Understanding the new Google.

1. Understanding the new Google. Pandas, Penguins and Constant Change

2. Introduction: • More changes that ever before: Over the past year we have seen more advancements and changes in Google's handling of rankings than ever before. SEO is no longer a "static" process that needs to be updated every few years or when something major changes that causes "what always worked" to stop working. Google evolves constantly, and at an ever increasing rate. We are also seeing a decline in the reliance of pagerank and anchor text as ranking factors. Today's SEO's must now address a constant learning curve and have systems & websites flexible enough that they can adapt quickly to required changes and additions to their programs. • New penalties: In addition to a much faster paced evolution and the reduction of reliance on pagerank and anchor text (which is a good thing) we have a new issue to content with. That issue is algorithmic penalties. It used to be that penalties were only assessed manually as such many websites flew under the radar and were able to be successful in their campaigns when in fact they were violating Google's terms of service. With the introduction of things like "machine learning algorithms" Google can now do a much better job of mass detection (and in many cases penalization) of such violators - It's harder to cheat!. This is actually an advantage to all REW customers as we always teach things like "don't look for shortcuts" and “quality / unique content is key" however due to changes in linking and what Google considers acceptable practice many REW users who have been around for a long time, are now having their rankings reduced by such algorithms because they are having the things they built that used to work discounted, or worse, being penalized for tactics that used to be acceptable (and were necessary to compete at the time). • The two main rolling updates (or algorithms) to discuss have been dubbed Panda and Penguin. Much of my class will cover these two algorithms and what their implementation to date have meant in terms of how we (as of today) should be re-evaluating and adjusting our websites. Realize however a key point to take away from this class is that what is taught today can change tomorrow so the skill you must learn is to constantly be willing to adapt and adjust your website accordingly.

4. Panda Ongoing Updates • Panda is an algorithm largely based on allowing google to provide better search results by getting rid of "thin" sites. These types of sites offer little value to a real consumer and are things like article spinners, duplicate content sites. Generally those sites that offer no original content of value and no interaction. • Panda gets it's queues based on information gathered from human testers and focuses on rewarding sites that incorporate the features that testing has shown people respond positively to. These features include: design, trustworthiness, speed and whether or not they would return to the website. Panda looks at the similarities between highly rated sites and does it's best to predict your sites worth based on a comparison to these metrics.

5. Things that matter more? Quality signals: • Quality of content. It is not enough to just be "unique" - your content must be relevant to a users query, and provide value. • User Engagement. Is there a "next step" for your user? Are there calls to action? What about links to social actions such as sharing the content? Is there any engaging element to the page? (video, image slideshow etc) give them something to do that makes your site memorable and worth staying on or returning to. *note image pagination on snippets is a good example of this and increases time on page / site. • Depth of "individual" pages. Flat content alone will not cut it. Your content needs to be well planned and laid out. You need to have proper use of heirarchical headers and a "mix" of consumable content for your consumer (images, text, video, etc). • Site architecture / navigation: Think about the logical "next step" for a user and make sure that links in your content and navigation are well placed, and the anchor text or image used on these links is descriptive of what the user can expect when clicking. If you have good links in the right place at the right time, users will click them and continue consuming your content and working towards converting themselves. • Load times. Let's be honest, this is a good idea whether a search engine is involved or not. If a user goes to a site and it is slow to load, they will likely leave. Your REW products (if out of the box) are extensively tested by our R & D teams for response times. However many of you run older products that do not have the benefit of more modern speed optimization practices (something Anthony Hatzapolous will be covering in his class). Also, even if you run a more contemporary speed tested site - you may have incorporated content or customizations that have slowed down your site or perhaps you just have "too many" things going on. There is a balance between giving the user lots of interesting things to look at & interact with, and the load time of your site. The more features you incorporate on a single page, the more you should be thinking of having a speed optimization specialist help shave precious seconds off of load time.

6. Things that matter less? • Pagerank: While still important, it is not nearly as highly emphasized as in previous algorithms and should not be a focus. • Anchor text: Keyword loaded anchor text can actually be a negative signal if overdone. Today you need to vary your anchor text and attempt to emulate a far more natural link profile. • Page count: More is not always better. Pages in sites are harder to rank (and to rank well) so we need to ensure that every page that is spiderable is something that has a real change of not just producing traffic or rankings, but can help us reach our end goal (engaging a user and converting them into a lead). We must do our best to eliminate any superfluous or light pages (such as paginated search results, or printable flyer pages) from taking away valuable authority from high value pages.

7. Penguin the "April 24th" update • Penguin is an algorithm that largely focused on your link profile. Penguin was launched on April 24th and showed an immediate and harsh effect on the rankings of websites that either relied heavily on a large volume of low quality links or were practicing excessive link manipulation. • There are two main features to discuss for this update: "Link Loss" and "Link Penalty". If you were effected by penguin chances are you have suffered losses to either category (or both) which are covered in detail below.

8. Link Loss • Link Loss: Everyone seems to want to blame bad links (or their websites) for their loss of rankings due to penguin. The reality is, most REW users (including many of our customers) had fantastic rankings due to the combination of the high quality onpage factors (which you still have, and are still very solid) and a volume of old school low hanging fruit links. • This means a lot of anchor text heavy links from: • Blog comments • Articles • Directories • Blogrolls • Sitewide footer links • Paid links *Note REW does not do paid links) • Other "low quality factors" • Now think about this for a second - what if almost all of your links were "turned off" in one day because Google decided they were not worth giving credit to, and found a way to discount them with an algorithm? • This is in essence what you need to assume has happened if you were hit by Penguin (April 24 th). It certainly would look like a penalty (because your site would tank when Google took away all it's juice) but literally this is likely what happened. The solution is simple, simple to explain anyways) - You need new . (good) . links.

9. Link Penalty: The link penalty that is mentioned with regards to Penguin targets not only low quality links, but link signals such as: • Over optimized anchor text • Unnatural link volume • Links from bad neighborhoods • Any other practice that is a violation Google's TOS What to do if you think you might have a penalty? • #1: Log into your Google webmaster tools and export your links (hopefully you don't have too many unique domains to deal with). Sort the links and eliminate any duplicate root URL’s. You can also use Yahoo site explorer and other SEO tools to find your links. • #2: Review each link giving it a 1-10 score based on whether you think it a quality link or not. 10 being a perfectly legit, earned editorial link that you didn't ask from that also happens to be a relevant source. 1 Being a hacked spam blog or article site that also has links to adult or casino. The idea here is to identify ANY potentially bad links, so be harsh and don't try to protect your link profile. As you review each link put beside it a recommended action - these might be (change anchor text, request removal, request to go to a single link from a site wide etc) Once you have your list, I recommend dealing with anything you ranked a 7 or less (and 7 might even seem to be a pretty good link, but you know it's one you built, so worth review to either change anchor text or remove multiples (we want 1 link from a domain, not site wide or multiples, I'll talk about this later). • #3: Address low quality links: Once you have your 7 or less list it's time to go to work. You need to contact every single site owner! Yes this sucks, but it is what you have to do if you are worried that there are links in play that may be harming you site. Be sure to track the result of each contact (start via email, and keep emailing until you get a response) - If you don't get a response by email, try to phone them, if that doesn't work you can even try mailing them. Sound like a lot of work? It is! Removing links today, is actually more difficult in many cases than it was building them. Isn’t it just easier to start over? You may be tempted to start over! Honestly, this is a tough call. There is very little evidence of recovery even to this point from Penguin and Panda for most sites in the real estate space (in fact in SEO in general) but to be honest, I don't think most people are actually taking the time and effort to do what is necessary to recover. It requires both an audit of bad links, and the addition of new links which is our next topic.

10. Over optimization Penalty? Penguin and Panda are also said to target over aggressive SEO techniques, some of which violate Google's TOS and others that are simply just examples of going overboard with your SEO. To be honest, most REW users have no issues here as we have always taught (and always produced) 100% unique content and over use of keywords or replication of content on multiple pages is not an issue. However for posterity let's cover some other factors that can effect your rankings via these algorithms Keyword stuffing: This is what you have the same, or similar versions of your keyword over and over again in an unreasonable (and unreadable) amount of places. My keyword is the best keyword of all keywords so search keyword - KEYWORD! Cloaking: Showing a different version of your page to your visitors and to search engines Spammy filenames: /keyword/keyword-keyword/keyword.php Spun / duplicate content: Having content that is not unique or human generated obviously Google takes issue with. They also don't like to see content that is confusingly similar to a user. For a complete list of guidelines including: Design and content guidelines, Technical Guidelines and Quality Guidelines you can visit: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

11. Morgan's laws for top search engine rankings: • #1: User experience is key to any search engines success. Focus on things that will benefit your user and provide them with the exact information they are looking for. Provide them with tools to make that information easier to access, understand and share. Then provide logical next steps for your users once they have processed your well laid out information and tools. • #2: Our world is social. It isn‘t enough to be aware of what social networks are popular and have an account. It isn't even enough to participate effectively in these social media sites. Today's search engines recognize social media's role in user experience and that it is the preferred method for many to share content (as opposed to the original internet that shared content via links). In order to be successful you must fully incorporate social networks and tools into your workflow / marketing program. Don't just blog, share your blog, ask others to comment on it, ask them to share and like it, comment on their comments and be sure everyone is aware that there is more where that came from on your website. Now ask them to share your website because it has so many great blogs. Now you're talking about your website with people, point out some of the other great content and tools and why it makes for such a great user experience. Now that they are educated, ask them to share your website, link to it, like it etc. • #3: You have to work at it. You can't hire an SEO company (even REW) to do absolutely everything. The reason for this is that the social web is all about promoting "you" (or your brand) and in order to strike a chord with potential customers and maximize links, shares, and likes . Users must feel like they are connecting with the person or the brand directly. It is disingenuous to have a company represent "you" and your audience knows it. SEO's, consultants, programmers etc are still an integral part of your campaign because they can do the things (at a very high level) that are time consuming, difficult to understand & execute and often times not realistic in terms of something you or your brand could accomplish on your own. Examples of what you use your marketing firm for: Keyword research, content writing, advanced SEO related programming, invention / implementation of new tools & other link bait items, consulting, setup and education of social sites, tracking & reporting, designing and testing effective calls to action things of that nature - there is LOTS for us (REW) to do, but realize that there is a lot for you (the customer) to do as well and if you want to compete for future leads, there are no short cuts, and it is going to take "constant" time, money and effort. • #4: There are no shortcuts! All of this sounds like it is constant, time consuming and expensive - it is! Some of you may be tempted to find a more appealing offer, especially if it involves significantly reducing the time it takes to rank, or cost it takes to compete. The fact of the matter is, you get what you pay for and if you choose vendors who over promise or claim to have a faster, easier way - the best you can hope for is sub part results, however the reality is you are putting your ability rank, and your reputation at risk - These schemes can do harm! The same goes for if you are doing it yourself. Don't spend hours researching SEO workarounds, "tricks" or other "rank fast" articles - if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. If you are in a hurry, don't have the time or $ to put into a proper / constant marketing campaign, we recommend going with PPC for an immediate and cost effective boost. There will be a DIY class today on how to set it up yourself and it is a great way to introduce yourself to the world of lead generation with far less risk or investment. • #5: Forget about rankings. Search engine rankings will come as a "result" of your efforts, but they are not the goal. To many people get caught up in do I rank for keyword x, does my competitor rank for keyword y etc. The fact of the matter is, the end goal of your marketing campaign (which includes SEO, social media, PPC and other integrated processes) is to generate quality leads! So again, forget about rankings that's not how you measure success. Measure success based on increased quality leads, more closed deals and of course your ROI. If you track all your time, and everything you spend and it turns out you spent $100,000 to make a million, was it worth it? The guy with the spammy site and top rankings that ignores everything else can brag all he likes, but he is probably going broke by not focusing on what really matters to his business.

12. Some additional tips: Improving your links: • Link building today is going to be much harder than it has been in the past. We cannot simply give you a list of sites to submit your URL too or tell you that you can improve rankings by implementing some trick in large volumes. • Now more than ever Google is focused on "earned links" which are those that you have no control over. Earned links are "given" due to the quality of your website, it's content and it's ability to engage & impress the visitor. So how do you build these links? Make your site rock! And then review commentary regarding social participation. Remember when you are building links - diversification of link text & destinations is more important than ever. T • his means you needs a much greater variety of anchor texts for links pointing to the same domain and especially the same page on a domain. You also need to focus on the organic appearance of links. This means that you need to think about what users would type of they were going to link to you. It might be domain.com, www.domain.com, a site "over here" or "example" it could also be your brand (and any verion of your brand. In my case "the real estate webmasters homepage, www.realestatewebmasters.com, the rew website etc.