Special Google Edition - Communiqué From The Desk of Alan K'necht

Google Update

Here's a quick update on Google's new search engine algorithm and its impact on web site positioning. As I reported in the previous special edition newsletter, Google did something to its mathematical formula for calculating the importance of different web sites. Last week, SEO experts were split on if it's a bug or a deliberate act by Google. I've been reading every pundit's thoughts and checking all the appropriate discussion groups. Well here's what I've found.

From what I've read it appears to be a little bit of both. First there appears to be a direct correlation between some key phrases and Google Adwords. Adwords are those little boxed ads that appear next to search results. Google charges companies for these on a per click bases known as "CPC" (Cost Per Click) with cost ranging from 5 cents to several dollars per click. The correlation that some people found was the higher the average cost per click and the more competitive the phrase, the more the search results were tossed upside down. Use of Scroogle (see previous newsletter) seems to prove this. However, I was able to find several very valuable phrases that contradict this evidence. The theorists responded by saying they only did this for certain key words. This may be highly possible.

As to it being a bug, various representatives from Google have come out and said there is no bug and it's simply a new algorithm. Well various SEO professionals have been trying to figure out the new algorithm and some reported that their sites have magically started moving back into respectable range from complete obliteration without any changes to web pages themselves while others have achieved similar results with minor modifications to their web pages. While not regaining top 5 positioning they are usually back in the top 20 or at least the top 40. These results do appear to be more of a change caused by a new algorithm. If the page wasn't modified and positions started showing immense improvement, then I smell a bug that's slowly being fixed.

What's evident under the new algorithm is that Google has attempted at least three things:

1. identify and discount link farms - these are web sites or pages that are used purely to provide (in some cases to sell) links to other non-related sites in an attempt to artificially inflate the importance of a given web page;
2. discounted several words - right now Google ignores words like "and", "or", "the" etc. and it appears that they may setup a second tier of words that while used in the search, are lower in importance on a web page and if overused may cause a site to be penalized. This may include words like "consultant", "consultants", "specialists", the list goes on;
3. look for sites that were spamming the search engines by artificially inflating key words or phrases

What does this all mean? From my observations:

Hardest hit were web sites that used link farms to artificially inflate their importance and sites that relied solely on site a map (because design elements like Flash or Java based navigation are not indexable by search engines) to allow search engines to find all web pages. Site maps tend to look a lot like link farms (a page merely of links) and Google seems to be punishing the pages at the other end of those links.

Sites using the bad HTML practice of overusing the H1 tag were also impacted. This tag known as a header tag (intended to identify page titles) tells search engines that this is the most important title on the page. Under Web Standards, you should only have a single H1 on any given web page. From my observations, sites that overused the H1 tag tended to be hurt more then sites that had only one or no H1 tags on their page.

I'm currently testing these theories and once I have something concrete, I'll let you know.

So what should you do right now? Since doing nothing seems to be helping about an equal number of web sites as other techniques, I would stay put. This is a good time to review your web content and look for the overused key words/phrases, look at your code and see if you've overused the H1 tag and lastly, if your site has to rely on a site map for search engine indexing, consider a redesign or a modification to the web site layout to help guide Google and other search engines to those critical pages without going through a site map. If you need to be in the top 10 right now consider running an Adword campaign. K'nechtology is currently managing a few Adword campaigns for clients and they do work.

Finally, complain to Google. Have you done a search recently and found a bunch of lousy results, then e-mail Google stating the phrase you searched on and how disappointed you are in the results (search-quality@google.com).

Closing Thoughts

If you have any questions or need help with search engine positioning, please feel free to contact K'nechtology Inc. directly. Just to remind you that my services and the services of K'nechtology Inc. are always available to help you with your technology strategies, search engine optimization, IT project management, Internet/web development needs and software reviews. Subscribe to future newsletters or find links to previous newsletters, columns and product reviews at news.knechtology.com

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