8 More SEO Topics that Have Me Stumped – Moz
Skip to content
Moz logo
Menu open
Menu close
Search
Products
Moz Pro
Moz Pro Home
Moz Local
Moz Local Home
STAT
Mozscape API
Free SEO Tools
Competitive Research
Link Explorer
Keyword Explorer
Domain Analysis
MozBar
More Free SEO Tools
Learn SEO
Beginner’s Guide to SEO
SEO Learning Center
Moz Academy
SEO Q&A
Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
Blog
Why Moz
Agency Solutions
Enterprise Solutions
Small Business Solutions
Case Studies
The Moz Story
New Releases
Log in
Log out
Products
Moz Pro
Your All-In-One Suite of SEO Tools
The essential SEO toolset: keyword research, link building, site audits, page optimization, rank tracking, reporting, and more.
Learn more
Try Moz Pro free
Moz Local
Complete Local SEO Management
Raise your local SEO visibility with easy directory distribution, review management, listing updates, and more.
Learn more
Check my presence
STAT
Enterprise Rank Tracking
SERP tracking and analytics for SEO experts, STAT helps you stay competitive and agile with fresh insights.
Learn more
Book a demo
Mozscape API
The Power of Moz Data via API
Power your SEO with the proven, most accurate link metrics in the industry, powered by our index of trillions of links.
Learn more
Get connected
Compare SEO Products
Free SEO Tools
Competitive Research
Competitive Intelligence to Fuel Your SEO Strategy
Gain intel on your top SERP competitors, keyword gaps, and content opportunities.
Find competitors
Link Explorer
Powerful Backlink Data for SEO
Explore our index of over 40 trillion links to find backlinks, anchor text, Domain Authority, spam score, and more.
Get link data
Keyword Explorer
The One Keyword Research Tool for SEO Success
Discover the best traffic-driving keywords for your site from our index of over 500 million real keywords.
Search keywords
Domain Analysis
Free Domain SEO Analysis Tool
Get top competitive SEO metrics like Domain Authority, top pages, ranking keywords, and more.
Analyze domain
MozBar
Free, Instant SEO Metrics As You Surf
Using Google Chrome, see top SEO metrics instantly for any website or search result as you browse the web.
Try MozBar
More Free SEO Tools
Learn SEO
Beginner’s Guide to SEO
The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.
Read the Beginner’s Guide
How-To Guides
Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.
See All SEO Guides
SEO Learning Center
Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.
Visit the Learning Center
Moz Academy
Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.
Explore the Catalog
On-Demand Webinars
Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.
View All Webinars
SEO Q&A
Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.
Find SEO Answers
August 7-9, 2023
Lock in Super Early Bird savings for MozCon
Snag tickets
Blog
Why Moz
Small Business Solutions
Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.
Grow Your Business
The Moz Story
Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.
Read Our Story
Agency Solutions
Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.
Drive Client Success
Case Studies
Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.
See What’s Possible
Enterprise Solutions
Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.
Scale Your SEO
New Releases
Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.
See What’s New
New Feature: Moz Pro
Surface actionable competitive intel
Learn More
Log in
Moz Pro
Moz Local
Moz Local Dashboard
Mozscape API
Mozscape API Dashboard
Moz Academy
Avatar
Moz Home
Notifications
Account & Billing
Manage Users
Community Profile
My Q&A
My Videos
Log Out
By: Rand Fishkin
February 3, 2009
8 More SEO Topics that Have Me Stumped
Content Marketing
The author’s views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
A couple years ago, I posed some questions from the SEO world that I couldn’t answer. Tonight, I’d like to repeat that process and throw up some dilemmas that, once again, have me in a quandry.
Does QDD Give an Inherent Boost to Negative Subject Matter?
Some rumors have been passing around the SEO world that QDD, Google’s “diversity” algorithm that’s intended to show more of a variety of different kinds of content in page one of the SERPs, gives a rankings boost to negative focused content, making it easier to rank for a company/brand/person’s name if you “talk smack” about them. True or false?
The 302 Hijack is Back?
From 2005-2007, complaints were flying about Google showing pages that 302 re-directed to other URLs in place of the originals, allowing clever spammers to conditionally 302, then steal the traffic when actual visitors clicked the ranking search result. 2008 was pretty quiet on this topic, but recently, I’ve seen it flare up again. What happened? Did Google make a misstep? Or is there a new, more sinister version of this loose on the web that gets around the old protections somehow?
Are the Engines Following URL Shortening Services?
Some recent evidence has suggested that engines are using URLs from shortening services like TinyURL, Is.gd and others (even those that don’t cleanly 301 as Zi.ma does) for discovery, and possibly flowing link juice through them as well. Has anyone experienced this, tested it or seen results that would prove the case one way or another?
What Was Up with The Hyves Subdomain PR Penalty Checker?
Marcus Tandler leaked the news that using the subdomain “hyves” attached to any root domain on the web would give you a PageRank number indicating whether the domain had suffered a PR penalty for buying/selling links. So many questions on this one – who leaked it? It had to be someone inside Google, right? No one could guess that randomly without at least hearing a whisper from the grapevine. Why would Google create it? Why would they leave it active? Why would they make it publicly accessible in the first place? Every search quality engineer has access to the console to pull up their internal stats on a domain, so they could easily mark it there… So weird.
The Engines All Regularly Follow Many More than 100 Links Per Page?
We work on a lot of pretty authoritative, powerful domains, so I’m wondering if this is just a fluke from being in a link-rich environment, but we see that Google, Yahoo! and Live/MSN are consistently going up above 300 links per page and following and indexing them all. Is this a limited behavior set, or do small sites, newer sites and those of you with test domains see this activity as well?
Is it Really Harder to Get Rankings with a .info, .cc, or .biz Extension?
We’ve heard from a few sources that these three extensions, along with several other International ccTLDs, might be lowering trust scores or increasing the probability that your site is flagged for exclusion/devaluation/penalties. I haven’t done nearly enough testing on domains like this to know. Of course, I don’t think they’re good for branding, which is a big part of a long term web marketing strategy overall, but that’s beside the point.
Does Google Employ Link Buying Moles?
I’ve now heard tales from 2 different companies, one very prominent in the industry, about all their clients being manually penalized by Google and their link networks and link buying sources identified with immense precision, as though there was an insider leaking the data. I generally have a tough time believing this, since Google usually likes to do things in a very scalable fashion, and hiring moles to spy on link buying activity seems to my mind a very low ROI and bandwidth intensive endeavor. Have you heard/seen anything that would sway you definitively one way or the other? Is Google really conducting corporate espionage with those who would violate its quality guidelines?
Will Anchor Text Value Pass Through Terribly Low Quality Links?
A friend of mine recently hypothesived that while link juice might be compromised or even discounted entirely from spammy, low quality domains and pages, anchor text value could still pass. This phenomenon supposedly is why more aggressive SEOs are buying/acquiring tons of super low quality links from crummy directories, old sites that have lost most of their PR and open comment spam areas. Is there any truth to this? Why would an engine discount query independent metrics like link juice but continue passing anchor text value through links?
Hopefully, you’ve got more answers (and evidence) than I.
With Moz Pro, you have the tools you need to get SEO right — all in one place.
Start your free trial!
Read Next
How We Increased a Client’s Leads by 384% in Six Months by Focusing on One Topic Cluster [Case Study]
Read this post
How Helpful Was the Helpful Content Update?
Read this post
How to Identify and Refresh Outdated Content
Read this post
Comments
Please keep your comments TAGFEE by following the community etiquette
Comments are closed. Got a burning question? Head to our Q&A section to start a new conversation.
Moz logo
Contact
Community
Free Trial
Terms & Privacy
Jobs
Help
News & Press
Copyright 2022 © Moz, Inc. All rights reserved.