Google Algorithm on ‘Page Layout’

06 Feb 2012 at 10:46

Pip Norman

Google, Google Algorithm Updates

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During January Google announced a new algorithm change which relates to the layout of your web pages. The main reason for this change is because on some sites they have so many adverts displaying (Ad-heavy) that the visitor can’t even find the content which the page is supposedly on. To rectify this Google has decided to promote non-Ad-heavy pages in the search results it provides.

Ad-Heavy Website

Ad-Heavy Website

So, if you have Ads on your website then that’s ok, however, Google are now looking at how many Ads you have and where they are placed. If Google deems your site to be too Ad-heavy and or if you have Ads placed to the detriment of the content then they can give you a good ol’ Google penalty which could be being downgraded in the search results. This algorithm change of Google’s has been in the pipeline for a while and does indeed benefit the user however website owners who display Ads should be aware of the algorithm change to ensure they do not get penalised.

The main word which Google used to describe it’s quality control was ‘fold‘. It understood that visitors would not want to scroll past Ads to get to the content so site’s need to make sure their content is ‘above-the-fold‘. Being ‘above-the-folder‘ is approximately the first area which you see when you come into the site. With Google’s new Page Layout checking tool you can see how your site is doing in relation to Ad placement:

Google's Page Layout Tool

Google's Page Layout Tool on a451's website - http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

The above image shows our own a451 Search Marketing website in Google’s Page Layout tool with the different colours showing the importance of different layout areas on the website. This Google Update is worth being aware of, especially if you have a website which displays Ads.

 

Google+ Interview on Usability

02 Feb 2012 at 13:22

Pip Norman

Facebook, Google, Google +1

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In a recent report Google+ was said to have over 90 million users however, despite it’s high numbers the network is still considered by people with skepticism. Who’s really using it? Why not just stick with Facebook? What’s so special about yet another social networking service?

Google+

Well, we here at a451 sent one of our own in to mess around on Google+ and then report back on their thoughts. Pip Norman has never used Google+ but was asked to create an account and then spend about half an hour on the platform before coming back and answering a few questions. The interview went as follows:

Q.  So, first thoughts on Google+ Pip?

A. Well, it looks nice…really clean layout, in fact it’s one of the tidiest looking social networking sites…I don’t think I saw any ads either.

Q. Pip, you created a profile on Google+ is that right?

A. Yep

Q. How easy was that to do? And how does the profile differ from Facebook or other similar sites?

A. Yeah, I think it was pretty self explanatory. I don’t think I filled in all the sections I could have, but it said I could go back and do that. I quite like the little blurb bit that appears below your name – It’s like a catch-phrase or motto section or something. I put a photo up which was easy and filled in a few details. There’s not many differences between Google+ profiles and Facebook profiles. The most interesting bit was adding your friends, that was a bit complicated at first but once I got the hang of it it was easy.

Q. Ok, can you explain what you found complicated?

A. Well not complicated, but just different to Facebook. Google+ allows you to add people to your ‘circles’ which are areas which determine how you know them e.g. work, friends, family. It’s quite a good idea actually, I think it means you can have a Google+ account that works as a personal account and work account.  Also, when you put someone in your circle that doesn’t necessarily mean they put you in theirs so it doesn’t really work like a Facebook friend request. I think in that sense you have more control.

Q. So, once you had your circles sorted what did you do next?

A. I went onto the actual Google+ area which displays a feed of things posted by people in my circles or people/companies I’m following (people/companies you follow you don’t necessarily know personally but they are interesting i.e. Matt Cutts.) I shared something on my wall and saw that you can choose who to share it with i.e. public, one of your circles like work colleagues or you can pick individuals. The post still shows on your feed but has ‘Limited’  in the top right corner if you specified who you’re sharing it with – That’s a pretty neat way of sharing stuff. Plus, if you want to see the feed/stream for posts by a specific circle you can, so if I wanted to just look at my friends posts I can click on that on the left side panel and that’s all it would show.

Q. How is the navigation?

A. Well at first I was a bit confused because the look of the site is so clean there’s not much colour to make buttons stand out but when I looked closer I saw that the navigation is text on the left hand side and pictures on the top line. I liked the ‘circles’ button on the top line, it takes you to a place where you can move people into different circles or multiple circle like if they’re you friend and colleague. Plus they have a games button with loads of online games you can play! I refrained from having a go though ;-)

Q. What’s the best feature of Google+ for you?

A. Um…Well, I think the fact that you can keep up-to-date with things going on with your area of work as there are a lot of companies/businesses on Google+. There’s also a ‘What’s hot’ area which is fun to look at.

Q. Will you use Google+ now?

A. For work definitely, the more I use it the more I think it’s really good for industry news and work connections.

Google (+) Plus

Well, we hope that this interview has helped give you a good idea of Google+ and what this slowly catching-on Social Network platform is really like.

 

AdWords Just Keeps Getting Better!

19 Jan 2012 at 09:53

carlaholcombe

Adwords - Google, Google

1 Comment

It seems like AdWords is on the ball and it’s worth knowing a little bit about the new and improved features it is now offering after it’s latest updates. The main thrust of these new improvements is in the area of mobile search. This rapidly growing source of website traffic is one which is worth keeping up-to-date with as more and more individuals are changing over to smartphones and spending a significant proportion of their time searching for things on their phone.

Google’s AdWords is cottoning on to the mobile phenomenon and they’re allowing advertisers to tailor their paid search even more for mobile traffic. The new functionality of Adwords will allow advertisers to target specific versions of operating systems on phones to ensure the ads are being seen and clicked on by the right users, thus improving traffic quality.

SearchEngineLand described it like this:

‘Say you’re marketing an Android app via AdWords targeted to mobile devices, but your product only works on Honeycomb and newer versions of the OS — still, you keep getting folks with older versions showing up on your landing page, and likely getting frustrated. That’s exactly the type of problem Google is trying to address with new mobile targeting functionality for AdWords, announced this week.’

AdWords Mobile Features

AdWords Mobile Features

In addition to that update, AdWords is also now allowing for advertisers to target users based on whether they are using a faster Wi-Fi connection. This is helpful if for instance you have a landing page which takes longer to load due to high-bandwidth content like videos – you won’t want to target someone with slow Wi-Fi because the chances are they will click on your ad and then bounce out of your landing page before it’s even had a chance to fully load because it’s taking too long!

It’s fascinating to see how Search Engines etc are facing the mobile market and creating new ways of tailoring search around it. The mobile search phenomenon is definitely something to watch as it keeps changing over the coming months and year.

Google’s latest step in personalised search – Your World

18 Jan 2012 at 15:49

David Hollands-Hurst

+1, Google Algorithm Updates, Your World

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Google’s latest step in personalised search was launched earlier this month. Labelled as ‘Your World’ when you are logged into your Google+ account any searches you do will incorporate results from people who are in your Google+ connections. Google has been developing social search for the last couple of years and included Twitter results at one stage – when they were still on speaking terms… Twitter had a snipe at Google when ‘Your World’ launched and described it as, ‘a bad day for the Internet’. No love lost there then!

With ‘Your World’, Google is expanding the idea that they have always espoused which is that information and recommendations from people we know are much more trusted than those that come from less well known or unknown sources. Say you were looking for a vacation and you were using ‘Your World’ in your search results. Included in your search results would be experiences and photos of that place you were considering for a vacation from people who are included in your Google+ circles – that seems pretty helpful really.

Provided Google can get the balance right between results which are generated by people we know and those sources we don’t, I can see it being a useful tool. It can also be turned off at any time, at least for the moment. From your company web site point of view and attracting search visitors from Google it emphasises the importance of getting your company Google+ account up and running and making it part of your social media strategy. We don’t expect a great deal of traffic from this change to our clients’ sites but it will be another way of promoting your site so do keep an eye on ‘Your World’!

What’s the deal with PageRank?

10 Jan 2012 at 11:06

Pip Norman

General Search, Google, SEO 101

1 Comment

SEO 101 is back in full force this New Year!

PageRank is a system which has been a part of SEO since Google was brought out in 1998. Google has explained that at the centre of their software is PageRank, a system developed by Larry Pageand Sergey Brin at Stanford University, both founders of the search engine giant. Google explains PageRank as follows:

‘PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”. Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance.’

Google is saying that PageRank is determined by the amount of and type of pages linking to your site and this is an indicator in it’s ranking. Google also considers the pages which link to your site when matching your page up with a potential visitors query, this means that the pages who link to you should ideally be relevant to your site. [ For a basic overview of Link Building read our earlier post 'What On Earth Is Link Building!?!'.]

Not only do the links contribute to PageRank and therefore rankings, so does the anchor text used. If you are wanting to boost your ranking for ‘t-shirts’ but use the anchor text ‘brandname’ then your PageRank may increase if you obtain links from sites with a high PageRank but it will not help your ranking for ‘t-shirts’. It is therefore not only important to consider how many links you have and who they come from but also what anchor text is being used and if it benefits your website.

 

Google PageRank

Google Page Rank Bar Showed By Arrow

PageRank is constantly being updated or at least it is internally, but what Google let’s us see is ‘toolbar’ PageRank which is a snap-shot of the site’s PageRank every few months (you can see a screen-shot above detailing it).  It is important not to get bogged down with PageRank as the reason Google doesn’t update it publicly regularly is because they don’t wnat you to focus on just that and ignore the other important factors when it comes to ranking. Unfortunately many SEO’s decided that PageRank was the most important factor in SEO when it first came out and Google may have inadvertantly made that seem the case by saying:

‘And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to play a central role in many or our web search tools.’

SEO’s tend to emphasis the last part of that sentence and forget completely about the beginning, yes, PR may play a central role in Google’s search tools but the fact is, Google is constantly updating it’s ranking systems to get better and better results and that means that there are going to be plenty of other factors to consider when trying to get a website to rank higher than just PageRank! That’s not to say it’s not important — it is, but Google alone has upwards of 200 factors we KNOW about to consider as well as PageRank.

When thinking about PageRank, the important parts to consider and remember are:

  • High PageRank does NOT guarantee high search rankings
  • How many links / How high is your site’s PageRank?
  • Do you have high-quality sites (links) linking to your site?
  • Does the anchor-text used benefit your site?
  • PageRank is one of many factors used when determining rank results.

 

Unpacking The Google Chrome Rule Breaking & Penalty

06 Jan 2012 at 12:42

Pip Norman

Chrome, Google

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Chrome Penalty - Google

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-chrome-penalty-14543.html

As promised, we are back before the end of the week to unpack a little more of this Google penalising Chrome business.

The facts are always handy to know first – Google was caught by some stealthy bloggers in what appeared to be a campaign of articles which promoted their Chrome browser. The campaign was part of one paid for by Google and taken on by a marketing company. The sponsored posts produced included over 400 pages containing ‘thin’ content and ‘paid links’.

The internet giant then took itself to task over the broken rules. They took manual action to demote the Chrome URL linked to and lower the page’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days. They stressed that they did not authorise the campaign and that they have taken stricter action against themselves than they would have in a normal website’s case. For more information into Google’s illegal post campaign click here or read our previous blog posting.

Now that we have the background, the question is, what can we learn from this incident? Firstly, Google have penalised themselves. This should at least be reassuring even if they had to be told of their indiscretion.

Secondly, there are cases where those penalised by Google are innocent of their supposed crimes. The internet giant has stressed that they did not authorise the campaign and would they have even needed that campaign to help the Chrome page rank highly? Probably not. So if Google was innocent, others could be too and if these others do not hold the reins to the Search Engine’s main-frame like Google then what happens to those far smaller innocent others? Danny Sullivan put it like this,

‘It also raises the serious question that if Google can’t keep track of its own rules, what hope is there that third parties are supposed to figure it all out?’

If Google was indeed innocent then did they unfairly penalise themselves for some other webmasters mistake? That’s worrying.

And thirdly found on here – A single paid link = single penalty – Google did indeed penalise themselves, or at least the www.google.co.uk/chrome page. Forcing it to drop rankings for generic keywords. However, evidence shows this page https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95346 ranks instead for “chrome”. So, does this mean that when a site receives a penalty it can be sub-folder specific? Apparently so, but is Google being a little soft on themselves?

All in all this is an interesting case and well worth a ponder over.

 

No Happy New Year For Google After Penalty For Breaking Rules

04 Jan 2012 at 16:06

Pip Norman

Chrome, Google, Matt Cutts, Panda - Google

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Google Chrome Breaks Rules Receives PenaltyA Happy New Year from everyone here at a451! However, it seems that not everyone has started off the New Year happy, or at least, they’re not happy anymore. It appears that all Google got for Christmas was coal after they actually managed to break their own rules!

Yes, that’s right. Google, the monopoliser of Search and all-round American web giant has got itself into a spot of bother when attempting to follow its own rules. Of course, like a good search engine, they are penalising themselves as a result of the rule breaking. Google said –

‘We believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site…’

The penalty they are suffering comes after they sponsored posts for a marketing campaign on behalf of its Chrome browser which contained both ‘thin’ content and ‘paid links’. The penalty will last up to 60 days, demoting the page which had paid links pointing to it along with a lowering of the page’s Page-Rank.

The ‘thin’ content and ‘paid links’ are both objects of Google’s wrath when other site’s use them in order to gain page rank and to rank higher in results. ‘Paid links’ are considered bad by Google because if a site is quality and contains quality content then it should not have to pay for links which lead to it. As for ‘thin content’, Google’s recent Panda update was designed for the prime purpose of penalising websites which used duplicate content. That’s two pretty big rules of Google’s which it has broken itself and this raises an interesting question, as Danny Sullivan puts it –

‘It also raises the serious question that if Google can’t keep track of its own rules, what hope is there that third parties are supposed to figure it all out?’

Of course, it can be easy just to say, ‘serves them right’ and cross our arms smugly but perhaps it would be wiser to think about what questions this incident raises like the above – Have a think and we’ll be back later this week to unpack the Google Chrome debacle further.

 

XML Sitemaps

09 Dec 2011 at 09:52

Pip Norman

Google, Indexing, SEO 101, Site Architecture, Webmaster Tools

Comments Off

Another Search 101 blog for you here and this one is about XML Sitemaps - pretty obvious from the title!

XML Sitemaps are very important to the ranking of your website. The essential role of an XML Sitemap is to tell Google about pages on your site which may not otherwise be found by the Search Engine. An XML Sitemap is a list of your website’s pages which is submitted to Google for indexing.

XML Sitemap - Search Engine Optimisation - a451

XML Sitemap

This can be helpful when Google is crawling your website, sometimes there can be cases where, unless specifically told, Google would not be able to find some of your web pages. This can be the case if you have:

  • Dynamically generated content.
  • Your site is new and has few links to it.
  • Your site has pages that aren’t easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process – for exampls, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
  • Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.

Your XML Sitemap can also be used to notify Google of more specific details about your pages i.e. the  date it was last updated, how often you expect the page to change. You can even specify specific Sitemaps for images or videos giving subject, licencing and type information.

XML Sitemaps allow Google to provide your site with a better crawling schedule, to understand your site’s stucture more clearly, and to crawl your site more thoroughly. So, what are you waiting for, in terms of search an XML Sitemap is a must have! Please feel free to contact us here at a451 if you need help or have any questions.

Search Friendly URLs

05 Dec 2011 at 15:22

Pip Norman

Google, Uncategorized

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It’s been a while since we’ve done an SEO 101 blog which is why I am grabbing this opportunity by the horns and running with it!

We’re going to have a look at Search Friendly URLs –  But don’t worry, this isn’t going to be in-depth, just a brief overview of what a URL is, what a Search Friendly URL is and how you can make your URLs Search Friendly.

Search Friendly URLs

Search Friendly URLs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q: Okay, so for starters, what is a URL?

A: A URL is the address of your web page which appears in the bar at the top of the browser window.

Q: What does URL stand for?

A: URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater.

Q: Are all URLs Search Friendly?

A: No.

Q: How can a URL be Search Friendly?

So, this is what you’re really reading this blog for, so this is where I’m going to pitch my tent and make camp.

The idea of a Search Friendly URL is two-fold, firstly that it makes sense to a Search Engine, and secondly, that it makes sense on a basic level to a website visitor. The first basic to know is that URL structure should reflect how the page appears in the overall hierarchy/position on the site.

For example, let’s think  in terms of online retailers, if they are selling product ‘a’ and it is found in the ‘selling’ section of their website then the URL structure would be as follows:

www.exampleretailer.com/sellingsection/product-a

This makes sense to a Search Engine and to a user reading this URL helping to navigate the site more easily.

Another factor to consider when creating Search Friendly URLs is using hyphens instead of underscores. When Google reads a URL with underscores it adds all of the words together i.e. ‘war_of_1812′ will be read by Google as ‘warof1812′  Whereas if you use hyphens they will be treated as spaces and Google will read the URL ‘war-of-1812′ as ‘war of 1812′.

The Keyword Phrase which you have chosen for a specific page should, if possible, be present in the URL. This is important when creating Search Friendly URLs and wanting to rank your page highly for that keyword. Having the keyword in the URL helps Google to know what your page is about and this will support the (hopefully) keyword-rich content.

These are all things to think about when creating Search Friendly URLs and as you can see they are all logical. Search Engines, most of the time, work just as logically as our human minds do, so the main thing to take away from this post is that if something is logical and works well for visiting users, then the search engines should like it too. If you have any more questions, we here at a451 would be happy to answer them!

 

 

Google’s Verbatim Tool:

25 Nov 2011 at 10:24

carlaholcombe

General Search, Google

4 Comments

Google's Verbatim Tool

Google's Verbatim Tool

What a lot of people do not know about Google or perhaps simply don’t take into account is that Google quite often tweeks your searches. That’s right. You may type in a query (keyword phrase) to find a specific website or information on a specific area and Google does not only bring up answers to your search query, it also accounts for several other factors:

  • Google makes automatic spelling corrections
  • Personalising your search by using information such as sites you have visited before.
  • Including synonyms (in case you have forgotten your English lessons this means matching terms like mobile to telephone, cell phone, mobile phone – words which mean the same thing)
  • Finding results that match similar terms to those in your query such as matching ‘supermarkets’ to your query ‘grocery store’.
  • Google also searches for words which have the same stem, so if you search for typing it will also search for typer & typist.
  • Google also makes some of your query optional i.e. it could make the ‘approx’ an optional search term in the query, ‘Elizabeth I approx 1600’.

Despite the fact that this manipulating of Google can seem as though it’s interfering with your search the reality is, Google is accounting for human error in typing and lack of knowledge in searching. This is helpful when you think about it, imagine trying to search for restaurants in a town your planning to holiday in and spelling the town name wrong. This is where Google can sometimes step in, tweek your search and enable you to find what you were seeking.

Google has always had a way around this automatic tweeking however, with the ‘+’ operator. This operator has never been that popular though, and now Google has scrapped it on Google searches altogether due to low use rates and incorrect use.

This tool has been replaced by the Verbatim Tool. This tool can be used when searching and will turn off all of Google’s automatic tweeking so it will simply search on exactly what you have put in. This Verbatim Tool can be found under the ‘More search tools’ tab which appears on the left hand side of the Google results page.

This can be great for people who want to filter out the results which are not helpful or who want to search on a particular phrase which is spelt incorrectly on purpose. It will be interesting to find out in the future whether this tool starts to become used more frequently and it is certainly something which we here at a451 will find helpful.

 

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