If you haven’t yet heard about the latest Google update, referred
to as Penguin 2.0 you will! Why? Well because this will affect websites who
use, either intentionally, or unintentionally, manipulative SEO practices!
What is a manipulative SEO practice? That I suppose is the
million dollar question. Looking back at previous updates these have been
things like paid listings on various websites and directories. The first to go
were links from so called link farms, basically websites just set up to get
money just for putting links back to another website. Since then it has been
difficult to say which links are going to get penalised and which aren’t?
It amazes me that the likes of Yell.com, Thompsons and the
like are still in business. There business is taking money for links back to
websites? The difficulty as a webmaster is knowing where the black and white
is, but there is a lot of gray about! Of course Google cannot say how its algorithms
work, because even more cheating would go on.
The problem as I see it is down to Google in the first
place. Any search result or web page ranking that has anything at all to do with
back links is simply asking for trouble. I have wrote an answer to Matt Cutts
on his blog with what I think is the answer. AS I see it Google are chipping
away at the black with a tooth pick, instead of using some good old TNT!
These pesky back links are to blame. Unless you have a lot
of friends in very high (ranking) places, you are always going to struggle. The
focus should be, and should always have been on the design, structure and
content of the website. By using Google very own tools webmaster can find out
the popularity of certain words throughout their website. Presumably a website
that has “Ford Cars” appearing more times than any other phrase will have
something to do with Ford Cars. You don’t have to have 1000 back links to
discover this. Also if a website has 99 pages about wedding photography, then
you can be fairly certain the whole website has lots of information on wedding
photography – a lot more than a 3 page website, for instance.
Websites should also be easy to navigate, not for Google,
but for the people who want to use it. Next you should have not just page after
page of text, but also include pictures and videos. Matt Cutts has always said
that “content is king.” At the moment it is on the substitute’s bench, but I
hope, really hope that one day soon, it really will be the prime consideration
when judging a website.
My name is Duncan Malloch and my company is PWP Web Design which offers customers around the World advice on web design and search engine optimisation. Were on Facebook and Twitter too
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