Google Algorithm Update

According to a tweet from Google’s Webmaster Trend Analyst, Gary Illyes a Penguin update, may only be weeks away. Since we know it’s been over a year since the official roll out of Penguin 3.0 this timing is not surprising.

So what can we expect? The Search Engine Journal says that 3.0 only affected about 1% of US based search traffic. Prior to that Penguin 2.0 and 2.1 focused on fighting spam. Many businesses large and small took major hits on their organic search traffic. All had to place a major focus on removing/disavowing unnatural links.

So what is an Unnatural link? According to Google’s Quality Guidelines, it’s “creating links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page, otherwise known as unnatural links, can be considered a violation of our guidelines.” So what does that mean? “Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Essentially a self-made link is not a true vote for your site and should not be counted in your PageRank.

At its core, Google is a service. Its goal is to provide users with the best possible results based on their searches. It does this using an algorithm, with an infinitely complex formula that decides what best answers the question posed in a search. Your goal should be to create high quality content and a website experience 2nd to none.

It’s hard to say if the new update will maintain this focus, but best practices are always in order.

• Provide unique and high-quality content based on your product and services.

• Optimize your website for performance with a focus on page load times.

• Use social media to build your brand – sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and others to drive traffic to your site.

• Use care as you add target keywords to page headers and meta descriptions with in your websites pages.

• Link only to high quality sources and cultivate relationships that are relevant to your products and services.

We can help. Front Man Marketing offers expert SEO services and can work with you to clean up your site. Give us a call or complete one of our contact forms.