|
Google's New SEO Rules
by John Metzler
Google has recently made some pretty significant changes in
its ranking algorithm. The latest update, dubbed by Google forum
users as "Allegra", has left some web sites in the
dust and catapulted others to top positions. Major updates like
this can happen a few times a year at Google, which is why picking
the right search engine optimization company can be the difference
between online success and failure. However, it becomes an increasingly
difficult decision when SEO firms themselves are suffering from
the Allegra update.
Over-optimization may have played the biggest part in the dropping
of seo-guy.com from the top 50 Google results. Filtering out
web sites that have had readability sacrificed for optimization
is a growing trend at Google. It started with the Sandbox Effect
in late 2004, where relatively new sites were not being seen
at all in the Google results even with good keyword placement
in content and incoming links. Many thought it was a deliberate
effort by Google to penalize sites that had SEO work done. It's
a few months later and we see many of the 'sandboxed' web sites
finally appearing well for their targeted keywords.
With 44 occurrences of 'SEO' on the relatively short home page
of seo-guy.com, and many of them in close proximity to each
other, the content reads like a page designed for search engine
robots, not the visitor. This ranking shift should come as no
surprise to SEO professionals as people have been saying it
for years now: Sites should be designed for visitors, not search
engine robots. Alas, some of us don't listen and this is what
happens when search engines finally make their move.
One aspect of search engine optimization that is also affected
in a roundabout way is link popularity development. After observing
the effects of strictly relevant link exchanges on many of our
client's sites recently, we've noticed incredibly fast #1 rankings
on Google. It seems Google may be looking out for links pages
designed for the sole purpose of raising link popularity and
devalues the relevance of the site. After all, if a links page
on a real estate site has 100 outgoing links to pharmacy sites,
there has to be a lot of content on that page completely unrelated
to real estate. Not until now has that been so detrimental to
a site's overall relevance to search terms. It goes back to
the old rule of thumb: Make your visitors the top priority.
Create a resources page that actually contains useful links
for your site users. If you need to do reciprocal linking then
keep it relevant and work those sites in with other good resources.
Keeping up with the online search world can be overwhelming
for the average small business owner or corporate marketing
department. Constant Google changes, MSN coming on the scene
in a big way, and all the hype around the new Become.com shopping
search function can make heads spin. But just keep things simple
and follow the main rules that have been around for years. Google,
as well as other search engines, won't ever be able to ignore
informative, well written content along with good quality votes
from other web sites.
About the Author
John Metzler is the co-creator of Abalone Designs, Inc. www.abalone.ca,
a Search Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He
has been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999
and has helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO
companies in the world. |
