Monday, March 26, 2007 at 7:15 PM
In 2006 we ramped up on international webmaster issues and particularly tried to support Eastern Europe. We opened several offices in the region, improved our algorithms with respect to these languages, and localized many of our products. Should I find only one word to describe these markets, I would say they are diverse. Still, they have two things in common: their online markets are currently in a developing phase and a high number of webmasters and search engine optimizers work there in a variety of languages. We are aware that a certain amount of webspam is generated in this region and we would like to reinforce that we have been working hard to take action on it both algorithmically and manually. Since I have seen some common phenomena in a bunch of these markets, here are a couple of suggestions for Eastern European webmasters and SEOs:
- Avoid link exchanges. If a fellow webmaster approaches you with some sketchy offer, just refuse. Instead, work on the content of your site. Once you have the quality content, you can use the buzzing blogger community and social web services in your language to get nice linkbaits. Creating good content for your language community will pay off. Help the high-quality people in your language community and they will re-power you.
- Use regional and geographical domains in line with their purpose. First, a sidenote for the Western webmasters: some Eastern European countries like Poland and Russia have so-called regional or geographical domains. Imagine that all the states in the U.S. had their official second level domain and if you wanted to open your webshop delivering to Kentucky, you could do it cheap or for free on eg. ky.us. This could help Google serve geographically relevant search results. In case you wish to sell organic soaps to people in Szczecin, do open your webshop on szczecin.pl. If you are from Kalmykia and would like to show the world the beauty of your area, go ahead and set up your Kalmyki travel site on kalmykia.ru. If you like a region, support it by hosting your site on the related regional or geographical domain. Be aware that webspam on these regional domains violates the correct use of them and prevents the development of your country's web culture.
- Say no to Cybersquats! Sneaky registering of strong online brands with Belarusian, Estonian or Slovak top level domains is just bad. While it will not particularly help you boost the ranking of your site, cybersquatting often has created disappointed users and legal actions as side effects.
- Think long-term. You have your share of responsibility for the development of your market. Creating quality sites that target users who search for highly specific content in your particular language will help you get your market into a more mature status -- and mature markets mean mature publisher revenue too.
14 comments:
Your article is very informative. As a website owner, focusing on improving th quality of my sit content a priority. I believe with time, a website will become popular.
www.seferm.com
I repeat and object once again: POLAND IS NOT AN EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRY. No matter, how you take confines of Europe: with islands or without, with eastern border on Caucasus mountains' vertices or moved according to other scientists, with or without countries considered as "European" only politically (like geographically Asian Cyprus or African Azores) etc., the middle of Europe is on the east of Poland.
So, calling Poland an 'Eastern European country' is not only derogatory for us, it is simply stupid, malanimous and emphasizing one's ignorance. The culture varies significantly from countries like Russia, too: take Latin alphabet, take time zone, take discrepancy of historical art movements between Western European countries like Italy, France, Germany and Poland, and Russia (influenced by Western European culture only since tzar Peter I, earlier it was under artistical influence of Byzantium). That is i object once again to treat us in this slurry way and call us an 'Eastern European country.
However, since Britons, no matter the Europe's middle is on the east, no matter cultural, economic and so forth reasons, will probably not include Poland into 'Western Europe' area, the acceptable term is "Central Europe", though not in accordance with geography.
Say no to Cybersquats! Instead, register with the official Google AdSense for Parked Domains program!
http://www.google.com/domainpark/
I think this advice is not only eastern European webmasters. Create good content for a longer period and you will have good (and many) visitors every day for a long time.
The other thing is you can read between the lines how Google like to have websites in the future, use local domain names for local websites, thats not a secret but for sure something that will help to get targeted organic traffic.
regards Olaf
_______________________________________
finalwebsites.com
I see this more as a little message that Google has developed it's algorithm to deal with spam in that area just as it has done here. In other words, weak SEO is no longer going to rule and quality useful content for humans is on it's way. =)
Hello!
Can you tell us when will Adsense be available for romanian language sites? Because lately more and more webmasters from Romania are showing ads on sites who are not in a language included in the list.
I hope I was clear enough.
c'mon goog ban me, i used a scrappy fiden link to you on my page http://netads.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-post_27.html
Poland And http://www.zly-sir-nimek.info
Have full regionals domains.
You could've done this better, really, I mean(..) I would call this bad prose.
Giving some tips of pretty dubious usefulness on top of a slapdash definition of a controversial topic like Eastern Europe. I mean you should take into account some cultural-historical-whatever aspects.
Personally I don't care how the country where I live is classified.
But the comparison between US states and former eastern block countries and Russia, is just unacceptable (I mean it's too inaccurate to be posted in a corporate blog)
And there is no way in hell someone could nowdays get a domain name szczecin.pl without paying 50K for it (I don't live in Poland but I'm almost completely sure of that)
And who said local top level domains are cheap. I think that is very inaccurate.
Wikipedia really has introduced some guidelines and checking for factual accuracy really is useful specially for a corporate blog.
Ok later
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This is a great article.
However if i may I would like to touch upon the somewhat unrelated comment by nal about Eastern Europe.
While Geographically Poland is in Central Europe, it is considered to be part of Eastern Europe. Europe was divided into East and West by the Iron Curtain. Poland was East of the Iron Curtain, and a member of the Eastern Bloc. That is why it is considered Eastern Europe even though some areas are farther west than areas in Austria and Italy.
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