Month: July 2013

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Google – First the Carrot and Then the Stick!

If you’ve been in the web industry as long as I have (since 2001) you would have seen Google’s purchase of Urchin Statistics which became Google Analytics. It used to be that a website owner very carefully guarded their website activity; what generated clicks, page paths, traffic, and trends. When Google offered Google Analytics to the world for free, nearly every website owner flocked to implement this free application that previously was only available to those willing to pay $500 a month for a subscription. Voilà the carrot!

Google gave us the carrot with Google Analytics. The Stick?
Google gave us the carrot with Google Analytics. The Stick?

Little did we know that sharing our website statistical information would in the long run impact our own organic placement on Google.com. In this age of Snowden and the NSA and the harvesting of big data, one would have to be very naive to think that Google, having access to all this previously closely guarded information would not include some of this data into their algorithm to determine organic placement. Personally based on patent disclosures over the years, I could see that Google was patenting using click through rates to help to determine organic page rank. With over 200 factors impacting organic placement and Google having data from Google Analytics available for their own purposes, it only makes sense that by taking the carrot we’ve allowed Google to use the stick on us in regards to our own website placement.

By potentially using our own data as well as click through data from Google.com activity to rack and stack websites is not that far of a reach in today’s world. Although I don’t believe that our own data is being used maliciously to hurt our own placement by Google, it makes sense that Google is using aggregate data by industry and possibly even  our own website statistics as just one piece of their own racking and stacking algorithm.

It all started with Google Analytics, when we as webmasters shared this private information with Google. Little did we know years later that this same information might be used to lower or raise our own rankings. I do not have definitive information that Google is using Google Analytics data in their algorithm, but it would make sense for them to use aggregate data to develop benchmarks by industry so as to evaluate the importance of websites and rankings within that industry; just my thoughts for today.

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Site Placement 101

Have you experienced the Google smackdown and lost your organic placement? Have you dropped from the first page of results to the second or worse yet to so far back you cannot even find your own site?

If this is your case, what can you do – anything?

Crying about your placement on Google.com.
Crying about your placement on Google.com.

Here is my short list of things to look at and review to see if you can fix your problem.

1. If your website is mainly duplicated content like user generated content (reviews, event postings), or products and descriptions that many other sites share with you – you will most likely not be able to re mediate your problem. Sorry, hard cold fact via Matt Cutts the lead Google Web Spam engineer. If your content is like others Google no longer considers showing your site organically a value proposition for them UNLESS you create some other type of value for users than just spewing out what others already have on their sites or have already said.

2. If your site does not have duplicate content, there is hope to re mediate a drop through careful content review and update, on-domain blogging, code optimization, and a strategic plan to build value and information with the reader in mind first and foremost.

The changes that Google has made to their search engine in the last year have had very strong and sweeping impacts in regards to how a business sets up and manages their online presence. Getting organic placement is now that much harder to earn and keep, but it all remains about the value you offer to readers and in the greater scheme of things the value you provide to others trying to understand your industry.

So often I hear “my site has dropped, I want to be on page one, others are there why not me?” There are so many factors at play now in regards to organic placement that doing one thing, two things, or even three things just don’t work. Don’t ever lose sight of this fact – this is Google’s FREE search engine with results displayed their way and to their criteria, but most of all, Google is in the business to sell advertising not supply FREE search results for website owners.

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Penguin 2.0 Were You Affected

Last month Google rolled out a pretty big update to its Penguin anti-spam algorithm update, but this is the last time you’ll see Penguin with a number.

Google named its now infamous update Penguin.
Google named its now infamous update Penguin.

First, Google has stated that it will no longer roll out separate Penguin and Panda updates, it will simply rollout out improvements MONTHLY with their regular updates. That means that although you won’t hear when an update is coming anymore, Google considers these important relevancy factors and has included them in their regular tweaks. This also means that the big shakedown is over. We’ll be seeing tweaks not smackdowns.

So, how did your site fair? The bad news is that if your site took a drop, the chance to remediate from the drop is pretty slim. Others in my industry have stated figures like under 2% of all sites affected will be able to recover from the drop in placement from Panda and Penguin updates.

So, what have been the benefits of all these changes? Well, Google feels that relevancy has improved, others report that they are seeing more localized results, and I am seeing more worried website owners being forced into Google AdWords promotion in order to get site exposure.

Take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments below on how your site has been impacted by these important algorithm changes by Google. For more information here’s a great article to read for more insight.