Don’t Fear Pandas and Penguins, Just Create Engaging Content

Google will forever be changing its algorithm and its guidelines for webmasters trying to rank high in the search engines. Along with this constant, you can always bet on one thing that will help your website succeed, not only with the search engines but with your target audience and that is content. They do not say “content is king” for no reason. Google wants webmasters to create engaging and relevant content on their websites. Interesting and informative content that describes your purpose will always reign supreme. It is pretty plain and simple when thought of in those terms.

However, we all know that Google’s algorithm is anything but simple; it is a complicated mathematical algorithm with many different factors. They created the monster in webmasters and search marketers that led to some of the issues that occurred in the past with webmasters trying to buck the system and take short cuts to get to the top. Their multi-factored algorithms caused Internet professionals to try a number of different things to rank well for their content. In doing so, many of those individuals got away from producing well written, relevant, and engaging content. Keeping the basic principle of content in mind is what all Internet marketing professionals should always strive for.

Google is continually making algorithm updates and changes. Some of them are more invasive than others, but the changes do not stop, nor is there any indication that algorithm changes will ever cease completely. Looking back at the history of Google algorithm changes, you can evaluate what might be causing any problems you see in your own website’s ranking. Google’s Web Spam Team is continually trying to make the results more honest and organic. They are penalizing websites that might have too many inbound links, especially if those links are from websites that have little or no value as far as content is concerned.

Penguin Update Technology

The purpose of the Penguin updates is to specifically target websites that are using tactics that go against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If someone has tried to use poor linking tactics, poor content, linking schemes, or other short cuts, the Penguin technology will identify those websites and apply a penalty that will lower the rank for that page or possibly remove the website from Google’s index entirely.  Matt Cutts heads up Google’s Web Spam Team. They are committed to and focused on implementing tougher technology to detect black hat spammers and irrelevant websites, while also providing more help for legitimate webmasters.

Matt Cutts and the Google Web Spam Team

This video from Google’s Webmaster Help features Matt Cutts discussing some of the key points addressed in past Penguin algorithm updates. Here are some quick bullet points summarizing how to cultivate content and successfully rank in searches aimed at your target audience:

• Webmaster should continue to work on developing compelling websites that visitors will want to share with friends, save, and come back to continually as a resource for interesting content.

• Penguin updates are dedicated to targeting black hat web spam, so if you have been partaking in any linking activities or strategies that are forbidden in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, you should expect to have ranking issues.

• Penguin updates will continue to get more targeted and specific; it can affect the entire site or just a page on a website.

• Advertorials are fine, but they should be clearly identifiable and labeled as such with no-follow links because they should not be used in an attempt to pass page rank. Limit the amount of links in the advertorials too. Users should be able to identify an advertorial immediately.

• The Web Spam Team will be looking into specifically denying value to link spammers, with a special concentration on industries with many known offenders such as payday loan sites and pornographic sites.

• New technology is constantly being developed to make spammers less effective. This will include link analysis software and technology to detect hacked sites.

• Webmasters can always look to Google to find out what the best practices are. Google realizes that it is important for them to communicate with webmasters and are looking into more ways to offer help and guidance to legitimate webmasters and website owners.

• Besides devaluing sites that are not up to par, Google is also continually looking to improve rankings for sites is by finding ways to identify sites that are an authority in their specific area, industry, or topic. So, your content should reflect your expertise in your industry or area of interest.

• Since the Penguin algorithm has been in place, there is much fewer spam websites listed in Google’s rankings.

• Tie in the latest news and relevancy into your content and your writing to keep your website content fresh.

• Press releases should not be overloaded with keyword rich text and the links from press releases should also not pass rank to the website. Press releases are still a great way to get the word out about your website or company news, but the links in them should be no follow. Press releases should not be considered a linking technique for the purposes of search engine optimization.

 Conclusion

Offering engaging content is absolutely critical to your business’s success. Not only does your content need to be top notch but it constantly needs to be top notch. You are building a reputation of quality, value and engaging content that other people will go out of their way to be a part of.