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Upcoming Google Update to Penalize “Over-Optimized” Sites

April 2, 2012 By

Rarely do we get a glimpse of a Google algorithm update before it occurs. But during a recent panel discussion at the SXSW event in Austin, Texas, Google’s spam chief Matt Cutts announced some minor tweaks to the search engine’s algorithm.

Dubbed the “Venice” update, Cutts said Google would punish sites that are too optimized for SEO, or what he called “over optimized” or “overly SEO’d” (…according to reports from HubSpot and Search Engine Land).

Although Cutts initially had planned not to announce the update ahead of time, he decided to go ahead and spill the beans following a question the panel received from an attendee at the SXSW event.

Basically, the question asked what Google was doing to prevent overly optimized content. For example, if you search for “three-winged widgets” on Google and the first result is just a keyword stuffed document, it won’t have much value to you, the reader.

In his response to the attendee’s question, Cutts explained the changes as “trying to make the algorithm more adaptive.” Sites that will be penalized will be those who are clearly engaging in keyword stuffing, exchanging too many links and any other practices that go beyond “…what a normal person would expect.”

I’ve done things SEO-e and other sources have suggested I do. Will I have to worry about being penalized for following standard recommendations?

A similar question was asked of Cutts by our friend Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land and the short answer is no, it won’t.

Those who will be penalized are sites whose content is driven by keywords rather than topics. If you’re selecting topics based on what you’re audience wants you shouldn’t have anything to worry about provided you’re not stuffing your content with keywords. As we’ve said before, if you spam your content with keywords to the point that it doesn’t read naturally, your site will be either ignored or penalized.

In a follow-up to Cutts’ response, Bing’s Duane Forrester added that social sharing is an important signal as to how others value your content. If others think you have great content, they will “…amplify it” Forrester explains.

“If you’re not engaged socially, you’re missing the boat because the conversation is happening socially about you and about your content. Those are really important signals for us,” explains Forrester.

In light of these revelations by Cutts, we want to take a moment to reiterate the old rule of thumb.

  • 2-3 separate, unique keywords on a page
  • Vary your use of keywords (i.e. singular, plural, stemming, synonyms)
  • Above all, make sure your copy reads naturally. If it feels spammy to you, then it likely contains too many keywords

In the end, if you’re writing with your readers in mind first and the search engines second, you should be okay. Make your readers the first priority and the rankings will follow provided your site is easily crawlable so the bots can actually read and index your content.

Read some of our prior posts on keywords and how you can maximize keyword instances without your content being too spammy.

Are you concerned about Google’s Venice update? What are your thoughts on penalizing sites for over-optimization?

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

Latent Semantic Indexing – A New Way to Look at Keywords

Standard Keyword Research Won’t Always Tell you what your Prospects are Looking For

11 Steps to Increasing Keyword Saturation while Maintaining Valuable Content

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Does Google Consider SEO to be Spam?

November 21, 2011 By

One question that swirls around out there is whether SEO – short for search engine optimization – is considered to be spam by Google.

A recent video from the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts, tries to answer this question. In short, no it isn’t. According to Cutts, all SEO basically means is making sure your pages are well represented in search results.

There are many legitimate, or ‘white hat,’ tactics SEO pros can use to help your pages rank high, including:

  • Making sure pages are crawlable with good links
  • Using strong keywords in site’s content. Words everyday people will use, not insider industry jargon
  • Constructing a site that’s highly usable and has a design conducive to search engines
  • Making your site loads fast, which is one of many of Google’s search ranking factors
  • Building a good URL structure that’s easy to follow for both users and search engines

Using techniques like these and many others are considered to be okay by Google. Sites that follow these guidelines and build good quality that’s easily crawlable will, over time, see their organic rankings build.

However, there are ‘black hat’ techniques as they’re called that Google frowns upon. Sites who are caught using things like hack sites and keyword stuffing will be penalized severely by Google. Sometimes, these penalties are impossible to recover from.

The goal of Google is to return the best search results as possible for their users. If a searcher isn’t able to find the right information, they will start looking elsewhere for it. As the #1 search engine accounting for over 2/3 of searches online, Google has an interest in making sure it returns sites that are informative and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.

Matt explains (…correctly in our opinion) how search engine spiders are not smart enough yet to figure out what a site is about all on their own. Therefore, it’s the site owner’s job to ‘help’ the spider learn what your site is about…this at its core is where SEO comes in.  In our experience, basic fundamentals are not addressed.  A good SEO will fix these SEO fundamentals (…listed above), analyze site traffic, ROI and other important factors to keep your site’s rankings consistently high.

With that said, SEO is about building a site Google can crawl and index. If you hire a search engine optimization company to handle your site’s SEO, there shouldn’t be any secret as to what they’re doing. Your SEO should be open about what they’re doing to get your site to the top of search results.

If they’re not, you should go elsewhere for these services. If the SEO firm is employing ‘black hat’ techniques, your site and business will be the one who suffers, not the SEO firm who used the shady tactics.

If your site is penalized for employing nefarious techniques, it will take a long time for you to make up the lost ground. Meanwhile, the SEO firm will have taken a lot of your money and will not suffer the same consequence.

Watch the video below to learn more.

One lesson though to keep in mind in this situation – buyer beware!!

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

October 20, 2011 By

A good reputation can take years to develop, but can be lost in the blink of an eye.

In today’s fast-paced online world, negative press can spread like wildfire – and decimate your business in the process. This principle applies not only to online businesses, but brick & mortar outlets as well since many people research a business online before making purchasing decisions.

Just think about when you’re looking for products and services – would you trade with someone who has a lot of negative comments prominently displayed online?

Probably not…

So whether negative comments are legitimate or not, they can do great harm to your reputation and by extension, your business. That’s why adopting a comprehensive online reputation management strategy is an important, but often overlooked part of marketing a business.

Online reputation management can be broken down into two types – proactive and reactive

Proactive is just that…you go out and find where people are discussing issues relevant to your industry. You add to the conversation through blog comments, forum & social media discussions and targeted content to other sites. Syndicating content helps build your company as a thought leader in your industry, which builds trust and credibility among prospective buyers. Participating in the online discussion signals to prospective customers that you care, and are available to address their concerns.

In addition being a positive for your online reputation, participating in the discussion and adding unique content to external sites yields better search rankings for your firm.

Reactive reputation management is just the opposite. When someone posts a negative comment or complaint about your firm, you address their concerns promptly. Many of these comments though may be initiated by your competition, in which case you can contact the forum or blog and ask the comment be removed.

It doesn’t matter where negative comments come from – the effects are devastating just the same if they’re not addressed.

Promptly addressing complaints accomplishes two goals – one, it shows others that you’re prompt in addressing any concerns. Customers can rest easy knowing you’re there to help if anything goes wrong.

The other benefit to responding to negative comments is to dilute the negative press in search rankings. It’s commonly known that the vast majority of web searchers pay no attention to results past page 1, and especially past page 2.

If page 1 results for terms related to your firm are packed with negative publicity, that’s all anyone is likely to see about your firm. Responding to negative criticism and taking proactive steps outlined above pushes these negative reviews past page 2.

You may be asking…reputation management seems awfully similar to SEO?

In a big way it is. You’re trying to ensure that top results pose your company in a positive light. Proactive reputation management reinforces your on-site efforts to ensure you not only reach the top of the rankings, but stay there as well.

Check back often as we discuss different tools and methods for effectively managing your company’s online reputation.

SEO Buzz Marketing services from SEO Advantage help companies like yours harness these tools to effectively manage your online reputation. Check with us today to see how you can save money, enhance revenues and build a long-term basis for future growth.

 

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Partnership with SEO Advantage Yields Six-Fold Increase in Web Traffic

October 18, 2011 By

Strategic partnerships between firms are one important way businesses grow market share and revenues – especially in today’s troubled economy.

One partnership our search engine marketing firm engaged in last year with gold bullion dealer Provident Metals has seen tremendous success.

When we start working with a firm to grow their online presence and by extension, traffic and revenues, we set realistic goals to accomplish the desired end. In the case of Provident Metals, traffic and search rankings for the bullion dealer’s site increased well beyond anyone’s expectations.

Since formation of the partnership in mid-2010, Provident Metals’ website has seen over a 600% increase in web traffic. Much of this traffic has been driven by the exponential increase in the company’s page 1 Google rankings. Coupled with social media engagement and a re-designed online store, the bullion dealer has experienced much success since teaming up with our firm.

Now that the new site design is complete and a large catalog of informative content is established, we’re now working to target some super-competitive phrases related to PM’s industry – think ‘gold bullion’, ‘silver bullion’ and others.

Dominating these keyword phrases will vault Provident Metals into the elite circles of the bullion industry.

We’ll continue to work with Provident Metals to build informative web content that builds search rankings and engages the reader to act. Providing timely and informative content is key to building thought leadership and trust with customers.

We’re excited to be working with such a reputable company that prides itself on superior customer service. Stay tuned for more important updates on our exciting work. In the meantime, read more about the partnership in our latest press release.

And if you’re searching for an online partner dedicated to helping businesses grow, contact search marketing consultants at SEO Advantage today to find out how you can effectively harness online channels to build website traffic and revenues.

Filed Under: SEO Advantage Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Latent Semantic Indexing and Keywords – A New Way to Look at Copy

April 1, 2011 By

Recently I learned about a new way to look at keywords… a way that, in one sense, means treating them as almost an afterthought in a way.

Now of course we all understand how people use keywords on Google and even some social media channels to find things they’recomputer-code1 looking for.

Say for example you’re in Florida and trying to find the closest mountain rental cabin to take your family to for vacation. You may search for ‘north Georgia cabin rental,’ or maybe ‘mountain rental cabins closest to Florida’ if you’re using a more long-tail keyword. Google will take this and search their index for those terms and provide you with a list of results.

In a non-technical sense, this is what search engines used to do. They would crawl websites and index keywords but do NO other analysis. The more keywords you had in your content, the better. But anyone whose written content for a website in the last 5 years knows, you can’t simply stuff your content with keywords and get ahead.

(In fact, sites get harshly penalized for this practice now)

Search engines now use more sophisticated approaches to analyzing content. As we know from Google’s latest update, they take a much sharper eye to the content sites use and how they develop it.

And let’s not forget the whole canary in coal mine to begin with – relevancy. Simply analyzing keywords often yielded varied results irrelevant to what the searcher was looking for.

But one method, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), analyses the context of words and how they’re used on a page. It’s a sophisticated method Google and others use to provide relevant search results to their users.

What Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI, is on a technical level is a computer algorithm that uses mathematical methods to identify patterns in the relationships of terms and concepts.

What does that mean in English?

Well we all remember good ‘ol grammar school and the days of learning about synonyms, which are different words with the same meaning. Think “car” and “automobile.”

(Don’t worry, I had to look that up to be sure I was correct too   : )

Anyway, that’s easy enough for search engines to identify. But there are words you could call polynyms, or words that have multiple meanings. (Or “a name consisting of multiple words” according to http://en.wiktionary.org/). The opposite of a polynym is a mononym, or a single name.

When you say ‘apple,’ are you referring to the fruit or the computer?

Before LSI, these kinds of terms would confuse search engines. Was a user searching for ‘windows’ looking for new windows for their home or were they looking for information on the popular operating system? It’s difficult to know.

What LSI did was help search engines understand keywords in the context of other words on the page. If a page has ‘apple’ and ‘computer’ and especially ‘MacOS’ on it, then it must be about Apple Computers. If it has ‘apple’ and ‘tree’ and/or ‘pie,’ then it must be about the fruit.

How is this a new way of looking at keywords?

Since LSI is examining the relationships words have with each other rather than their quantity, keywords can often be spaced apart and still be linked together through LSI. Just think about how Google displays results for a 3-4 word term you enter.

Example:

Search term: “how to bake pork chops”

5th result

How To Make Tender and Juicy Pork Chops – Cooking Tips

Want the secret on how to make tender and juicy pork chops? From meat selection to baking in the oven, learn to bake and  cook pork chops perfectly.
www.howtodothings.com › Food & Drink › Comfort Foods – Cached – Similar

Learning about LSI has made me wonder if keywords should almost be an afterthought when writing web content, site descriptions and meta-tags.

Keywords of course do belong in your content but do they need to be all together? As this site description shows, the relationships of all the words in this description and site copy told Google the site is about ‘how to bake pork chops.’

While it is difficult, I’m trying to put keywords more on the back burner.

But is LSI something you should fret over too much? Absolutely not says Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz. While it’s something you should know about, it’s by no means a critical component of ranking high in the search engines.

Has anyone ever tried this? Let me know if you have and I’ll certainly report on any progress or data when I have it.

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , ,
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