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Does Google Consider SEO to be Spam?

November 21, 2011 By admin

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: , , , , ,

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

July 12, 2011 By admin

Anyone in the business of optimizing websites for search engines knows the importance of links, which Google and other search engines view as a vote of confidence in your site.

Aside from including unique, high-quality, relevant content on an easily crawlable website, link building is perhaps the most important task for building high search engine rankings. In the beginning, you may have to obtain links from sites that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re about. Or, you may have to get links from sites that aren’t very trustworthy.

While this isn’t necessarily your first choice, obtaining links from these kinds of sites certainly won’t hurt your search rankings – they may even help a little bit in fact.

Generally speaking, incoming links (other sites linking to yours) will not get you in trouble. However, outgoing links (you linking to others) can get you in a heap of trouble if they’re not done properly. Linking to sites that have been penalized by Google could result in you getting a penalty.

Before getting into a link-swap with another site, you should consider the following three steps to ensure your site doesn’t get penalized through a bad outgoing link.

1. Search for the site’s domain name in major search engines

If the site in question isn’t listed in Google, Yahoo or Bing, you should stay away from it. If the site is banned, linking to it could lead to your site being banned. But even if the site in question isn’t ‘bad’ in terms of the search engines, linking to a site search engines don’t know about won’t net you any benefit. Therefore, if you can’t find the site in Google, etc., don’t link to it.

2. Find out who else is linking to them

If you’re thinking about linking to another site, you also need to consider who else is linking to them. One tool from Search Engine Guide (Site Strength Indicator) can help you easily determine who’s linking to the site you’re looking at.

Sites with a high number of incoming links will benefit you more if you can get a link from them.

Also, the importance of the other sites linking to the site you’re looking at makes a difference as well. PageRank is one metric Google uses to determine a site’s importance. Those with a higher PageRank will yield more benefit to you.

Whatever you do, do not link to a site with a PageRank of zero. Either the site was penalized or it’s too new to have any PageRank value.

3. Avoid linking to sites that are controversial

Linking to a site that includes what Google considers controversial topics (i.e. gambling, adult, pharmacy, loan/debt sites) will also get you in trouble with the search engines. That’s why it’s important you carefully evaluate each site you consider linking to. Unless you’re in the same industry, Google will penalize you for linking to another site with controversial topics.

Remember, you probably will not be penalized for sites linking to you. But if you link to a site that’s not trustworthy or has been penalized a lot, your rankings and standings in the search engines are likely to suffer.

Related Posts

8 SEO Tricks You Do NOT Want to Use – Avoiding the Google Penalty Box (Part I, Part II)

Private: 50 SEO Ranking Factors You Need to Think About in 2011

8 Ways You Can Safely Sell Links on your Website

5 Steps to Obtaining Organic Links through Blog Comments

 

Filed Under: SEO Technology Tagged With: , , ,

34 Things You Must Do When Redesigning your Website

April 21, 2011 By admin

Every so often, it’s a good idea to give your organization’s website a fresh new design. Doing so makes your company look active and dedicated to giving your customers the most advanced products and services.

But considering the fact many websites contain hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages, it can be a daunting task regardless of how careful you are. Proper planning helps ensure it all goes smoothly…no or very little planning can turn it all into a big nightmare.

Pages can get mixed up, deleted or otherwise not be available on the new site, which can end up costing your company thousands of dollars.

To avoid this calamity, you need to consider the following factors before, during and after. Continue reading to learn about all of these considerations you need to keep in mind when redesigning your website.

Before doing anything though, you need to get some baseline information and backup your old site just in case something goes awry. Load time, conversion rates, search rankings, bounce rates for your top landing pages and a list of important inbound links is information you need to have in-hand before you even get started.

Once you have all of this, it’s time to start your site re-design. Taking the following 34 steps during this process will ensure it all goes smoothly and you begin reaping the benefit of a new website as quickly as possible.

Prior to New Site Launch

1.       Have the old site available to put back online immediately if something goes wrong.

2.       Retain your existing URL structure if possible so you can minimize impact on search rankings.

3.       Address methods to eliminate duplicate content to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

4.       If you’re unable to keep existing URL structures, have a plan on how you will handle switching to the new file structure, including 301 re-directs, updating links, marketing materials and PPC ads.

5.       Keep a copy of the old site on-hand just in case.

6.       Use a link checker utility like Xenu to scan your new site and find any broken links.

7.       Take a moment to review titles and meta descriptions on your new site.

8.       Before launching, check your new site manually using multiple web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome). Many differences exist between these browsers.

9.       Update XML and HTML sitemaps so search engines can easily crawl your new site.

10.   Verify all web forms and other interactive features are working properly.

11.   Protect your site from competitors and search engines during development. The best way to accomplish this is to develop the site locally and internally to your firm.

12.   Review existing RSS feeds

13.   Verify your new site will work properly with traffic tracking codes like Google AdWords and Google Analytics.

14.   Develop a plan to add current analytics tracking to your new site before launch.

During new site launch

15.   Did you back up your old site? If not, now is your last chance.

16.   Update your .htaccess and robots.txt files so any 301 redirects will work properly.

17.   Be sure AdWords and PPC campaign pages are updated and working properly.

18.   Update payment gateways or other important sites if your server’s IP address changes.

19.   Test all email address and make sure they’re working properly.

20.   Remove any temporary no-index tags, robots.txt and be sure any other robot control tags are updated in case you had something blocked off during the development process.

After new site launch – catching any mistakes

21.   Run your spider/link finder once again to catch any broken links you may have missed.

22.   Test your new site’s load time. Google has claimed load time is now a big ranking factor.

23.   Make double-sure you put tracking codes/scripts on your new pages

24.   Check server logs for any 404 or other server errors.

25.   Look at your Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster accounts to see if the search bots are spotting any errors.

26.   Update any broken inbound links at the source of the link or through a 301 re-direct.

27.   Verify PPC ads are still correct.

28.   Make sure your XML sitemap is up-to-date.

29.   Compare bounce rates for the new site vs. the old one.

30.   Monitor how newly indexed (…or re-indexed) pages are ranking.

31.   Now that your site is live online, test it once again with all web browsers and even a mobile smartphone if you’re able to.

32.   Manually test all web forms and other interactive scripts.

33.   Check where your site is in the search results after the search engines have indexed it once again.

34.   Go to Google and Bing and type “site:yourdomain.com” in the search bar to see if the number of pages indexed has improved over your previous numbers.

Taking these all important steps helps ensure your site transition goes as smoothly as possible. Also, they help you spot any errors and allow you to make those corrections before any negative consequences arise.

Double, perhaps even triple check your site to make sure everything is working properly. If not, you’re certain to suffer devastating setbacks in the search engines as well as eroding good will of your site visitors.

Remember what Thomas Edison once said – “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”

Filed Under: Site Architecture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

See If You’re Site Has Been Affected by Google’s Panda Update

March 18, 2011 By admin

Google Webmaster is a valuable asset for any online marketer. It allows you to access a plethora of data regarding your website’s rankings, visits, bounce rates and other important metrics for determining how well your SEO efforts are paying off.

As you know from our post on March 4th, Google recently updated its algorithm to weed out sites with less than stellar content.panda Many of the sites affected contained low-quality content that either wasn’t very good or was simply copied from another website.

Affected sites have seen a big drop off – as much as 50% in some cases – of traffic coming from organic (free) search results. This can have devastating impacts for websites dependent on organic traffic to drive leads and revenues.

Likely you would have noticed your site’s drop off in rankings and traffic by now. If so, you can jump ahead and use Google Webmaster to find out which specific pages have been affected.

If you’re at the ‘Dashboard’ for Google Webmaster tools, choose the ‘search engines’ option under ‘traffic sources’ to see a line graph of web traffic. The Panda update occurred around February 22nd so if your site is affected, you will likely see a big drop off in referring traffic after the 22nd of last month.

A big unknown at this point though is whether Google’s Panda update affects all pages on a site or just specific ones. To see a general picture, choose the “top landing pages” option underneath the “Content” section. You can filter the results further to see if Panda affected all pages or just a select few.

Determining this will help identify the specific pages Google considered to be too ‘spammy.’ Once you know this you can then either remove those pages or re-write them with compelling, engaging content. To learn more, read Mark Nunney’s article on Wordtracker to learn more.

Over 12% of websites in the U.S. were affected by this update. As of this writing, this update has only occurred for websites in the United States.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Google Panda Update Causes Some Sites to Lose Traffic, Revenues

March 8, 2011 By admin

Part of our philosophy behind optimizing websites for the search engines is based in the fact that higher search rankings generallyxin_38080227094228151227 lead to higher revenues if your other site elements are done right.

Good SEO most certainly leads to higher rankings. How high also depends on the quality of content, usability and the industry/keywords you’re optimizing for.

Much of the craft of ranking high in the search engines stems from a close watch of what’s going on with Google and the algorithm it uses to crawl and rank sites.

As you may know, there’s over probably 200 factors they consider important.

One of those is content and as I can tell you from personal experience, content is a central pillar to successfully using the Internet to drive leads and revenue to your business.

But some ‘low-quality’ sites are seeing a significant decline in their traffic.

The main reason you ask?

Some interviews with Google spam chief Matt Cutts and Google researcher Amit Singal offer some insights into Google’s Panda update…continue reading for a quick summary.

In late 2009, Google’s Caffeine update improved the search engine’s indexing process. This provided Google with lots of content – some good, some not so good.

Cutts comments in a Wired Magazine interview that many sites were simply producing content from the perspective of “What’s the bare minimum that I can do that’s not spam?”

Without the ability to consistently define what a low-quality site is, many webmasters and SEOs believe Google is utilizing more human reviewers. Cutts and Singal say they’re trying to develop an automatic system to screen this.

Of course, Google doesn’t let the entire cat out of the bag in regards to their algorithm and in a way, understandably so.

But from this interview, we can discern what they’re looking and penalizing sites for.

We can however discern how Google is asking human reviewers several questions to determine if it ‘trusts’ a site or not. And that seems to be the big key – does Google trust your site.

Large domains like CNN.com or Walmart.com generally are trusted.

But smaller sites are looked at more carefully…ones where content seems questionable and untrustworthy to third-party review are seeing some declines in rankings.

The takeaway here?

Be sure you take steps to ensure your site is trustworthy. In regards to content, be sure you put original content online…don’t take things from other people and rehash them. Many of the sites who saw drops in rankings and traffic (one site who lost ground lost 10% of its revenue and had to subsequently reduce staff) were engaging in a practice called ‘content scrubbing’

In essence, content scrubbing is a situation where a site may have content to similar (…or not unique enough) from another site.

It’s not that anyone did anything technically wrong but rather a case where some sites have seen a sudden drop off in rankings and traffic.

Did your website experience any sudden drop like this recently?

If so, drop us a quick comment and tell us about it…if you’re gathering content from various sources and not re-purposing it enough, it’s possible this is the reason.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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