Over time, we seem to have underestimated SEO, and the thought that it should only affect our own domain would be the only way to go. Funny, right? The term Search Engine Optimization was only synonomous with ranking your own domain for a set of targeted keywords.
With the advent of sooooo many online properties, that (whether you like it or not) can rank higher than you at the drop of a hat and a few keyword injections, that its really not funny anymore.
As a part of an agency project, maybe more than a year ago, we launched a Search Domination campaign. Going head first and optimizing all the possible Web 2.0 real-estate that we could find. Surely enough, although for the targeted keyword, our website ranked #2 (as it did before), the newer optimizations cropped up and occupied all the other rankings on Google - mind you, pushing out around 4 negative sentiment posts in doing so in a matter of 10-14 days.
It is basically having a bunch of "web 2.0" properties (i.e., blogs, social media/networks, etc) all "linking" to a particular domain, in order to artificially "boost" rankings.
It appears google has written a simple algorithm to detect this, so to still get the same kind of link juice, you need to have multiple social networks link to multiple subdomains which then finally link to one main parent domain.
But theres no evidence yet to refute the fact that you cannot optimize a Brand name using this technique, so it not only boosts the Search Engine Optimization of your Brand/Product name, but also takes care of your Online Reputation woes.
Now thats interesting, isn't it? Killing 2 birds with one stone is not something that comes along in the Online Marketing world everyday
