Principles of Transformational Search Engine Optimization

Up until now search engine optimization has largely followed one of two philosophies. Let us call the older philosophy in situ optimization
and let us call the younger philosophy prima facie optimization.
In situ optimization originally called for little more than publishing text on a page and embedding some comments (these were originally crawled and indexed by several search engines) and meta tags (especially keywords
). Some early search engines, including Alta Vista, attempted to analyze on-page structure (techniques for which were developed decades ago for large document management systems).
Prima facie optimization called for placing links on other Websites to expedite crawl and confer sufficient trust and value that a search engine index would prefer the link destination over less frequently linked destinations. Inktomi was heavily influenced by prima facie optimization
but other search engines, including Alta Vista, incorporated it into their second and succeeding generation algorithms.
When Google came along they worked with both in situ optimization
(ignoring the keywords meta tag) and prima facie optimization. Google attempted to limit the effectiveness of prima facie optimization by using PageRank to impose a hierarchical order on linking documents.
From 1998 to 2003, while Google was still competing for market share, both forms of search engine optimization were widely used. But a blogger named Adam Mathes noticed in 2001 that if he attracted a lot of links with similar anchor text his blog would perform well in Google’s search results.
Internet marketers began to exploit the practice, dubbed “google bombing” (more generally described as “link bombing” when it affects multiple search engines or search engines other than Google). By late 2003 link bombing had surpassed on-site SEO as a preferred method for ranking Websites. But all that began to change in April 2004 when Google made a change the way it evaluates links. That was the month the “Google Sandbox Effect” was first observed in the wild. Within a year Internet marketers began to understand that earning high-value links from “trusted Websites” would help you get past the so-called Sandbox (which appears to be a six-month trust filter or dampening factor applied to newly discovered links/linking resources).
In 2004 John Scott brought up the “probation” idea, which he heard from “a guy who knows a guy”. In 2006 I put together enough clues to convince me that John had been right. Since then I have seen comments from several Googlers that lead me to conclude that was basically the whole deal. And so far as I know, this probation for new links continues in one form or another (I doubt it works exactly as originally implemented).
The Sandbox Effect launched the perpetual cat-and-mouse game that marketers have played with Google ever since. And despite all the gloomy blog posts and news articles you have probably read since March 2012, Google has not yet won the war on links. They took down a lot of spammy links but link spam continues, largely unabated, and much of it is still working.
By 2006 the pendulum in aggressive search marketing swung back the other way. As social media services began dominating news headlines with big money buyouts, companies like Demand Media began experimenting with scalable content production
. I think it was Copy Blogger that gave this strategy the name “content farm” but many companies, frustrated with linking strategies that either stopped working or led to penalties, began publishing more content than was really necessary. It probably did not help that people like me explained how to create a keyword matrix and plan your content according to a simple formula.
Matrix-driven content production usually produces drivel. And we got lots of drivel from 2008 through mid-2011. Of course, Google rolled out the Panda algorithm in February 2011. By 2012 Panda had crushed the life out of most scalable content production strategies and they moved on to crushing the large, well-organized blog networks that were selling links by the truckloads.
So, here we are, trying to save Websites that were spammed with links and which published too much poorly written content. Of course, there were other problems — structural problems — with these Websites. In the drunken orgy of link building many of those sites adopted bad practices like “PageRank Sculpting” (blindly choking off PageRank to important pages) and “flat site architecture” (embedding as many navigational links on a page as possible, keeping content as close to the root folder as possible).
To save a Website that has been depending on spammy links we have to replace the spammy links with good links.
To save a Website that has been depending on spammy content manufacturing we have to consolidate content into rich articles.

To save a Website that has poisoned itself with PageRank sculpting we have to rebuild on-site navigation.
To save a Website that has marred itself with flat site architecture we have to rebuild on-site navigation.
But there is another problem that has not yet received much attention. I still see this practice way too often. People embed a large number of self-referential links in their copy, often linking to the same pages that are included in their sitewide navigation. All these extra links are not doing what you want them to do and they may be creating statistical signals associated with “low quality” content.
You know a link has been placed “for SEO” if it’s using keyword-rich anchor text or if it’s linking to the home page of the Website with something other than the name of the site. Why do you need to link to the root URL of your Website in your article copy if you’re linking there in your site navigation? This is an amateurish attempt as structuring PageRank flow (the step-child of “PageRank Sculpting”).
Transformational search engine optimization is the practice of carefully replacing or rebuilding what is already in place, so as to preserve or create the value that should make a Website successful. Think of a house that has been burned out. The house is structurally unsound but it’s not so badly devastated that it needs to be completely destroyed. You can rebuild it, one piece at a time, by replacing the burned/damaged parts. You can start anywhere; you fix one thing at a time. Gradually, you transform the site into a healthy Website capable of growing traffic and earning natural links.
Transformational SEO will not put an end to older practices. In fact, some people may just go right back to doing what they were doing before with both in situ SEO
and prima facie SEO. This time around they believe they’ll buy better content, acquire better links. Maybe they will.
Transformational SEO is a repair process, a healing philosophy that detofies a poisoned Website. It doesn’t (yet) go far enough to ensure that a Website will “recover rankings” or restore lost traffic. It just brings the Website to a place where it can grow again, grow in a healthy way (or an unhealthy way).
If you have been handed the challenge of bringing a Website back from a bad optimization path, it is incumbent upon you to impress upon the site owner that they may not get a third chance with the site. That is, if the aggressive SEO led to a manual action by a Web spam team at a major search engine, that Website now has a “rap sheet” and it will be treated differently from a first-time offender if it violates search engine guidelines again.
So Transformational SEO
is not just about fixing the unhealthy Website. It must also include honest discussion about what went wrong and what alternatives are more likely to keep the site out of trouble in the future. One benefit that has come out of all the manual actions and algorithmic downgrades of the last two years (in my experience) is that site owners seem to be more willing to follow the longer road to success. Not always. I still occasionally talk with people who want the quick success to come back. They have drunk of the wine of spam and they like the delightful way it makes them feel. They’re just not ready to admit there will be a hangover the next day.
Transformational SEO
cannot cure bad judgment. Nor can it derail a high-risk personality’s inclination to try again. The transformational process stops when you have covered all the basis. You’re not responsible for either failure or success after that point, unless you play a role in making the choices that lead the site into the future.
We have been practicing Transformational SEO
for years. We just haven’t had a really descriptive name for it. “Fixing penalties” is no longer adequate because it’s not always about penalties. Transformational SEO must substantially and fundamentally alter both the in situ and prima facie practices of an ailing Website. Fail to do either and you’re really not being transformational.
Excessive content production remains a problem. In fact, it has become a big problem, hiding under the mask of “content marketing”, which is really just a hybridization of in situ
and prima facie practices. Only “content marketing” is now drawing other sites into its web of false promises.
All of which means that, sooner or later, Transformational SEO
will be called upon to clean up the mess that “content marketing” is making on the Web.

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