Google's new update will deliver fresher content that's more relevant to searchers
When you’re looking for fruit in the grocery store, fresher is always better.
And you definitely want your food fresh the next time you sit down at a restaurant. Now you’ll get fresher, more relevant content when you enter your next search for scores, recent news and hot topics in Google too with the new Google update.
Google is basing their latest update, announced Thursday Nov. 3, on the premise that when you search for something that’s relevant today, you won’t get results for something from the 90s, 80s or even earlier. Google’s update to its basic search algorithm will land up-to-date results on top instead of stale, old content you really weren’t searching for.
The recent changes are expected to impact about 35% of searches on Google.
“Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old,” Google posted on its official blog Nov. 3.
Google said recent changes with the latest Google update will mostly affect searches on recent events or hot topics, regularly occurring events and frequent updates. For example, when you search for scores or information on new jobs available, you’ll get the latest information instead of scores or new jobs from even last week or last month.
Now, the changes aren’t expected to make a difference too many searches. Google said searches such as “fast tomato sauce” recipe certainly will deliver results that may be a few months or even a few years ago.
Many experts look at the dramatic impact of social media on why Google is making the changes with the recent Google update. Recent, fresh information is more available on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter than ever before about friends and family and even celebrities, athletes and others people are interested in liking or following.
And with the latest Google update, you get the latest information with your search.
Since the launch of the Google +1 button, many SEO’s and business owners have had the question, will the Google +1 button have any effect on my SE rankings? In order to best investigate that question, it is important to look at the idea behind the +1 button.
Failed Attempts
Google has had many failed attempts at getting involved in the social media scene (Google Lively, Google Friend Connect, Google Wave, and Google Buzz, to name a few). Each time Google released a social media platform, it failed to appeal to the majority of internet users, while things like Facebook and Twitter powered on, gaining more and more popularity.
However, Google seems to be in the game with the new +1 button. As of July, Google +1 is the second most used website plugin to the Facebook “like” button, even over twitter!
What is Google +1?
Very similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, Google +1 allows users to make a kind of “vote” for a website, alerting other users that they liked the website. It is very easy to add the +1 button to a site, simply visit Google here for directions on how to install the button.
While similar to a “like” button, the +1 button has many differences to a Facebook like that website owners need to be aware of.
Effects on SERPs
First, when you click the +1 button on a website, your vote data is shared with people on your Gmail or Google Talk contact lists. This means that when one of your contacts who has had data shared searches for a keyword where you have voted for a page, that page may show up higher on their search results as a kind of recommended site.
Your own search results will be personalized as a result of clicking +1 on a website. Google has also indicated that the +1 votes may indirectly affect Quality Score rankings for PPC campaigns in the near future. This means that having the +1 button on a landing page for PPC ads will be a must.
For now, anybody you are not connected to through Gmail or Gtalk will not be affected by your votes, other than them being able to see the aggregate number of +1 votes on a site. But this may change in the future.
It has become clear that Google is very interested in using social data to help them improve their search results. Since this data is sent directly to Google, it stands to reason that a site with more +1 votes will, over time, rank higher in the SERPs than a site with no +1 votes.
Please leave comments below, and let us know if your rankings have been affected at all yet by the +1 button.
For most businesses, web images have been kind of a way to spruce up the old website. They haven’t really been too necessary to be found on Google, as long as you had good content to back your site up with. All that, however, may be changing.
At its ‘Inside Search’ event in June, Google announced the release of “Google Search by Image”, a new way of providing search results. Instead of typing in a search query, or using keywords, users can simply drag an image into the search box, or paste an image URL, and Google will pull up any related site with a similar image on it.
How Does it Work?
This nifty bit of technology uses a combination of shape and color recognition algorithms to find pages with visually similar images, and returns those pages to you in your search results. Google has expressly stated that it does not use facial recognition technology for searches involving people, but that it exclusively relies upon its new shape and color algorithms.
The search is very easy to use. Simply visit http://images.google.com/ and click the little camera button in the search box, and you can upload images from your computer, drag images into the search box, or paste an image URL into the search box, and watch Google go to work for you.
This is particularly handy for tourists who want to know what a building is, or people visiting a museum wanting to know more about a particular piece, but how is it going to affect businesses?
Effects On Businesses
First off, it is going to be more important than ever to make sure you are posting images of your products on your site. You want to make sure if someone is searching for your product using the image, your site is coming up in Google’s Search by Image results. If you do not have a similar image on your site, your site will not show up in the search results at all!
Here is an example of an image search results page that I got by pasting just an image of an iphone 4:
As you can see at the bottom of the iphone 4 results, Google only returns pages that have similar images posted. If you sell iphone 4′s, you better have a picture of one on your site or your clients will end up on somebody else’s site. If you have a unique building or brick-and-mortar store, get a picture of it on your site.
Not only will this new tool be useful for places and objects, it can also be used very effectively in searching for pictures of people. This is going to make it vitally important to be careful how you use your pictures online. If an employer searches for an image of you on Google, what is going to be returned? If your clients search for you, will there be a list of professional blog posts, or just a bunch of comments on fail blog?
Search by Image is, like all of Google’s products, only going to be refined with time. Some pictures are much easier to identify right now for Google than others. But one thing we are sure of is that images are now more important than ever to have on your website.
Anchor text, for those who are unaware, is the clickable text part of a link. It is a message to users and the search engines, telling them what they should find if they actually click the link. But all too often, the only anchor text you get is “click here”. This is not only unhelpful to users, but it is a total waste of a link that could be helping to boost your SEO rankings for a keyword. It kind of counts as a vote, telling Google you are voting for that website to show up for that specific term. Let us examine a few points of anchor text that makes it a powerful tool for SEO:
1. Choosing Your Anchor Text
If you are inserting the anchor text directly on your website, you will need to use the appropriate hyperlink reference tag. Here is an example of how to create your link:
<a href=”www.mydomain.com”>Anchor Text Here</a>
The anchor text portion will be the only part users can see, and will become the blue hyperlink. Some content management systems have a link button you can click to create links, rather than needing to write out the tags.
If you are posting on someone else’s website, you may not be able to choose your anchor text, so you can either try inserting the HTML, or asking them if they will activate certain anchor text for you.
2. Anchor Text Should be a Description of What You Will Find if You Click
The purpose of anchor text is mainly to tell a user what will be found if they click the link. So what are you telling the user, and thereby the search engines they will find if you use the anchor text “click here”? Nothing at all. Google uses anchor text as one factor in their algorithms of deciding what terms you should rank for. If you use “click here” as anchor text, you are telling Google your website should rank for the term “click here”, which I am guessing is not what your website is about. Try using targeted anchor text, such as a product name, or a keyword.
3. Is Anchor Text Really That Important?
Yes. Anchor text can have a powerful effect on where your website ranks. It is for precisely this reason that some malicious individuals have been able to Google bomb other’s websites. Google bombs show that you can get just about any website to rank for just about any keyword on Google, just by linking to it enough times with the correct anchor text.
The lesson of the day, then, is this: Do not overlook the importance of anchor text! It can make or break your SEO results, and can be one thing that sets you above your competitors.
All we have to say about last week’s search shenanigans is “wow.” No doubt there will be major fallout from the recent bomb Google dropped on content farms and aggregation sites. In case you have no idea what we’re talking about allow us to catch you up to speed.
The short of it:
Last week Google announced a major ranking algorithm change that they said effects about 11 percent of search results. Spokespeople from Google said the change would mostly effect “content farms” and low-quality “duplicate content sites.” Since that algorithm change we saw the number of indexed pages for hubpages.com drop from around 5 million to currently about 1.2 million. Other sites like ehow.com were effected in a big way too.
All this slashing could have something to due to with a little search engine startup called Blekko. They launched last year sometime with a shotgun in one hand and noose in the other promising to serve search results that catered to sites with real value and to block content farm sites from even appearing in results all together. They even published a list of sites they were purposely blocking and keep an up-to-date tally of all the “spam” web pages they find (currently at over 700 million).
Sites whose sole business model is content aggregation and adsense revenue should probably be rethinking their strategy in a big way.
So is this change bad? What does it mean for the rest of us?
Well unless you are a user-generated content site owner or aggregate / “borrow” a lot of content the worst that can happen is you may lose a few search result competitors who fit the bill. And who doesn’t want that? Also, shaking things up like this means better, more relevant search results.
The big question we have is… what’s going to happen to Google’s profits now? They are the ones who made content farming profitable in the first place with adsense, and they themselves have made billions of dollars serving ads displayed across user generated content sites and aggregators like eHow, eZineArticles.com and HubPages.com. Sites like those have traditionally been Google’s largest outside ad network partners.
We’re not recommending you sell all your Google shares before next quarter’s reports hit, but it will be interesting to see what happens and if better search results will prevail over stake holder screams for profit.
Long gone are the good ol’ days of wreckless blogging and uncensored controversy online. Celebrities, big business, and governments have had enough, and bloggers need to watch their words carefully. The US Senate just approved a bill that will allow the government to seize your .com, .net, .us, or .org domain if you are found to be in violation of copyright laws, FTC regulations or even something as simple as personal defamation. This has everyone upset from large news sites to file sharing services.
Site owners are now more accountable for their content and services than ever before. Crossing your t’s and dotting your i’s has never been more important. It’s no surprise that the bill was heavily backed by media lobbyists who argue that piracy online in the form of file sharing and even unauthorized duplication of content is costing the industry hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Here is the way it used to work:
You put up some content or provide a service/product. >> You get a cease and desist letter in the mail from some angry person or the government. >> You ignore it. >> You get sued. >> A. You win and the other guy goes home crying, or B. You lose and the judge tells you to knock it off or change your website. >> A. You do it, or B. You ignore the judge and move to the cocos islands to keep doing what you are doing.
Here is how it will work now.
You put up some content or provide a service/product. >> Someone tattles on you to the government. >> You lose your domain, and could spend years trying to get it back.
The best advice we can give those of you riding that thin internet line of legal is “don’t fall off,” because Uncle Sam isn’t playing around.
I just saw today what may be the first sign of a new direction for information consumption. A friend sent me a link to a little site in it’s first stages of beta, Qwiki.com. To say the least I was blown away and I won’t be surprised if Google snatches them up right out of the gate.
So what the heck are they? They are a search engine that literally takes a query and creates an interactive visual and audio experience out of it. Imagine in twelve months or less someone will be able to type in “define hydroxycut” and the search engine will start audibly spitting out facts about it in a sexy female British accent while displaying pictures, videos and anything it believes to be relevant to your question. The creepy part is it is already freakishly accurate. You can also click on sources and investigate further.
So you might be wondering why I am going off about this and what it has to do with SEO or internet marketing. Well if that becomes the way people search and learn, then we have a whole new game on our hands. The best and most successful marketers are the ones that predict trends and place themselves strategically to take advantage of them. Trend bubbles are not negative things for those who predict them. One thing is certain, consumers will only continue to demand more and more when it comes to information quality. I don’t know about you, but I want to find out how to get on board with the services that are taking this challenge head on.
As you’ve probably noticed, Twitter got a new paint job. They say the recent changes to our favorite birdie were inspired by Pythagoras’ “Golden Ratio” which has been applied for centuries to everything from architecture to aerodynamics. Well that’s all nice and interesting, but what does it mean for those of us who try and drive traffic via twitter? Well the more user friendly twitter may have individuals spending more time on the actual platform rather than connecting using third party apps. Twitter may also become more interactive between users in the upcoming months. Both of these could mean huge things for bloggers and sales sites alike.
Here are some tips on how to effectively use the new twitter as a marketing tool:
1. Make sure to target tweets at users who might “retweet” them.
2. Try to develop your following by following those who would fit your customer profile.
3. Make sure to check your direct messages and send them often (not to the point of spamming).
With a little luck the brand new twitter could be a powerful source of traffic for your sites. It will be interesting to see how twitter’s user base adapts to the changes.
Several of the major TV networks recently announced that they will not be allowing their content to be aggregated or included in search results for Google’s new gadget Google TV. They say that to do so would give too much control of their content to the tech giant. They are afraid of several things that may result from individuals on a large scale bypassing cable and satellite providers. Many also believe that a major worry is simply that Google may make more money from advertising in the living than they will if the device is to gain popularity. Leading the way in the network frenzy to stop Google TV are ABC, CBS and NBC. Fox has yet to make a stand either way.
The largest problem here may simply be that cable and satellite companies currently pay the networks billions of dollars each yea in royalties and they networks aren’t sure if they will be able to recoup that if everyone cancels their traditional services and moves to watching TV online. The movement would certainly be disruptive and may change the entire economics of television.
One shining ray of hope however is that most of the cable networks have yet to make a decision and Google is still in negotiations with hulu to offer a premium subscription service that would give Google TV users access to episodes from ABC, Fox, and NBC. Users would most likely have to pay a subscription fee though.
So what does our favorite search engine think about all this? Executives from Google say that blocking content on their device will do nothing to stop the growing trend of watching TV programs online and will only frustrate consumers.
All those of us who have been tortured with Apple / Verizon rumors for the past couple years might have just received a shining ray of hope. The Wall Street Journal reported that cellular giant, Verizon has struck a deal with Apple Inc. to start selling the company’s iPad device directly in their stores. This is not the iPhone announcement many were hoping for, but it definitely proves that the two companies are attempting to work together.
Verizon still will not offer an iPad data plan, so why are they selling a random tech device in their stores? Well they are bundling it with their mobile wifi hotspot device. What’s almost amusing about the bundle is that the price is oddly comparable to the 3G enabled iPad from AT&T. Data plans for the mobile hotspot and the 3G iPad are strangely similar in price as well. Verizon is taking the position that their hot spot will provide internet connection for not only the iPad that comes with it, but any other wifi enabled device as well.
We’re excited to see what develops between the two companies over the next several months as consumers decide which cellular company they would rather work with when it comes to America’s favorite tablet. Hopefully it will break down some long standing barriers between the two companies and open the way for more partnerships…. (iPhone please.)
