NYT Talkin Smack Again

[YouGotMyMoney]

Trying to Game Google on ‘Mother’s Day Flowers’ - NYTimes.com


Could be missing something here, but what's the big deal and who really cares?

I'd say from looking at backlinks for competitive niches over 90% if not all of the top serps pay for backlinks......groundbreaking news here.

 

[STIBROKER]

back links rule.......

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Google can take their guidelines and stick 'em where the sun don't shine. People are running businesses and let the big dogs roll.

 

[Aaron_4SIGHT]

I'm not sure I agree with the "moral" angle the NYT takes when they say these sites are "not fighting fair" - Google's webspam team is not a moral authority.

However, if you're trying to sell health insurance online this affects you. We've been offered $60/month to put a link to GoHealthInsurance on our homepage with the anchor text "health insurance quotes" (and I've got the emails to prove it). We obviously said no thanks. Frankly, I don't hold it against GoHealth - they're just doing their job. But it certainly does have an impact on the independent agent trying to get traffic through organic search.

Here's more on my thoughts on this issue:

The Downward Spiral of Search Engines and Insurance Marketing | Methodology

Insurance Search Optimization is a Losing Game | Methodology

Aaron

 

[STIBROKER]

Insurance Search Optimization is a Losing Game | Methodology

Aaron

hahaha.....have been ruling that search term for a few years......and have had some nice case's from yahoo for the term "term life insurance" ....seems if you are in texas and type that in my site comes in #4

. We're all competing for the same keywords. Agents that are successful with SEO know that state-specific searches, such as "Texas Life Insurance", produce better traffic for less work than generic phrases such as "Life Insurance". But with 600,000 or so agents in the country, there are only spots for 10 per state. That allows for 500 agents to make it to the first page, which is less than 00.1% of agents. And with lead generation firms that have larger SEO budgets than agents, there's slim chance that agents will get all 10 spots. Don't believe me? Take a look at a few of InsureMe's state specific pages