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Thursday, May 10th, 2012
By Ali Harris, content manager, ClickThrough Marketing
I just did a search for “Internet marketing”, out of interest, mainly, and I was bit surprised by Google’s first page of results.
The Internet marketing industry is currently feeling the harsh end of Google’s brickbat – with the Penguin update playing havoc with rankings as the engine looks to end webspam and keyword stuffing.
Examples of bad results have come up on various forums – we wrote yesterday about searching “Paypal France”. That term returns a whole load of spammy results.
That, suffice to say, wasn’t Google’s intention with Penguin.
We wrote earlier about another mistaken side effect of the algorithm update: the potential for successful negative SEO campaigns.
But until there are proven examples of negative SEO bombing an otherwise entirely reputable website, it’s the organic results that matter.
And the organic results remain skewed. I just searched “Internet marketing” on organic Google, without logging in, but with local UK search on (not by region, just country).
Two of the top five organic results are spam. That’s almost 50% spam. A few weeks ago, the top results for Internet marketing were all SEO companies.
So in this case, Penguin has made Google 40% more rubbish than it was.
Try it yourself: you’ll find returns for a telecoms company which offers phone numbers and telephonic systems – but has absolutely no apparent content, services, or information about “internet marketing”, as well as a site pertaining to offer the ‘new rules’ of Internet marketing, but actually only featuring two measly pages of absolutely terribly written content, and a seeming focus on Forex.
I’ve had a look at the sites themselves and can’t really see why Google thinks they should return in the top five results for an “internet marketing” search.
Maybe the search engine is having a laugh at the SEO industry – who are making money off Google’s free product (search) when Google would far rather they used its paid-for products (paid search or pay per click).
Or maybe this is another example of the recent Penguin update getting things very wrong indeed.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: Black hat, Google, internet marketing, irrelevant, Keyword stuffing, optimisation, penguin, ranking, search, SEO, spam, update, white hat
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Friday, April 27th, 2012
Webmasters and SEO staff who feel wrongly penalised by the keyword stuffing Penguin update can now report their concerns to Google.
Engineer Matt Cutts has tweeted a link for webmasters to flag problems with the Penguin search engine update – accepting that some genuine, honest sites have been negatively affected by the algorithm tweak.
The post gives people the chance to flag sites which are now ranking well, despite being full of nasty spam, as well as providing a feedback form for those who felt their site suffered unfairly after the launch.
Google search engine updates are released regularly to improve search results for users. That involves a series of complex algorithm changes designed to weed out those who use unfair tactics to manipulate the search rankings.
The latest tweak, Penguin, has directly targeted sites utilising keyword stuffing strategies. The ramifications for Internet marketing are clear: focus on natural, quality content.
Webspam sites usually have huge paragraphs of random keywords, odd hyperlinks jammed into unrelated content, or hidden text boxes full of key phrases.
Google recognises that many ‘white hat’, genuine SEOs can struggle to rank against these webspam sites – so Penguin was designed to level the playing field. It was also supposed to give websites who haven’t dabbled in search engine optimisation the chance to rank for their selected keywords.
Many websites reported huge Google ranking losses after Penguin launched on April 24. Three days later, Google has tweeted a link for webmasters to flag sites which they think were unfairly downranked.
The form requests a sample URL for the affected website, associated search queries, and a comments box for feedback. You can access the form here.
Everyone agrees that improving the quality of information on the Internet is a good thing. Those firms employing high-quality SEO copywriters shouldn’t have been affected by this update. Adhering to Google’s best practice guidelines for search engine optimisation minimises the chances of being negatively affected by its search engine updates.
It’s simply a question of playing fair.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: algorithm update, Content, Google, Keyword stuffing, Matt Cutts, penguin, quality, ranking, results, search engine updates, spam, titanic, webspam
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Friday, April 27th, 2012
Google’s latest webspam algorithm tweak now has a name: the Penguin update.
The search engine has tweaked its system to try to weed out sites using webspam to manipulate the rankings.
But the update has seen many genuine sites downranked, with some less genuine ones suddenly appearing nearer the top of the results pages.
Some SEOs have dubbed the update ‘Titanic’ – in a cheeky nod to the way it has sunk strong sites.
Those Internet marketing firms affected by Penguin (of which, ClickThrough Marketing is not one), are now working on ways to re-establish sites that got hit by Penguin – whilst attempting to understand what factors Google is using to differentiate between quality content, and spam.
Introducing the update, Matt Cutts, from Google, said the idea was to level the search engine optimisation playing field – to penalise sites with huge swathes of keywords on a page (known as ‘keyword stuffing’), and those using link building schemes to fake veracity.
Google’s last big update like this was Panda – an equally cute animal name for an equally harsh update. Panda was designed to look at the quality of web content – meaning sites using ‘spinning software’ to robotically generate content would be found out, and lose ranking as a result.
Panda smashed through a host of previously well-ranked sites: many article repository sites were affected (due to the fact quality control on such huge volumes of copy is nigh-on impossible).
Using automatic means to verify the quality of content can be a difficult thing to rely on – and obviously, some genuine sites would be negatively affected, whilst some less genuine ones would see a boost.
Anyone working in SEO is acutely aware that Google is forever moving the goalposts. The vicious circle will no doubt continue, running along the lines of: Google releases an update, websites lose ranking, webmasters find a new way to increase ranking, Google releases another update, websites lose ranking… and so on and so on.
As time goes on, the indifferences caused by these updates will be rebalanced – especially if quality site owners continue to produce quality content. At least, until the next raft of search engine updates.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: algorithm, Content, Google, Keyword stuffing, linkbuilding schemes, lose ranking, optimisation, page one, Panda, penguin, quality, ranking, ranking loss, SEO, update, webspam
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
The world of Internet marketing is constantly changing: and the lead player in search marketing, Google, often drives these changes, whether webmasters want them or not.
For the end user, most Google tweaks result in a better search experience: for SEO staff, though, it can be a minefield of checks and changes to maintain ranking.
Google updates have the propensity to panic webmasters. The last big change, the Panda update, was met with alarm and confusion, and a pinch of disappointment. Panda was designed to weed out “poor” content – stuff that Google didn’t see as relevant, well-written, trustworthy, or original content was suddenly wiped out the search results overnight.
For sites with a good search engine optimisation strategy, the change made little difference. For others, who had perhaps built ranking through more questionable means, the game was up.
And this is where the good side of Google’s tweaks are clear: no search user wants to land on a site which claims to give trustworthy advice or information, only to find it’s actually entirely made-up, untrustworthy or stolen copy which is ranking because it’s spammier than a ham sandwich.
Article repository sites felt the pinch of Panda the most – they’d previously enjoyed excellent ranking based on hosting a huge amount of third-party content, covering topics from “How to clean your car engine” to “How to wire a plug”.
The problem was, the volume of third-party content made it virtually impossible to fact-check. And so, whilst a site may have had a percentage of excellent, informative and original content, those third-party pieces which were plagiarised, poorly produced or irrelevant, and uploaded without checks, would have dragged their ranking down.
Panda stepped in to do the user’s job for them: recognise poor quality, spammy results, and hide them.
Now, the game is about to change again – as Google looks to weed out sites which have put search engine optimisation over user optimisation.
Matt Cutts, Google’s spam chief, already revealed algorithm changes were afoot which would be able to tell if a site was “overly optimised” in order to achieve a good Google rank. These sites, Cutts said, would be penalised for “playing the game” instead of providing meaningful, useful content – helping to “level the playing field” for honest sites who struggled to rank against spammy, but less relevant, competitors.
The other thing with Google, though, is that they like surprises: whilst Cutts revealed the update was on the horizon, he didn’t spell out exactly what constituted “over-optimisation”.
Webmasters, then, have been left to fill in the gaps – using their existing knowledge of SEO strategy to separate what might be classed as a gentle SEO tweak to a full-on trick.
It’s likely Google could look at a range of SEO factors – some may be penalised more heavily than others. Spammy articles with unnaturally high keyword density are likely to be downgraded, along with those using repetitive anchor texts, duplicate content or who have created an “unnatural” linkbuilding strategy using inorganic or paid inbound links.
Other things to watch out for, which are likely to come under Google’s scrutiny, include excessive redirects, keyword overuse, mutual link schemes and thin affiliate work.
Google isn’t interested in punishing webmasters: but it does want to ensure that information it provides to search users is pertinent, quality and trustworthy. As long as your website is playing fair, is relevant and has fresh, quality, unique content, the latest tweak should leave your site unscathed.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Tags: algorithm, duplicate, Google, inbound links, Keyword density, over SEO, over-optimised, overly SEO, Panda, ranking, search engine, SEO, update
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Traditionally social media rivals, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter have grouped together to create a new tool, aimed at drawing users’ attention to the “biased” results provided as part of Google’s Search Plus Your World, according to an article published by the Telegraph.
Entitled “Don’t be evil” (a nod to one of the search engine giant’s early mottos), the browser add-on is currently only compatible with Firefox.
The tool has been created to prevent Google searches returning content that’s been ‘ranked up’ by Google from its own social network, Google+.
A recent change has seen Google searches return Google+ content at the top of search results – a change previously announced as part of Search Plus Your World – at the expense of results from Twitter and Facebook.
Google has explained how the new update – which could affect SEO – worked.
A post published by Google read: “Starting today, if you search for a topic like (music) or (baseball), you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page.”
The search engine giant has yet to respond to the launch of ‘Don’t be evil’ – which is currently only available in America. However, Google did previously say it had tried to strike a deal with both Twitter and Facebook to include their results in a prominent position – but wrangles over cost and privacy scuppered such a move.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Tags: 'Don't be evil', facebook, Firefox, Google, myspace, ranking, Search engine results page, Search plus Your World, SEO, Social Media, twitter
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Ah, this old chestnut! PageRank used to be one of the sacred mantras you would hear SEOs chanting. Your PR was of huge import and anyone with a PR of 5 or above felt they had the right to look down upon you. Some people lost sleep whenever their PR dropped, or if they had tried everything and still had a PR of zero.
PageRank came into being to help Google assess pages for authority, backlinks etc. It is never quite clear if the mystery surrounding how PR was calculated was solved, but over the years, PR slid down the ranks in algorithmic importance.
Until, on Oct 14th, 2009, Google finally said very clearly and in a manner that was not up for further debate, that SEOs could all sleep soundly again and PageRank, just as they had been trying to tell anyone who would listen for quite some time, was really, really not important. In fact, it had been removed from Google webmaster tools.
So, when anyone tells you to look for sites with a high PR, or to spend time trying to increase/gain PR, you will know better!
Tags: Google, pagerank, pr, ranking, Search engine optimization, seo myths
Posted in Google, SEO
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Monday, November 16th, 2009
It looks as though load time will be taken into account as a ranking factor in the next few months.
Slow page loads, eg content that buffers as your hosting company struggles to serve the pages, bloated code and so on, could all now affect your ranking in the search engines.
It has taken a long time for this to actually be mooted as “close to implementation” but it is a really obvious ranking factor. Users do not want pages served up as top results that take a long time to load. They want instant gratification.
This should come as a heads up to many. Website designers who do not strip unnecessary items out of code or who program inefficiently; hosting companies who do not have enough bandwidth available for their customers; traffic analysts who fail to equate high bounce rates with slow pages and advise their clients accordingly; and others.
Take a long hard look at your site. Try it on different connections, not just the fat pipe in your office – don’t try to be an imaginary user, go and be a real one. Visit the library or cybercafe and see how long your site takes to load. You could even consider digging out that old dial up modem and see how it works for all those who still live in a non-broadband world.
Tags: factor, Google, hosting, page load times, ranking, Web search engine, website design
Posted in Google, SEO
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Monday, August 3rd, 2009
The latest top 30 rankings from TopSEOS for August 2009 has been released.
Two UK companies, WebLinx Ltd and High Position Ltd continue to feature in the international list, which is good news for our search industry. The UK top SEO rankings show little change at the top; however there are three new entrants in the ranking list.
There is a rigorous evaluation of companies applying for a ranking, including speaking to at least three clients, and consideration of both on and off page optimisation, as well as keywords analysis and reporting methods.
Tags: ranking, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, UK
Posted in SEM Industry, SEO
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Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
Why spend hours going through the Google rankings looking for your position, or that of your competitors, when you can automate the process and receive the results by email?
RankReport is a great free tool that will let you monitor your rankings weekly or daily if you are obsessed by the SERPs, and will then email the results. Saves you a job!
Tags: Google, ranking, Search engine optimization, Search engine results page, search engines, SEO, tools
Posted in Google, SEO
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Monday, December 8th, 2008
There is still no truly conclusive evidence about how bounce rates affect your search engine rankings, but let’s assume they do for a moment…
If a visitor comes to your site, views one page, and then leaves, this is viewed as a ‘bounce’. If, for instance, your site is slashdotted, Dugg or stumbledupon, and the link is to a single page of relevance to the visitor, they will likely read it and vanish back to where they came from. You could therefore be hit with an awful lot of bounces in an hour or day.
If those bounces affect your search engine rankings, the failure to engage those quick visitors could have a noticeable effect on the SERPs. Not only that but you also need to be asking yourself why those fleeting visitors did just bounce straight out of your site? After all, that is surely a missed opportunity to capture some new subscribers to your newsletter, show special offers that may have led to sales or leads, offer related relevant content to a new audience, and so on.
If bounce rates don’t matter to rankings, then all well and good from an SEO/SEM point of view. But even if if they don’t matter to rankings, then you still need to work on how you keep people on your site by making your site sticky, adding valuable content, keeping visitors churning around your site rather than just hitting the back button or closing the tab. After all, it is those site visitors who will potentially buy from you, not the search engines!
So, are you thinking today about how you prevent people from leaving your site after viewing only one page and therefore reduce your bounce rate? And do you actually know which areas of your site are generating the most bounces right now?
Web analytics that show real time results are vital in assessing the bounce rate on your site, and helping you to deal with it. And if it turns out that bounce rates do affect your SERPs then surely it is better to have started dealing with the problem sooner rather than later?
Tags: bounce, ranking, serps
Posted in Content, SEO, Web Analytics
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