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John Metzlertalks
about Google's latest algorithm change which has penalized some
website for "over-optimization" of the site. Find out
what's going on with the new and improved Google and what you can
do now that the algorithm has changed.
Google's New SEO Rules
Google has recently made some pretty significant changes in its
ranking algorithm. The latest update, dubbed by Google forum users
as "Allegra", has left some web sites in the dust and
catapulted others to top positions. Major updates like this can
happen a few times a year at Google, which is why picking the right
search engine optimization company can be the difference between
online success and failure. However, it becomes an increasingly
difficult decision when SEO firms themselves are suffering from
the Allegra update.
Over-optimization may have played the biggest part in the dropping
of seo-guy.com from the top 50 Google results. Filtering out web
sites that have had readability sacrificed for optimization is a
growing trend at Google. It started with the Sandbox Effect in late
2004, where relatively new sites were not being seen at all in the
Google results even with good keyword placement in content and incoming
links. Many thought it was a deliberate effort by Google to penalize
sites that had SEO work done. It's a few months later and we see
many of the 'sandboxed' web sites finally appearing well for their
targeted keywords.
With 44 occurrences of 'SEO' on the relatively short home page
of seo-guy.com, and many of them in close proximity to each other,
the content reads like a page designed for search engine robots,
not the visitor. This ranking shift should come as no surprise to
SEO professionals as people have been saying it for years now: Sites
should be designed for visitors, not search engine robots. Alas,
some of us don't listen and this is what happens when search engines
finally make their move.
One aspect of search engine optimization that is also affected
in a roundabout way is link popularity development. After observing
the effects of strictly relevant link exchanges on many of our client's
sites recently, we've noticed incredibly fast #1 rankings on Google.
It seems Google may be looking out for links pages designed for
the sole purpose of raising link popularity and devalues the relevance
of the site. After all, if a links page on a real estate site has
100 outgoing links to pharmacy sites, there has to be a lot of content
on that page completely unrelated to real estate. Not until now
has that been so detrimental to a site's overall relevance to search
terms. It goes back to the old rule of thumb: Make your visitors
the top priority. Create a resources page that actually contains
useful links for your site users. If you need to do reciprocal linking
then keep it relevant and work those sites in with other good resources.
Keeping up with the online search world can be overwhelming for
the average small business owner or corporate marketing department.
Constant Google changes, MSN coming on the scene in a big way, and
all the hype around the new Become.com shopping search function
can make heads spin. But just keep things simple and follow the
main rules that have been around for years. Google, as well as other
search engines, won't ever be able to ignore informative, well written
content along with good quality votes from other web sites.
About the Author
John Metzler is the co-creator of Abalone Designs, Inc. www.abalone.ca,
a Search Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has
been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999 and has
helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO companies in
the world.
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