Tag: Search Engine Optimization

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Google Announces Another Algorithm Update Biased Against Ads

Just this past Friday, Matt Cutts, a key engineer at Google, announced an algorithm update for Google that is biased against ads. Although this update doesn’t have a name yet (and it will soon), it is a filter to remove websites from Google’s index that are top heavy on advertising.

The Google Webmaster Central blog spoke in-depth about the algorithm. You can read the full article from this link. Here’s what Google says about the change:

“In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a web page and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.”

“We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads. “

Google again is reasserting that content is key to relevancy and thus to organic placement. With too much “stuff” above the fold (what is visible on your screen before you have to scroll), you will now be dinged by Google in the search results. Take heed as you don’t want your website or blogsite that is even heavy with images to be caught in the filter.

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SEO Is Much More Than Code Optimization

Organic placement improvement for your website is much more than code optimization. In fact I have seen some sites whose code is not really optimized still place well. But for the typical business website code optimization is a start and just one of the pieces of the puzzle that need to be put together for better Web visibility.

First off, it is very important to understand that where you place on the search engines is now much more that what is happening back on your own website. Now it is about all these things working together:

  • Inbound links from new sites and authority websites
  • Facebook activity and regular status updates
  • Twitter activity and follower growth as well as retweets from authority followers
  • On-domain blogging to build Web authority and keyword density
  • Quality content, more than blogging, press releases and white papers are needed
  • Website code optimization
  • Regular updates to your home page and website content

What I have found is that once a site hits the tipping point by doing all of these things on a regular basis they insulate themselves from big drops in the search engines. I have seen sites stay at nearly the same search positions without additional code tweaks and even improve from just the above updates. It does not require a monthly source code update to keep and maintain position organically. I have however found that improvement from a poor position once these strategies have been implemented is slow but steady.

If you need help in these area, I encourage you to visit our website to find out how to start with an evaluation so you can create a blue print for how your website can get better organic placement.

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The Google Analytics Whiners Need to Stop Now

Even on this past Friday the spillover comments about Google blocking referrer data into Google Analytics for signed in users was ramped up from just being irritating to the full rant level. Here are some of the titles of articles that I have read to give you an idea of how rabid people in my industry are getting about this topic.

Dear Google, This is War

Google Whores Out Users With False Privacy Claims

SEO Under Attack – The Google Analytics Keyword Data Apocalypse

Now We Will Need To Pay To See Keyword Referrer Data?

Google Turning the Lights Out on Organic Data

These are just a few of the articles on this topic that I wrote about this past Monday’s from an announcement that Google made last week that talks about Google turning off the referrer for signed in Google users when they do a search. My comments to all of these writers and whiners is Google is not a non-profit. Everything they do is for money. We cannot forget this. Google.com and Google Analytics are their platform’s their intellectual property, their rules, searches their way!

I want to bring to everyone’s mind that Google Analytics used to be called Urchin and monthly subscription to the service was in excessive of $100 monthly for data and tracking. Google bought Urchin and every webmaster around the world signed up to get the code and get Google Analytics for free. Now that Google has decided to remove some of the data from THEIR free tool the world is falling over itself whining about the loss and trying to brow beat Google into giving it back.

It’s time to get real and realize that Google is a platform that pushes advertising. Google will do whatever it takes to keep other advertisers from scrapping its referral data so they [other advertisers] can use the information to make money. Google will work hard to protect itself from privacy lawsuits as they cost money and hurt their [Google’s] reputation. Google is not providing a search engine or organic results for free, it provides them so you will click their ads so they make money.

Stop whining and start checking to see if there is another statistical tool that will give you what YOU want. I think that you’ll be hard pressed to find one that is free and provides the data that Google Analytics has. Oh, wait, there is always Web Trends and Hub Spot available… but for a price.

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Google Search Goes to Secure Encryption Causing SEO Headaches

Google announced this past week that for all signed in users it will now show search results with an https:// address. This means that if you are signed in to Google+, Gmail or any other Google Properties when you go to Google.com the page will default to https://www.Google.com.

So what you say, “no big deal”, well here’s the rest of the story…

“Today, a web site accessed through organic search results on http://www.google.com (non-SSL) can see both that the user came from google.com and their search query. (Technically speaking, the user’s browser passes this
information via the HTTP referrer field.) However, for organic search results on SSL search, a web site will only know that the user came from google.com.”

This is very important news for website owners who are using Google Analytics to track traffic on their website and for the SEO firms that you may employ who may be tracking keyword information. You can read the full article on the Google Webmaster blog.

The bottom-line is that Google is not going to show the search terms people used to find your website when doing organic searches. This information has been incredibly valuable. One, it let’s you know what keyword search activity has helped people to find you so you can build on these successes; two, it allows you to evaluate your current SEO strategy to adjust if needed; and three, it allows your Google AdWords account manager to harvest additional keywords to help your AdWords program perform better.

Google does go on to say that they are making the change to protect a user’s privacy but annoyingly enough they are showing the full data in Google AdWords accounts. As a result webmasters all around the world have gone crazy over this news. Here is a link to a site that has archived a few of the most interesting articles on this topic if you would like to read more.