It was a customer, or rather a potential customer, who alerted me to the recent change in Google's search engine algorithm.
I say this without (much) embarrassment, because Google changes its algorithms frequently, and usually the impact upon a service such as ours is negligible. After all we promote our clients from such a variety of angles that our work cannot fail to make an impact upon their search engine ratings.
But this one, it would seem, has a little more teeth to it and as such will impact upon our work by a factor of up to 12%, so it would be foolhardy not to pay it some heed.
According to Google: "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites - sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful."
The main "victim" of such an update is likely to be dedicated article directories, some of which host literally millions of articles by independent authors that will usually feature inbound links to commercial websites with a view to improving their search engine recognition.
The first thing to understand is that this is not a "penalty" as such. Your website will not be hit by Google or any other search engine for having inbound links from articles featured by directories. If you think about it such a policy would open itself up to all sorts of abuse. All your competitors would need to do would be to create an external link into your site and they would blow your whole business out of the water.
The new algorithm would seem to work more along the lines of the mythical "duplicate content penalty", which likewise is not a penalty in the literal sense of the word.
What it will mean is that it will be more difficult than it was hitherto to get the article linking into your site onto the front pages of Google. More difficult, to a factor of 12%. Not by any means impossible.
Whilst this presents a challenge to authors such as myself I happen to believe that the changes to the Google algorithm represent a change for the better. If applied as it is surely intended, it will lead to an improvement in the overall quality of submitted articles and a shot across the bows for those people who produce high-volume, low-quality, semi-literate rubbish for the obvious purpose of upgrading their SEO ranking and absolutely nothing else.
It will render less effective the "spinning" software the purpose of which would appear to be to translate good English-language copy into gobbledegook for the purpose of providing "unique" content for each of a million low-grade article directories to which it is then submitted by robot.
It will mean that those article directories who boast high Google page rank as well as some kind of reputation for quality will raise their game still further, creating an aristocracy of talented authors whom they will showpiece in an attempt to convince Google and the other search engines that what they offer is quality content as opposed to mass-produced mindless pap.
The Middle Man's work has already gained the recognition of Ezine Articles, reckoned by most to be the world's leading article directory. We believe we are a photograph away as I write from achieving similar reward from certain other directories. We and our customers have nothing at all to fear from a raising of the bar when it comes to the quality of submitted articles.
More than ever it is important that businesses wishing to improve their Google rankings through the use of submitted articles - still by far the single most effective means of doing so - avail themselves of the services of somebody who does it properly, and does it well.
Showing posts with label Algorithms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Algorithms. Show all posts
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Through Good Content, Article Writing Will Set Your Web Site Apart
By Vendetta 20vs
Even though there are hundreds of thousands of different types of websites on the Internet, fundamentally they all share the same goal. Each site is trying to attract the attention of a consumer, whether they are selling products, services, information or a combination. People turn to the Internet for information and this is mostly represented by the written word on each page. Content Article writing is therefore a very important element of your site's optimization, as unless it is done correctly you have very little chance of seeing good traffic.
The major search engines are primary when it comes to allocating traffic to each website. Google, Yahoo and MSN are the primary sites and people turn to these locations when they are searching for specific terms. Search engines will return information based on the actual phrase typed into the search box and this information will be derived from a number of applicable websites and pages. It follows that you need to convince the search engines that your site should be returned to searchers in this way.
Most webmasters are aware of the importance of search engine optimization, but sometimes overlook the need for appropriate content article writing. In order to determine a site's viability, the search engines will visit and will fully analyze the makeup of the written word within. If they do not think that it is appropriate for your chosen genre or well composed, you will get a penalty in terms of ranking.
Most webmasters are aware of the importance of search engine optimization, but sometimes overlook the need for appropriate content article writing. In order to determine a site's viability, the search engines will visit and will fully analyze the makeup of the written word within. If they do not think that it is appropriate for your chosen genre or well composed, you will get a penalty in terms of ranking.
Many people who are trying to shortcut the process of convincing the search engines to rank their site used to believe that it was okay to "stuff" keywords onto a page and this was sufficient. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the search engines have a sophisticated set of algorithms that will check not only for the appropriate presence of primary keywords but also, in a process known as latent semantic indexing, determine whether the other words within the piece are also relevant. This means that if your content article writing is not first class, you are going to suffer.
People often wonder how they should proceed when they are composing articles and the short answer is that they should concentrate on providing information that is informative, educational, enlightening, or entertaining. If the visitor to the site is likely to learn something from the content then you will have achieved your goal. It is not necessary to worry too much about the correct insertion of your keywords - i.e. how many times each keyword appears, but you should worry more about quality writing.
Reproduced with acknowledgements to HubPages
Even though there are hundreds of thousands of different types of websites on the Internet, fundamentally they all share the same goal. Each site is trying to attract the attention of a consumer, whether they are selling products, services, information or a combination. People turn to the Internet for information and this is mostly represented by the written word on each page. Content Article writing is therefore a very important element of your site's optimization, as unless it is done correctly you have very little chance of seeing good traffic.
The major search engines are primary when it comes to allocating traffic to each website. Google, Yahoo and MSN are the primary sites and people turn to these locations when they are searching for specific terms. Search engines will return information based on the actual phrase typed into the search box and this information will be derived from a number of applicable websites and pages. It follows that you need to convince the search engines that your site should be returned to searchers in this way.
Most webmasters are aware of the importance of search engine optimization, but sometimes overlook the need for appropriate content article writing. In order to determine a site's viability, the search engines will visit and will fully analyze the makeup of the written word within. If they do not think that it is appropriate for your chosen genre or well composed, you will get a penalty in terms of ranking.
Most webmasters are aware of the importance of search engine optimization, but sometimes overlook the need for appropriate content article writing. In order to determine a site's viability, the search engines will visit and will fully analyze the makeup of the written word within. If they do not think that it is appropriate for your chosen genre or well composed, you will get a penalty in terms of ranking.
Many people who are trying to shortcut the process of convincing the search engines to rank their site used to believe that it was okay to "stuff" keywords onto a page and this was sufficient. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the search engines have a sophisticated set of algorithms that will check not only for the appropriate presence of primary keywords but also, in a process known as latent semantic indexing, determine whether the other words within the piece are also relevant. This means that if your content article writing is not first class, you are going to suffer.
People often wonder how they should proceed when they are composing articles and the short answer is that they should concentrate on providing information that is informative, educational, enlightening, or entertaining. If the visitor to the site is likely to learn something from the content then you will have achieved your goal. It is not necessary to worry too much about the correct insertion of your keywords - i.e. how many times each keyword appears, but you should worry more about quality writing.
Reproduced with acknowledgements to HubPages
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