Google's New Algorithm - Responding to the Challenge

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.

Received wisdom or the bleedin' obvious?

SEO has become a big industry in recent years. 

Even during the fifteen months in which The Middle Man has been in business the level of awareness that exists just amongst ordinary web-owners seems to have increased massively.  What was once almost a secret shared only by web developers and those in the business of optimisation now seems to be an almost universal topic of discussion.

One casualty of this new awareness would appear to have been the "knowledge" that has hitherto been held by the few and imparted to the many, often for a tidy sum, about how Google and the other search engines incentivise and disincentivise certain practices.  What has always indeed been a closely guarded secret - the algorithms used to decide the ratings that are periodically allocated to every site on the web - has been speculated upon with gay abandon by the great and the good within the industry, and the speculation passed off as received wisdom. 

Now I would like to introduce a new concept to the debate.  It is known as the bleedin' obvious and its methodology is the scientific application of trial and error.

Let me give you an example.  Type the words "The Middle Man" into Google.  At the time of writing there are a total of 669,000,000 returns on this keyword and our own business promotion website is third on the that list.  That is third - two sites in front of us, and 668,999,998 behind us!

Now we like to think we are good, but we are not that good.  As a new business our website at the moment only has a Google PR of 1.  We are quietly confident that with the next assessment we will improve, but as things stand PR1 is where we stand.  So how is it then that we are so high up in the ratings for that particular keyword?

The reason is simple - it is the title of our site.  They are the three words, in that order, that are contained in our title tags.  Many of the sites that are well behind us in the list for that keyword have considerably superior page rank to us.  But this keyword has more relevance to our site, because it is the name by which our site is known.

Even if a high ranking site with Google PR of 9 or 10 were to introduce this keyword into the text of their homepage we would remain above them, because it has more relevance to our site. 

But just in case you think our position on Google might be a fluke, try another example.  Type the words "Accrington Stanley" into Google.  The site at the top of the list is that of Accrington Stanley Football Club, which has a Google PR of 0.  And yet the words "Accrington Stanley" will appear every Saturday on the sports section of the BBC's website, which has a Google PR of 9.  The club site beats it in the authority stakes when it comes to those words because those words are more relevant to the club site, and they feature in the title.

Therein lies the evidence, irrefutably, that relevance is more highly valued by search engines than simple page rank.  If you want the search engines to notice your site, give it a title that is going to create its own authority.

The application of trial and error in pursuit of the bleedin' obvious has led us to another conclusion, equally controversial but also equally evident - the mysterious Google "duplicate content penalty" is a complete myth, although using duplicate content does quite clearly draw less benefit in SEO terms than using fresh content.

I am familiar with a blog, a political blog as it happens, which is updated two or three times each day and has been for at least a few years.  I would estimate that between a half and two thirds of its main page content comprises verbatim reproductions of articles that had previously appeared either in major national or regional news publications, or on other websites.  A prime candidate for the dreaded duplicate content penalty, if such a thing truly existed.  And yet this blog carries a Google PR of 5, extremely impressive for a vehicle of its kind.  It doesn't even boast a huge volume of high quality inbound links.  The reason for its high page rank, one must assume, is the volume of original content generated through the Comments sections by the many visitors to the site.

Here's another example - as a prolific writer of articles I have a standard spiel that I use in the Resource Box when I submit my work to article directories.  When I have tested where this text appears on the listings through Google it is right up there at the top in respect of certain articles, yet much further down the foodchain where others are concerned.  The search engines have read the same text so many scores of times, and have assigned relevance to some over others.  But none of my articles themselves has been penalised for duplicate content.

I do not deride the hard work of SEO experts, but every one of them ultimately opines on the basis of nothing more than guesswork, albeit sometimes inspired guesswork by individuals who have had the opportunity to test the water and to subject their findings to intelligent and logical analysis. 

Where SEO is concerned, there is no more scientific approach to be taken than the patient application of suck it and see.