SEO News

Posted by MeganSingley

While 2014 has just begun, it’s already been filled with new and exciting changes for Moz. Not only do we have a new CEO, but all of us Mozzers have packed up and moved to a much bigger office that we all actually fit into. Remember when we moved into our last office and we had all that space? Well, that didn’t last long (about three years).

We didn’t move very far, just a few blocks south on 2nd Avenue in downtown Seattle. We’re excited that we only had to walk a couple blocks to watch the Seahawks victory parade!

Today is a super-special day because you’ve all won a golden ticket for a peek into Roger’s new home. Unfortunately, there won’t be any songs, dances, or little orange men with green hair, but we do always have tons of chocolate. :-)

So let’s get this show on the road!

When you step off the elevator onto the 5th floor, you’re greeted by our lovely Team Happy in this reception area. Oooooh, pretty. It looks like the future!

Once you answer me these questions three, the rest of the office you shall see! (We’ll actually just let you go in.) One of the main focal points of the MozPlex is the stairwell. Who knew stairs could be so cool? It’s made out of torched fir and hemlock, because why have regular fir when it can be torched?

We even have an exposed brick wall because—let’s be honest—what kind of a tech company in Seattle would we be without an exposed brick wall?

Look left before descending the stairs and you’ll find a huge room of Mozzers hard at work. You’ll notice we have desks that can transform to a standing position with the push of a button. Just can’t sit anymore? Go ahead and stand up! Tired of standing? Take a seat. Want something in between? Crouch away! The opportunities are (kind of, but not really) endless.

Head right, and you’ll enter our brand new kitchen! This is definitely one of the things the Mozzers were most excited for. If you ever stopped by the old MozPlex, you’d have noticed that our kitchen was teeny-tiny for the amount of people we had. Lunch started to look like a coordinated dance to get to the refrigerator, use the microwave, or grab a fork. Not anymore! We just might have to move all the tables one day and have a roller-skating party.

Keep heading through the kitchen and you’ll see our stage, which will be home to family meetings (a.k.a. all-staff meetings), lunch-and-learns (last week we learned about commuting to work by bike!), industry meetups, and most definitely lots and lots of karaoke.

Walk past the stage, and you’ll find a ping pong table (also a Seattle tech company requirement). Check out Ryan’s mean backhand!

Lastly, we now have conference rooms galore! Gone are the days of searching high and low for an available room for 1-on-1s. We now have a whopping 45 rooms to choose from, with names like Millennium Falcon, Serenity, and Galactica for our spaceship-themed 5th-floor rooms, and R2-D2, Johnny 5, and Bender for our robot-themed 4th-floor rooms. Of course, we have one room named after Roger. Each of these rooms has a schedule controlled by a tablet outside the door, so we can always tell if a space is available.

Well, that concludes this virtual tour of the MozPlex. Before we go, we want to give a huge thanks to our office manager, Hillari, for working tirelessly to make this a fantastic office. We also want to thank Jess, Mikayla, Danie, Nicelle, Crystal, Erin, Roxana, Anne, Susan, Dave K., David J, Jacob, Elijah, and Derric for helping to get everything set up and looking awesome from day one. You all are the bee’s knees!

If you’re interested in a real-life visit to our office, we’ll have tours during SMX Advanced and MozCon. We’ll post sign-ups for tours as we get closer to these events. We’d love to see you. :-)

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Posted by Rob.Toledo

“Nofollowdation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous marketing plot we have ever had to face.”
– General Jack D. Ripper, Dr. Strangelove (slightly modified)

This was me a few years ago:

Get a link to my site

Highlight link to my website

Right click > view selection source

“DANGIT!!! Nofollowed!!!”

My dreams completely shattered; how would I ever explain this to my boss? That initial excitement and celebration had now faded, as I sulked deeper and deeper into my chair, disgruntled, believing that all my work had amounted to nothing.

To try and prevent such a travesty from every happening again, I went on a crusade. Before outreaching to a site owner or editor, I would double and triple check their sites to make sure external links weren’t nofollowed, and if they were, I would cast the site off, never to be considered again.

But over time I noticed how thinking in such a way created a really interesting and perverse incentive…

How many times have you searched “write for us” [insert blog niche] knowing that it greatly increases the odds that you will get a dofollow link? I’m not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with that; plenty of great contacts to be made by doing so. But if you check the “writer guidelines” page for sites that actively are looking for guest authors, you’ll likely notice a common theme: “We allow one dofollow link in the author bio.”

In this day and age, this should now be setting off an outreach siren (or at least putting up a yield sign). It’s certainly time to be critically analyzing where we are getting links to our sites and making proper assessments as to whether or not the value exists.

When I was first starting out, I would salivate over the possibility of any link I could get my hands on, thinking “Wow, the opportunity for a real published DOFOLLOW link, now that’s what I’m talking about! Surely my rankings will rule supreme!”

But I learned quickly this was a ridiculous way to think about what we’re trying to actually accomplish as online marketers, and I would really encourage folks to start thinking differently about their true objectives.

So what to do?

Eliminating a site from a prospect list just because it nofollows links is focusing far too much on the minimal value one link provides. I would argue that in any online marketing campaign, nofollows not only have a place but should be sought after as part of the overall strategy.

To be clear, I’m not talking about trying to maintain some healthy ratio of link types in a site’s profile; I’m talking about actively pursuing nofollows with the intention of gaining the benefits they bring almost entirely unrelated to organic search.

Some examples:

In the first image below, you will see the referral data (or lack thereof) from a placement where the website I wrote for allowed me to link to my website in the author bio section.

You’re reading that correctly, in case you’re wondering. An article on a decent site sent exactly zero referral traffic to my blog. This isn’t uncommon.

I know what you might be thinking. “But Rob, surely the link in and of itself still has value! And isn’t that what a good outreacher should be targeting in the first place? The almighty link!”

I agree that links will likely always have their place, but I have started thinking a lot about why search engines value links, and it changed the way I target placements. The reason a link has value is because it is used to cite a source or refer readers to external resources and information. If the readers of a site aren’t actually ever clicking this link, then why should search engines give it any value?

I’m not saying we’re there yet, but wouldn’t doubt it’s only a matter of time.

Here’s another example, where we gave a blogger a product to review, the links in the article were appropriately nofollowed to adhere to search engine guidelines:

The links in the article sent some fantastic traffic that hung around on the site, visiting multiple pages as well as talking about the product in the comments of the article and on social. In the top-right corner you can see that the blogger ran a giveaway for the product as well, resulting in increased engagement on all of the website’s social channels, creating buzz for the product.

In the long term, who would you rather work with? The first example or the second?

These are not unique examples. I have noticed an upward trend where nofollow links can often times present the absolute best and immediate return when proper site metrics are measured.

So what’s the takeaway here?

This is going to sound a little funny, so hear me out. You can be a bit reckless with nofollow. Here’s why:

You don’t have to worry about breaking search engine guidelines, and countless bloggers are happy to take your money or products to promote your brand or service to their audiences (ones that might otherwise have little interest in working with you).

In other words? You can become an advertiser overnight!

To be clear though, I’m not recommending you just go after promoted content type posts; those tend to have little value. Focus on how you can use your contact’s influence and audience in a more engaging way, and respectfully “pay to play.” The creative possibilites are often endless.

The lines between digital advertising and marketing are continuing to blur, and incorporating a “nofollow strategy” into your marketing efforts can easily prove fruitful when proper analysis is applied. Treating bloggers more like business owners is a far more respectful way to work with their audiences to build brand awareness. And if this two-way partnership continues to grow, there is certainly an opportunity to create an influential brand ambassador, one of the most powerful things we can hope for.

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