Google Penguin

What exactly is the Google Penguin Update?

The Google Penguin is another change Google made to their algorithm Announced on April 2012. The purpose was to decrease the search engine ranking of sites that violate Google’s webmaster Guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques related to keyword stuffing, low quality backlinks, link schemes, and others.

Spammy link signals, paid links using exact match anchor text, comment spam, guest posts on low quality sites, article marketing sites and links from dangerous sites were among the issues for some sites affected by the algorithmic change. 

When you think on the Google Penguin just think on “None Keyword Density” and “High Quality Link Building.” That’s all you need to think about it so you don’t get overwhelmed about all of the content about the topic. Just give a look at what Google thinks of SEO: 

“Google has said before that search engine optimization, or SEO, can be positive and constructive… Effective search engine optimization can make a site more crawlable and make individual pages more accessible and easier to find…”

“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines. Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site…” 

What Google doesn’t like is what is called “back hat SEO.” What a black-hat SEO webmaster is looking for is to rank their webpages no matter what by not caring about quality and just for marketing or spam purposes. The 2 black hat SEO activities Google is against the most are “Keyword Stuffing” and “Link Schemes."

Keyword stuffing consists of loading the content of a webpage with a lot of keywords out of context with the intention of ranking a site in the top of the results pages.  

Links Schemes consists of any link intended to manipulate ranking in the Google search results. This includes links to your site or outgoing links from your site. This one is something Google really is after. Google does not like paid links, too many “follow links” (links from other pages that passes ranking power a specific page of your site), links exchanges, automatic link building, too many keyword-rich anchor text links, etc.

Here you see an example of Keyword Stuffing provided by Google itself:

These are the two most important things about the Google Penguin update and below you will see a really great list which will help you avoid the slap.

How in the world do you avoid a Penguin Slap?

The best links are those that people built for you naturally. But if you want to speed up the process you can still do it by yourself, but YOU HAVE TO BE NATURAL. That’s the great part of link building nowadays, you don’t have to leave your life in the computer to build them, because Google wants to see they grow naturally. In orderto avoid the Penguin slap you MUST AVOID:

 Lists of keywords without substantial added value

 Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for

 Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural.

 Buying or selling links that pass PageRank (do-follow links). This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link

 Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking

 Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links

 Using automated programs or services to create links to your site

 Text advertisements that pass PageRank

 Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass PageRank

 Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. For example: There are many wedding rings on the market. If you want to have a wedding, you will have to pick the best ring. You will also need to buy flowers and a wedding dress.

 Low-quality directory or bookmark site links

 Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites, for example: Visitors to this page: 1,472 car insurance

 Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites

 Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature, for example:

Thanks, that’s great info! – Paul   Paul’s pizza san Diego pizza best pizza san Diego

 PPC (pay-per-click) advertising links that pass PageRank to the buyer of the ad. (Taken from Google)

If you participate in any of these linking activities, let me tell you that Google is actively looking for these types of sites and is even asking for people to let Google know which sites they are.

In a resume what you really have to do is “Hugging the Penguin.” Give to Google what they want: Creating useful, unique, relevant and information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. 

My last golden advice to you is BE NATURAL. Spy on the backlinks of every one of those pages already ranked in the top of Google. If they are in the top that easily can mean Google loves their backlinks. This is the only way to see what’s working right now for building links.

An amazing tool you can check out is called Open Site Explorer provided by Moz.com

There you will have the great chance to spy on all the types of backlinks every single one of those top pages has built on it. There is not greater way to know what’s working and what isn’t.

Google Panda

What exactly is the Google Panda Update?

Before I explain this to you, I really need to make sure you know what Google is. Google Inc. is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include search, cloud computing, software and online advertising technologies. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Google Search (or Google Web Search) is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. Google Search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web, receiving several hundred million queries each day through its various services. (Taken from Wikipedia)

Google’s mission is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and its unofficial slogan was, "Don't be evil." (Taken from Wikipedia) The way Google accomplishes that mission is by creating what is called the Google Algorithm.

Google knows you want quick answers and not millions and trillions of websites in front of you. So they have created an algorithm to do that, algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give you exactly what you want. And there is where Google focuses the updates. Google wants to give you the best possible answer as quickest as possible.

Now talking about the Panda; I will not be technical here. I just want you to know what in the world the famous Panda update is all about. I just want you to say: Yes, I know what Panda is and I will not let that silly animal slap my website up.

Sometimes Google names their algorithm updates after names. The Google Panda is a change Google made to their algorithm released in February 2011. The purpose was to reward top search engine rankings all “higher-quality sites” and to lower the rank of “low-quality sites.”

It caused a surge in the rankings of news and social networking websites and a drop in rankings for sites containing a lot of advertising.

So now that you understand what Google and their algorithm is all about, you can now say that the Google Panda is an update made to care more for High Quality Sites and care less for Low Quality sites.

When you think on the Google Panda just think on “Highly Quality Site.” That’s all you need to think about it so you don’t get overwhelmed about all of the content about the topic.

Google has made several changes to their Panda update since February 2011. Google shares information as well on “What counts as a high-quality site.” Twenty-three bullet points is that Google itself says will help webmasters like you and me to rank well in today’s Google Search Engine.

Let me outline those 23 bullet points right away in the next subject.

How in the world do you avoid a Panda Slap?

Out of the millions of pages talking about the subject, I just decided to go to Google itself to look for a solution to this scary epidemic for low quality sites. Google has been kind enough to share a lot of information about the subject and I will give you the most relevant one.

The 23 bullet points in reality are questions that many users could ask on visiting a particular webpage, and are questions in the Google mindset that guided them through the update process:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it shallower in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

I consider these questions the solution to the scary epidemic of the Google Slap. As you can see, Google focuses on CONTENT. That is the most important thing to look at on all these questions.

I know there are a lot of marketers online that do all what it takes to game the Google search results and position their low quality sites for commercial purposes and not for real solution purposes.

What I have decided to do to avoid a Panda Slap is “Hugging the Panda” (Give to Google what they want: High Quality Sites, especially on the Content). it’s something absolute possible, we might spend a little bit more time to create highly quality sites with the greatest content; we might spend a little bit of more money to do so, but at the end, we will learn to do something that a really low amount of marketers now know how to do, and we can make a lot of more money because of it.

What Is SEO

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): consists of a set of optimization techniques applied to a website or webpage to position it at the top of the search engines results based on a keyword or set of keywords on which that website or webpage has been optimized for.

For easy understanding the process works like this:

A lady uses a search engine to search for something she is interested in finding information about. In this case we will use Google.com as our search engine example. All search engines work similar, like Yahoo and Bing, which are the best after Google.

After she performs her search; the first page of Google displays a set of highly relevant pages or domains right in front of her so she may get access to any one of them that might give the information she is looking for.

 

Every one of those websites have been in some degree optimized in order for the Google Search Engine Bot (Google Algorithm) to consider them exactly what the searcher is looking for and place them right there in the top page, as well as in the top positions of the first page.

Search Engine ranking is all about a battle where the best optimized webpages are picked by the search engines to be placed in the top and grab the eyes of all the searchers.