After the 23rd April 2012 did you notice any of the items listed below for your internet site?
- Drop in the number of daily visitors
- Large drop on where your site appears in Google
If you probably did then your website has doubtless been hit by the most recent change of the Google search algorythm, a change they have named 'Penguin'.
The Google Penguin change has been launched to attempt to address what Google refers to as 'web spam'. Sites that offer poor, sometimes duplicate content and/or take part in aggressive search engine optimization (SEO) practices to try and manipulate their position in search engine rankings.
Sadly, like with other changes by Google the end result is never perfect and some good internet sites have been caught in the crossfire. The issue is this is very unfair on the website owners, particularly if it results loss of business to competitors.
When Google make these sort of changes it does act as a wake-up call, particularly if you're guilty of (quite innocently) falling prey to these axioms.
Link building can be dangerous
One area many home entrepreneurs get caught is purchasing an inexpensive deal to build 5000 links to your website for a miniscule fee. What you don't know is how those links will be built and, more importantly, the impact they're going to have. For that reason it is extremely sensible not to buy backlinks. In truth Google even states that links shouldn't be acquired.
For a site with excellent content and serving a meanigful purpose, links will build up naturally over a period of time. The method of how these links are built will vary, not only by the 'anchor text ' in the link but also the source.
For example, a natural link profile will come from directories, blogs, forums, press releases, social networks (like Twitter, Facebook, etc) and others. They will also appear over a period. Buying links may result in 1000's of backlinks all being built on the same day, all with the same anchor text and from the same kind of source i.e. Forum signatures.
Avoid duplicate content
Another important aspect of the change is to make certain that your website contains high quality content that is not cloned across several website pages (or other websites). Google can identify reused content and only gives credit to what they beleive is the original version.
This implies that a small business owner should guarantee that there's no unoriginal content and ideally look to ensure that content is constantly updated. Here is where a pay each month service can be cost effective by allowing frequent updates to keep content fresh.
Google's primary aim
I'd like to close by reminding you that Google is always considering search in respect of the user experience of the individual searching. If you keep this in mind when building your website and updating the content along with avoiding suspect SEO practices, you hopefully won't experience the wrath of the penguin.
- Drop in the number of daily visitors
- Large drop on where your site appears in Google
If you probably did then your website has doubtless been hit by the most recent change of the Google search algorythm, a change they have named 'Penguin'.
The Google Penguin change has been launched to attempt to address what Google refers to as 'web spam'. Sites that offer poor, sometimes duplicate content and/or take part in aggressive search engine optimization (SEO) practices to try and manipulate their position in search engine rankings.
Sadly, like with other changes by Google the end result is never perfect and some good internet sites have been caught in the crossfire. The issue is this is very unfair on the website owners, particularly if it results loss of business to competitors.
When Google make these sort of changes it does act as a wake-up call, particularly if you're guilty of (quite innocently) falling prey to these axioms.
Link building can be dangerous
One area many home entrepreneurs get caught is purchasing an inexpensive deal to build 5000 links to your website for a miniscule fee. What you don't know is how those links will be built and, more importantly, the impact they're going to have. For that reason it is extremely sensible not to buy backlinks. In truth Google even states that links shouldn't be acquired.
For a site with excellent content and serving a meanigful purpose, links will build up naturally over a period of time. The method of how these links are built will vary, not only by the 'anchor text ' in the link but also the source.
For example, a natural link profile will come from directories, blogs, forums, press releases, social networks (like Twitter, Facebook, etc) and others. They will also appear over a period. Buying links may result in 1000's of backlinks all being built on the same day, all with the same anchor text and from the same kind of source i.e. Forum signatures.
Avoid duplicate content
Another important aspect of the change is to make certain that your website contains high quality content that is not cloned across several website pages (or other websites). Google can identify reused content and only gives credit to what they beleive is the original version.
This implies that a small business owner should guarantee that there's no unoriginal content and ideally look to ensure that content is constantly updated. Here is where a pay each month service can be cost effective by allowing frequent updates to keep content fresh.
Google's primary aim
I'd like to close by reminding you that Google is always considering search in respect of the user experience of the individual searching. If you keep this in mind when building your website and updating the content along with avoiding suspect SEO practices, you hopefully won't experience the wrath of the penguin.
About the Author:
Robert George enjoys analysing the changes to the way the Internet is evolving and how this impacts the web site design of local business.
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