At the same time as announcing 40 search updates that happened in February, Google has also confirmed that the latest Panda 3.3 update has hit the web. 

Google says “This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.” 

Following on from Panda 3.2 in January, the 3.3 update includes getting rid of a link evaluation tool that Google has been using for years.  Google said “We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often re-architect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.”

Trying to work out what exactly this means and how it may affect SEO and websites is anyone’s guess, Google drops these gems but are obviously reluctant to give away too much detail about how they actually rank search results.  Another giveaway from Google was concerning local search rankings where they stated that traditional algorithm ranking factors are now playing a bigger part in triggering local search results.

Among the many other updates some of interest includes more accurate detection of official pages, expanding the size of their images index in Universal Search, a “Site:” query update and international launch of shopping rich snippets.

On the 1st anniversary of Panda, Google shows no signs of resting on their laurels which means that search engine optimisation continues to be as important as ever to ensure we keep up with the changes.

New Google employer Jonathan Rockway recent comments have shocked the search engine community declaring that ‘SEO isn’t good for users or the internet at large’ and Google ranks those who buy PPC ads higher in the organic listings.

Google Says; SEO isn’t Spam

The statements go against the official Google stance that SEO isn’t bad. The company has repeated these sentiments again and again throughout its legacy. Even Head of Web Spam Matt Cutts did an entire video on how SEO isn’t seen as spam. Matt said outright, “We don’t consider SEO to be spam,” and added that SEO is “a valid way to help people find what they’re looking for via search engines.”
He did add that there are bad SEOs out there typically known as black hat SEOs that can produce web spam. But in general, SEO is not spam and there are plenty of good SEOs out there.

Google confirmed this week that Matt Cutts accurately portrays Google’s position on SEO rather than Rockaway’s comments.

Ads for Ranking Well?

Rockway comments on PPC ads were as follows; ‘It’s a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads, and Google is trying to fix the bug’. What shocked many with this is that it implies Google is changing things so that to rank well you must have PPC advertising.

Google officially responded to this with the following;

‘As always, Google search rankings are completely unrelated to Google’s paid advertising services and other partnerships, and there is absolutely no way for a webmaster to pay money to increase search rankings.
When it comes to SEO, many owners of high-quality sites can and do get their site listed well in Google’s search results and prefer to have someone else check and optimize their sites’

It’s great to see other Googlers coming out with comments about the entity that is Google however it shows how one employer’s comments can rock the boat by not knowing what they are talking about.

If you need any SEO advice or help with your online reputation management contact OMG Search today.

The Yahoo and MSN search alliance transition to Microsoft Advertising adCenter is now set for April 2012. Advertisers must now start to use there adCenter accounts to manage PPC campaigns so that with just one account, your search paid ads will reach users on both Yahoo Search and Bing plus the relevant partner sites and networks.

Advertisers have been advised that their Yahoo account will be moving into a read-only state meaning focus must be applied to adCenter accounts specifically if you were not running ads via Bing previously.

Key steps to consider:

• Migrate the necessary activity that is not live in Yahoo accounts to AdCenter
• Review ad copy: Character allowance in ads will be changing from February 2012
• Review keywords and the applied match types including negative keywords
• Review geo targeting options
• Adjust bids – AdCenter minimum bids are higher and a monthly budget is required, ensure these changes are monitored to ensure continuity of activity

The search alliance rolled out across the US in 2010 with many advertisers seeing increases in performance post transition with others reporting no major changes. It is imperative these changes are monitored for the health of your campaigns

If you need any PPC advice or help during the search alliance contact OMG Search today.

Google have today launched their latest algorithmic change looking at webpage layouts and specifically the amount of content you immediately see when you have clicked on a result.

This is in a response to users who are fed up with having to scroll down a page, past all the ads and banners in order to find the content that they are searching for. This news is nothing new though and probably more of a reminder to webmasters that unique and well written content is still one of the stay fasts for effective SEO. What Google aims for is to give the end user the information they want quickly.

Google are specifically looking at sites that have limited content ‘above the fold’ or the first thing a user will see when arriving on a page. These websites may see rankings change over the next few weeks and months, although there is no need to panic as this should affect less than 1% of global searches translating to one in 100 searches.

Putting ads ‘above the fold’ is not a complete no no and is common practice for many sites as the ads perform well. Google are aware that well placed ads monetise online content and this new algorithm will only affect excessive advertising or sites with very little visible content above the fold.

If you feel your layout may need updating just follow this simple SEO advice and put yourself in the seat of the user, ask yourself are you happy with the results you get from your website using the relevant keywords. By doing this you are focusing on the user experience and should be able to avoid any major dips in rankings.

Within the realms of Google’s algorithmic changes this is a just one of over 500 improvements that Google expect to roll out to improve their search results for the end user in 2012. 

If you need any SEO advice contact Search today.

Rather unusually, the three major search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo! have come together for one common purpose: to help webmasters mark-up HTML pages in order to improve their website optimisation. The three engines have implemented a collection of html tags called schemas, with the aim of creating a common vocabulary for structured data mark-up on web pages.

These search engines certainly take their fair share of flak and jibes from the media who claim results from these engine’s search results have become increasingly bombarded with spam and poor-quality content. Whilst Schema is definitely not a spam crusher, it does allow Google, Bing and Yahoo to incorporate data snippets such as restaurant ratings, reviews, movies, locations, cooking times for recipes, all as part of the same structured data mark-up on varying web pages.

The new tags should enable website publishers and webmasters to improve how their sites appear in the major search engines, and hopefully contribute towards making web content more relevant and more enjoyable for browsers.

Thanks to the fact that all three of these search engines have initiated this new protocol, it should make it considerably easier for the publisher to deliver their data to the search engines and the end users. Or in simpler terms, Schema.org works as a one-stop-resource for webmasters to add in the most search-engine-friendly code they can get their hands on.

A few years ago, Google embraced this possibility uniform approach by introducing a service called ‘rich snippets’ which enabled its users to receive non-textual information (ranging from reviews, personal profiles, local business information or details about a specific product) along with the usual plain text snippet that accompanies each organic search listing.

Schema includes over one hundred different HTML tags for structured data categories ranging from events, places, people, organisation, products, films, music and TV programs. Due to the fact that when structured data is formatted into HTML it becomes increasingly difficult to establish the key data, Schema’s on-page mark-up allows search engines to understand the information on a web page and then use it to provide better quality search results. By sharing this mark-up vocabulary, webmasters can decide on a single mark-up schema and receive the maximum rewards for their efforts.

It appears that the search giants are looking to encourage this structured mark-up moving forward across the web, therefore powering richer search results and new applications. If you would like to keep up to date on the latest developments in the search world get in touch with one of our SEO team members today.