SEO - Express Writers

Is Matt Cutts Leaving the Google Web Content Scene?

December 31, 2020November 28, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Anyone having basic knowledge of SEO and website development is familiar with the name of Matt Cutts. A digital “friend” slash ultimate horror to many webmasters, Cutts has been the head of Google’s web spam team and a company employee for almost 14 years. Matt Cutts surprised the online community in July 2014 with an announcement that held a little secret. A blog post informed the world about the break Cutts intended to take for a couple of months. In his blog post, Cutts wrote: I talked about this as recently as last month and as early as 2006. And now, almost fifteen years later I’d like to be there for my wife more. I know she’d like me to be around more too, and not just physically present while my mind is still on work. The leave was initially scheduled to last through October but Cutts presented another surprise in the end of the month. That’s when the world learned his leave was going to be extended into 2015. There has been no specific information about when Cutts will return and numerous people have reasonably began asking the question whether he’s going to come back and fight spam anymore at all. Cutts later took part in an interview and his answers suggest that a new professional direction could possibly be on the horizon for him. Brief History of Matt Cutts Matt Cutts joined Google originally as a software engineer. He has become popular through the numerous blog posts and videos about the best anti-spam techniques, particularly the ones addressing the latest Google updates (the Panda and the Penguin that shocked the SEO world starting 2012). Cutts is listed as one of the inventors of the Google search engines and web spam patented technology. Since then, he has often been the “bearer of bad news” that informed the SEO community about PageRank downgrades and penalties that have affected the search engine positioning of so many websites. Cutts has literally made hundreds of videos to answer the most common and pressing questions about algorithm updates, Google’s anti-spam policies, content creation and other news that have affected professionals in the field. He has also participated in a number of public initiatives and he’s also been a Ted speaker. Are We Bidding Matt Cutts Goodbye? After announcing the extended leave, Matt Cutts has provided a bit of additional information that has made many think he won’t be coming back. I loved the part of my job that dealt with keeping an eye on what important news was happening related to Google, but, it’s not clear that having me as a lightning rod for unhappy black hat SEOs, or something, is the best use of anybody’s time compared to working on other things making the world better for Google…so we’ll see. This is a big change from his original statement. In the first announcement, Cutts made it sound like he wanted to dedicate more time to his family. The next time he addressed the situation, there was some additional information connected to his Google work. Some more information was shared during a web chat show called This Week in Google. During the show (around 9 minutes and 50 seconds), Cutts said that everyone on the Google anti-spam team was doing exceptionally well since the start of his leave. The leave allowed team members to try new things and approach problems from a different angle. Cutts also said that the Google team encourages members to rotate between different departments and it’s rare for one professional to remain on the same position for an excessively long period of time. During the interview, Cutts said that he has a big number of other interests (computer graphics and commodity hardware being two of those) and would love to get involved in such an alternative project. To sum it up, it seems that Cutts has gotten tired of addressing the complaints of blackhat SEO professionals and bringing all of the bad news to such individuals. Though it’s a speculation, his comeback to the Google anti-spam team appears to be highly unlikely. If this prediction comes true, it will mark the end of a crucially important era that has changed the world of SEO and online content creation forever. It’s also interesting to note that the news about the extended leave was presented at a time during which a major layoff was announced by Microsoft. The latest Microsoft layoff affected Bing Senior Product Manager Duane Forrester. Just like Cutts, Forrester was a very popular professional and a representative of the Bing team who often made key announcements and interacted with webmasters. Forrester was a member of the Bing team for four years and his layoff indicates that two of the world’s most prominent search engines are facing the task of coming up with new visible personalities. Microsoft justified the layoff with corporate structure changes that affected several prominent Bing teams. Don’t Panic and Know Where Your Towel Is Yes, we just did a reference to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Webmaster forums and blogs have been buzzing with information and reactions about the extended leave. Some have been quite happy about Cutts being gone, others worry about the implications of having somebody else in the driver’s seat. Google’s algorithm policies have been going in a consistent direction over the past few years and one professional change isn’t expected to have significant impact on the course of events. Sticking to quality content, avoiding spammy techniques and working on increasing audience engagement will certainly continue contributing to effective SEO. There are some speculations about the latest Penguin update and whether it would have been rolled out differently under the guidance of Matt Cutts. It’s all a learning process, both for the Google anti-spam team and for optimization professionals. Only time will tell whether the Google policies about spammy practices are going to head in a completely different direction in the years to come. Photo credit: www.ted.com

Exploring Google’s Knowledge Box and Graph in Web Content

December 31, 2020November 21, 2014 by Adam Oakley

You’ve seen them in Google searches for a while now. You might not know exactly what they are, or you might be eyeing them hungrily, wanting to get your online presence inside. Google’s knowledge box and graph provide a means of answering questions you might never think to ask. They’re designed to be snippets of helpful, informative information. The idea is to assist users in discovery. And the results have been pretty amazing. Inside Search with Google demonstrates how a simple search can result in a knowledge graph that paves the way to discovery. We chose to perform our own demonstration. If you type “President Obama” into the search box, on the right side of the results page, you’ll see a knowledge box: As you can see, the box offers a handful of facts about the President. Google presents us with a single sentence summary and Wikipedia link to learn more. There are facts about his birth date, full name, spouse, office, and family. Google next presents a graph with links to Obama’s social media profiles. Discovery begins with a display of what other people who searched for “President Obama” also searched for. But what does this mean for website owners? If you’re business smart, you’re probably wondering how to get your business—your website—into that box, right? Google’s Knowledge Box and Graph: Organizing Web Content Information According to Search Engine Land, Google is on a mission “to organize the world’s information” in a concentrated effort “to make it universally accessible and useful.” That’s a mission of enormous proportions when you think of the sheer volume of information the world has uploaded, contributed, and published to the cyber highway. Only the biggest of search engines could hope to accomplish it, and Google is on it. The knowledge box and graph were built to assist with the mission. You might liken them to one of the gadgets from Q Branch that saves James Bond’s life on his most recent mission. But instead of packing a wallop of explosives or bullets, it’s armed with information. Just as James Bond was rather particular about his Walther PPK, Google is picky about their information. It’s not randomly thrown together every time a search is entered. Don’t believe us? Type “SMX” into the Google search box. SMX is the Search Marketing Expo. It’s only the world’s leading search engine marketing conference, backed by Search Engine Land and the Digital Marketing Depot. It’s a big deal. But here’s what the search results page displays for a knowledge box and graph: Google chooses to display a more “relevant” knowledge box based on my location versus a box and graph about the SMX I want to know more about. This demonstrates the shift Search Engine Land talks about, the shift away from keyword-based search to entity-based search. This shift should be of concern to you, me, and every other website owner on the World Wide Web. Entity-Based Search The shift in search has made a staunch point. Internal data quality is becoming crucial. Instead of cataloging keywords, Google is sniffing out the entities populating your webpages. It extracts entity information in two ways: Explicitly: An explicit entity is found when structured data markup is consumed using semantic web technology. Implicitly: Implicit entities are obtained when entity information is inferred from the text (or content) on a webpage. You cannot have one without the other. It would be like having keywords without a webpage or a webpage without keywords—useless. Website owners need to have both implicit and explicit entities to send smoke signals about the topic up to search engines. It strengthens positive vibes, if you will, telling Google and others that you’re a strong topic source. Once your smoke signals are rising, there’s a chance you’ll place in a knowledge box. Think of these spots as super elite. The number one spot on a search engine results page is elite, but the box…that’s super elite. It’s like the God of all information pointing at you and saying, “The expert resource is [insert your name].” It sounds epic, but it’s still in testing. Knowledge boxes and graphs aren’t popping with every search, and they aren’t always valuable. Sometimes they’re downright useless. And that’s why Google is continuously testing. Rigorous Ongoing Test Involving Us Columnist Eric Enge recently discussed how Google is using dynamic testing to better answer user queries and build out the knowledge graph. The new “search tool” is in a constant state of flux as Google continues their mission to organize the world’s data. In essence, Google is testing various direct answers to possible search queries. If the result is unfavorable, Google tries a different answer source until the user data says, “Hey! This works.” Consider our previous “SMX” search. In coming months, Google just might decide that users (like me) weren’t looking for a local result. I’d be on my mobile device for a local search. When I’m at my desktop, I’m in search of the bigger picture—the world’s largest conference, not the staff management company next door. In some cases, Google doesn’t even display a knowledge box. The search engine algorithms cannot determine perfect answers every time. Instead, the best possible match is calculated and tested in the real world. As Enge puts it, “you and me [are] the QA team for how good the results are.” Google is willing to do what it takes to provide valuable answers. Are you doing what it takes to provide those answers for Google? The Future of Search One thing is certain; the future of search is evolving. If there’s one prediction that can be safely made, it’s that content is going to grow increasingly important. Facts and citations are likely to be the well-researched “icing” that puts your quality content in favor of being one of Google’s answer sources. It’s probable you’ll have a chance to earn a knowledge box seat in the future. Could the box replace the coveted top spot on SERPs? Time will tell. … Read more

Google Pirate Hits the Web

December 31, 2020November 7, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Argh, me mateys! There be fewer torrents ahead! Who doesn’t love pirates? Google, and those of us who take pride in our creations from movies to music to content. We’re not talking about spunky and sometimes spooky fantastical characters. We’re talking about real, live cyber pirates who hand users illegal versions of programs, movies, music, and more. We’re talking about repeated copyright infringers, the thieves who make off with our content and spread it about the Internet. According to a recent Torrentfreak report, the latest Google Pirate update has had a noticeable impact on many torrent sites. Most of us have heard of torrent sites, but unless we’re big downloaders, we probably don’t know much about them. A BitTorrent is a protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing. BitTorrent protocol distributes huge amounts of data over the Internet. Torrent files can be anything from legally sharable software, like OpenOffice, to highly illegal shares, like cracked copies of Adobe Photoshop or pirated movies and music. Google’s Pirate Isn’t Torrent Friendly According to Searchmetrics, Google has been repeatedly criticized for “not doing enough against Piracy.” The nature of the Internet makes it next to impossible to police the proverbial waters effectively. It’s been argued that there’s no proven means of halting piracy on the high cyber seas, but Google’s Pirate update appears to be a step in the right direction. Since the update released at the end of October, popular “pirate” sites—BitTorrent and torrent sites—have seen massive drops in search traffic. It appears that the search engine giant is “policing” the high seas by deterring search traffic from locating these sites in the first place. Search Engine Land’s coverage of the update included the following screen shot of the SEO visibility for the site torrentz.edu: Image Credit: SearchEngineLand.com According to Wikipedia, as of 2009 peer-to-peer torrent websites collectively accounted for an estimated 43 to 70 percent of all Internet traffic, depending on geographic location. Jump to February 2013, and these websites are suddenly responsible for 3.35 percent of all worldwide bandwidth. This is more than half of the 6 percent total bandwidth dedicated to file sharing. There’s no denying that the distribution of pirated material has grown rampant. One might argue that it is virtually out of control. And it’s not just torrent sites that are the problem. Any site can be guilty of stealing content. Some event claim stolen content as their own. The Internet is so massive that it’s almost impossible for copyright holders to track down and report all offenders, but the incentive to do so just grew. Whom It Affects Google’s Pirate Update 2 works much like Panda and Penguin. Leveraging the data and queries collected by the first Pirate update from two years ago, Google’s new and improved swashbuckler is smarter than ever. You might say this buccaneer is sat proudly in the crow’s nest, actively on the lookout for copyright infringements. Any site where it spots a violation receives a huge drop in rankings. In some cases, sites are completely removed from search results. But Google’s not just spotting and dropping copyright infringing sites. The king of the cyber seas is applying real, verified complaints and reports to the algorithm. Any site with a filed report through Google’s DMCA system will be the recipient of a sizable drop in rankings. The site risks immediate removal from the SERPs. According to Searchmetric’s analysis, affected site are not receiving a mere slap on the wrist. You might say these sites are being made to walk the plank. Some have seen a 98 percent loss in SEO visibility, which is enormous. So far, it’s been unauthorized television and movie sites, peer-to-peer torrent sites, and various free download websites that have taken massive hits. Are You in the Bullseye? The good news, at least for most of us, is that Google’s Pirate is on a precise crusade. It seeks to spot and slash piracy websites. The current reports indicate that only mass download websites and those blatantly guilty of copyright infringement are being hit. It’s been about two weeks, and we haven’t seen any indication that there are bystander casualties. Chances are you’re not in the Pirate’s bullseye. However, there’s certainly nothing wrong with making sure that you’re not ever skirting the outer edge. After all, the websites hit by the swashbuckler are getting hit hard. Your goal should be to hold to best practices: Give credit where credit is due. Did you see the image credit earlier in this blog? You’ve probably noticed similar credits throughout numerous posts. It’s called giving credit where credit is due. When you “borrow” or share content, always give credit. It’s also smart to review the source. Read their terms and conditions. Confirm they are okay with their content being shared. See if they request a specific credit. When it doubt, cut it out. If you can’t verify the source of any type of content, don’t display it. If you verify the source, but they state their content is not to be reproduced in any manner, don’t reproduce it. If they are okay with reproduction, but it comes with an express permission clause, contact them for permission. If there is even a sliver of doubt, cut it out! Don’t share or reproduce the content, even with a credit. Observe the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have done to you. It’s solid advice for anyone, anywhere, any time. You wouldn’t want your content from words to images stolen. Don’t steal others. Instead, do everything in your power to promote a piracy free Cyber Sea. The best way to avoid the Pirate’s wrath is to avoid copyright infringement. Google is continuously improving their algorithms. We’ve seen the results in updates to Panda and Penguin. Spammy, low quality websites are being steadily weeded out of search results. As a stauncher stand on Internet piracy is taken, we can expect to see future updates to the algorithm. Keep your nose clean of copyright infringement; avoid distributing … Read more

Why We Gained A Huge Google Penguin Jump & How You Can Too (Content Blueprint Inside)

December 31, 2020November 6, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Have you experienced big ranking changes? So have we. Apparently, one of the biggest updates to Google Penguin in over one year happened just a few weeks ago. (The last major update to Penguin was just over a full year ago, on October 3, 2013.)Dubbed Penguin 3.0, this new one was a worldwide update, not just a local hit. It was a refresh or update of the original Penguin. This means that the sites affected negatively wrongly by the last Penguin were freed of their penalties, if they had taken the recommended Google steps for recovery. (Not sure about this? See my section detailing Google recovery towards the end.) Express Writers Dominates The SERPS We were stopped dead in our tracks when we had 400 unique visitors in one day during a recent weekend, on Saturday. Then, four contact requests occurred Sunday evening. That never happens on a weekend! We took a deeper look and saw that our overall ranking had increased majorly. We already had several dozen keywords dominating search: but today, we have rankings like we have never had before. We’re ranking in the top 3 results of Google for 37 keywords We have 88 keywords in the first page of Google We have 136 keywords in the first 2 pages Here are the stats in screenshots, from our SEO tool of choice, SEMRush. What happened during the weekend of October 18: We are outranking some of our major competitors with keywords in the first results of Google. We increased in rankings on a few keywords: and we held strong on keywords where some of our competitors lost more than 50 positions. This is awesome news for our company! We are staffing and hiring more team members this week due to the workload increase. What Were The Biggest Recent Google Updates? I know, there’s been a ton, and it’s hard to keep up. Here’s a brief recap of the recent Google change history, so you can see just how many major changes Google has gone through in the past few months: Google Pirate update rolled out October 21. This affected torrent sites aka “pirating.” Google Penguin 3.0 rolled out during October 17. Panda 4.1 rolled out September 23. Google Authorship was removed August 28. The SSL update occurred August 6. Our Content Blueprint: A Blog Every Other Day Keeps The Doctor Away Here’s our content schedule. I’m going to tell you EXACTLY what we do. This is a blueprint for anyone’s success, tailored to your level of services and amount of “news”, hot topics, and relevant pieces you can publish in a week or month. Remember, quality is most important. Never, ever force content. If you simply can’t get out a 3000 word blog three times a week without repeating yourself every week, drop down to once a week or twice at 1,000 words/blog. Change it up and find what works for you. The best days to publish are weekdays in the morning. We publish 1,000-3,000 word blogs on our site three days a week with links to other quality sites, and visuals (screenshots/images). We post each blog to all our social media networks. I publish one original blog a week (not too much more than 800 words) on my LinkedIn profile. We post on social media multiple times every day, tweeting our industry peers, sharing industry content, and our own blogs multiple times. We also publish custom-made visuals with hashtags (like these). We guest blog (maximum once-a-week) on five major platforms: SiteProNews, SocialMediaToday, SEMRush, SEO.com, and recently, one of the hottest platforms in our niche, SearchEngineJournal. We publish press releases with PRWeb every few months. We publish (on our blog) infographics about three times a year. Our content blueprint is exclusive to Express Writers. I haven’t copied this strategy. As a copywriting company, centering on web-based content, we can say one thing: we know how to write content. And if content is the #1 thing that Google wants these days, well—we’re just going to keep being winners! And we want you to be too. What Can We Do For You From This List? We can write all your blog content, publish it with a monthly schedule, and coming up we’ll have revamped social media plans that INCLUDE custom visuals! We can also write and publish press releases on PRWeb and write/create infographics for you. Disclaimer: If you want guest blogs, we don’t find or do any network management. You have to get on your guest blog platform of choice; we only write your content. But, it will be stellar enough to uphold your reputation on an awesome guest blog site. Now, moving back to the Google update changes… Were You Hit? If You Haven’t Already, Here Are The Google Steps For Recovering If you’re experiencing a hit in rankings, then you probably haven’t done the necessary steps to recover from the Google Penguin penalties. Here’s a brief how-to. Penguin focuses on penalizing anyone abusing links. Read the Google webmaster guidelines and find out if you’re violating any of them. On the Google Penalty Recover site, scroll down to Troubleshooting and follow the directions for manual action recovery. Have you done the penalty recovery steps? Contact Google directly for help here, at the top of the Penalty Recover page. Let them know you’ve done the steps and they’ll notice. Have A Deeper Problem? Look At Panda And Fix Your Content (Now) If you have a steady decline that goes past a sudden de-ranking from Penguin, time to take a look at Panda. Google is actually calling Panda a Quality Algorithm instead of a penalty. Panda was a site-wide penalty that affects all rankings for organic keywords, which will hit you if your site is featuring low quality content. Your entire site gets a lower quality score because of the problematic content, making it nearly impossible to rank at all till you fix the problem. I hope this blog and real-life … Read more

PubCon Vegas 2014 Speaker Talks about SEO as Content Marketing

December 31, 2020October 31, 2014 by Adam Oakley

PubCon is the top social media and optimization conference: it’s supported by the top businesses, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors involved in social media, Internet marketing, search engines, and digital advertising agencies. (Yes, one day I’ll make it to one.) This awesome event always offers an in depth look at the future of technology, as envisioned by the top-speakers, in cutting edge sessions. Moreover, at PubCon Vegas 2014, a noteworthy speaker made it widely known that content marketing and SEO are irrevocably joined at the hip. At the recent PubCon in Las Vegas, Carolyn Shelby spoke about how content marketing and SEO are inextricably linked. Shelby is the Director of SEO and SEM for Tribune Publishing. She also works for six Tribune newspapers, plus the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune. She has been in the industry since 1994, and she has been professionally designing and developing websites for nonprofits and a diverse variety of businesses since 1995. She consults, she speaks, and she isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty with hard online work. Her specialty is rehabbing underperforming and outdated websites. In addition, her appearance at PubCon sheds some new light on SEO as content marketing. What are SEO and Content Marketing? As you know, SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a specific website or web page in a SERP’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. Lee Odden, an industry expert from the Content Marketing Institute, recently described SEO as “a customer focused content marketing program.” He went on to say that it’s like a “sandwich” in which “SEO is the mayonnaise.” Although the mayo touches just about everything and enhances the sandwich’s flavor, it’s not exactly appetizing on its own. Content marketing is marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media content in order to draw in and retain customers. You might liken it to the bread of Odden’s sandwich. Good quality bread can really make a sandwich and complement its contents. While the bread may be scrumptious all on its own, it’s usually the contents of the sandwich that lead us to eating it. Why You Need SEO in Content Marketing If SEO is like mayo and content marketing is like bread, then obviously both are important. In her segment at PubCon, Carolyn Shelby listed the following reasons for why you need SEO in your content marketing: It helps identify the goals for your marketing, and it creates a performance benchmark It helps you select your themes and topics through good old-fashioned keyword research It assists you in writing that unbelievably amazing, on topic content It allows you to decide where to distribute and promote your content for the best visibility to your target audience It gives you the capability to run reports that show your ROI However, these aren’t the only reasons you need SEO and content marketing as a combo. Regardless of what people say, SEO and content marketing aren’t duking it out to see which species survives to the next step of cyber evolution. We’re not looking at survival of the fittest or a corporate takeover. We’re staring at a merger. The people who go around pushing “Content Marketing vs. SEO” are chomping at the bit to pit them against each other like a couple of prizefighters. Not only do they want you to pick a side, but they also need you to do so. Do I have your attention? SEO versus Content Marketing The apparent implication comes across that, in order to be wise with your digital marketing budget, you have no choice but to choose between hiring only one type of specialist over the other. In this case, it’s the SEO guru over the content marketing king. Maybe you have a $3,000 budget dedicated to marketing to allocate as seen best fit per month. The dilemma then becomes, do you put your eggs into the content marketing or SEO basket? The only way this makes any kind of sense is if the intended SEO in question is of the black-hat variety. Black-hat SEOs were indeed a booming, albeit questionable, business practice for years. Today, their methods are entirely unethical, ineffective, and downright dangerous to your SEO strategies. Search engines don’t take too kindly to websites caught running a black-hat SEO tactic and they penalize those found guilty of doing so accordingly. It can be disastrous. The truth is white-hat SEO practices are tried and true methods of increasing visibility and ultimately readership, thus leading to conversion. One of the most talked about white-hat SEO methods is creating and publishing high quality content. Guess what? We just stepped into the domain of a seasoned content marketer. There is no choice between SEO and content marketing. They work together. In fact, awesome content is quickly turning into the ultimate SEO tool! SEO as Content Marketing: Two Sides of a New Coin Savvy online marketing professionals should come to the conclusion that content marketing and SEO are the two key contributors in an enterprise-focused marketing strategy. If your website is lacking in one or both of these areas, it has to be brought up to par. SEO experts shouldn’t be living in fear of the extinction of the craft they’ve worked so hard to build. Their roles will continue to be vital for a brand’s marketing strategy because they know better than anyone that effective, ethical SEO can’t happen without the necessary content to optimize. And where the content gurus know the ins and outs of epic content—like citations and internal linking going SEO viral—the SEOs know how to get search engines to see that content. We all strive to create high quality content with the intention of supporting our marketing objectives. If done properly, an integral part of our execution strategies will be focused on creating optimizations that will increase the probability of our content being discovered on search engine result pages. As it stands, claiming that SEO and content marketing … Read more

Can Spammy Comments on Your Content Cause A Google Penalty?

December 31, 2020October 23, 2014 by Adam Oakley

You’re the king or queen of combating spam; you’ve worked hard to keep it off of your website and blog by following all of the white hat SEO tricks. You may have even hired SEO trained writers who truly know the ins and outs of avoiding spam and therefore avoiding a Google penalty. As time goes on, you might start seeing more engagement in the way of comments, and all the sudden spam comments start popping up everywhere. What are you supposed to do? Will they hurt your rankings? Will you be penalized? Take a deep breath; don’t panic. Let’s take a look at whether or not spam comments will cause a Google penalty and how you can avoid getting spam comments on your content, period. Can Spam Comments Cause A Penalty? This was a major question for several businesses as Google caught on and became a very big deal. Even in the early days, many sites had things in place to help prevent spam, but occasionally a comment or two would get through. Nowadays, comment spam can actually still have an impact on your rankings and traffic. In fact, some people have reported seeing a drop in traffic simply due to comment spam. This doesn’t seem very fair to people because you are working so hard to follow the rules; you can’t manage everyone else and what they write, or if the spambots make it through your barriers. The next question many people ask is how can Google penalize you for a spam comment in your content; let’s take a look at the reason. How Can This Happen? While it seems like Google is capable of some crazy stuff, the reality is, what is checking your site for spam is a computerized algorithm, not a human being. It is rare to have a person go through your site and give you penalties, so this means that the algorithm probably isn’t going to discern what is a comment and what is your content. When the algorithm sees a spam comment, chances are you will receive a penalty from Google, lose ranks, and see a drop in traffic. Some people worry that what causes this is that a comment is considered too long by Google. Because of this, some sites have instituted a “no longer than three words” policy, but many are finding this to be very limiting to their clients. However, don’t worry, the length of the comment isn’t what will make the algorithm mark it as spam. Should You Allow Comments? Now that you know that a spam comment could cause a penalty, you’re probably wondering if you should allow comments at all. You still should have comments available for your customers because they are important to an online business and can help make it very successful. Just how important are comments? Here are two reasons: 1. They Promote Engagement. Commenting does something that is absolutely vital in Internet business; they promote a sense of community and involvement. You won’t be able to rely on face-to-face interactions with clients all the time, and if you are solely based online, face-to-face is just something that won’t happen. This makes blog and website comments important because your clients are able to interact with you. You learn from your clients, you can talk directly to them, and comments do create that feeling of community for everyone involved. 2. They Allow Customers To Voice Their Concerns Or Praise. In addition to promoting a feeling of community, you will also notice that this can be a perfect opportunity for your clients to voice their concerns or praise. Many times, you might find that you hear from your clients quicker through a blog comment than through a survey, especially if they interact well will your blog or find something that stands out to them. This helps to facilitate point one and create that great community feeling. User-Generated Content And Google You should also make sure that you have a policy in place for user-generated content. Many times, you might think that this won’t have much bearing on your content and ranks, but user-generated content, such as a wiki, can cause you a penalty if it is filled with grammatical and spelling errors. Consider approving all user-generated content before it goes live to ensure that it doesn’t look spammy or that it doesn’t have tons of typos. How To Avoid Spammy Comments In the end, yes you should allow blog comments. However, that opens up the scary door of what to do to avoid getting spam comments. You don’t want to be faced with a Google penalty, but you also want to allow your clients to comment. What can you do? Let’s look at a few great ways to help you avoid spam comments on your blog to keep your ranks high. 1. Monitor All Of Your Comments. This might seem like it would be exhausting, but if you create a daily schedule to look at your comments once every day, you will be able to accomplish this. Simply go to your comment section and see if any new comments have been posted and look to see what they are. You should be doing this anyways because you should be engaging with new comments. This will help you knock out two things at one time, check for spam and engage with your clients. A great idea is to consider dedicating about an hour to this right after lunch. This can give you your morning to do other tasks, but also give you enough time to look through all of the comments if you get distracted. You are more likely to put this off if you wait until the end of the day. After a few days of doing that, you’ll realize that the comments sure do pile up quickly! 2. Delete Any Spam Comments Daily. When you see a spam comment, delete it right away. Never put it off because you might forget it. Like … Read more

Google’s 27th Panda Update Hits SERPS: What It Means for Your Web Content

December 31, 2020October 9, 2014 by Adam Oakley

I covered Google’s crack down on spam with Panda 4.0 back in May, and now the search titan has struck again with yet another update (the 27th, to be exact) to its algorithm, just when we were all finally adjusting to the last. Luckily, it’s not a massive change, but it still packs a punch. So once again, it’s time to pivot strategies and tweak practices to stay on (or get on) Google’s good side. However, in order to pivot correctly, we first need to know exactly what has changed. The last thing anybody wants to do is reel into a wall at full speed, and as is the case with any of Google’s algorithm updates, any wrong adjustments could be devastating to your overall ranking. What’s New in the Latest Google Panda Update? As is so often Google’s modus operandi, they’re not telling us a whole lot about the exact changes to the algorithm, but the SEO expert is giving us some details as to what the intent of the update includes. The update was unleashed onto the World Wide Web last Wednesday. And according to Search Engine Land, the latest roll out has been dubbed “Panda 4.1” because the update is small and doesn’t warrant a boost to a full-fledged 5.0. In the announcement that was posted on the Google+ page of Google World Trends Analysts in the UK, Pierre Far observed that the feedback provided by both user and webmaster sources led to the discovery of more signals to assist Panda in identifying thin, low quality content more readily. As a result, we’re going to see a lot more high quality, small- to mid-sized websites ranking higher. So while it’s not a huge update, it is important—especially to those of us focusing our resources on high quality content production. Thin content will be penalized even more than before, seriously affecting search engine rankings. The update is designed to be more precise at catching poor content than the previous updates, and it puts even more emphasis on quality. The update will also allow sites that were previously hit by penalties under Panda 4.0 to have a chance at redemption; Assuming, of course, that they made the proper changes to allow for it. Just because your site was penalized under 4.0 does not mean that all of your penalties will be cleared and you’ll be given a clean slate. The guidelines are still strict, and the penalties are still harsh. The Possible Impact to Your Website Panda 4.1 is intended to give a boost to smaller sites that have high to medium quality content. It’s basically a Goliath trying to help out the David’s of the Wild West we call the Internet. Pierre Far also stated that Google believes only 3 to 5 percent of search queries in the SERPs will be affected. However, the Panda update did have some unintended casualties. For example, according to Search Metrics, some sites, such as MedTerms.com (a medical terminology website), have been caught in the crossfire. Below is a graph showing the SEO visibility of MedTerms.com from June 22, 2014, to September 28, 2014: As you can see, they took a -40 percent hit in SEO visibility between September 21, 2014 and September 28, 2014. And they aren’t the only victim: OnHealth.com took a -57 percent hit HubPages.com took a -46 percent hit It’s entirely possible that there were other reasons for various sites losing a percentage of their SEO visibility. For example, redirects or a changed URL could be to blame for the drops. Correlation is not necessarily causation, but it seems to have a strong link right now. Although it’s still early goings, it seems as if lyric sites, game sites, and some medical content sites are on the losing end of the algorithm update. The early winners seem to be news sites, content heavy sites, and the download portal realm. Search Metrics goes on to spotlight some sites that have witnessed huge increases in their SEO visibility since the update went live: GeekWire.com saw a 144 percent increase ThePirateBay.se saw a 162 percent increase Spoonful.com saw a 218 percent increase Conclusion: The Content Throne Is Even More Prominent It’s pretty obvious that the new Panda update is taking quality a step further as it aims to help smaller websites. The algorithm is growing ever more apt at spotting and rewarding high quality websites while penalizing those that don’t make the grade. Dare we say that the throne where content sits as king has just gotten a bit more prominent? The update has leveled the playing field, in a sense, and it’s now possible for little brother to play with the big boys, meaning that if you’re a small site that delivers high quality content, your door to the big leagues in rankings is wide open. While the update doesn’t add a whole lot of new terminologies or methods, it is designed to continue removing redundant, irrelevant content and spam from Google indexes. 4.1 re-asserts the fact that quality content is, was, and forever shall be the king of the SEO world. If your content is subpar, then there isn’t a single algorithm update that will save your site from poor ranking. You can use every trick in the book in an attempt to guide a horse (the audience) to water (your website), but it will be for not without quality content. It’s the content that keeps people coming back for more and ultimately results in epic SERP ranking right alongside conversion. Google Panda: The Final Verdict Google’s 27th Panda update just goes to show that quality content is a staple of SEO. As a copywriting expert, we know that a great deal of time and energy goes into brainstorming, creating, and publishing high quality copy. It’s time and energy that will never be wasted because Google’s algorithms keep getting smarter at spotting and rewarding awesome content. Audience focused, well written, and engaging copy IS the future. Investing in … Read more