My take on the Google and the changing face of SEO

[richrf]

Hi everyone,

I am taking my blog in a new direction. One that can leverage my background and skills, and hopefully build on them. Here is my first article on Google and SEO. Let me know what you think.

Google, Google Analytics, and the Changing Face of SEO

Rich

 

[John Doe]

As far as I know Google should already use their CTR and conversions data also within organic search to determine SERP. If you are rated on first page and do not achieve enough clicks or your bounce rate is high, you will be downgraded... So, I think it`s about traffic and it`s about conversions as well. Good for users and not so good for SEO industry. Google ideology is based on content relevancy.

 

[richrf]

As far as I know Google should already use their CTR and conversions data also within organic search to determine SERP. If you are rated on first page and do not achieve enough clicks or your bounce rate is high, you will be downgraded... So, I think it`s about traffic and it`s about conversions as well. Good for users and not so good for SEO industry. Google ideology is based on content relevancy.

Hi there,

Totally to the point, and I agree. This has been my experiences with LINKS. If you have a chance, I welcome your comment on the blog. I think it enhances the thought, and brings an added dimension in a very brief, concise way. If you do not wish to comment, is there some way that I can include your thoughts in the blog?

Thanks.

Rich

 

[benzdorf]

hummmm....

Intersesting.....

 

[richrf]

hummmm....

Intersesting.....

Hi,

I held my breath, as I awaited a response from my good friend Lazar, who is an expert in this field, and did the original SEO for my site. I just received his comments, and I am relieved.

Glad you found the article interesting.

Rich

 

[richrf]

Hi guys,

Nick asked me to post the article, which I am happy to do. So here it is in slightly abbreviated form :

Every site owner and webmaster wants their content pages to appear on the first page of Google’s search results. As Google moves from a links-based algorithm to a usage and traffic based algorithm, the SEO business is going to change - big time.

Every site owner and webmaster wants their content pages to appear on the first page of Google's search results. Lots of money is spent on understanding Google's search engine algorithms, and building links between sites to positively affect (manipulate) the SERP results of a website.

From Google's point of view, this type of manipulation is bad for business. Manipulating SERPs results, via artificially building links, can often lead to poor results appearing on the first Google search page and loss of users and advertisers.

Google has been a great success story for three reasons:

1) It has built a search engine that quickly and efficiently mines all forms of information on the Web and presents the information in a form that users find useful.

2) It has successfully, via its Adwords and Adsense business, monetized the business. Adwords is most successful because Google does the best of job matching ads with the advertiser's target audience.

3) By systematically spreading Google Analytics and Google Toolbar throughout the Internet, Google has been able to build a unique database of usage statistics. This proprietary database of website usage information has now become a major technology moat, that even giants such as Microsoft will find near impossible to hurdle.

Using that data that Google has gathered with Analytics and Toolbar, Google's search engine can know precisely which sites are getting the most traffic, which pages within these sites are most often visited, and <strong>how much time visitors spend on each of these pages</strong>. Voting with time spent on a site, is much stronger, than voting with links.

Not only does usage information augment the quality of search results, but it also allows Google to present to advertisers information that advertisers want and need to know - i.e. who is seeing their ads, how often they are seeing them, and are the ads being converted.

It appears that search results based upon usage data will ultimately supplant links, as the way of determining SERP. The results of this change will be profound. Search engine optimization (SEO) will have to change from building links to building traffic. This is fine with Google, since one of the best ways, though one of the more expensive ways, is to <strong>drive traffic via Adwords ads</strong>.

Going forward, there will be much more emphasis by Google and webmasters on traffic and advertising conversion. Not dissimilar from the TV business model. Can anyone expect to compete against Google long term? Maybe niche search engines, but broad-based search engines will have a very tough act to follow.

Google, Google Analytics, and the Changing Face of SEO

Rich

 

[Mark07]

Nice article there Rich. Google should definitely change its algorithm in terms of linking as there are a lot of bias results which are shown and a lot of deserving sites and thrown back due to them not having more links than the sites which can afford to pay for the same.

 

[shockie]

If you are rated on first page and do not achieve enough clicks or your bounce rate is high, you will be downgraded...

sounds easy to manipulate and abuse.

 

[MrCat]

That's a very nice read. You made some valid points

 

[Keral_Patel]

Hi guys,
From Google's point of view, this type of manipulation is bad for business. Manipulating SERPs results, via artificially building links, can often lead to poor results appearing on the first Google search page and loss of users and advertisers.

If this happens then yes it will change dramatically.

Using that data that Google has gathered with Analytics and Toolbar, Google's search engine can know precisely which sites are getting the most traffic, which pages within these sites are most often visited, and how much time visitors spend on each of these pages. Voting with time spent on a site, is much stronger, than voting with links.

This will open up more gates for manipulating the rankings.

Search engine optimization (SEO) will have to change from building links to building traffic. This is fine with Google, since one of the best ways, though one of the more expensive ways, is to drive traffic via Adwords ads.

this is cheating they are not doing this to improve search results but to improve earnings from adwords.

Based on what is posted above I think only sites with more traffic will get more traffic. This is one of the situations where rich becomes richer and poor becomes more and more poorer.

 

[John Doe]

sounds easy to manipulate and abuse.

Yeah, but what is difficult to manipulate? Links are easy to manipulate, keyword density is easy to manipulate, quantity of content is easy to manipulate, traffic is easy to manipulate etc. Perhaps conversions are most difficult & time consuming to simulate. Plus you can`t manipulate age of domain and site.

 

[shockie]

quality links, quality site, and quality content are difficult to manipulate.

 

[John Doe]

quality links, quality site, and quality content are difficult to manipulate.

It`s exactly what Google is trying to do, isn`t it? The problem is that they have only robots to determine and rank quality.

 

[richrf]

Nice article there Rich. Google should definitely change its algorithm in terms of linking as there are a lot of bias results which are shown and a lot of deserving sites and thrown back due to them not having more links than the sites which can afford to pay for the same.

Thanks Mark.

Based upon my experiences, I think that Google is quietly changing their algorithms and it is confounding traditional SEO experts, who are having a more difficult time manipulating results. I think the SEO business is going to change from trying to get links, to trying to develop more attractive content, which is really all about product/service marketing as opposed to a technical issue.

Thanks again for your comments.

Rich

sounds easy to manipulate and abuse.

I don't believe so. Google has a quite bit of real-time usage data, which it can use to discover many things such as new visitors, time spent on the site by new visitors, Adwords click-thrus, repeat visitors, time spent by repeats, page entry points, etc. They also build statistics histograms of this information, and do long-term comparisons. It is tough to defeat this kind of real-time sampling information on a long-term basis, and Google has the ability to track long-term. Remember, all Google has to do is find reasonably good first page results - not necessarily always the best. If they suspect a site is cheating, down it goes. There are many good long-term candidates that are available.

Rich

That's a very nice read. You made some valid points

Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it.

Rich

quality links, quality site, and quality content are difficult to manipulate.

Yes, shockie. Which is why I personally have turned away from keyword manipulation, and am concentrating on good content for my own site. Good content is permanent and is what Google is looking for. I hope I can deliver.

Thanks for the comment,

Rich

It`s exactly what Google is trying to do, isn`t it? The problem is that they have only robots to determine and rank quality.

This is what I think is changing. Google can use "time-spent on the site" as a indicator of quality. Throwing out the high and low numbers, Google can begin to let users vote on quality, by analyzing how much time they actually spend on a site. Of course, any time that is beyond a certain point is probably thrown out as being outliers.

I think Google is developing a very sophisticated algorithm that will keep outside competition at bay for some time to come. But, I think this is all very quiet and you certainly will not hear anything about this on Matt Cutts.

Thanks for your comment.

Rich

 

[shockie]

The problem is that they have only robots to determine and rank quality.

yes, they only have the fastest crawlers and best algorithm that's updated most often. do a search on yahoo or live lately?

:hehe:

 

[dan_Vt]

yes, they only have the fastest crawlers and best algorithm that's updated most often. do a search on yahoo or live lately?

:hehe:

I see some quality returns from Ask queries, but their index seems small. So the first few results will be on target, then the rest often are focused on one of the words within the searched for phrase. I agree with the yahoo and live assessments, I haven't seen very good results there.