Author: Nancy McCord

Google’s growing zoo of animals that includes a Panda and Penguin have changed the complexion of search engine optimization forever. Just what is this zoo of animals you ask? Panda and Penguin are just two of the names of recent far-reaching Google algorithm updates. These two important updates have hit web businesses with a low relevance penalty relegating their placement to a figure so low that no one can find them in Google’s index; quashing businesses in the process.

These two updates focus on links, content relevancy, and optimization techniques. All of these Google has deemed to be “unnatural” and thus warranted of being filter out of their index. But, in the process many legitimate businesses have seem their income drop to nearly nothing and are scrambling to remediate their website.

What’s the Future Impact?

From my personal perspective these are the long term impacts that affect the search engine optimization industry:

1. Link building will have to happen naturally through great content and article marketing only to high value industry niche sites. This means a higher level of writing and no more article spinning or article placement on a number of sites.
2. Website content must no longer be considered thin but in-depth unique and informative. This requires a better level of writing and a clear strategy for content creation.
3. Want to create a website mainly to make money off of AdSense ads? Better find a new way to make money. It appears that Google is really filtering out these types of sites that typically try to build placement with “easy” links and have thin keyword dense content.
4. Watch the level of keyword density. It used to be that to move a site we worked on a 7% keyword density. Now we can only strive for between 1% and 2.3% or so and not get dinged by Google as overly optimized. It means that content really needs to be readable first and optimized second.
5. Off site conversations need to be beefed up on social media with links and information pointing back to the parent website, but in a meaningful way. That means a real conversation with followers not a commercial in every update.

Search engines are rewarding quality, large, authoritative websites that are consistently working to provide a rich information experience to readers. If you are looking for a firm to help you position yourself for this new world of search engine optimization, I invite you to check us out at www.mccordweb.com.