23/07/2019
Google's algorithm update and how to avoid penalties that affect your websites ranking.
I recently read an article about Google Algorithm update an wanted to share a few interesting points they made.
If you don’t know what this algorithm is, I try to will explain in very simple terms.
Google wants to give the person asking a search query, relevant, accurate and up to date search results. If you have a website and the information on your page matches what the person is enquiring about, then Google will put your site forward in the list of possible search results.
What effects your ranking (how high you appear on the page and what page you appear on) is the relevance of your information, plus a checklist of other factors.
1. Is the information current, (how long since you updated your websites information)?
2. Is the information yours (if you copied it from somewhere else you will be penalised)
3. Does your website have a security certificate (SSL) this is the little padlock to the left of your websites domain name and the ‘s’ in your website url.
Example: https://www.samsaradesigns.com.au This is a secure site.
4. The integrity of the information (does it makes sense, or have you just loaded the page with keywords)
This is called ‘keyword stuffing’ and it negatively impacts your site.
The battle between Google and SEO (search engine optimization) is an ongoing one. The best way to rank continuously and high on the search list is to be creatively honest with your content.
I visit so many websites that do not meet any of the criteria and wonder how they still show up. The only answer I can seem to find is that the internet has a long memory, so the process of weeding out the unsatisfactory sites has been a slow one. The latest update is supposed to remove a lot of these, so I will be interested to see if it works.
Google’s solution to SEO people who add padding and wrong content in order to improve search hits, means they keep their updates are secret, often appearing suddenly, and they tweak the requirements for relevant, high-quality content.
As part of this, Google now takes more serious account of writing quality, looking at everything from sentence length to the level of good grammar. It also looks for signs of SEO tricks, like unnatural links coming from other websites to a business's web pages, or unnatural use of language.
Website design is crucial for high rankings; audiences shouldn't have to click through a dozen different links to find the content they want; this isn’t a pleasant experience.
Google's updates have been good for businesses doing the right thing, and for those doing the searching. With an improvement in the quality of search results they provide users and giving more online exposure to website that do the right thing.
Sometimes a site gets penalised through no fault of the own. Not maintaining the site, by neglecting the daily updates that come through from security sites, wordpress themes, plugins and widgets etc can have cause your site to be blocked.
What does a "Google penalty" mean?
A “Google penalty” is a loose term for what happens when a site or page is negatively impacted by a Google algorithm update or is manually penalized for an infringement on the search engine's Webmaster Guidelines.
Keep your site honest with the content. Tell the prospective customer what you do, how you do it, why you think you are better or different from your competitors and how they can contact you.
Keep your site up to date with the maintenance and refresh the content regularly.
Ensure you have a current security certificate
What are the typical problems?
Thin content: This is one of the easier penalties to fix. Google will often penalize sites which have many pages that offer no real value and have low word counts. To fix this, start providing more in-depth information and remove any auto-generated content.
The use of free hosts: It is unlikely that you use free hosting services if you run a serious website, but businesses that do expose themselves to all sorts of spam advertising they can’t control. It’s better to use a paid hosting service and avoid the trouble.
Keyword stuffing: If you have added too many keywords to your pages in hopes of ranking higher, Google can tell if this is unnatural. These days, it’s better just to be aware of your keywords and make sure you aren’t missing them entirely, but don’t overdo it.
Virus hosts: Google will clamp down on any site that plays host to malware or spyware viruses. If there’s anything on your site which might be infecting visitors' computers or phones, you need to get rid of it immediately.
Bad redirects and broken links. Missing sitemaps. Add a sitemap to all the search engines not just Google.
Duplicate content: If your site features content that can be found elsewhere on the web, or has been outright copied, the result may be a penalty. Checking for duplicate content is one of the easier things Google can do, so make sure all your text is unique and up to date. (unique means you wrote it yourself.
Have the best content and do a good job of marketing your business through maps and search and on linked social media is the best way to ensure you maintain your rankings.
