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johncpu
Joined:
30 Oct 2004
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100
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:27 pm
Post subject: Martell stock declining ?
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Here are a few more tidbits to ponder in the ongoing Martell saga. Most talk about his PR drop suggests some cross-linking error that Google didnt like. But I've also noticed the problem going well beyond Google. I thought this was interesting:
I took 6 of his highest volume sites, including a couple of his older sites and a couple of new ones. I identified 3-5 of his top keywords for each site, and then worked it all through some tools.
Whatever the cause, his problem is across most, if not all of his sites, and includes all the major SEs. For example:
1) Out of 23 of his top keywords, only 2 put him in the top 10 positions among 13 SEs. One was in google, one was yahoo.
2) Another 4 ranked in the top 30 positions.
3) 3 of the 6 sites had NO ranking at all for any those words.
4) And 14 top keywords gave him NO ranking in the top 50 places of ANY of the 13 SEs.
Now dont get me wrong - I'm not trying to attack Martell. In fact, I still plan on buying his book. Im sure there is plenty of good info in it. But you have to wonder...
1) Perhaps only a few of his 30-50 sites have significant income. (The one site in the top 10 ?)
2) I dont know if his rankings were better before, but this may all be explained by a mistake in his site structure and tomorrow it'll all go away. (But I dont think so.)
3) Nobody's magic lasts forever. Remember how hot Peirce's doorway pages were until tons of people got their sites banned ??
4) For ethical and credibility reasons, I think every Martell affiliate should put a hold on promoting his book until the answer is found. (It'll be interesting to see how many step forward on that one.)
John |
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robertb
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Columbus, OH
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:32 pm
Post subject: Re: Martell stock declining ?
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| johncpu wrote: | | I identified 3-5 of his top keywords for each site, and then worked it all through some tools. |
How do you know what his top performing keywords are? Or are you referring to the phrases he targets on his product pages (the ones linked to from the navigation bar)?
Martell has stated many times that he gets most of his traffic from the related articles pages, the pages about minor keywords. He's said somewhere upwards of 70% of his traffic come from these lesser pages, from terms he is and isn't targeting. The product pages are built to be more user friendly, to encourage a purchase.
I'm quite sure he is doing just fine. 
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johncpu
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100
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:40 pm
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I took a random sample from throughout the site. A quick word density also helps. A small sample yes, but to have no ranking at all ? Whether primary or secondary words, that makes for little more than "0"  Still, Im looking forward to hearing the final word on what happened. |
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robertb
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2004 9:10 pm
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Martell threw a figure out there once that was like if you can rank for 20% of the words you're targeting, that's excellent.
With those style of sites, you'll find that you'll rank well for many more words that you aren't targeting at all.
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Debs
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4296
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NY
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 12:49 am
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I have to agree with Robert on this one. I know several Martell devotees and what they are doing and what they are making each and every month. Tremendous rankings? No ... solid content yes and hundreds of pages drawing in the traffic ... it's a numbers game more than a ranking game I think
I promote Martell because it is a solid foundation to building and managing multiple sites. I wish I had the time to do everything I want to do but I'll settle for doing what I love
Debs
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Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!" |
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Barbara Max
Joined:
19 Apr 2004
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3
Location:
Seattle
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 2:29 am
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| Quote: | | 4) For ethical and credibility reasons, I think every Martell affiliate should put a hold on promoting his book until the answer is found... |
Interesting... you haven't read his book to fully comprehend the methods of his site construction and yet you have managed to accurately analyze several of his sites (each likely 300+ pages) and determined his success (or was that demise)...
interesting theory - thanks for the advice! |
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johncpu
Joined:
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:27 am
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Yes deb, I dont think anyone disagrees with robert's point. Martell seems to do with SEs what others do with PPC - focus on volume from lots of less popluar words, rather than high rankings from just a few. Nothing wrong with that. And like you said, as long as some people continue to succeed with it, who can argue - especially if they avoided Martell's problem. Good for them !
Barbara.. alas, I just knew someone would read more into what I was trying to say. Or maybe I wrote past what I wanted to say Hmmmm ... "accurately analyze??.... "fully comprehend his methods " ???Wow, did I say all that ?? It's a non-sequitor to my point anyway, so maybe I just wasnt clear. Just food for thought gang. ..no offense intended to Martell or his groupies
john |
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MakeMoney
Joined:
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119
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:07 pm
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If you are thinking of doing martell one advice I would give you is either stick to what he says strictly (try to keep no more that 6 product pages - he abandons this idea on many of his sites himself) or under-do what he says (keep less of a keyword density, don't bold more than one keyword on any page).
One thing I've noticed is that some martell influenced webmasters tend to way over optimize their sites. They use too many repetitions of keywords, way too much bolding and italicizing and too many product pages. I get the impression sometimes that webmasters think if a little is good, a lot is much better. Either that or webmasters are trying to impress him and in their zeal they are over doing it. I would say as little as necessary is the best.
I think martell should have a page on his updates that goes over the principles in a simple clear way for his students. I think he also needs to update the 2002. There are some typos/mistakes in there (like paying to get into dmoz).
I think martell is great, just again either follow what he says, or do less, don't do more. Either way, focus on content quality. This is what the se's reward most in the long run.
Just to address some of what you said John:
His new sites will take a while to rank well on good keywords - it can take 6-8 months or longer. Many of the older sites were hit.
I know people who have been hit with self crosslinking penalties - you definitely don't want to crosslink your own sites and get a penalty for it.
The ultimate goal is to rank on the higher level keywords, but a lot of money can be made on lessor keywords - niche-ish keywords - because these are specific searches for specific products or questions/ideas- they tend to have very high ctr and conversion rates.
What I like most about martell is he shows you how to organize everything - from a very practical level in terms of how to manage everything - to site structure - this is the most valuable stuff in my opinion. The rest of it I think can be shaped by your own experience, style and desire to express your own uniqueness.
Last edited by MakeMoney on Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:25 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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johncpu
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 6:21 pm
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Makemoney - Thanks for the thoughtful comments - some of the most helpful Ive seen here. Its nice to be able to critique as well as praise methods like Martell's.
You may be right about how Martell devotees overdo pages: "way over optimize their sites", "many repetitions of keywords", and "too many product pages". But I have an idea why.
In my view, the content of his sites are a mish-mash of what seems to be mostly press releases and news articles. Just one example: a small news release about a tiny dot com company in Chenei (how many people even know where Chanei is ???). This is on his dsl site, but has no relevance to dsl or even broadband that I can see. Btw, Chenei is in India
So to me, some(not all) of his sites feel like 'page stuffing' that is not very tightly focused. His site structure is clear, but his content structure is all over the map. I feel like Im in a directory more than a site that will lead and inform me. As a test, make a list of his article topics, then try to arrange them in an orderly Table of Contents... good luck
So maybe that is why other webmasters go so far the other way. Maybe they go too far, or maybe they only seem over optimized compared to Martell. Make sense ?
john |
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MakeMoney
Joined:
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:22 pm
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I haven't really looked that closely at his sites (maybe one or two). I'm just going by what he writes about in the AMH. He does emphasize content and writing on topic. I think he does his own experimentation - I guess trying to find out what works.
My point was I've seen some sites (not his) with really heavy repetition and bolding and that's not what he recommends, at least that's not what I got from the AMH. But then again I'm sure there are people who are working it just fine. I guess there will always be some who don't follow the directions.
I am glad I discovered his manual. It helped me a lot in many ways. |
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johncpu
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:47 pm
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As with most things, the best is usually somewhere in the middle.
A new discussion thread that might be very interesting, is to hear from anyone who has varied Martell's methods, and how they worked. |
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robertb
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:52 pm
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His keyword densities are a little high, I don't do them as he recommends.
But if you follow the affiliate buzz (his audio newsletter) he mentioned that he's devised a different density formula to use. He did this by analyzing is top performing pages and keywords. I'm really looking forward to this when he releases this information for current manual owners on the updates page.
By using a content base of over 25,000 pages, his estimate is probably better than you'll find anywhere.
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johncpu
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 8:58 pm
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| Yes, that will be interesting to see. Since the few priority words I looked at had poor rankings, I'd like to see the densities of his secondary words -the ones that apparently get him his rank and traffic. |
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AllanGardyne
Site Admin
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6326
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by the beach, Australia
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 7:53 am
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I'd like to know James's keyword density data, too.
However, reverse engineering is an extremely complicated thing. It's easy to assume that a page is ranking well because of one factor when other factors are affecting it. How do you isolate the one factor you're interested in?
One thing I know is that (according to my traffic stats) last month this site was found via 10,083 phrases typed into search engines, many of them extremely obscure and unpredictable. (Not bad for a site that has been banned by Yahoo!) The more pages you have, the more likely such good things will occur.
Could anyone have predicted that by looking at my site? I don't think so.
One thing I like about James is that he openly admits his errors and tells you what's he's doing to fix them. I have no hesitation whatsoever in continuing to promote his book. It's worth a lot more than the price he's charging.
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Jeremy
Joined:
25 Oct 2003
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441
Location:
New York
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:57 pm
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WOW! Allan that's enlightening to know.
10,000+ searchs.
I'm writing alot now, this tells me to just
keep going, and going, and going,
write, write, write.
Jeremy |
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