Google Algorithm Changes
Google is the top search engine out there and they make their money by being the best. To keep that place they must insure that the results of a search on Google return relevant and real results.
Since Google has competitors, they never release the full story about how they rank web sites and show them in the search engine results page (SERP). But they do release some information.
When Google feels too many people are cheating, they change their algorithms or filters when they evaluate web sites.
Google has made many recent changes. First lets look at some of the things that Matt Cutts, one of the leaders of Googles anti spam (things that people do to fake Google out) says.
You can read his blog here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
Here is what he and Google have said:
Google Blog Post
"have new efforts underway to continue to improve our search quality. And.. were evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others content and sites with low levels of original content".
What does this mean? It means that Google wants original content. If you are copying content from some other site even a supplier or manufactures web site it can be treated as Spam by Google. Your ranking can be lowered or worse yet, you can be removed from Googles index and disappear from search engine results. The first site Google finds with the information will be treated as the original, and everyone else will be treated as copying.
Last month Matt said about this change:
"The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original sites content".
Recently Google found out that JC Penny was playing games, and they down rated most of their key words.READ FULL ARTICLE
Then yesterday Overstock got penalized. READ FULL ARTICLE
And today they finally announced it.
What this means that if Google is willing to slap JC Penny and Overstock do you think you are immune?
The bottom line is this. Google must continue to stop web sites that are using Black Hat techniques.
Now I am not saying that all Black Hat is Dead. All I am saying is that if you get above the radar, you will be laser beamed out of the sky and you wont even know what hit you. Yes Google made an example out of JC Penny and Overstock and maybe more to come. But here is the moral of the story:
1. If something sounds too easy, and maybe it even works for now, think about today. You can be just another example like Overstock and not even know it. Dont get caught doing three way links. Dont use Link Farms. Be cautious about how many reciprocal links you get each day. And remember to vary your anchor text.
2. Since the Big Dawgs in their industry have gotten on the radar with Google Engineers, it is a matter of time before a massive Google Algorithm completely changes the way links are being valued.
3. UNIQUE CONTENT IS IMPORTANT. If you have not noticed Google loves Shopping Cart Elite product pages. Seriously if you optimize your product page with unique content and follow my SEO rules to the T. You will see your rank increase for the specific keyword you are targeting within that product page. BELIEVE ME IT WORKS. I have seen one of my SEO guys go through different websites that he was hired to review, optimize the product page content with good keywords and all of a sudden the website goes from decline in traffic to 10% in 30 days.
4. Stick to things that Google accepts, and double check your product pages for duplicate content. Seriously, if you are accepting data from a data shared source, GO CHANGE IT NOW. Go optimize it. Go Optimize it. Go Optimize it. Maybe I didnt say it enough? Go optimize it. Go Optimize it. Go Optimize it. You should have a complete unique description with a set of keywords. Not sure which products to optimize first, stat with the popular products that you listed on your homepage.
5. We just tweaked our APS article module. If you dont know how to use it please watch the tutorials. Just so you know what kind of traffic APS can bring. AutoAccessoryStore.com is getting 500 unique visitors per day just from APS articles. You are already paying for it, by using Shopping Cart Elite, GO USE IT.
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