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Google Algorithm Change Rewards High-Quality and Freshness

February 25th, 2011

Yesterday Google announced a major change to its search algorithm that affects almost 12% of its search queries.

Their goal is to reduce rankings for low-quality sites while boosting rankings for high-quality ones. As said before on these pages this is good news for the vast majority who do thing the right way, with the reader in mind.

High-quality is original content,” research results, in-depth reports, and thoughtful analysis.” A low-quality site is one that does not add value to the user, perhaps even copying content from other sites.

Google announced its intentions several days ago when it introduced the Personal Blocklist extension to its Chrome browser. Yesterday’s announced update, however, does not use data collected from this extension. But when the results of the Chrome extension (all user generated) were compared to the list of algorithm affected sites the algorithm hit 84% of the same sites that the users blocked with the Blocklist extension.

Since the beginning Google has always had one goal, here it is stated in their own words.

Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.

The message given to my clients has always been to give the users what they want, fresh, original, value-adding content that answers their most pressing questions or problems and your site will do well. Because Google wants the same thing it is a win-win.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has gotten a bad name due to those who try to game the system. The trouble with using so-called black-hat tricks is that the search engines are always one algorithm change away from taking any ill-gotten success away. My mother always told me, “do the right thing regardless of what others do and you will be fine.” While it is frustrating seeing people have “success” using tricks and deceit to get rankings, the real long-term success is solidly built on providing value to the user of your site.

Thankfully, the vast majority of SEO firms, including this one, employ ethical best-practices that help high-quality sites make it easy for Google and the other search engines to index their web pages.

If you feel like your site has over-promised and under-delivered take a moment right now to discuss with me the benefits to you of having an extensive SEO site review.

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Technorati Tags: Google, local seo, SEO

Categories SEO
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Google Social Search Announced Improvements – What This Means To Your SMB Local SEO

by Lance Curtis

February 18th, 2011

Since day one Google has improved its search engine to bring you the most relevant search engine results to satisfy your queries. One improvement, introduced in 2009 is
Google Social Search which brings back opinions from people you with whom you have online relationships.

Before the improvement, announced yesterday, the social results usually appeared at the bottom of the search engine results page (SERP). Now these results can appear anywhere within the search results based on their relevance, and the “owner” of the result is noted underneath so you can immediately recognize it coming from an online friend or co-worker.

Another new feature adds notes to links shared on Twitter and other sites by people with whom you have a connection. This feature only appears in your SERPs (and no one else’s) when you are logged in to your Google account. If a friend tweets about a YouTube video that result may appear higher up in your results when you search on the topic of that video.

Thirdly, Google Social Search gives you enhanced control over how you connect your online accounts while also making it more convenient. The option to connect accounts publicly has been available for some time but now Google gives you the option to connect accounts privately.

The video below demonstrates how social search works.

As before, you will only see social search results when you are signed in to your Google account. Google says that the updates are rolling out now in English and the results should be available as early as next week.

So what does this mean to you as a local small business owner?

Encourage your satisfied customers to Tweet and blog about your products or services.
Encourage them to create/use a free Google account and sign in prior to making searches.
The more your local customers comment on the social sites about your business the more likely the chance that might be listed when someone searches for your type of product or service.
This does present challenges to your local SEO strategy. Each tweet, or other social result, reduces the space for other organic search listings – which could bump your link lower in the results.

Google discourages (actually punishes) those who use tricks and play games with SEO (e.g. JCPenney black-hat SEO tactics). By using social results Google is shrinking the playing field for the game-players.

There is good news however; this is a win for those of you who provide high-quality products and services, use ethical, white-hat SEO strategies (or hire those who do), and encourage your happy customers and clients to express this in their blog and tweeting about it.

When you are ready to develop your strategy for your local SEO please contact ImprimisXO.

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Technorati Tags: local seo, SEO

Categories SEO
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Google Gives Users The Power To Block Spammy Link-Farm and Content-Farm Sites

by Lance Curtis

February 15th, 2011

Coming on the heels of slapping JCPenney for using a spammy link scheme Google announces an extension to its Chrome browser that allows searchers the opportunity to block unwanted sites from appearing in their search results again.

While this will only block those sites from the users search results, Google plans to study feedback from this extension and “explore using it as a potential ranking signal” in their search results.

Clearly Google has recently been stung by criticisms that spammy low-quality sites have been appearing on page one of the SERPs. While they have always tweaked their algorithms to keep junk content out of their search results, new schemes using content farms have had recent success. Now Google is asking for our help in identifying what its audience believes are those spammy sites.

This does have a potential for abuse; for example a competitor enlisting (or even hiring) a small army of searchers to use this extension to block their competitors site. I must believe that Google has already thought of this and had built into its algorithm a way to detect this behavior.

As with most actions on the web today this can be undone and Google’s blog post has clear instructions on doing that as well as editing the blocked sites list. If you are a Chrome user this will be a useful addition to your search tools and I recommend that you download and use the Personal Blocklist extension.

If you are a SMB with a website you use, or plan to use, for marketing your business you may be asking yourself, “how does this affect me?” Well, if you are playing by the rules and writing original content that provides value to your readers, it should not have any impact on you.

Which brings me back to the point I drive home constantly with those I advise, local SEO is not about keeping up with the latest tricks to fool Google, or any other search engine. These search engines succeed (earn a profit for their shareholders) by providing the searcher with the freshest, most relevant web content that matches the search phrase. To the extent that a SE fulfills that promise more searchers will choose their search engine, which means more eyes on advertising (or whatever revenue model they choose).

To have success with local SEO simply give the search engines what they want; fresh, original, relevant, and value-driven content. Over the long haul you will find success with this approach while the spammy, deceptive content and link farms will be blocked from the SERPs.

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Technorati Tags: Link Building, SEO, SEO Link Building

Categories Link Building
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JC Penney Caught Using Black Hat SEO Tricks

by Lance Curtis

February 14th, 2011

In a New York Times article published yesterday JCPenney was fingered for using ‘Black Hat’ SEO tactics that essentially got it the number one position in Google’s organic search results for almost everything the retailer sells, including ‘dresses’, ‘bedding’, ‘area rugs’, ‘skinny jeans,’ ‘home decor,’ ‘comforter sets,’ ‘furniture’ and dozens of other words and phrases.

Google search is about finding the most relevant site to match the user’s search phrase and when NYT began noticing JCPenny’s website ranking for phrases that defied common sense. It was then that NYT hired Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media to investigate how Penney could have such strong performance in search results.

To gain the top position in the search engine results pages (SERP) a website must have links from other websites back to it. Google and other search engines (e.g. Yahoo, Bing, and et.al.) consider each link back, or backlink, to a website a vote in favor of the website. Ethical SEOs (so called ‘White Hat’) work to provide high quality content and as a result other websites reference this content and link back to it.

Black Hat SEO, while not illegal, incurs penalties from Google because these techniques are considered spammy and deceptive and violate the Google Webmaster guidelines. This is tantamount to cheating in the search world. These techniques include paying a webmaster to link to a site (paid links) and getting links on non-relevant sites, or link farms, so called because the site offers no value and exists only to give backlinks to another website. The company’s guidelines warn against using tricks to improve search engine rankings, including what it refers to as “link schemes.”

JCPenney was guilty of using both of the above tricks and according to the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts. NYT present Google with its findings regarding Penney’s site and set up an interview with Mr. Cutts. After looking at a list of paid links to JCPenney.com, Mr. Cutts said, “I can confirm that this violates our guidelines.”

Quoting from the New York Times article,

“Am I happy this happened?” he later asked. “Absolutely not. Is Google going to take strong corrective action? We absolutely will.”

And the company did. On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company.

At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.”

Two hours later, it was at No. 71.

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.”

By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.

In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country.

The next it was essentially buried.

How did JCPenney react to the so-called “Google Slap?” It immediately fired its SEO firm, SearchDex.

Despite the front page coverage this story has garnered Google’s algorithms were beginning to pick up on the scheme, according to Matt Cutts. Google has designed its ranking algorithms to give high-quality relevant results to searchers while weeding out the spammers and SEO Black Hats.

Gaining backlinks from high-quality relevant sites is hard work and requires patience, consistency, and persistence. But even though the results take longer these results are long lasting.

Technorati Tags: Link Building, SEO, SEO Link Building

Categories Link Building
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