Posted At : 17, August 2009 08:54 AM | Posted By : Ashley Fletcher
Related Categories: Online PR, Search Marketing

Last week Google broke the news to an eagerly-expectant crowd at the San José Convention Center that a new algo update is round the corner. This change is set to speed up the SERPs, carry more data and generally make the world a better place.

For the first time, Google has jumped on the PR wagon and released a sandbox test for us all to admire: www2.sandbox.google.com. The search giant suggests – not very descriptively – that there is much more 'under the hood' in this version.

I’ve noticed this type of PR around Google products has picked up pace over the last six to nine months. For example, similar coverage about Google’s street maps generated a lot of brand buzz. Google has definitely made a recent and welcome change to its stance on openness and communicating to the public.

I remember back to the days when Google would roll out a 'Google Dance': listings would be shaken up for a few days, and then things would settle down. No one knew why, how or what had happened – it was up to us to guess the changes from the rumour mill on forums.

Over the last two years, changes have been more frequent, fast and published with limited explanations from Google. I believe it is a credit that the industry we work in that it’s always looking to improve the SERPs.

I also believe some of the recent changes implemented to the algo could be reactive and designed to pick up on specific trends some SEO experts use to manipulate results (link sculpting?)

Here is a brief summary of some of the notable Google Dance updates over the years.

Update name
Caffeine
Vince
Jagger
Big Daddy Update
Florida

Purpose
New technology, architecture and algorithm
Power to the brands
A clean up of spam and link abuse
To improve the crawl process
A brand new algorithm – the Hilltop Algorithm?

So, what can we expect from the Caffeine update when it is rolled out?

From using the sandbox version I have noticed that the load time is much quicker - the use of Ajax will increase efficiency. I also predict that the 'Vince' update will be rolled out to a larger set of keywords when this goes live – not just vanity keywords. With so many brands to focus on and give weighting to, I can’t think that this will be a ‘one-click’ update.

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How to optimise your Google Base feed

Posted At : 5, February 2009 10:34 AM | Posted By : Sarah Clements
Related Categories: Search Marketing

Google Base is a free Google service that allows you to submit content, including product feeds. If Google finds your content relevant, it may appear on some of their other services such as their Shopping search engine or Google Maps.

Using Google Base to advertise your products is an excellent way to acquire new customers. In fact, there’s little excuse not to use it as the service is free and Google Shopping results often appear high up in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

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Black hat link building network UNCOVERED

Posted At : 27, June 2008 03:07 PM | Posted By : Sam Gipson
Related Categories: Search Marketing, SEO

An integral part of search engine optimisation (SEO) is link building. Inbound links from other websites are viewed as votes or recommendations by the search engines. Google monitor and reward websites which have a progressing number of inbound links with better ranking in the SERPS (search engine results pages).

Link building at times can be a tedious and painstaking task which has led webmasters to look into new and innovative ways of gaining links easily.

Coast Digital has recently discovered a link building network which guarantees thousands of links for a relatively low cost and they claim Google view their links as natural.

It was discovered when we were monitoring a website’s inbound links which went from 6 to over 1000 in a few weeks. This intrigued us and after some digging around we found a link network.

Initially it was difficult to spot as the source code was always very clean and didn’t indicate anything but a natural link. The break came when we noticed that the links were appearing in a similar position on every blog.

We decided that the links must be generated by a widget or plug-in of some kind. So we set about finding a WordPress blog and accessed its “wp-content/plugins” directory. After researching every file in this folder, we finally stumbled upon the link network plug-in.

The link network claims “it is practically impossible to find out if a site is participating in our system”. Coast Digital managed to trace them after 15 minutes.

What can we learn from this? Although link networks may seem a quick and easy way to gain inbound links, trying to deceive the search engines into thinking you have suddenly received hundreds, if not thousands of links naturally isn’t the recommended way forward.

Any means by which you try to artificially gain inbound links to gain better positions in the search engines will be detected and you will then be penalised by Google. It’s just a matter of time.

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The Google peek-a-boo effect

Posted At : 23, May 2008 04:23 PM | Posted By : coast digital
Related Categories: Search Marketing, SEO

This is something I’ve noticed over the past month and have finally found that someone has given it a name.

So what is the Google peek-a-boo effect? It’s where new, targeted keywords appear occasionally in the top 5 for a search, then you search again and they’re gone. I’ve seen it in relation to a few of our clients recently.

Now-you-see-me. Now-you-don't.

Initially I thought it was something to do with Google Data Centres, (Google works its data from many different data centres, each with their own IP address which can be viewed. This is where the original ‘Google Dance’ could be watched – basically you could watch the search engine results pages (SERPs) from many data centres and tell what was going to happen with your sites) but after checking a few I was seeing the same – now you see me, now you don’t – peek-a-boo effect.

Changes to the Google algorithm?

From what I’ve been reading over the past week other SEO agency staff are seeing the same. The current thinking is that Google is increasing the level of machine-learning in its algorithm by rapidly changing SERPs to test the performance of new or better performing sites (those with more inbound links, more traffic or new content etc.).

Other thinking is that it’s a randomization algorithm, where the top positions are locked while others below are in a constant flux. This is something I’ve noticed on the keywords I watch.

Some say this is just the natural progression with a new site, which could be true... But at least two of the sites I work with are long-established, but we are re-targeting keywords and not adding new areas or pages.

Why?

So why would Google do this in the live SERPs? In my eyes they are bringing new or refreshed sites and content into the SERPs to test them, to see how they perform before actually adding them into the SERPS properly.

But I must say I’m not seeing this across all the keywords I’m watching. And for sites/pages that are affected by Google peek-a-boo the traffic figures are fairly low, all things considered.

Please do leave any comments or questions you have about this topic and I will answer them and add to the topic as I gain more information.

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The opinions expressed herein are the personal opinion of the author and are not intended as statements of fact and do not represent the view of Coastdigital Limited in any way

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