Google is definitely on a roll. The number of updates, it has released in the last couples of months, are enough to unsettle even a veteran online marketer. First it was first Caffeine, then Panda, then Freshness, then Search, Plus Your World and now the latest update aimed at gunning down ads heavy sites. So, the entire search industry is heading toward something that can change the way we are used to see and feel the concept of SEO so far. So unless you wish to live in an uncertain live, practicing the worn out SEO techniques, let’s go down the details a wee bit to find out what the future waits for the Search industry and how we are going to face it headlong.
Caffeine: Caffeine update was rolled out in a beautiful summer day in 2010. However, this update was less algorithmic and more infrastructural. Caffeine was the outcome of Google’s increasing power to serve the best and the most recent content to the end users. In Pre-Caffeine era, Google had to update all the content layers before being able to serve the latest content to the users but with Caffeine, it got the super power to serve the latest content to the users around the world.
Though Caffeine has got nothing to do with ranking, it is quite understandable that sites that get frequented updated will be the winner in the race. Blogs, news sites etc or sites that are being updated regularly have been benefitted with this update.
Freshness Update: 2011 shows the launched of Freshness update. If Caffeine update was purely infrastructural, then Freshness update is for sure purely algorithmic. This update affected as much as 35% of total searches made every day. So quite expectedly, if you wish to make the most of this update, you need to make sure that you are mentioning Date and time against each post so that Google can easily pick up the date and give your website top ranking in some trending topic in the most pick hours. However, ranking will change as new content with similar or more updated information bob up.
Panda: This is probably the most famous or the most infamous update from Google after the great Florida update. The easy prey of this update are those sites which have been dedicated to add more garbage to web by adding spun content and all that. Though a number of updates have already been rolled out to make Panda more effective and more powerful to hunt out sites that are harboring thin content, it has ran into trouble as some webmasters have accused it to be partial in its targeting. However, we have no such intension to discuss such things here, you can have enough of them by visiting Google Webmaster Forum.
Now, the million dollar question is how you are supposed to stay aloof from the future of Panda update? There is no easy way out except that you have to produce rally high quality content that make people press the share button and get some facebook Likes and Google +. Make sure that you have no duplicate content in your website and let me warn you in advance, do not post images that are copy right protected or usually posted by others because Google is becoming pretty smart at scanning images. Say no to duplicate content and thin content and you will be able to save your skin in a whole new way.
Search, Plus Your World: This is the most contentious update from Google that may change the very concept of search. Google is fetching information from Google + account of the users and when they are logged in, it is serving them a unique and personalized search results by featuring updates from friends of their Google + profile. For say, if you are searching for something like – “restaurant”, you are mostly like to get information shared or written by people you know. This is more engaging and more exciting than scouting for information available in web pages created by people whom you might have never met personally.
Now to get your website appear top in some competitive keywords, you need to make sure that you have an impressive presence in Google + and definitely, the quality has to be above the average.
Penalty Ad Heavy Sites: A new update has recently been unveiled by Google where it cleared the fact that ads heavy sites are going to invite penalty in one form or the other. From now on Google bot will be taking into account the layout of the blogs and that means, you should not put too many ads in the Above the Fold section of the blog otherwise, you will be courting a ban from Google.
Keep the content clean and use ads judiciously and you will not have to fear the devil anymore.
About Guest Author:
Jacob Smith is a passionate writer and a vocal support of intellectual property rights. He has written numerous articles on blogging, social media, intellectual property, tech and he has published some articles for the guardlex.com, a website famed for its DMCA takedown services.