The Murky Internet

Why Content is Important:

It has been easy to believe that content is not as important as say, Link Building or Meta-Tagging, but the fact of the matter is, content is the bedrock upon which the rest of the SEO house is built. Who is going to want to link to a website if their is nothing useful on it? Or if the content is hard to understand or not compelling at all? The answer is no one. And, does it matter if all your meta-tags are in place if there is no content supporting them? Yes.

You see, in a time when the internet is constantly being flooded by information and then reflooded as second and third parties tag onto and re-create original articles, the once clear waters of the internet are becoming murky and quality content is hard to find. Google have promoted quality content through their Panda updates, the Freshness update, Page Layout update and through their innovative design of Google+, which will be discussed in the next post, and at the end of the day any good search engine will do so because as much as it is business, it’s important to remember who you’re business is made up of: people.

What Is Good Content?

People want true, compelling and easily understandable content. THAT’S IT. No smoke and mirrors, just valid content. So, to help you keep thinking about this:

7 Pointers For Good Content:

• Write it to the point (the visitor has probably already read at least ten web pages before coming to yours)
• Avoid using lots of lingo and industry words that people won’t understand (the internet is universal remember)
• Include headings to show readers where the content is going
• Break——-it——-up——-with lots of paragraphs
• Include bold, italics and underlined text to emphasise your point
• Include multi-media, such as images and videos (remember every visitor is a different person who takes things in in different ways)
• Go for the simple: Subject, Explanation and Action approach to structuring your content.

  Now Go Out And Try It!

The standard way to search for an image on Google would be to click the image tab and then write in a keyword which you want images to appear for like so:

Standard Google Image Search

Which should bring up a page of pretty horse images for you to browse through. Well, how about you see the perfect image and you think to yourself, ‘If only I could search on that…’ Well, you can:

Google Drag & Drop Image Search

And, say I search on the bottom right image by dragging it and dropping it as requested I come to a page like this:

Google Drag & Drop Image Search Results

Brilliant – but wait! It gets better, as you can see in the search bar of the screen shot above, the image I’ve searched on has gone into the search bar AND I can add a keyword to it to combine the image and keyword search. Now that you know just what you can do with image search on Google, as an SEO it’s good to think about what this can tell us.

It tells us that Google DOES care about images and if anything it’s only getting smarter where images are concerned. In the thirdscreen shot I took, you can see that Google has picked up images of the same horse in different stances and of other horses of the same colour and breed.

It also tells us that copywriting images on the web, although before was like keeping tabs on a needle in a haystack, is becoming slightly easier. Now you can simply drop an image into the search bar and have the websites which are displaying that image pop up in the search results!

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-fold‘ 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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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’!

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 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.

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.

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 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

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.