Posts tagged Rankings
Google Makes Changes That Could Affect Rankings
This WebProNews article, originally from August 2010, focuses on some of the latest Google algorithm changes that may impact rankings. We’ve summarized it for you here so you and your SEO can make the best decisions accordingly.
Search is the keystone of Google and in the midst of all the social media, advertising, and video initiatives they also have going on at the moment.
Algorithm changes are some of Google’s most talked about items, especially when they make a big announcement beforehand as they did recently concerning the change that multiple pages will now be displayed from one domain for relevant queries. Google’s going to attempt to determine the intent behind certain queries and determine whether or not the SERP results are best populated with multiple pages from one site, which they’ve never done in the past. Not all SEOs and seo hosting companies are happy with this news as it means big sites may further dominate listings.
As with algorithm changes, Google’s experimentation is also much talked about. They’ve recently been spotted trying a format in which the autosuggest function more or less takes over all the SERP results which could definitely wreak havoc on search results as a whole. As we now know, though, this function is fully in play and called Google Instant. Habits are currently being evaluated by SEOs to determine the best ways to manage this change.
Google is also currently testing the idea of crawling from multiple ip hosting servers. This means that Googlebots are now able to spider sites faster than ever and with greater accuracy, and webmasters are monitoring this development closely to see how it affects algorithm changes.
Along with all these changes, Google is also acquiring companies such as Like.com. It’s yet to be told how these acquisitions will effect search as a whole.
Thanks to Heather Hendrick for the summary!
5 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Social Media for Ranking
Search Engine Guide put out an interesting bit last year about how to optimize your pages for ranking…it was so insightful for SEOs and multiple web hosting companies we’ve summarized it her for you.
With social media pages now becoming more and more important for online marketing campaigns, SEOs everywhere are trying to figure out how to get their social media pages to rank highly alongside their main brand pages.
Social media is a great way to further dominate the top 10 Google listings for your brand, and additionally for the keywords you hope to target. The idea is that using social media, you can work in some of the keywords you hope to rank highly for, incorporate your own content such as press releases, then fill out the SERP results for those terms.
Here are a few ways to finagle the social media pages you choose to use so that they reflect your intent:
Get More Followers –
The more followers you have via Twitter, Facebook, etc., the more weight your social media page carries for search engines. While the algorithm is hard to discern, it’s important to have lots of relevant followers while at the same time following relevant people yourself. Google will connect the dots here and relate the two web properties.
Optimizing the Pages’ URL and Meta Tags –
Check to see which parts of your page and description are being used as Meta Tags by social media sites and plan your profile accordingly. Don’t waste this valuable chance to claim your meta data the way you want.
Link to Your Own Content –
New content seems to be indexed much faster when it’s linked to on social media sites, so point to your own stuff to get it to show up in SERPS! The added benefit to this is that your content will also gain exposure much more rapidly when it’s been spread virally.
Make Your Updates Count –
Especially important for Twitter, be sure to optimize your Tweets (and any other social media content) so that search engine results show what you want them to. In the case of Twitter, only about the first 30 characters show in results, so use those for your keywords. On Facebook, keep your status updates relevant to your brand as this helps build association for the engines.
Build Links –
When you’re creating a linkbuilding campaign, be sure to include links to your social media pages as well. Inbound links to these sites are extremely valuable, so include them in the header or wherever possible. Be sure to remember that just as with regular SEO, the needs of the user are the first priority. Don’t spam up your social media just because you’re trying to benefit your SEO efforts. Thanks to Heather Hendrick for the summarization
What Factors Cause a Facebook Page to Rank Highly?
Manoj Jarsa over at Search Engine Guide had a few great tips a while back for getting your Facebook Pages to rank highly. We thought they were so good, we’ve re-summarized them for you here…
Many businesses are choosing to put up Facebook pages (some in lieu of a traditional website!) since they’re so user friendly and have a built in interactive component. Since most website visits still start with a traditional search, it’s important to know how to optimize your Facebook page so it shows up when you need it to, particularly if the page is a big part of your online presence.
There are a lot of factors that will boost a given Facebook page to the top of ranking, and though they’re all still just speculative, here are some of the most likely candidates:
Your Number of Followers – One of the only metrics we have to calculate Facebook Page authority, this can be considered the same way backlinks can. The more followers you have, the more authority Google lends to your Facebook page and ranks you accordingly.
The Content You’ve Posted – The newer and fresher your content is, the better Google will look at your page. Spiders will continuously crawl your content the more often you post wall posts, pictures, notes, and even videos on your page.
Content Relevancy – When you’re posting your content, don’t forget that it needs to be relevant to the page itself. The more relevant and related it is, the easier it is for Google to figure out where to rank your page.
Build Your Brand – The bigger your brand is, the more authority Google automatically lends your page. The engine will assume your brand is what consumers are looking for, so put some effort into building your overall brand.
Facebook URL – Make sure your Facebook Page URL contains keywords that are relevant to the topics you hope to rank for as well as your brand name.
Share Numbers – The goal is to make your Facebook Page so compelling and engaging that Facebook users have to share it with their friends. Google notices this and ranks accordingly.
Page Age – There’s no proof that this matters at all, but there could be some correlation between the age of page and the better it ranks. If you don’t have a page up, get one already!
Thanks for summarizing, Heather Hendrick
Webmasters Cry Mayday for Google Rankings Again
A lot of people had something to say about Google’s Mayday algorithm update from the beginning of May. A lot of people felt that it was costing them rankings and revenue.
Google’s Matt Cutts talked more about Mayday at SMX Advanced a couple weeks ago. He said that it was designed to try and spot signals of quality on pages and sites that would be good for users, and that auto-generated pages and content farms tend to get hit the most by Mayday.
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Barry Schwartz at Search Engine roundtable is pointing to a WebmasterWorld thread indicating that there may have been another tweak on June 23rd and 24th that had a big impact on some sites’ rankings again.
Cutts’ advice to webmasters affected by Mayday in the first place, was basically to improve quality. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this advice would probably still apply.
Google incorporating site speed in search rankings
(I’m in the middle of traveling, but I know that a lot of people will be interested in the news that Google is incorporating site speed as one of the over 200 signals that we use in determining search rankings. I wanted to jot down some quick thoughts.)
The main thing I want to get across is: don’t panic. We mentioned site speed as early as last year, and you can watch this video from February where I pointed out that we still put much more weight on factors like relevance, topicality, reputation, value-add, etc. — all the factors that you probably think about all the time. Compared to those signals, site speed will carry much less weight.
In fact, if you read the official blog post, you’ll notice that the current implementation mentions that fewer than 1% of search queries will change as a result of incorporating site speed into our ranking. That means that even fewer search results are affected, since the average search query is returning 10 or so search results on each page. So please don’t worry that the effect of this change will be huge. In fact, I believe the official blog post mentioned that “We launched this change a few weeks back after rigorous testing.” The fact that not too many people noticed the change is another reason not to stress out disproportionately over this change.
There are lots of tools to help you identify ways to improve the speed of your site. The official blog post gives lots of links, and some of the links lead to even more tools. But just to highlight a few, Google’s webmaster console provides information very close to the information that we’re actually using in our ranking. In addition, various free-to-use tools offer things like in-depth analysis of individual pages. Google also provides an entire speed-related mini-site with tons of resources and videos about speeding up websites.
I want to pre-debunk another misconception, which is that this change will somehow help “big sites” who can affect to pay more for hosting. In my experience, small sites can often react and respond faster than large companies to changes on the web. Often even a little bit of work can make big differences for site speed. So I think the average smaller web site can really benefit from this change, because a smaller website can often implement the best practices that speed up a site more easily than a larger organization that might move slower or be hindered by bureaucracy.
Also take a step back for a minute and consider the intent of this change: a faster web is great for everyone, but especially for users. Lots of websites have demonstrated that speeding up the user experience results in more usage. So speeding up your website isn’t just something that can affect your search rankings–it’s a fantastic idea for your users.
I know this change will be popular with some people and unpopular with others. Let me reiterate a point to the search engine optimizers (SEOs) out there: SEO is a field that changes over time, and the most successful SEOs embrace change and turn it into an opportunity. SEOs in 1999 didn’t think about social media, but there’s clearly a lot of interesting things going on in that space in 2010. I would love if SEOs dive into improving website speed, because (unlike a few facets of SEO) decreasing the latency of a website is something that is easily measurable and controllable. A #1 ranking might not always be achievable, but most websites can be made noticeably faster, which can improve ROI and conversion rates. In that sense, this change represents an opportunity for SEOs and developers who can help other websites improve their speediness.
I know that there will be a lot of discussion about this change, and some people won’t like it. But I’m glad that Google is making this step, both for the sake of transparency (letting webmasters know more about how to do better in Google) and because I think this change will make the web better. My takeaway messages would be three-fold: first, this is actually a relatively small-impact change, so you don’t need to panic. Second, speeding up your website is a great thing to do in general. Visitors to your site will be happier (and might convert more or use your site more), and a faster web will be better for all. Third, this change highlights that there are very constructive things that can directly improve your website’s user experience. Instead of wasting time on keyword meta tags, you can focus on some very easy, straightforward, small steps that can really improve how users perceive your site.
Recap of ACCM’s Better Links Session
WebProNews recently highlighted a piece by Netconcepts’ Stephan Spencer concerning the best tools out there to use to track the most popular links from your site. Spencer addressed this topic in his session “Secrets to Getting More and Better Links for Higher Search Rankings” at the ACCM Conference.
So far, the best tools out there are Yahoo’s Site Explorer, Netconcepts’ Linkchecker and Thumbshot’s ranking tool – The PageRank Lookup tool and the PageRank search tool from SEOChat are great for looking up page rank. Other good options include Google’s Toolbar for IE and Firefox or the Google Directory for site’s that are listed in DMOZ.
Stephan’s best advice of the session: don’t do anything with your linkbuying you wouldn’t feel comfortable telling a Google Rep to their face about.
Seth of LinkExperts talked about how some webmasters build a site based on link structure. The key is to find the critical point where you’ve got a good mix of great links, on-page optimization and a well designed internal structure. Paid links are notorious for creating search spam which Google deems bad for user experience, and rightfully so. The sites that typically sell links use cheap SEO hosting and are often aggressive and don’t put much thought into how the user experiences the site. Seth’s best advice was to be a good “internet citizen” and make sure you are creating web content and experiences that enrich the web as a whole.
Neil Patel of Advantage Consulting Services reiterated the point that the best thing you can do is create good web content. Participating in the online conversation and building real life relationships are both key to successful web management.
He also made the point that social media may not be for every company. The real trick is to research the audience and target audience for your site and determine their needs, then create a campaign around that. Another good thought that came out of the session was that the two best things for linkbuilding are time and experience. If you have neither, spend 15 minutes a day reading up and practicing your linkbuilding skills.
Writer: Heather Hendrick
A Few Ways to Get Fresh Links to Old Content
You may have gotten some good links in the past, but don’t count on them helping you forever. Old links go stale in the eyes of Google.
Google’s Matt Cutts responded to a user-submitted question asking if Google removes PageRank coming from links on pages that no longer exist (for example, GeoCities pages that have been shut down). The answer to this question is unsurprisingly yes, but Cutts makes a statement within his response that may not be so obvious to everybody.
“In order to prevent things from becoming stale, we tend to use the current link graph, rather than a link graph of all of time,” he says. (Emphasis added)
Now, this isn’t exactly news, and to the seasoned search professional, probably not much of a revelation. However, to the average business owner looking to improve search engine performance (and not necessarily adapting to the ever-changing ways of SEO), it could be something that really hasn’t resonated. Businesses have always been told about the power of links, but even if you got a lot of significant links a year or two ago, that doesn’t mean your content will continue to perform well based on that. WebProNews has discussed the value of “link velocity” and Google’s need for freshness in the past:
Link velocity refers to the speed at which new links to a webpage are formed, and by this term we may gain some new and vital insight. Historically, great bursts of new links to a specific page has been considered a red flag, the quickest way to identify a spammer trying to manipulate the results by creating the appearance of user trust. This led to Google’s famous assaults on link farms and paid link directories.
But the Web has changed, become more of a live Web than a static document Web. We have the advent of social bookmarking, embedded videos, links, buttons, and badges, social networks, real-time networks like Twitter and Friendfeed. Certainly the age of a website is still an indication of success and trustworthiness, but in an environment of live, real time updating, the age of a link as well as the slowing velocity of incoming links may be indicators of stale content in a world that values freshness.
So how do you keep getting “fresh” links?
If you want fresh links, there are a number of things you can do. For one, keep putting out content. Write content that has staying power. You can link to your old content when appropriate. Always promote the sharing of your content. Include buttons to make it easy for people to share your content on their social network of choice. You may want to make sure your old content is presented in the same template as your new content so it has the same sharing features. People still may find their way to that old content, and they may want to share it if encouraged.
Go back over old content, and look for stuff that is still relevant. You can update stories with new posts adding a fresher take, linking to the original. Encourage readers to follow the link and read the original article, which they may then link to themselves.
Leave commenting on for ongoing discussion. This can keep an old post relevant. Just because you wrote an article a year ago, does not mean that people will still not add to it, and sometimes people will link to articles based on comments that are left.
Share old posts through social networks if they are still about relevant topics. You don’t want to just start flooding your Twitter account with tweets to all of your old content, but if you have an older article that is relevant to a current discussion, you may share it, as your take on the subject. A follower who has not seen it before, or perhaps has forgotten about it, may find it worth linking to themselves. Can you think of other ways to get more link value out of old content?
Link Building for Bing Rankings: Dos and Don’ts
It’s easy for businesses to get caught up in Google’s expectations for their sites, when trying to market through search. That’s certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google dominates the search market by a huge margin. Still, there are other search engines that people are using, and it is also wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too.
I’m obviously talking about Yahoo and Bing, but Yahoo’s share is declining, while Bing’s is gaining. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway.
We don’t hear as much about what Bing wants out of a site for rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for honoring Bing’s policy, does not differ too much from advice that Google would give you. It is, however, still always nice to see how they feel, just to clear up any possible confusion.
Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”
What Not To Do
DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:
1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
3. Using hidden links in your pages
4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web
5. Linking out to known web spam sites
“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction,” says DeJarnette. “If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”
What To Do
DeJarnette also shared some tips for getting more quality links. Following are Bing’s tips for effective link building (paraphrased):
1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content
3. Publish concise, informative press releases online
4. Publish expert articles to online article directories
5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable
6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
8. Launch a blog/forum on your site
9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site
Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any savvy search marketer is not already aware of. That said, there are clearly plenty of online (and offline for that matter) businesses out there that don’t have savvy search marketers on the payroll. It can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and what not to do to help webmasters get better rankings.
Related Articles:
> What Bing, Twitter, and Facebook Mean for SEO
> Don’t Lose Yahoo Traffic By Not Optimizing for Bing
> How Does Bing Rank Tweets?
What impact does server location have on rankings?
Rob Lewicki from Toronto, Ontario asks: “What impact does server location have on Google rankings?”
Video Rating: 4 / 5
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