Harmony Hollow Software Special web hosting offer - LIMITED TIME ONLY


Googles New SEO Rules


Google has recently made some pretty significant changes in its ranking algorithm. The latest update, dubbed by Google forum users as "Allegra", has left some web sites in the dust and catapulted others to top positions. Major updates like this can happen a few times a year at Google, which is why picking the right search engine optimization company can be the difference between online success and failure. However, it becomes an increasingly difficult decision when SEO firms themselves are suffering from the Allegra update.

Over-optimization may have played the biggest part in the dropping of seo- guy.com from the top 50 Google results. Filtering out web sites that have had readability sacrificed for optimization is a growing trend at Google. It started with the Sandbox Effect in late 2004, where relatively new sites were not being seen at all in the Google results even with good keyword placement in content and incoming links. Many thought it was a deliberate effort by Google to penalize sites that had SEO work done. It's a few months later and we see many of the 'sandboxed' web sites finally appearing well for their targeted keywords.

With 44 occurrences of 'SEO' on the relatively short home page of seo-guy.com, and many of them in close proximity to each other, the content reads like a page designed for search engine robots, not the visitor. This ranking shift should come as no surprise to SEO professionals as people have been saying it for years now: Sites should be designed for visitors, not search engine robots. Alas, some of us don't listen and this is what happens when search engines finally make their move.

One aspect of search engine optimization that is also affected in a roundabout way is link popularity development. After observing the effects of strictly relevant link exchanges on many of our client's sites recently, we've noticed incredibly fast #1 rankings on Google. It seems Google may be looking out for links pages designed for the sole purpose of raising link popularity and devalues the relevance of the site. After all, if a links page on a real estate site has 100 outgoing links to pharmacy sites, there has to be a lot of content on that page completely unrelated to real estate. Not until now has that been so detrimental to a site's overall relevance to search terms. It goes back to the old rule of thumb: Make your visitors the top priority. Create a resources page that actually contains useful links for your site users. If you need to do reciprocal linking then keep it relevant and work those sites in with other good resources.

Keeping up with the online search world can be overwhelming for the average small business owner or corporate marketing department. Constant Google changes, MSN coming on the scene in a big way, and all the hype around the new Become.com shopping search function can make heads spin. But just keep things simple and follow the main rules that have been around for years. Google, as well as other search engines, won't ever be able to ignore informative, well written content along with good quality votes from other web sites.

John Metzler is the co-creator of Abalone Designs, Inc. http://www.abalone.ca, a Search Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO companies in the world.

Add to these social bookmarking sites:

Add to: Mr. Wong Add to: Webnews Add to: Icio Add to: Oneview Add to: Folkd Add to: Yigg Add to: Linkarena Add to: Digg Add to: Del.icio.us Add to: Reddit Add to: Simpy Add to: StumbleUpon Add to: Slashdot Add to: Netscape Add to: Furl Add to: Yahoo Add to: Spurl Add to: Google Add to: Blinklist Add to: Blogmarks Add to: Diigo Add to: Technorati Add to: Newsvine Add to: Blinkbits Add to: Ma.Gnolia Add to: Smarking Add to: Netvouz Information

MORE RESOURCES:

Video SEO Tip: How to Optimize a News Release with Video
ReelSEO Online Video News, CA - 4 hours ago
... company that owns the popular news wire service PRWeb), shares with us the advantages of emedding video and doing Video SEO for an online news release. ...


Press Releases Need A Home -- Ideally With Good SEO
bMighty.com, NY - 7 hours ago
Use SEO keywords that are relevant to the business, service, and geographic location. 2. Try to keep the keyword usage to around five percent of the overall ...


Top Position open's the doors to its new Nottinghamshire SEO centre.
PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung), Austria - 15 hours ago
2008-10-13 12:47:18 - Top Position has opened the doors to its new Nottinghamshire SEO centre, marking the firm's first dedicated premises for its search ...


Search Engine Journal

Affiliate Links Can Pass Link Juice & Help With SEO
Search Engine Journal - 11 hours ago
... reviewed how Amazon leverages the power of affiliate links to assist with its SEO and the questions surrounding affiliate links and paid linking. ...


Dallas Tax Attorney Hires SEO Services Company to Boost Rankings
PR Web (press release), WA - 19 hours ago
Leading tax law attorney has hired SEO 1 Services, a Dallas internet marketing firm, to promote its website in order to position itself as the leading ...
Columbus Day closings Dallas Morning News
all 5 news articles


DirectNews

Guaranteed Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services by UniSoft ...
NewDesignWorld (press release), UK - 16 hours ago
Unlike other search engine optimization (SEO) providers, UniSoft Technologies covers all aspects of internet marketing services for our customers. ...
Best SEO practices for website design explored DirectNews
(ki work is honored to announce that Bill Austin has joined our ... USPRwire (press release)
SEO Search Engine Lisiting Get top ranks on Search listings Call ... NewDesignWorld (press release)
NewDesignWorld (press release)
all 7 news articles


Are Directories Still Worth Your SEO Budget?
Search Engine Roundtable - 11 hours ago
We all know about Google's latest change to the webmaster guidelines, where they removed directories as a good source of links. Having seen that, SEOs and ...


Entrepreneur's Journal: Supercharge your website with search ...
BloggingStocks - Oct 12, 2008
One of the most powerful ways to market your company is through search engine optimization (SEO). This refers to what happens when users enter certain ...


Using Web Metrics to Analyze the ‘Palin Effect’ & 2008 ...
Marketing Pilgrim, NC - 11 hours ago
By Brent D. Payne A fellow friend and SEO, Vinny Goldsmith, mentioned I should do a blog post about the trends and reasons behind those trends regarding the ...


Flash Web Editor Wix Raises $3.5 Million, Shows Signs of Early Growth
Washington Post, United States - 3 hours ago
The Israeli startup offers a Web-based Flash editor for making artful widgets and Websites, but without losing any SEO juice. (I've embedded two examples ...

SEO - Google News

Home | Site Map
© 2008