Has the face of SEO been distorted?

Last month Google made many algorithm changes! What their company does mainly occurs in a momentary flash between hitting the search button and being presented with the first plentiful page of searches. The algorithms are mathematical formulas designed to chose what order information is displayed in.

Beauty Pagination

This month Googles’ primarily algorithmic alterations addressed ‘Pagination’. This is when content is split over multiple pages. Typically users cycle through pages using ‘next’, ‘previous’, and ‘view all’ buttons. Google suggests (if feasible) to consolidate content onto a single page as much as efficiently possible. Do not agglomerate if it means ending up with latency that makes you feel like your back in the 90’s. Therefore careful inclusion of the following HTML terms is going to be even more important than ever before:

1. Rel=”next”                          (Relevant to every page but the final one)
2. Rel=”prev”                          (Relevant to every page but the first one)
3. Rel=”canonical”                (Only applicable to a ‘view all’ page)

The point of this is allowing Google to index clusters of content as part of a specific set and show only the most relevant page on searches of that set instead of all of them at once.

For example, it would be ridiculous for a site with a wealth of photos to list all its’ results for a search on a single page as it would take ages to load. Though something some sites do quite cleverly is to charge visitors the option of becoming members and therefore gaining permission to view more results per page. Though typically blog posts that consist of text can be reassembled under a single site page even if it’s long.

It also seems that they will now be taking more interest in textual content that appears closer to the top of pages. Yet at the same time they are making search results draw up the most relevant sub-domain as opposed to providing blanket top-level domain direction. Get it?

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Location, location, location

They have also bumped up the importance of geography. Content that is more relevant to specific countries will fair better in searches from those countries. So as always, “Know your audience!”. Your top priority is striving for relevance to your physical situation but creating foreign-language translations of your content (if you wish to tap into non-native-speaking markets) remains a highly beneficial tactic.

For example if you represent a London Taxi company try to refrain from blogging too much about French food because it could lead to your site becoming a hit abroad as opposed to finding the Londoners you wish to address. Just remember to write for who you want to engage!

Under the hood

Some of their modifications aren’t of much use to you – the hopeful Search Engine Optimizer – in the sense that they are changes that cannot really be acted upon. However that is just my opinion so, here we will describe these seemingly useless tweaks, because you might see an opportunity in them where others have failed to.

• Now the search engine disregards pages containing 404 error text in Japanese and Korean sites too!
• There is a function that tells you when the Sun will rise and set in 33 languages!
• It is now easier to convert currencies in Turkish! €$¥
• Generally their translations are becoming more accurate! ત્યાં મારી હોવરક્રાફ્ટ ઘણા બામ છે
• Serbian news stories are now better clustered together into topical categories! Зато што Срби знају да странка
• Google attempts to understand the nature of your searches better based on your history! Big brothers watching…
• They’re trying harder not to make stupid spelling correction suggestions (and for more languages)! Did you mean ‘Salami’?
• Improvements to how search terms are scored in ranking! The conspiracy theorists will be happy.
• Disable salience in snippets!
• Improvement in freshness signal & no freshness boost for low quality content! So stay good & fresh.
• Tweak to trigger behavior for Instant Previews! That is when a search result displays a snapshot of its’ site on the right hand side.
• News universal results serving improvements! For all to better know what’s up.
• UI improvements for breaking news topics! They don’t give you information but try to do it fashionably.
• Improvements to triggering of public data search feature! A private detectives dream.
• More efficient generation of alternative titles & more concise and/or informative titles! If your not clear they will be for you.
• More comprehensive triggering of “showing results for” goes international!
• “Did you mean” suppression goes international!
• Improvements to SafeSearch for videos and images (especially in Russian)! No comment…
• Increase base index size by 15%! They have more to give.
• New index tier! Organization of their directory has been re-shuffled.
• Back-end improvements in serving! Does that mean our results are cooked up for us by robo-chef that’s being constantly upgraded?
• “Sub-sitelinks” in expanded sitelinks!
• Better ranking of expanded sitelinks (for megasitelinks)!
• Sitelinks data refresh!
• Less snippet duplication in expanded sitelinks! Curiosity killed the copy-cat.
• Mobile movie showtimes search feature in China, Korea, and Japan! Booking procedures need to keep up with us who are always on the go.
• MLB search feature!
• Spanish football (La Liga) search feature! Viva la amore.
• Formula 1 racing search feature!
• Tweaks to NHL search feature!
• Better HTML5 resource caching for mobile!
• Anchors bug fix! ⚓

This is all very cool because it means the Search Engine will work better to direct traffic to those who deserve it. Though whether your worthy or not is left more and more up to you. Their stated mission is to engineer organic algorithms. Therefore they are working their butts off to put a stop to all the unscrupulous webmasters who seek to manipulate the system by drawing benefits while providing nothing of value – only hindrance to the pleasant experiences of others.

Summary!!!

It should come as no surprise that Google has continued tweaking its’ algorithms in order to further penalize spammy content and award the good stuff. They have done this in a number of ways.

1. Publications by Authorities about what their expertise pertains to will feature higher up on searches to do with their topic.
2. Articles that have been stuffed with keywords to the detriment of content quality will be punished with poor rankings.
3. More domain diversity!
4. Excellent information will garner an excellent search rank.
5. Stuff that is both new and not shoddy will enjoy being bumped up the list in searches. So, stay sharp and relevant, or else…

Suggested reading: “The Secrets to Promoting Your Website Online” by VodaHost web hosting