For the very last time, a quick recap: one month ago Oscar Carreras wrote an interesting post on his blog claiming that off page techniques counts a massive 75% in terms of ranking factors. I didn’t agree and I challenged Oscar in this funky SEO contest: he tried to rank as high as possible for the keyword Davide Corradi using only OFF site SEO techniques, while I was trying to rank as high as possible for the keyword Oscar Carreras using only ON site SEO techniques.

After one long month of intensive spamming link building from on side and extreme On Site Optimisation from the other, Ladies and Gentlemen, the winner is…

The final Ranking Report:

The keyword “Oscar Carreras” on www.seobloom.com

• google.com: 1st page, position 5th (no change)
• google.co.uk: 1st page position 6th (was 5th, lost one position)
• google.co.uk pages from uk: 1st page position 3th (despite the site is hosted in Italy) (was 5th, gained two positions. This week only 1 out of 6 images in the images result are showing my pretty face. They were 2 out of 8 last week)
• yahoo UK 1st page position 3rd and th (was 2nd, lost 1 position from last week)
• yahoo.com 1st page position 5th (no change)
• bing.com Not Ranking (was 47th)

The keyword “Davide Corradi” on www.europeanseo.org

• google.com 1st page, position 7th (was 10th, gained 3 positions from last week)
• google.co.uk 1st page, position 7th (was 9th, gained 2 positions from last week)
• google.co.uk pages from uk: not ranking (the site is hosted in US)
• yahoo UK not ranking with the correct page anymore but is ranking in first page with another page that can’t be considered ’cause it is slightly optimised.
• yahoo.com same as above: is not ranking with the correct page anymore but is ranking in first page with the optimised page
• bing.com not ranking (was 18th)

Ok technically me and my on site techniques won but…Shall we call it a draw?

Contest takeways:

- Google is crawling, indexing evaluating pages at a terrific speed. It took few minutes to get indexed for both the pages and less than 24 hours to start ranking.

On page techniques are giving consistent results but the Search Engines (mainly Google) are “live creatures” keeping changing. Your competitors are changing. The people searching for your products are changing the way they are searching. Don’t stop monitoring and adjusting your site! It’s a false myth that On Site SEO is a one-off activity and once your pages are done there is nothing else you can do. Your pages are the playground where you can freely test, change and eventually improve your site performance. Work on it constantly. It will pay off.

Google.com ranking evolution

- External links are the quickest way to get your site ranking: off page activities are powerful but need to be constantly performed. Your competitors will take advantage and overtake you if you stop. Don’t.

- Google is deciding the location of a website using these 3 criteria (in order of importance):

• Google Webmaster Central Geographic target
• TLD
• Hosting Location

- Google is giving lots of weight to Social Media. But social media result are effimer: they don’t last. Still nowdays you can’t live without them. They are the quickest way to get the immediate visibility you need.

- Yahoo! gives lots of weight to On Site elements: My page it’s stable, ranking at the top of the SERP. Oscar’s link supported page disappeared when a better optimised page show up.

- No Follow links are followed. Big time. The vaste majority of the links that Oscar built (according with Yahoo Site Explorer) are no follow.

- Bing: No Comment.

Conclusion
On Page and Off Page SEO should play together. I reckon that as a ranking factor in Google Links count a good 60-65%. On Site Optimisation 35-40%. Social Media is something completely different. They boost your visibility not your ranking. Yet. These percentage may vary considerably: depending on the industry, the competitiveness of a certain keyword and the quality of a link, OFF Site factors may count up to 75%.

Conclusion #2
hire both me and Oscar!

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It’s been 3 long weeks since we start and this are the result achieved so far:

The keyword “Oscar Carreras” on www.seobloom.com

My article is keeping ranking in a pretty good position. I haven’t managed to enter the top 3 result in Google yet but I can’t complain.  Still ranking very high in Yahoo! with 2 pages in the top 10 results and (hurrà! better later than never!) I made my first appearence in Bing!

• google.com: 1st page, position 5th (was 7th, gained 2 position from last week)
  
• google.co.uk: 1st page position 5th (no change)
• google.co.uk pages from uk: 1st page position 5th (despite the site is hosted in Italy) (no change. This week only 2 out of 8 images in the images result are showing my pretty face. They were 3 last week )
• yahoo UK 1st page position 2nd and 3rd (was 3rd, gained 1 position from last week)
• yahoo.com 1st page position 5th (was 7th gained 2 position from last week)
• bing.com 5th page position 47th (new entry)

The keyword “Davide Corradi” on www.europeanseo.org

Oscar’s page is pretty stable in Google and Yahoo! where, as we saw last week he is not ranking (and probably he won’t anymore) with the targeted page but with the page about what he did to make my name rank. He’s ranking in second page in Bing but with the wrong page (the homepage, where the optimised article is)

• google.com 1st page, position 10 (was 9th, lost 1 positions from last week)
  
• google.co.uk 1st page, position 9th (was 8th, lost 1 positions from last week)
  
• google.co.uk pages from uk: not ranking (the site is hosted in US)
• yahoo UK not ranking with the correct page anymore but is ranking in first page with the slightly optimised page
• yahoo.com not ranking with the correct page anymore but is ranking in first page with the optimised page)

• bing.com 2nd page position 18th (new entry – with the wrong page.)

This week takeways:

Internal links from the homepage or even from fresh new pages are a good way to push your landing pages. When you are on the top of the SERP you can stop optimising your site: the Search Engine are changing, your competitors are changing. Keep monitoring and adjusting your site! 
Same as above: OFF SITE activities need to be constantly performed. Oscar told me he was doing some dodgy work this week to push his page. Let see if it will pay off next week!

Bing: Still quite bad isn’t it? There are a bunch of really irrelevant pages ranking in the top results. A curiosity: Oscar’s website is ranking in 2nd AND 3rd page with the same Url! What a stupid thing to do Bing!

Final update tuesday 9th of March. It would be fun!

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Once again, a quick recap: two weeks ago Oscar Carreras wrote an interesting post on his blog claming that links and off page techniques counts a massive 75% in terms of ranking factors.  I didn’t agree and I challenged Oscar in this bizarre SEO competition: he will try to rank as high as possible for the keyword Davide Corradi using only OFF site SEO techniques, while I’m trying to rank as high as possible for the keyword Oscar Carreras using only ON site SEO techniques.

24 th February 2010 – Third Ranking Report

I have to admit I’ve been quite busy this past week, so busy that I haven’t paid too much attention to this blog. But as you can clearly see from this week ranking report all the tweaking of the first week is finally paying off!

Oscar Carreras on www.seobloom.com

Google is recognising my target page as the most relevant for the keyword Oscar Carreras: the website is not ranking anymore with an archive page  or with the home page.  I guess this may be one of the reason I jumped up to the first page in all the monitored version of Google.  Still ranking very high in Yahoo! where I’m loosing some positions but now I boast 2 pages in the top 10 results.

• google.com: 1st page, position 7 (was 21st, gained 14 position from last week!)
  
• google.co.uk: 1st page position 5 (was 15th, gained 10 position from last week!)
• google.co.uk pages from uk: 1st page position 5th (despite the site is hosted in Italy) (was 7th, gained 2 position from last week. Funny: 3 out of 7 images in the images result are showing my pretty face lol)
• yahoo UK 1st page position 3 (was 2nd, lost one position)
• yahoo.com 1st page position 7 ( was 6th, lost one position)

Davide Corradi on www.europeanseo.org

Oscar is gaining positions in Google: his site is back ranking with his target page in the first page of google and google.co.uk. We have to notice a little problem in Yahoo! where he is not ranking anymore with the target page but with the page about what he did to make my name rank.

• google.com 1st page, position 9 (was 13th, gained 4 positions from last week)
  
• google.co.uk 1st page, position 8 (was 13th, gained 5 positions from last week)
  
• google.co.uk pages from uk: not ranking (the site is hosted in US)
• yahoo UK not ranking with the correct page anymore but is ranking in first page with the slightly optimised page
• yahoo.com 2nd page position 17 (was 14 lost 3 position but is ranking in the first page with the optimised page)

Both the pages are still not indexed in Bing and this considering the quality of the pages ranking, dear Bill Gates, is  quite embarassing.

Half way takeways:

Google is a “live creature”.  On page techniques are taking more time to pay off but if you have a little patience they do. Off page activities need to be constantly performed. I don’t think Oscar have done any link building this week. Let see if the idea of having to pay me a dinner will push him to fight back!

Yahoo! definately gives more weight to On Site elements: Oscar’s target page is disappearing while the better optimised page is coming up.

Bing: helloooooooo! Speechless.

Next update tuesday 3rdth of March. Stay tuned…

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Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza

(“Consider well the seed that gave you birth: you were not made to live your lives as brutes, but to be followers of worth and knowledge”, The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri).

When I joined Webcertain in 2006 I had just a little tiny idea of what SEO was. But I had good managers leading by example and good colleagues stimulating my curiosity. And eventually I got passionate about my job.
I got so passionate that I started testing, experimenting, developing personal projects and writing about Multilingual SEO in my free time. (No worry I have even a life and a personality outside of SEO… I think…) And my confidence together with my skills has grown. And I become SEO Manager.

I think that these supplementary activities have been crucial for my personal development and have brought benefit to the company I’m working with too. Let’s be honest: it’s easier and safer to test new strategies and ideas, to push the boundaries with your own website than with a client website!

I quite like if my team members have their own projects after work. I love to read competent articles of my guys on their own blogs or in other websites. It makes me damn proud.
And I can see they are much more motivated and proactive even with regular clients. Our weekly SEO meetings are becoming a rich exchange of information and ideas.
I agree this won’t work in every industry but it does in the Search Marketing world.

You may wonder as a business owner what do you get out of this:
- You will populate the SERP with your employees blog post. If you have only one corporate blog in the best possible case you’ll rank in two position for a particular key term. Like a little army your employee blogs will fill other positions that may be taken by your competitors.
- Agree a “link back to the company site” policy and you will get tons of links with great anchor text from relevant sources: your corporate site will benefit from this free link juice injection and potentially you’ll get lots of referrals. And Clients. There is no reason for your employee to refuse to link back: if your business goes well they will have a safe job. It’s a win / win situation.
- But most important you’ll get knowledge. Priceless.

Here you can find an incomplete list of blogs from my beloved WebCertain colleagues. I strongly advise to read all of them:

• Andy Atkins-Krüger – by far the biggest authority in International Search Marketing
• Andy Atkins-Krüger, Ana Valezzi Leckenby, Samia Kesseiri – the “must read” search marketing blog
• Davide Corradi – International SEO with an Italian accent
• Ching-Yun Huang – Search Marketing from a Taiwanese perspective
• Ana Valezzi Leckenby – put your sombrero on: SEO, SEM in a guacamole sauce from Mexico
• Peter Kersbergen, Ally Murdoch & Co – Multilingual search from Netherlands, UK and beyond
• Oscar Carreras – Search Marketing from Spain (Oscar he’s not working with us anymore but he will always belong to our family) European SEO
• Jenny Simpson – PR, Social Media and International Gossip Master

apologies to the ones I have forgotten…

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