are not going to make any significant changes to the algorithm without it being based on heaps of data.

    I bet they found people are sick and tired of some of these silly MFA EMD's and have decided to clean house.

    At the end of the day, they want good search results. Good search results is not defined by you or I, or even Google for that matter. It's defined by its users, which I'm sure they are collecting marketing data on constantly.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [3] replies
    • We completely agree.. if you run a website and your data shows users are not sticking around then you might want to do something before market research and data support a Google Update that reflects that problem.
    • I agree! But I also believe that Google is looking at site's with strong signals that depict the site as a trustworthy source of information... this can be achieved through online branding!

      Ultimately people trust brands and Google is beginning to do the same by giving branded sites a whole lot of love!

      Huffington is at the top end but there are smaller brands within certain market segments as well! It surely isn't an easy task to achieve but not impossible either!
      • [1] reply
    • @GregrySmith keywords in domain would be going down as we turned the knob toward brandable domains.

      https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/252483995013636096
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • I would agree with you partially. Why? Because I believe "don't put all your eggs in one basket". I would say it should be a mix of authority and EMD sites. EMD sites are not bad and Google is not against EMDs (show me a proof if disagree).

    The algo is automated and even an authority site can get a hit. Some people here seems to have a false EMD idea. xyzEMD and EMDxyz is not an EMD. These are the sites that have been mostly hit.
    • [2] replies
    • I think diversifying traffic sources will be a way to ensure all our eggs are not in Google's basket

      No hair left huh?

      I get you Paulgl!
    • I agree. I think having a branded website is possibly the way forward. The only problem with putting all your efforts into a single website, is what happens if Google decide to peanlize it for some reason? You then have no business. If you have 20 smaller sites and 5 get knocked off, then this isn't that bad.
      • [1] reply
  • Obviously no one can afford to rely solely on one source of traffic these days, especially Google organic search traffic. It's much too dangerous.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      It is obvious, actually it's extremely obvious, but the masses still ignore it (single source of traffic).

      A lot of people in IM have tunnel vision when it comes to traffic, the SERPs are only a single source of traffic but most people here act like it's the only source (it's not).

      Then you have the people that think "get traffic to land on my page & never return", which is the dumbest concept I've ever witnessed here on WF, but people promote that thinking here all the time. It's far easier to sell something to someone that's familiar with a person or site, buyers trust things their familiar with (branding).
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I personally won't put all my eggs in one basket. It is far too risky from what I have seen.
    If you can get one brand or website and build it up well to a good level and do it the right way. Give Google and your visitors what they want and are looking for.
    And then do another and follow the same.
    And only do as many as you can handle. I have a partnership with my websites so between us we can probably handl up to 5 big, quality, branded sites.
    • [1] reply
    • This is pretty much my future plan! I am using the first one to gain experience and thereafter I have another 2 hot niches where I can develop two real authority sites! I think the EMD mentality was really stifling my creativity!
      • [2] replies
  • Out of the Gregory Smith/Matt Cutts "discussion", I think the following three tweets summarise the whole thing.

    Matt "Multiple algos are rolling out all the time. Likely those sites weren't affected by EMD update but by another algo."

    Gregory"Thank you matt but all this happened during the past 3 days. Has another update happened during this time?"

    Matt "yes. 500+ algo launches/year mean 1-2 a day. I know of at least one other algo rolling out over same timeframe for example."
    • [1] reply
  • Useful information, i have said it several times that EMD (Exact Match Domain) is gonna destroy and frustrate many desperate IM, Google love brands
  • There are brands on EMDs, but they are not on EMDs that realistically can't support a full site.

    Cars.com is happily ranked #1 for cars. Hotels.com happily ranked #1 for hotels. CreditCards.com happily ranked #1 for credit cards. Each of them have much bigger companies competing with them.

    Something like SmallBrownPickupTruck.com on the other hand - let's face it, that is not going to be anything but a thin site. Either it won't have much content, it will have lots of irrelevant content, or it will simply not look like the kinds of results that people might otherwise get from highly reputable sites when searching that term.

    Now of course there may be some better EMDs getting hit, but consider that the EMD is one of hundreds of factors. Some other things to ask:

    - Is the site on it thin? From what I've seen, it's mostly thin sites getting hit.
    - Where they using thin SEO efforts? For instance, tons of links pointing to main page, all with the EMD phrase anchor text.
    - Do they have any incoming links at all? Bearing in mind that many EMD owners used minimal efforts to rank them, they may have few incoming links compared to competition.
    - Is their CTR, bounce rate and and time on site poor? Perhaps they got to where they were but ultimately didn't deserve to remain there based on visitor experience.

    Probably many more questions to ask, but the bottom line is, the days of expecting a silver bullet to rank highly are gone. Even if something has been working nearly without fail, don't expect it to forever. Google wants you to work towards providing value to visitors, not manipulating yourself up the ranks.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
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    Google Wants Brands Not "buyhairlossformulax.com"

    I think I have been guilty of following the EMD brigade and profiting quickly over the last 2 years but the effect has been a few sites getting hit here and there after every update! SEO is unpredictable but what Google wants isn't! Artificially building links will always be risky but building a brand is what will stand the test of time! Yes, there will always be good sites that tumble but to lower risks you need to focus on branding! Instead of 301 redirecting hit sites after every update and spinning your wheels it is time to focus on a brand! Ironically, my first site was on a branded domain and I had plans to build it up into something big. I got that site to $1000 after 2 and 1/2 months and Google was just loving that site but it took its biggest hit after the blog network deindexing early this year! After that heartache I was following the "churn and burn" approach which relied heavily on EMDs! I still have a large number of sites standing but these can disappear at any time - they are not built on a solid foundation which can evolve into a brand!