I have been getting a lot of SEO questions in my E-mail of late. I have gathered up the best and most frequently asked questions and thought I would answer them on the SEO Guelph website. Here goes.
Q.) Is there a consensus if (.co, .net, etc.) affect SEO? I’m just starting, and the .info domains are much cheaper.
A.) Great question. Depends on who you ask. I know most people in the SEO industry tend to steer clear of .info domains because they are often associated with being a bit spammy. I see them as being equal to all the other TLD (Top Level Domains) on the internet. I personally have never had any problems getting a .info domain to rank. I put it on par with a .com, .net, and .org.
I would like to also respond to the second part of your questions where you referenced .info domains as being a bit of a money saver. I disagree, as .info domains cost just as much as all the other told level domains when it comes time to renewing. For example to renew a .info on godayy.com is $10, the same price as all the other TLD’s.
Q.) What is the secret to local seo?
A.) There are lots of secrets, the best one I can give away is having a local map listing on Google places. While you can claim to be a local business on Google, it’s all he says, she says until you can actually verify your physical address. Once that has been done via Google places for business, the waters are going to be a lot less windy.
Q.) Will I get duplicate content punished for using content off wikipedia?
A.) Not if you borrow a few bits here and there. I would advise against doing this on a larger scale. If it’s organic Google traffic you are relying on then this is a very bad idea. The problem with this is that it’s going to bring your whole website down. If this is your business website I would say this is a very bad strategy. The word “punish” is a very harsh word. I would say “bury” is a better word as Google won’t need to rank you because it will rank the site that contains the original source of the article above you.
Q.) If I no longer advertise on Paid search, will Google punish me by lowering my organic rankings?
A.) The simple answer is no. I get this question at least once a week. In my experience I have actually seen higher natural rankings occur once I have paused my PPC campaigns.
Q.) What is a negative ranking factor that gets ignored the most?
A.) I never swear or write any kind of words that wouldn’t pass through a language filter. I believe that swearing on a web page is detrimental to a pages ranking.
Q.) Why do rankings slide after a while if I don’t give it any attention?
A.) Google doesn’t want to be filled with old content. Don’t get me wrong, Google loves old content, but it will always favour new content over old. The way around this is to update the old content so it becomes “fresh” again. Google loves fresh content just as much as we all do. I will note that an exception to this is for non competitve industries.