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Archive for the ‘Search Trends’ Category

Google Algorithm Change Promotes Freshness

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Google recently announced that they have made further changes to their search algorithms to provide “fresher” results. In addition, they claim that this change will impact 35% of searches. What type of searches does it impact? Google says:

  • Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.
  • Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you’ll see the latest information.
  • Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.

Posted in Oracast News, Search Engine Marketing, Search Trends | Comments Off

How to get a high quality website

Saturday, October 1st, 2011

What counts as a high quality website? Google recently changed their algorithms to help people find “high quality” websites by reducing the ranking of websites that have low-quality content.

Of course, we aren’t disclosing the actual ranking signals used in our algorithms because we don’t want folks to game our search results; but if you want to step into Google’s mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we’ve been looking at the issue:

  • Would you trust the information presented in this article?
  • Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
  • Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
  • Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
  • Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
  • Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
  • Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research or original analysis?

 

And the list goes on. Another important quote from the same article talks about how low-quality content on your website can impact the whole website’s ranking.

One other specific piece of guidance we’ve offered is that low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings, and thus removing low quality pages, merging or improving the content of individual shallow pages into more useful pages, or moving low quality pages to a different domain could eventually help the rankings of your higher-quality content.

 

Search Engine Optimization is a major component of your website strategy and should be taken seriously. Competing for top ranking positions in your industry is similar to a horse race; you and your competitors are jockeying for position. Are you winning the race? Having a high-quality web design will greatly help your ability to become one of the top ranked companies in your industry.

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Search Trends | Comments Off

Future Of Search: Quality of Websites Is On The Rise

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Julian Grainger, An Expert in the SEO field says it best. “Google’s future is moving toward modeling human opinion. (PR) Page-Rank was a voting system for websites by websites. Now we are moving to a popularity system. Power to the people.”

SEO MOZ conducted their annual study of the 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors polling 132 professionals in the industry on their thoughts of present and future of Search Engine Optimization. Over the pages of this document, you’ll see segmentation of the search ranking algorithm into various components like “page-specific, link-level features,” or “domain-level, keyword-agnostic features.”

In the section labeled “Predictions & Opinions > Future of Search” listed this chart:

Future of Search

If you work your way from the top down, the biggest factor on your websites performance and placement will be determined by the quality of content and the value perceived  by its users. Right from the horses mouth, The quality of a website is primarily a makeup of 2 things. Design Concepts & uniqueness compared to others in your industry & superior content & information to your competition. If your site is trusted by users and giving them a great experience then your ranking should be strong.

The next 2 factors are linked directly how your business is bridging social media outlets. Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter. The graphic below shows the social metric influence values from a page level. For the average person, If you don’t have Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn pointing to your site, It will become website suicide very soon.

Page Level Social Metrics

Is there still value in the “old ways” of domain & meta manipulation, for the short term, sure. But Google seems to be recognizing the flaws and anything Google does, Yahoo & Bing follow suit. Domain strategy will be a thing of the past very soon & it is our job as Search Engine Professionals to ensure your business is ahead of the curve. Call us today for a free consultation.

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Search Trends, Social Media Marketing | Comments Off

Google +1 Has Arrived For Your Site

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

It’s here, but apparently its not perfect… Users are running into a few kinks in the early stages of the release. Google +1 is yet another attempt to make Google more social. It’s Google’s version of the Facebook “likes” & to me reeks of desperation in the fast paced social media world we live in. A simple feature that’s very powerful because it’s part of a social network.

Google will show +1 buttons next to all search results and ads, while encouraging other sites to include the buttons. All +1′s are public and they’re tied to Google Profiles. The goal is to use this data to personalize search results and ads by recommending sites +1′d by your friends. Google Social Search already does this, but there’s no support for Facebook likes, so Google had to come up with a substitute. Truth is consumers trust each-other and the masses on social medial networks.

So whether this succeeds with flying colors or fails to catch on, business can’t risk not adding this application to their site. There is rumblings when adding this new feature it will help your overall page rank.  This Video a minute in length gives Google’s explanation of the features & benefits of Google +1. If you are feeling up to the task of adding the tags to your own site here are the instructions. If you need us at Oracast to assist, give us a call or email and we would be happy to help!

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Posted in Coding Tips, Search Trends, Social Media Marketing | Comments Off

Google changes search algorithm

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Google recently announced on their blog that they have made a big change to their ranking algorithm. They are now reducing the rank of low-quality websites and increasing the rank of high-quality websites. Here is an excerpt from the the article:

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. 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. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

We are happy to see this change as Google will now give more credibility to businesses that take their website seriously. In our next post we will talk about what constitutes a high-quality website.

Posted in Search Trends | Comments Off

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