Matt Cutts: "Only the links Google trusts count."

Wouldn't effectiveness of a strategy be considered a benefit?

Living in California may bias me, but I think that a number of the UC schools are excellent state schools as well.

My father taught at the law school at UNC for a while and I hope he gave his students an excellent education in his areas of expertise. But that doesn't make it an Ivy League or Ivy League equivalent school. Obviously, Matt Cutts is at the top of his field, but I don't see how the designer brand name on his university education is significant or means that he would never post disinformation, no matter how much it would assist his goals.

Youre kidding aint you? Buying links, trading links, building free sites to get links... all is a nono in googles eyes and all of it helps to get better serps. Massive links is the most important SEO factor - if you say its not, youre are clueless I am afraid.

Absolutely, butin this case, spreading disinformation is an ineffective strategy.

Liberal arts majors at Brown reap the benefits of their school being in the same athletic conference as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (and that's all the Ivy League really is - an athletic conference), so someone who obtains a PHD from a highly regarded program at a top tier public school, can reap the benefits of people acknowledging that their having received an education that it is at or above the level of education received by a Brown liberal arts major.

Given that people in this thread are discussing gaming the system, how can you not see the benefit of giving the public inaccurate information on how to game the system?

If you are trying to say that people with PhDs who work at Google are probably awesome at what they do, I agree. Why do you have such a hard-on for Brown? I've personally met more UNC grads than Brown grads, so the sampling is not even, but, truthfully, everyone I ever met who went to Brown was extremely sharp and I can't say the same for all UNC folks. But, again, like I said, that doesn't mean that a school like UNC doesn't graduate some fine students. It does mean that the school name alone is not all that indicative.

Wouldn't most people expect that someone with a PhD has a more advanced level of education than someone with a BA? Regardless of where they got it. Practically a tautology.

to put it simple: to rank well google says just make great content and people will naturally link to you, and you will then rank.

the reality is much different and they are aware of it.

try and make it to the first ten pages of "porn" by just doing what google says.

seo's use "disinformation" when referring to matt cutts in a playful half-serious way. this is all very basic stuff btw. if you have no idea what people are talking about, best not just to comment sometimes.

lol. I guess it does seem like I'm singling out Brown so feel free to switch it out with Dartmouth or Cornell. And I'm not comparing a PhD to a BS, I'm just saying that certain undergrad degrees at UNC (such as quant) and other top tier public universities and/or non-Ivy League private institutions can rightfully be considered as 'Ivy League caliber'. A variance in the admissions criteria for different programs at large public universities can be cited as a reason for more 'less sharp' alumni. Make sense ? Total tangent, but whatever.

The drawbacks to spreading misinformation outweigh the benefits of spreading misinformation.

If it were to ever be proven that Google was intentionally deceiving the public, not only would the immediate financial hit to shareholders likely be of an amount equal to or greater than the presumed increased ad revenue that comes with deceiving the public, but it would hang like a dark cloud over the company for years and open the door to competitors. For a variety of reasons, we've seen some pretty big and formerly successful companies fail or over the past 15 years. Lehman, Arthur Anderson, Enron, and WorldCom to name a few. Dotcoms like Netscape and AOL have taken big hits. NWS sold Myspace for less than one tenth of the purchase price. Life at the top is tenuous so why would they put themselves at added risk when they are already at the top?

Because SEO is constantly evolving there's a good chance that what holds true today won't hold true tomorrow, so why bother lying ?

Lastly, doing the opposite of what Matt Cutts says isn't exactly a groundbreaking, previously unknown strategy. It's a strategy that's just as common as doing what he says so telling the truth is just as effective in misleading the public.

This thread hurts my brain...There's some clueless peeps in here

u OK?

let me translate. In bound links from sites that have no inbound links are not trust worthy. Links from sites that are using scraped duplicated content are not trust worthy.

It was pretty clear that the panda not only penalizes sites with duplicate content but also down graded the quality of inbound links from sites with duplicated content.

Not a conspiracy theory. Seems more like common sense?

There is no such thing as "common sense" at google

Maybe they're just trying to thin out the competition by spreading BS.

You are correct regarding panda, but 'common sense' is more about the 'why' than the 'what' just as truly effective SEO is more about 'what next' than 'what happened'.

You go the idea, but there is more...

I'll take what Cutts says over the kook world of fake SEO experts. There is no other industry online full of so much bullshit. It's like 98% teenagers and bums unqualified to do anything other than bullshit.

So of course Cutts is a decoy. You have to pay these failed webmasters for the legit info.

Agreed. And like I mentioned earlier, being truthful about where the algo is now and where it's going will have a similar misdirection effect.

If your're him, who would you rather mislead - a bunch of people who generally believe most of what you say or a bunch of counter culture types who don't believe a word you say?

If the latter, just tell the truth and watch as they mislead themselves.

Indeed, the reality is much different for adult sites.

No one sends a one-way link to that great article you wrote on your anal fisting blog, it just doesn't fucking happen. In adult, everyone wants something in return, be it money or a link back.

OMFG!

My eyes!!!! My eyeeeessssss!!!!!

I have no reason not to believe Matt Cuts.

In the past, everything he had said turned out to be correct.

was sitting there at Pubcon when he said that and then the discussion at a good majority of sessions touched on that. Always be able to read between the lines, some old stuff still works really really well

Matt Cutts is a dick