New Google update targets thin content
Google is now focusing more on high quality content, better text, originality and the amount of it. This is great for small and medium size websites which seem to be getting a bigger push in rankings.
Facebook bans “forced likes“
Facebook has made some important changes that will affect many of you:
“You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.”
By November 5th, you’ll no longer be allowed to ask users to like your page via:
– being entered into contests/giveaways
– claiming free downloadable content (soundcloud downloads)
– downloading your app
– any other incentive that requires users to “like” your page first
Online shopping growing!
Eway recently released some interesting statistics.
Florists alone have increased 253% in sales in the past year!
SSL’s may become a big factor for SEO
There’s a lot of buzz at the moment of secure sites getting a push in Google.
Most of you would have seen the little pad lock icon on websites; it’s normally associated with logins and e-commerce sites.
Matt Cutts from Google started all the talk by mentioning that he would love to make SSL a factor. Currently it seems its just a hope and only a small factor. The flow on effect would be a more secure internet for everyone however, the cost for SSL’s and dedicated IP to install them is quite high.
Negative SEO, should I be worried?
Competition between websites can be fierce. Some owners turn to negative SEO by creating “bad” links that point to their competition. A bad link could be anything from spam on a forum to flooding a article with links full of keywords that point back to your site.
Google said back in Jan 2003 that “There is nothing a competitor can do to harm your rankings”. This has since changed to “…almost nothing a competitor can do”.
Google changed their stance from ignoring bad links to penalising website with too many of them. This has created opportunities for dodgy business owners to take advantage of legit companies.
The good new is bad SEO takes almost as long as good SEO. This means someone needs to spend a lot of time or money to take you down.
If you have regular, ongoing SEO then your competition won’t have the time or money to spend hitting just you.
Google has a tool for reporting such links so its never going to be business closing problem
Questions and Answers
Q: I heard link building is dead.
A: No link building isn’t dead, its still a major part of Google’s ranking factors and always will be. Links are at the heart of what Google is. It has indeed changed, from simple directory links to 300 word articles, but it will always be some factor in the algorithm.
Q: Does clicking on my site a lot help my ranks.
A: No, please stop. How customers interact with your site is a small factor but Google knows your IP so constantly clicking your site won’t help.
Q: Blogs help ranks right?
A: Yes and no. Blogs are great and rank for very niche keywords which can bring in small and very specific customers. However, it won’t give you a huge push for very competitive keywords.
Just for Fun
