Google's human reviewers: real people judge about your Google rankings

Google's human reviewers: real people judge about your Google rankings

Most people think that Google purely ranks websites by using mathematical formulas. Google even has an official statement about the way that search results are calculated: "A site's ranking in Google's search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query. Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted." Not everything is done by software robots at Google If you read the above quotation carefully, you'll see that Google relies "heavily" but not fully on computer algorithms. In a recent interview, Google's Engineering director Scott Huffman explained that a lot of human reviewers (probably 10,000) manually review Google's results: "Every day, we are looking at a random sample of grades that we think represent the queries we get from users. Evaluators look at the quality of each result relative to those queries." Real people take a look at Google's search results and they tell Google which websites they don't like. If your website looks spammy, it might be reported to Google by these people. Google's algorithm is constantly changing Google constantly updates its algorithm based on the feedback of the human reviewers: "The evaluation site ratings that we gather never directly affect the search results that we return. We never go back and say, 'Oh, we learned from a rater that this result isn’t as good as that one, so let's put them in a different order.' Doing something like that would skew the whole evaluation by-and-large. So we never touch it." That means that a website won't be automatically removed from the search results if a human reviewer finds it inappropriate (unless it is an obvious spam page). It does mean that Google's algorithm is constantly changing and that you have to keep your website up-to-date with Google's latest algorithm. You have to keep an eye on your website rankings A website that has high rankings on Google today might lose these rankings tomorrow based on Google's ever-changing ranking algorithm. As a rule of thumb, websites with many inbound links and good content that is related to the searched keyword will remain much longer in Google's search results than websites that obtained their high rankings through tricks. If you use spammy SEO methods, you can quickly get high rankings on search engines. Unfortunately, Google will completely remove your website from the search results as soon as they find out that you use these methods: Spammy websites can be detected by Google's human reviewers and your competitors can report your spam website to Google. If you use ethical SEO methods, it will take longer until you get high search engine rankings. However, your rankings will grow steadily and you'll get a much better performance in the long run: Do not use spammy SEO methods to increase your rankings on Google. It will backfire on you. If you want to get lasting rankings on Google, you have to keep an eye on Google's changing algorithm. You should check your website regularly to find out if it is compliant to Google's current algorithm. If you create a website that is compliant to Google's algorithm and only use ethical SEO methods then your website will get page one rankings on Google and it will keep these rankings as long as possible.

View the Original article

Top 5 elements that you need for high rankings on Google

Getting listed on Google's first result page is the goal of many webmasters. Unfortunately, many webmasters still do the wrong things to improve their rankings.

It's not possible to get top 10 rankings on Google by focusing on a single strategy. Getting listed on Google requires you to work on all elements of your website. Here are the top 5 factors that influence the position of your website in Google's search results:

Ranking factor 1: website accessibility

It doesn't make sense to optimize your web pages if search engines cannot access your web pages:

Your robots.txt file should allow search engines to visit your web pages. If your robots.txt file contains errors then many search engines won't list your website.

The HTML code of your web pages should be error-free and your web server should return the correct response code. The contents of your web pages should be readable to search engine spiders. Details can be found here.

Before you start to optimize your web pages, check if search engines can read your web page content. You can do this with IBP's spider simulator. Double-check your robots.txt.

Ranking factor 2: site architecture

Google wants to show relevant websites in the search results. Your website shouldn't be a collection of random web pages. If you want to get top 10 rankings on Google, the pages of your website should be related.

Your web pages should show Google that your website is relevant to a certain topic. All pages of your website should be linked. If possible, web surfers should reach any page of your website with a maximum of three clicks.

The links and the directory structure of your website should make it easy to search engines to categorize the contents of your website.

Ranking factor 3: keywords

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps. If you choose the wrong keywords, you won't succeed with your campaign.

Optimize different pages of your website for different keyphrases. The more pages of your website you optimize, the better.

Start with very targeted keyphrases that consists of many words, for example "find inexpensive hotels in brussels".

When you have top rankings for these targeted keyphrases, proceed with more general keywords such as "hotels in brussels".

When you have top rankings for these keyphrases, you can proceed with very general keywords such as "hotels".

In general, targeted keywords have a much higher conversion rate than general keywords, i.e. you will get more sales per visitor with "find inexpensive hotels in brussels" than with "hotels".

Also think about the type of visitor that you attract with a keyword. Are these people interested in information or do they want to buy?

Use IBP's comprehensive keyword tools to find the keywords that will work best with your site. You can find further information on how to find the correct keyword type in the IBP manual (PDF).

Ranking factor 4: content

Your website won't get high rankings on Google if it only offers articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other websites.

Separate your website from the rest by creating unique and trustworthy content. Write your own articles about the topic of your website, publish them on your own website and make your website a useful resource.

Ranking factor 5: links from other websites

It is not possible to get high rankings on Google without having links from other websites.

The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that your website gets good positions in Google's search results. The links to your website should be from trusted websites.

If a web page that links to you is related to your own website then the effect of that link on the search engine rankings of your website is higher than the effect of an unrelated link.

It also helps if social bookmark websites link to your website. If many people bookmark your website on social bookmark sites, then this is a sign that your website might deserve high rankings.

A small error in one element can destroy your effects in all other ranking elements. For that reason, it is important to use the right strategy when optimizing your website.

Detailed step-by-step instructions and checklists can be found in our free search engine optimization eBook.

Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Eye tracking study: users largely blind to real-time results in search

View the Original article

Search Engine Marketing Sacramento

The effect of latent semantic indexing (LSI) on your website rankings

Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is a technique that is used by all major search engines nowadays. Does your website take this into account? How does it influence the position of your web pages in Google's search results?

What is latent semantic indexing?

LSI means that a search engine tries to associate certain terms with concepts when indexing web pages. For example, Paris and Hilton are associated with a woman instead of a city and a hotel, Tiger and Woods are associated with golf.

To find out which other keywords Google finds related to a keyword, search for a keyword and add a tilde in front of it. Google will mark the related keywords in bold on the result page. It seems that Google finds the word "Nokia" related to "phone".

How can Google match keywords with certain concepts?

Google has billions of web pages in its index. If Google finds that many web pages contain both the word Paris and the word Hilton then Google might assume that these keywords are related. The other words on these pages could give Google a hint that this special word combination is about a woman.

Words that frequently appear very close to each other could get a tighter connection. Google has a lot of data that allows them to calculate the relation between different words.

What does this mean for the position of your web pages in Google's search results?

If you want to be listed for certain keywords, you must show Google that your website is relevant to a certain topic. There are several things that you can do to increase the relevancy of your website for a topic:

1. Optimize different pages of your website for different keywords

If you're targeting the search term "used cars" you should also create pages that are relevant to the keywords "auto", "suv", etc.

The more pages of your website are relevant to a certain topic, the more likely it is that your web pages will be listed for keywords that are related to that topic. Make sure that your keywords appear in the right elements on your web pages.

2. Get links from semantically relevant pages

If you're selling cars then the "Cars" web page that links to your site should not be about the movie. Links from topically related pages will be semantically beneficial to your site.

A link to your website that comes from a page that contains links to other web pages that deal with the same topic has a greater effect on the rankings of your website then a link from a page that links to totally different pages and your site.

For that reason, it is important that you try to get links from related websites. It is also very important that you submit your website to the right category in Internet directories. If your website is listed in the wrong category, this can have a negative effect on your rankings.

3. Use a meaningful site architecture

Use a logical system to organize your website content. Create content sections that deal with different parts of your main topic and make sure that everything that is related to your topic is mentioned on your web pages.

Make sure that your web pages are put in the right categories on your website and that it's easy to find the different categories.

4. Find out why other pages rank higher than yours

If you ever asked yourself why another page has been ranked higher than yours although you perfectly optimized your pages for your search terms then you should analyze the inbound links of the top ranked pages.

The number and the authority of inbound links are important. However, it's also important that the links come from semantically and topically related pages.

Don't focus on a single keyword when optimizing your pages. If you want to prepare your website for advanced search engine algorithms then you have to create a website that has been optimized for many different but related search terms.

In addition, it's important that the links to your website come from topically related pages so that search engines put your website in the right context. Our website promotion tool IBP can help you with both.

San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Sacramento, El Dorado Hills, Roseville, Granite Bay, Rocklin, Lincoln, Loomis, Elk Grove, Natomas, Citrus Heights, Folsom, Fair Oaks, Auburn, Placerville, Lodi, Stockton, Modesto, Galt, Tracy, Plumas Lake, Marysville, Yuba City, Chico, Redding, Red Bluff, Vacaville, Woodland, Davis, Dixon, Fairfield, Nevada City, San Jose, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Reno, Sparks, Tahoe, Lake Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Toledo, Oregon, Cleveland, Detroit, Charlotte, Cornelius, Gastonia, Concord, Hickory, Salisbury, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami

View the Original article

Sacramento Local Search Engine Optimization SEO

Mayday: how Google May update will affect your long tail rankings

In an online forum, webmaster discussed their experience with Google latest ranking algorithm update that has been given the name Mayday. If your website gets fewer visitors from Google, the update could be the reason for that.

What exactly has happened?

Many webmasters have seen a huge drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long (so called "long tail keywords").

Some webmasters have lost 90% of their traffic from Google because they cannot be found anymore for the long keyword phrases.

The ranking drop did not happen to spammers. Among the affected websites was a 13 year old site with a Google PageRank of 7 and 400,000 backlinks.

Why did it happen?

It seems that this is not a penalty but a change in Google's ranking algorithm. Google might now be able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. There's a new Google patent that deals with this topic.

Identifying phrases requires a lot of computing power and a lot of memory. A webmaster explained it in the discussion:

"For example, on the assumption that any five words could constitute a phrase, and that a large corpus would have at least 200,000 unique terms, there would be approximately 3.2.times.10.sup.26 possible phrases.

Clearly more than any existing system could store or otherwise programmatically manipulate."

It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages.

The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

Do you have to change your web pages now?

If you experienced a decline in traffic to your website from Google you might have to change your web pages. For example, if you want to be found for "personal injury lawyer london" then these words should appear in that order on your website.

If you use other variations such as "london lawyer personal injury" then you'll probably get listings for that variation but not for other word combinations.

San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Sacramento, El Dorado Hills, Roseville, Granite Bay, Rocklin, Lincoln, Loomis, Elk Grove, Natomas, Citrus Heights, Folsom, Fair Oaks, Auburn, Placerville, Lodi, Stockton, Modesto, Galt, Tracy, Plumas Lake, Marysville, Yuba City, Chico, Redding, Red Bluff, Vacaville, Woodland, Davis, Dixon, Fairfield, Nevada City, San Jose, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Reno, Sparks, Tahoe, Lake Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Toledo, Oregon, Cleveland, Detroit, Charlotte, Cornelius, Gastonia, Concord, Hickory, Salisbury, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami

View the Original article