Google is making some public changes to it’s search engine algorithms
Google Algorithm changes coming for SEO again
Honestly, many folks never have a clue these search engine changes are coming – we only find out when one of our websites starts moving up or down. And even then it’s, “Oh crap. What did I do…” It’s nice to get some heads up on the actual changes they’re eyeballing. Google, and I’m sure their counterparts over at Bing, make near continual changes to their algorithms but it’s nice to hear some officially stated. Way too often it’s really just a whole lot of guessing what might be currently working.
Some of the big Google changes –
- Google is indicating that it will be more likely to pick text from page content rather than the header or menu information. I am going to assume that this means (to SEO folks) that we really need to ensure that our page content is up to snuff with keywords placed prominently and regularly and not just rely on the title and meta tags to be our only source of keyword data. We DO place our SEO keywords throughout the content, so this only bodes well for our sites. With any luck, some of those companies that have been relying on stuffing titles and descriptions will now have to go back and rework their content. Until we see definitive results, we will still be using keywords in our menus, headers and titles.
- Big one – Google will be putting less emphasis on the anchor link text for incoming links to your target site. We normally have a link at the bottom of sites that we create with “Lizardwebs Raleigh Web Design” – of course, we’re actually in Clayton NC, but there’s a much bigger pool in Raleigh so we use the anchor text to give us some relevant search engine juice. Then again, when there’s literally hundreds of web/seo people in the Raleigh market, it really doesn’t seem to help much for us, BUT, it appears that we now could pretty much put anything such as – GET YOUR LOCAL RALEIGH WEBSITE BUILT TODAY! I still don’t think it’s time to downplay the anchor text as it’s yet one more time to add your keywords to keep keyword density up there, but…
- It would appear that those microdata rich snippets are going to be more important going forward. I think we all sort of knew this was coming. More information will be provided about reviews, ratings and more included in the microformat specs. The microdata has been eluding me still with our WordPress sites. Still seems to be causing issues whenever I use one of the plugins to accomodate this data. It would appear I’ll need to get it resolved soon. Ugh.
- Better spotting of duplicate content. This one will be interesting to see what is done with it. There are a lot of duplicate content pages out there. Just flat out interesting to see how this is going to be implemented.
- Host crowding – D*MN it. This is where one particular host/websites gets a number of pages on a SERP. I believe that the target for Google was no more than 2 results per domain. However, I have seen some of my searches bring back 4 of our pages on front page SERP. While not actually a business plan or target, it does have the effect of knocking our competition to page 2 or beyond. *Of course, Google and Bing, I could do with a whole lot FEWER listings of listings on the SERP. Read “Yellow Pages” and other directory sites – if I wanted a directory of sites I could just go to the search engine and do a search for directories. If I’m looking for computer repair, do I really need to be directed to a directory? I would prefer to see real, relevant sites in my SERP from which I could just make my decisions. GIVE ME ONE CLICK GOODNESS TO RESULTS!
- Long tail keywords will get some love – I am loving this one. When you search for a long tail keyword – a “phrase” for laymen out there – Google brings back a lot of partial matches where maybe 3 of the 4 words that you entered in as your search term are highlighted and results brought back in your SERP. Likely due to high PR of these sites, even though they may not be relevant, they are brought back to your results page. Sweet – match all of those long tails and give me less guessed at fluff! Loving it!
- And finally – the more recent the content, the more love Google is going to show! And yes, we’ve always been aware that this was a factor – but it’s officially been stated that fresher content will be appearing more frequently. We’ve always been fans of regularly pushing content to your website. I think it gives visitors the knowledge that yes, this site IS viable and still active when they see some recent posts or activity. Back when I started doing websites back in 1997, I honestly think that websites were regarded as set it and forget it – website owners really didn’t worry about their content changes. Sort of like the Yellow Pages mentality – “My ad’s out there for this year and I don’t have to think about it until the next annual billing.” The web is a whole different set of rules folks!
If you have questions about how this may affect your website, give Lizardwebs a call.
Our SEO / Social Media people will be glad to sit down with you and give you an honest (and free) review of your website and your current strategies. From onpage optimizations to linking strategies and social media, we can give you the info you need to make your Raleigh website, Clayton website or other local website work with these new changes.
Grab a gander at the original info from Website Magazine!
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