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Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Google’s Penguin update has sent the SEO industry into something of an ironic flap.
Almost a fortnight after Penguin went live, webmasters are still moaning and complaining that Google got it wrong.
And in some cases, the detractors have a point.
Penguin was designed to destroy the dark arts of SEO. Black hat tactics – such as keyword stuffing, or paying for spammy inbound links – have been utilised by cheeky webmasters attempting to manipulate the rankings. And Google’s had enough.
Penguin aimed to torpedo sites which used keyword stuffing to trick spiders into thinking their content was relevant, whilst also blacklisting sites which had paid for dodgy incoming links in an attempt to falsify credibility.
But Penguin clearly hasn’t worked exactly as Google planned.
Search industry forums are reporting examples of apparently ‘white hat’, honest websites being downranked, with examples of horrific, spammy ‘black hat’ sites suddenly displaying on the front page of Google for completely unrelated search terms (see below).
The thing is, though, is that Penguin hasn’t altered much in reality. It’s certainly not a game changer.
Google has always had good practice guidelines. But it hasn’t always had a way to police whether sites are adhering to those guidelines.
Penguin, therefore, is essentially a Google search copper, plodding the everlasting beat that is the results pages, looking for traces of the notorious Internet crimelords Webspam and Spammy Links, and attempting to bring the perpetrators of online offences to justice.
Now, the problem. It’s bit like a search version of RoboCop – Penguin appears to have been appointed judge, jury and executioner by Google.
And that, it seems, is where the problem lies. Penguin is programmed – it has been coded to look for telltale signs of black hat SEO. It’s not a human, and it’s not capable of rational thought (unless Google’s keeping something from us).
As such, Penguin was always going to be prone to mistakes – especially after first launching. That in itself should account for the ‘funny behaviour’ reported by webmasters immediately after Penguin went live. Some went as far as to claim Penguin “broke Google” – others petitioned for the update to be reversed.
Google realises that placing arbitrary decision-making into the hands of a dumb robot isn’t going to reap foolproof results and is prepared to reinstate accidentally downranked websites.
Webmasters who feel unfairly punished by Google can flag up their complaint. Those meeting Google’s good practice guidelines should be reinstated as a result. Conversely, you can also report instances where spammy, rotten sites are returning high in the results when they really shouldn’t be.
This level of teething problems and fall-0ut clearly wasn’t part of Google’s intention with the Penguin update.
Google wanted Penguin to go some way towards levelling the playing field for search engine optimisation. Some feel it’s an attempt to push people towards paid ad-based Internet marketing.
It’s clear Google still has some work to do, either way.
And until then, those genuine sites which have lost rankings – and business as a result – are going to have to weather the storm.
- Have the Rules for White Hat SEO Changed After Penguin?
A Sideways View On The News, by Ali Harris, content manager for ClickThrough Marketing
Penguin wasn’t a game-changer – it was simply a means to enforce the ‘rules’ already laid out by Google.
Those who had got away with breaking, or just bending, the rules for some time have now been penalised. That may’ve meant some previously top-ranking sites suddenly plummeting.
Anyone adhering to Google’s best practice guidelines, on the whole, will have avoided a hammering from Penguin.
The cases where legitimate sites got downranked are few and far between, and Google has set up the right channels to rectify this. If Google refuses to reinstate a site, chances are, there’s some spam, links or some other ‘black hat’ problems somewhere.
That said, respondents on a handful of search forums have provided examples of spammy, rubbish websites which are now appearing on page one of Google.
One great example is to search “Paypal France”. The first page of results for this search returns no fewer than three websites selling viagra.
Not only are these sites totally unrelated to the search term “Paypal France” – they’re also stuffed with keywords.
In terms of content, it’s nasty. Really nasty.
In fact, these search returns are exactly what Google engineer Matt Cutts said Penguin would whitewash.
Yet, it hasn’t.
Even the page description, displayed directly under the website URL, shows how badly stuffed some of these pages are.
One reads: “During relative of pele’s observing sugar in brazil there was no rheumatoid film viagra paypal france.”
It’d be hard for anyone to argue that this search result:
i) makes any sense
ii) is of any use to anyone, ever
iii) is not blatant, keyword-stuffed spam
iv) should be on page one of Google for any search term other than “examples of ridiculous spammy content”
It’ll be interesting to see how these anomalies iron out in the coming weeks, and whether Google refreshes Penguin so it looks a lot more closely at the factors which might separate a genuine site from a fraud.
If they do, may I suggest this level of closer inspection should henceforth be known as ‘observing sugar in Brazil’?
- Why call the Google algorithm update Penguin?
The last big algorithm change from Google was called Panda. This one was Penguin.
Speculation is rife that Google is following a pattern with its search engine updates.
The obvious bits are: animals (cute ones at that), which begin with a ‘p’, and are black and white.
Guesses for next update name include Panther, and Pigeon (derived from vowel use: pAnda, pEnguin, pIgeon etc…).
On the black and white theme, some have posited that Google is separating ‘white hat’ tactics from ‘black hat’ tactics via the use of bestial metaphor.
I have my own theory behind the name, which takes us back to the ironic flapping of the SEO industry.
Take Google’s ‘average user’ – someone with little knowledge of anything. Google plays to the lowest common denominator.
If you don’t know anything about quantum theory, and you Google it, you’d want something reputable, trustworthy and reliable to return on the front page of the results. The same goes for any search term.
With webspam sites, you might get a top search result which says “Quantum Theory” on the page name, and includes the phrase in the description too. But on closer inspection, a bunch of other, unrelated words are in the description. This is known as keyword stuffing.
Click the link, and you won’t find a repository of sparkling information about relativity, worm holes, or physics. No. You’ll probably get a bunch of bad links, nonsense sentences, and the odd advert for a miracle diet instead.
In search terms, that result is useless.
Now imagine you’re looking for a bird. You’d expect a bird to fly, right?
Only, Penguins can’t fly.
So perhaps, Penguin was designed to root out sites which seem genuine, which look like they are fit for purpose, but, on closer inspection, are actually technically useless. Like a Penguin’s wings.
Or maybe I’ve overcomplicated it.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Black hat, Google, internet marketing, Keyword stuffing, links, online marketing, Paid Ads, penguin, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, SEO, white hat
Posted in Search Engine News
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Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
Internet marketing companies and search engine optimisation experts are poring over their websites today, after Google released its latest algorithm changes, designed to weed out “webspam” sites which manipulate search rankings.
Google’s latest tweak will punish sites using dirty tactics to trick search spiders – such as keyword stuffing
Most reputable SEO companies use “white hat” techniques for search engine optimisation and Internet marketing. But various nefarious webmasters ride roughshod over their good work: creating unnatural copy which reads like a random selection of words, or stuffing completely unrelated keyword links into articles.
“Good” SEO involves a mix of techniques – including ensuring onsite copy contains the right keywords in the right volume, writing the right title tags and descriptions, and a mix of regular, quality content updates; meaningful blog posts and newsworthy press releases.
Inbound links are another metric Google uses for PageRank – based on the premise that users will happily share links to sites which host trustworthy, valuable and informative content. Sites full of spammy rubbish clearly wouldn’t be linked as they are useless.
Linkbuilding schemes are a relatively complex area, but a good strategy will ensure the right websites for your industry are hosting links to your content. “Bad” linkbuilding schemes include buying backlinks from random sites, or participating in link schemes where vast swathes of sites backlink to each other in a bid to dupe Google’s algorithm.
It seems Google is actually manually reviewing sites which its algorithm has flagged as having “unnatural links”. Around one-million messages have been sent to webmasters who Google suspects have dabbled in black hat link schemes. The fact Google has done this send-out manually shows how important it is to get this right: webmasters who’ve built links with great content may still be flagged by the robotic algorithm – human review checks whether the spiders were right.
The latest update will see these “bad” SEO practices penalised – so sites who use honest, white hat techniques don’t get pushed down the rankings by cheats.
“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines,” said Google engineer Matt Cutts in a blog post. “We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content… our advice to webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Tags: algorithm, backlinks, Black hat, google rank lost, internet marketing, link schemes, links, online marketing, Panda, ranking changes, SEO, spam, webspam, white hat
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Friday, April 29th, 2011
On an average day, you may spend time on Twitter, aggregated news sites, dedicated news sites (eg BBC, CNN, NHK), Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Digg, delicious etc.
What generally happens at the end of the day is you have anywhere up to 100 tabs open that you mean to come back to. But, tomorrow is another day. And the whole round starts again…..open a tab, read a little, click a link, watch a video, tweet, new tab, follow a link, new tab, download a white paper, new tab. ETC.
So, how do you stand out in this endless round of websites and social media impact?
Somewhere, in the recent 1,000 sites I have visited, (ie in the last 3-4 days) is a site that caught my eye. Sadly, because of the insufficiencies of the search engines to revisit the sites I have been to in the last day or two, I cannot lay my hands on it. But it stood out.
Which, you have to admit is rare for a website. Why did it stand out?
Because it behaved exactly the same as an app that I use on the phone – FourSquare. Little pop up saying I’d earned the New Visitor (or similar) badge as I entered and scrolled through the article I had found on one of the major news aggregation sites. It also linked me to others who had found that interesting. Some of whom I know and respect.
Enough to stay? Nope. But the article was good and had links to other related material. So, I clicked within the site links and started reading more. (Good sign – we like sticky sites that help you find other content of interest).
A couple of pages later, I got a new badge and was encouraged to register to the site to keep my badges. And return. By then, I was actually quite interested in the site and knew I would return. So, Sign up- easy, email plus first name.
I kept reading, bookmarked a few items as relevant for my research, and inevitably, eventually, moved on.
No-one from that website has been in touch. My life and requirements for writing have moved on so I haven’t searched for them. I can’t remember where that site is for the life of me. I could go through each day’s bookmarks but I simply don’t have time.
That website has a willing visitor, if I could only remember where it is. I don’t have time to look, but a single email reminder saying:
1 week ago, you looked at the following articles…….. Since then we have added all this related news….
and I’d be there in a flash.
If you create sticky content, add funky functionality, and set up CRM systems that allow you to keep in touch with those who fall over your website….please, please, please use them!!!
Tags: bookmarks, Content, CRM, links, News, sticky, tabs, twitter
Posted in Blog, Online PR
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Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
On Monday, a story went around about a jelly bean with Kate Middleton’s face on it. In itself, just another of the stories ‘wasting’ newsprint in the run up to the Royal Wedding.
But, it exposed a rather disastrous flaw in the Independent’s URL structure and system which renders outdated or incorrect URLs to the page with that story ID. As long as the story ID is left within the URL, you can change all of the rest of the URL to anything you choose. And people chose to do so, which led to an ever-increasing variety of URLs being posted to Twitter, and an apology from Martin King, editor of the Indie. (Interestingly, his post shows without a story ID as presumably this would also be changed in the ‘retelling’!)
What is perhaps more interesting though is that Google has decided to index as many as 70+ (and rising) of the duplicate URLs as you can see by running this search.
The vast majority of these URLs have appeared on twitter.
The moral of this story is check your URL structures and systems are not open to abuse, and use Twitter and social signals to get indexed rapidly on Google.
Tags: Google, jelly bean, links, Social Media, structure, the independent, twitter, URL
Posted in Blog, Google, Social Media
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Monday, March 14th, 2011
Whilst the noise about the Google Panda update (previously called the Farmer update) is beginning to die down, there will still be many websites who should consider the value and quality of all their content and how this may reduce their chances of good listing in the SERPs.
The obvious contenders may not be those you first assume. Aged and static content that has not been updated for some time may actually be bringing in long tail traffic, so don’t just bin old pages without checking your traffic stats and backlinks for those pages first. However, it may be that your business has changed direction since that content was added and it is no longer relevant, so take a look at some of your historic content to ensure it still fits the bill.
More likely culprits for content deemed to be of low quality by the search engines are those which may seem far too similar to other pages on other sites. For instance, if you sell products with a generic product description that other companies also sell, and you have one page per product (required for inclusion in Google Shopping/Base), these product pages may not appear unique to the spiders.
A quick fix would be to add the capability for reviews and testimonials. Until those reviews begin to appear on your site, add a “no index” tag, and then manually remove this from any pages where reviews have been added. You can request reviews from your customers for products that they have purchased, which will also give you a chance to get in touch with your customers and ask for feedback.
Other low quality pages may be a links page that includes broken links, links to irrelevant content, or links which are not providing any link juice to your site. Keep a weather eye on any links on your site to ensure that these are working, relevant and worthwhile.
Check your traffic stats (analytics) to see which pages are rarely visited or have high bounce rates. Check to see why this might be the case – is navigation difficult to reach that page? Is the content out of date or off-topic for your target audience? A quick revamp of your navigation or content may be all that is required to raise the quality score for that page.
And whilst we are talking about Quality Score – take a good look at your PPC, or ensure that your internet marketing agency understands how Quality Score works. One or two keywords in your Pay Per Click campaign that are not performing as they should can have a decidedly negative effect on your QS rating, which will affect your PPC positions.
Tags: Content, farmer, Google, links, Panda, PPC, quality, quality score, search engine, spiders, traffic stats, update
Posted in Blog, Google, Link Marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC), SEO, Tips & Tricks, Website Usability
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Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
A nice, quick small task for you to do which will help your website no end.
Pick, say, 5 pages of your website which have links on them. It doesn’t matter if they are internal or external links. Now, look at the anchor text for those links. That’s the bit that people can see to click on.
Do any of them say “Click here” or “More info” or anything equally as trite and non-SEO?
Change them. Make them descriptive, keep them short but punchy, and make sure that your most important keywords are included.
Repeat every day until your website links are SEO friendly and think carefully every time you make a link from now on. Have a list on your desk of the top keywords you need to target and ensure you include them.
Tags: links
Posted in Link Marketing, SEO
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Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
This blog post from last October gives some very useful information about the types of links that Google likes to see on your website.
Using Google Webmaster tools is a great way to keep up to date with what links you have to your site. Some may have been created without you asking for a link so it is always worth keeping a check on who is linking to you and developing relationships with those sites and those audiences. It may well be that you have a target audience you were unaware of, and those are business opportunities worth pursuing.
Internal links are fantastic too for driving people to content areas within your site that may also be of interest, for promoting specific products or services to a wider audience, and can help the searchbots to index your site.
Tags: backlinks, links
Posted in Google, Link Marketing
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Thursday, November 13th, 2008
As per the previous post about finding a good PPC services team who will help teach you about running a PPC campaign rather than taking all control from you, it is interesting to note that Eric Ward – master link builder from Wordtracker – has the same belief, highlighted at the start of this recent interview.
Building inbound links (or ‘backlinks’), ie getting websites to add a link to your website, is not the black art that many make it out to be, but it takes time and it pays to be methodical in finding those that will bring the best return. Surprisingly, this is not always those sites with the highest PR or Alexa ranking.
However, in order to get worthwhile links you must have good content that others will find of value. Many websites have passionate and committed communities of loyal visitors, who will swear that xyz website is their ‘bible’ for information on that particular subject. Whatever niche you are in, your aim should be to provide similar value to your visitors. This will then show that you are a mine of information on your particular subject, which will encourage others to link to you.
Eric Ward gives some prime examples of creating valued content, and if you take a step back from your own website, you should be able to work out how to do this too in your niche.
Whatever anyone says about the importance of SEO, if you do not have the content to back up your optimisation efforts, it is likely to prove a waste of money and time. Links are still one of the first and foremost ways of bringing in highly targeted traffic and although it is a time-consuming process, it yields major dividends. And in order to get links, we are back to that old saying, “Content is king”.
Create good, high quality, relevant, unique content and others will link to you. Y c’est ca!
Tags: backlinks, Content, links
Posted in Content, Link Marketing
