Google Algorithm Update Analysis for Website Ranking

Posted by Admin on October 26th, 2007 — Posted in Search Engines

by jondey

Anybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any clients on the losing end of that equation however we have called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming. After a weekend of analysis there are some curiosities in the results that simply require further tweaks in the ranking system.

This update seems to have revolved around three main areas: domain age, backlinks and PageRank.

Domain Age

It appears that Google is presently giving a lot of weight to the age of a domain and, in this SEO’s opinion, disproportionately so. While the age of a domain can definitely be used as a factor in determining how solid a company or site is, there are many newer sites that provide some great information and innovative ideas. Unfortunately a lot of these sites got spanked in the last update.

On this tangent I have to say that Google’s use of domain age as a whole is a good filter, allowing them to “sandbox” sites on day one to insure that they aren’t just being launched to rank quickly for terms. Recalling back to the “wild west days” of SEO when ranking a site was a matter of cramming keywords into content and using questionable methods to generate links quickly I can honestly say that adding in this delay was an excellent step that insured that the benefits of pumping out domains became extremely limited. So I approve of domain age being used to value a site – to a point.

After a period of time (let’s call it a year shall we) the age should and generally has only had a very small influence on a site’s ranking with the myriad of other factors overshadowing the site’s whois data. This appears to have changed in the recent update with age holding a disproportionate weight. In a number of instances this has resulted in older, less qualified domains to rank higher than newer sites of higher quality.

This change in the ranking algorithm will most certainly be adjusted as Google works to maximize the searchers experience. We’ll get into the “when” question below.

Backlinks

The way that backlinks are being calculated and valued has seen some adjustments in the latest update as well. The way this has been done takes me back a couple years to the more easily gamed Google of old. This statement alone reinforces the fact that adjustments are necessary.

The way backlinks are being valued appears to have lost some grasp on relevancy and placed more importance on sheer numbers. Sites with large, unfocused reciprocal link directories are outranking sites with fewer but more relevant link. Non-reciprocal links lost the “advantages” that they held over reciprocal links until recently.

Essentially the environment is currently such that Google has made itself more easily gamed than it was a week ago. In the current environment, building a reasonable sized site with a large recip link directory (even unfocused) should be enough to get you ranking. For obvious reasons this cannot (and should not) stand indefinitely.

PageRank

On the positive side of the equation, PageRank appears to have lost some of it’s importance including the importance of PageRank as it pertains to the value of a backlinks. In my opinion this is a very positive step on Google’s part and shows a solid understanding of the fact that PageRank means little in terms of a site’s importance. That said, while PageRank is a less than perfect calculation subject to much abuse and manipulation from those pesky people in the SEO community it did serve a purpose and while it needed to be replaced it doesn’t appear to have been replaced with anything of substantial value.

A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green bar to gague a site’s trust on (good call Google). With this in mind one of two things has happened; either Google has decided the TrustRank is irrelevant and so is PageRank and decided to scrap both (unlikely) or they have shifted the weight from PageRank to TrustRank to some degree and are just now sorting out the issues with their TrustRank calculations (more likely). Issues that may have existed with TrustRank may not have been clear due to it’s weight in the overall algorithm and with this shift reducing the importance of PageRank the issues that face the TrustRank calculations may well be becoming more evident

In truth, the question is neither here nor there (as important a question as it may be). We will cover why this is in the …

Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? First, it means that this Thursday or Friday we can expect yet another update to correct some of the issues we’ve seen rise out of the most current round. This shouldn’t surprise anyone too much, we’ve been seeing regular updates out of Google quite a bit over the past few months.

But what does this mean regarding the aging of domains? While I truly feel that an aging delay or “sandbox” is a solid filter on Google’s part – it needs to have a maximum duration. A site from 2000 is not, by default, more relevant than a site from 2004. After a year-or-so the trust of a domain should hold steady or at most, hold a very slight weight. This is an area we are very likely to see changes in the next update.

As far as backlinks go, we’ll see changes in the way they are calculated unless Google is looking to revert back to the issues they had in 2003. Lower PageRank, high relevancy links will once again surpass high quantity, less relevant links. Google is getting extremely good and determining relevancy and so I assume the current algorithm issues has more to do with the weight assigned to different factors than an inability to properly calculate a links relevancy.

And in regards to PageRank, Google will likely shift back slightly to what worked and give more importance to PageRank, at least while they figure out what went awry here.

In short, I would expect that with an update late this week or over the weekend we’re going to see a shift back to last week’s results (or something very close to it) after which they’ll work on the issues they’ve experienced and launch a new (hopefully improved) algorithm shift the following weekend. And so, if you’ve enjoyed a sudden jump from page 6 to top 3, don’t pop the cork on the champaign too quickly and if you’ve noticed some drops, don’t panic. More adjustments to this algorithm are necessary and, if you’ve used solid SEO practices and been consistent and varied in your link building tactics – keep at it and your rankings will return.

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More Viral Marketing Tips In Email Advertising

Posted by Admin on October 25th, 2007 — Posted in Internet Marketing

by Terry Detty

The biggest obstacle faced by any online entrepreneur using safe email advertising methods these days, has to be the slow speed with which email lists typically grow. For example it can take a very long time for an opt-in list to grow to a mere 100 names. Yet one needs thousands of names on their lists pronto to be able to successfully market their products or services using email.

Many Rapid-Building Email List Techniques Don’t Work But the first thing I must caution you against is getting carried away by so-called miracle-working programs that promise heaven on earth and email list building at the speed of light. There are actually thousands of claims we all come across fairly frequently online promising swift, overnight growth of our opt-in email lists. Most of the time they just don’t work as well as they claim. This has frustrated many would-be online email marketers who will naturally get very discouraged when something that they had pegged all their hopes on and maybe even paid a few dollars to get, fails to work.

The reason why many of these so-called miracle email list building programs fail to have any impact is because they are hardly able to attract any significant traffic. The truth of the matter is that without some very high traffic, it is highly unlikely that your list will ever grow.

This is the reason why using viral marketing techniques to build an email opt-in list makes so much sense and usually ends up being so effective.

Start by Building High Traffic The first thing you need to do is to create a viral marketing campaign designed to generate very high traffic to your web site or the web page where you intend to promote your email list.

There are various ways of doing this. You could post a sensational article in high traffic social sites like Digg.com which receives millions of hits every week. The more popular votes your article receives from other visitors to the site, the higher the traffic that you will end up getting. If your article happens to get high enough traffic, people will talk about it and link to it. This is the viral effect that could easily get you hundreds of thousands of hits.

Using Viral Techniques to Directly Build Your Email List This is not the only way to launch a viral campaign. You could for instance offer a valuable report for free on the condition that the recipient leaves you with their email address and the email address of several friends who may be interested in the same report. So if for example the initial 50 people introduce 5 friends each, that will give you 250 free new prospects. If the 250 do the same it will yield a further 1,250. The result is that within a very short time, you will have a huge opt-in email list.

It looks easy, but there are a few key factors that you have to take good care of. Firstly, every effort should be made to ensure that the special report being offered for free is something of great value and highly desirable to a very high number of your targeted audience. This will be a major factor and detail to take care of that will determine how fast your opt-in email list will grow.

Offer Services and Products In Exchange For Referrals One of the fastest conventional ways to build an opt-in email list for safe email marketing is by purchasing names for your mailing list. Why not then find a way to offer valuable services or products in exchange for referrals that you can put into your email list?

This is one of the most effective methods of building an email list rapidly. And remember that with a targeted email list, you will be able to recover your investment many times over within a very short time of regular email messages or ezines being sent out.

Terry P. Detty acknowledges that his Search Engine Marketing and Email Advertising programs are a couple of his passions in life. He also enjoys reading, writing and camping in the great outdoors. Terry’s latest interest is an Press Release Service program he’s been using quite often, which allows him to continue enjoying a stress free life.

About the Author Terry P. Detty acknowledges that his Search Engine Marketing and Email Advertising programs are a couple of his passions in life. He also enjoys reading, writing and camping in the great outdoors.

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