Keeping you up to date with the latest in search engine marketing, we thought we might run through some of the interesting news from the recent SMX West in California. Especially, given as the SMX London event (on 16th & 17th May 2011) is fast approaching! Don’t forget you can get 15% off tickets with our discount code (see bottom of this post)!
One of the key things discussed at SMX West was, predictably, the recent algorithmic changes Google has implemented, and the effects of these for SEO. Interestingly, Google’s Matt Cutts mentioned that if a site has enough low quality content on its pages then that can count against the site as a whole. That is, low quality content counts against the whole site not just for the individual pages it is on. But what does Google mean by ‘low quality’?
Google Updates and Quality Content
The change to Google targets sites which display low quality content in a variety of ways. These include:
• Shallow content (not enough content to be useful)
• Poorly written content
• Content copied from other sites
• Content that’s not useful/relevant
The biggest impact this will have on many business sites is potentially in how they build links using article sites.
Article Marketing and Link Building – What does Google Count?
Matt Cutts advised against article marketing that simply syndicates articles hundreds of times over the web. But what does count and what is a good strategy for link building after the update?
Here are some of the key points:
• Links in press releases also do not count towards Google Page Rank
• But if a journalist then reads the press release and links to your site in an article, that will count
• Article websites are not an inherently bad thing, and using them to build links can work – but only if you treat them as places people go to read articles, not as places Google goes to find links
• Therefore professionally written, informative articles are still a viable link building strategy
• Simply copying your latest blog post onto a hundred article sites is not a good strategy
• Google has identified sites with a variety of lengths as sites which are more likely to be providing genuinely useful content
• Once again, this means content written with users in mind should benefit, whereas content written with search engines in mind will likely lose out
The general result of the changes? Best practices haven’t changed, but the importance of following them has increased. For more information on Anicca Digital’ link building and SEO services, check out our SEO section or contact us today.
SMX takes place on 16th & 17th May 2011 and you can get a 15% discount using our discount code: ANICCA011. Register online here.
