Google’s Penguin update is most “human” yet, calling for businesses to assess whether their web design remains SEO friendly

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Bob Sanderson

With the release of Google’s recent Penguin update, now more than ever has been the vital time to assess websites for their compatibility with search engines, as the new update is said to be the biggest step in artificial intelligence for search yet.

Google’s Senior Vice President says in a blog about the latest step towards being more human, “This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

We’ve always believed that the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want.”

The updates includes the addition of ‘The Knowledge Graph’, a feature designed by Google to make their search bots think more like humans, and they hope it will enable them to deliver even more accurate results for ambiguous search terms based on user intent.

Jack Menzei, Google’s product management director told CNN “The web pages we [currently] return for the search ‘kings,’ they’re all good.

You, as a human, associate those words with their real-world meaning but, for a computer, they’re just a random string of characters. [The Knowledge Graph] hones your search results right in on the task that you’re after.”

And with many companies still favouring more ‘traditional’ creative web design features such as Flash and over enthusiastic graphics with little focus on content and text, what will this change mean for their websites?

They will have to begin to look at things in a whole new light, through the eye of the searcher as Google has begun to.

Many businesses are already enlisting the help of web design companies in the UK to avoid losing revenue and web traffic due to the changes and to try to keep up with Google’s preferences.

Now focusing on the quality of text and content on websites, many will have to revamp the entire structure and overall image of their sites as well as quickly assess and add to their content to ensure it meets the high quality standards.

With the bar constantly being set higher, SEO web design is no easy task for even the professionals, but the key to success is keeping up with the fluctuating and ever more intelligent “thoughts” of the search engine.

Google Penguin penalises websites for ‘aggressive’ link building

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Bob Sanderson

When the Google Penguin update went live, webmasters and marketers were left confused as to why their search rankings had taken a turn for the worst almost overnight.

This was due to Google beginning their clamp down on ‘bad’ link building and rewarding those who took the original message on board and used it wisely.

In the 1990s Google announced that back links to a website would count as a ‘vote’ for the credibility of the site or particular page in question and its content, stating each vote would help to bring a website or page closer to their desired search engine page rankings.

However, people soon began to find shortcuts to ‘cheat’ the system by setting up websites and posting low quality content on there just for the purpose of the link it contained.

Through this they gained thousands of links in short periods of time, sacrificing all quality for sheer quantity in their race to the top ranks.

This ‘bad’ link building has been practiced for the best part of a decade, until Google has finally begun to crack down on the culprits and reward those who chose not to abuse the system.

Now Google say they will only consider ‘good’ links to websites with credibility and high quality content as valid, and any sites seen to be using ‘aggressive’ link building tactics will be punished.

Google’s Vice President Amit Singhai has said that Google are hoping that punishing aggressive link building and rewarding those who use authority link building will help to level the playing field once again, which in turn will help Google to improve their search experience and deliver more relevant and worthwhile results, rather than the “cross our fingers and hope there’s a Web page out there with the answer” solution that seems to be the current case for most search engines.

Due to the punishments now being handed out, many internet marketers and webmasters who took shortcuts in previous years are being forced to pay for their links to be removed from the low quality websites rather than pay for them to appear.

It could be said that karma has finally reached the world of SEO, and as Google’s search bots become more human and ethical than ever, link building companies are being forced to consider the ethics of their past, present and future SEO tactics.

Why you should keep an eye on your seo and backlinks on at least weekly basis?

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Bob Sanderson

I hardly check our Google rankings, at least I do not and there are number of reasons including “I do not have time” but this is not an excuse, I should check rankings of our own website and see where it ranks.

But I have been so busy in customer’s website optimisation that I hardly had a chance to look in to it

I have been previously blogging about Google Update January 2016 and have uploaded few videos about what an seo consultant can do and 12 key questions to ask your seo consultant but other than just that I have been hardly blogging and was looking in to different ways to repair search engine rankings and online brand reputation of those companies that have been affected by Google Update recently made live by Google (Call it refresh or whatever you call it but it was one of the most important update made by Google in the last 10 years

Anyhow, whilst checking for ranking for one of our keyword “link building” which was previously on page number 1 and #3 to be very precise on google.co.uk and also “seo” which was previously #8 on google.co.uk I have found these keywords below 5^th page, I should have thought about the Google 2016 update and its effects on us but rather than blaming Google I looked in to what happened “from the date when the rankings were there and when the rankings were not there” and what I found was just amazing!

Someone has placed over 10 links on some gambling and porn sites and I have found our home page linking to it, which was just great? But why someone would do it?

I have been able to find out when the domain have been placed/linked there, with what anchor texts and if you look in to what I have been looking, it is pretty simple to find that Google should have considered it as a paid link or a link that is not relevant which had affected our website rankings, which I find fair

But I do not blame Google for what they do, I have never done that, I understand how good they are and as they are helping those which do good work and the rest we get free (I am often said someone that just praise a lot when it comes to Google but I am just realistic).

Anyhow, I am looking in to these backlinks and I have sent an email to the webmaster requesting the link removal to be done as soon as possible and I have been told, It would not happen as the domain is live (expires)

Okay! I have chatted with that guy on Skype (I was able to find their phone number, address in India, as well as the name in Skype profile and I was told, someone has paid this guy.

I am not leaving this matter and I plan to look in to it, I am using Google tool to remove these links of no value (disavow link tool), but at the same time, I am involving law firm and police and also reporting this to Google.

I am aware of the fact that we would get our rankings where they were as the good work pays, but I am going to find out the person that has asked this guy to place our links on those sites, looks like fun? Yes it is

I will keep you guys posted about it soon, I am planning to go on holidays soon and before I go on holidays I am meeting a content writer in Leeds and I might go to Wales/Cardiff to see a transportation customer, the weekend seems to be really busy but let’s see how it goes

I will be next blogging about Google disavow link tool which you can use via webmaster tools, the real benefits of this link removal tool for small and large businesses, it is a really effective tool which makes webmasters and brands safe from bad link building strategy as well as bad seo practises, I will be also writing about bad links and good links discovery as well as you can learn a lot when it comes to search engine optimisation by leading brands and by looking at their seo and link building strategies and what they are doing. Too Hard? Not, its very easy!

SEO Tips and Techniques for 2016

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Bob Sanderson

With the Google Penguin search algorithm update in 2015 replacing its predecessor Google Panda, the way we search engine optimise websites has changes somewhat.

The following is a guide to the latest SEO techniques:

The Old Rule That Still Stands: Create Unique Quality Content

As always, content plays an important role in Google’s searches, but now more than ever it is vital that content is unique, resourceful and information rich.

No longer can thin, blabbering content with plenty of keywords pass the Google search algorithm barriers, as Google Penguin proves to be the most ‘human’ algorithm update yet.

The Next Big Thing: Content Marketing

Due to Google taking quality content so seriously, it makes sense to spread the content and use it to create quality backlinks for your site. That is why content marketing is becoming the next best thing when it comes to Google SEO.

Ensuring your content is published on a variety of quality sites frequented by plenty of people is hard but worthwhile as it holds substantial SEO value.

The New Vital Metric: AuthorRank

Google’s seriousness about high quality content and squandering bad backlinks is a continuing theme throughout, as it’s new AuthorRank system defines the quality of the content based on the reputation of the author/publisher.

The Debatable New Ranking Factor: Social Signals

As social media marketing increasingly becomes a part of every marketing strategy, social signals such as ReTweets, Likes, +1s and more are being considered as valid factors for search rankings.

Although the topic is still debatable, can’t hurt to get ahead of the game and start collecting those social signals for when the inevitable occurs.

The Growing Preference: Localisation

As location marketing becomes ever more popular, so grows Google’s preference for local websites and information.

Google can now pinpoint the location of the person performing a search and rather than bringing up global results no matter what their location, it now offers up pages that are localised to the person’s geographic location.

So get on board this trend now by adding local SEO content such as map data, citations, and links on local information sites to get ahead.

The New Content Favourite: Media

The growing popularity of multimedia has lead to Google favouring search results containing images and video in its searches.

Media with relevant tags and meta data are consistently being brought up and ranked higher than text heavy sites and it is only expected to increase, so ensure you have relevant media on all pages of your site if you want to keep up with Google’s preferences in 2016 and beyond.

Yet another Google Update underway in January 2016?

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Bob Sanderson

Have you lost your website rankings between 14^th of January 2016 and 17^th of January 2016? You were ranking really well and you do not see your website or see a massive drop in Google rankings at the moment and you were seen a massive decrease since this morning today? Well, then you are not alone!

There has been a lot happening in Google search results since 14^th of January 2016 and finally it has hit many companies on 17^th of January 2016 i.e. today. It is really hard to tell where it is Google Panda or even Penguin related changes at this very stage

I have seen a massive debate on Twitter, Facebook and in Google+ in general people nearly screaming about their Google rankings and I have personally analysed their websites and I must admit there was nothing to disturb the rankings (other than an update) and no its not a Google dance (the old term used by old fellows)

I can smell the changes made by Google in their algorithms which we are hard to talk about at this stage, even I have personally performed the automated checks to find out any records available on any news out there or anything said by Google employees or normal audience in General but there were no signs of Google update in any recent times

Many England top companies are not seeing their rankings, so if you are asking why your website have lost its rankings and what you should do, the suggestion is wait for few days and I am sure there is a story to tell about this and what to do in order to repair your rankings

On the other hand, many people that have been very active on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube and so on as well as having old domains, doing good working and in to good seo practises, there is nothing to worry about

It could be a slight Google’s update which may show your results back on their search engine result pages (serps) and in most cases even higher but if your website marketing or optimise in general was being handled by bad seo guys, chances are – you have a long way to go to repair your negative seo or online reputation this time as Google is very serious about it

I will keep you guys posted, I am keeping every eye on the most recent updates by Google, news and even Twitter and media channels and I will get back to you guys as soon as I receive a solid proof of that