Google has long been the primary search engine on the internet, bringing in over 65% on average of search engine queries. The term Google has become so ubiquitous that google is the verb for searching on the web. Bing tried to make the same move but it will likely never happen even though they are in second place in the search engine market share; they are a very distant second at about 16% search share.
Because Google is the primary source for the majority of the searchers, our company focuses on adhering to what Google wants. The other search engines end up coming along at the same time. It is vital that your business keeps up with the latest updates from Google to ensure that your website remains in compliance with Google’s guidelines.
The biggest challenge is that the guidelines change on a regular basis. What was acceptable two years ago or even one year ago is no longer so.
Earlier this year Google released an update to their search algorithm with the Penguin 2.0 update. This updated changed the way that Google ranks results, which can have a direct effect on where your website appears through their search results.
Sometimes the changes included in the update are designed to kill the spamming that takes place in search engines... you know, from the unsavory folk that try to game the system. Usually, however, the updates are put in place to help provide more relevant search results to its users. Google does this by implementing changes that they feel will target those utilizing what are known as “black hat” SEO tactics. These include:
- Keyword Stuffing
- Hidden Text on Page
- Doorway Pages
- Duplicate Content
- Interlinking of Sites
- Link Farms
These are just a few of the tactics that may end up getting your website de-indexed by Google. You may not completely understand these terms and, perhaps, in a future post I'll take some time to discuss in greater detail. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, you will want to take time to understand these basic no-no tactics.
It is vital that you are staying up on the latest changes from Google so that you ensure you aren’t doing anything that could negatively affect your ranking in search results. Google puts out multiple small updates each year, and will usually have 1-2 large updates each year that has quite an impact on search rankings.
One of the best ways to ensure that you are staying in line with Google’s is to focus on creating unique and engaging content on your website and avoid tactics such as purchasing links or stuffing keywords on your page or in your code. Google will never punish a website for creating engaging content that is unique to their site, as the goal of Google is to provide this type of relevant result to their users.
