Ex-Googlers Explain Why They Won't Give Up The Secrets To Ranking In Google

Ex-Googlers Explain Why They Won't Give Up The Secrets To Ranking In Google
I spotted a thread at Black Hat World asking why have we not seen a case where a former Google employee who worked in search quality sell their knowledge or publish the secret sauce on what it would take to rank well quickly and get rich fast. Or why haven't these former Googlers done it for themselves, exploit their
knowledge to rank well in Google and make a quick buck?

I decided to ask some former Googlers who worked in the search quality team at Google but now no longer work at Google. What they have said may be interesting to you. This is all captured in a Google+ thread.

Pedro Dias, someone at the higher levels of the Search Quality Analyst team, who
worked at Google for about five years and then leaving to move closer to
home, I believe. He gave several reasons why he has personally not
given up the secret sauce.

• Because SQ Googlers hate spam and anything related to cheating or manipulation... We have seen the darkest of the web... Really;
• Because this would undermine the trust between all my current and ex-colleagues;
• Because we prefer to have it long term, than to work for the "get rich quick";
• Because we don't see SEO as "gaming the system"... Despite what many
  SEOs say. We have our own vision, we prefer to think like Search
  Engineers and help businesses understand Search rather than selling
  magic formulas and torching them.
• Because we signed an NDA, although it doesn't count as much as the points above.
• And sometimes because we like to know stuff that others don't and keep it like that :P

I grilled him a bit more, because I really wonder if they
do know the secret sauce. I asked Pedro, " do you have deep dark
secrets that you can use to exploit the algo and rank #1 for [viagra] or
something that competitive." He responded:

Again, I would prefer not to go into such details mentioning that I know X, Y
or Z... I feel fortunate to have been part of a select group and touched
some very important and exclusive areas, that's all I can say...

I guess once a Googler, always a Googler. Kaspar Szymanski, who worked in the Search Quality Strategist and was at Google for about seven years, chimed in also. He told me:

Just like my clients value expertise, they equally value integrity.

Fili Wiese, who worked at Google for about seven years also but not just in the
search quality team, also the ad quality team, said it short also, "I
agree with Pedro Dias and Kaspar Szymanski."

Again, I still wonder, if Google has anything that one of these former Googlers can
truely exploit and get rich quickly with. Yea, I am sure there are some
things that will work in the short term and Googlers and non-Googlers
can figure those out. But long term - you still need to know the
fundamentals.

It just happens that all of these Googlers quoted here act in somewhat of an SEO and search consultant role now.

by Barry Schwartz

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Google's Matt Cutts: Content Clarity Over Technical Content

Google's Matt Cutts: Content Clarity Over Technical Content
There is an excellent video from Google's Matt Cutts on the question Should I focus on clarity or jargon when writing content?
The short answer is focus on clarity over jargon.
Matt explains that in most cases, having content that most people understand is way more important that having all the scientific and technical jargon about the topic you are covering. If you can't explain the topic to a novice, then the reader likely won't be able to understand your
content.
Best case, start off explaining it in simple terms and
get more technical as you go. But if you had to pick, it seems Matt is
saying content clarity is more important over detailed technical and
scientific content, in most cases.
by Barry Schwartz

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Google's Matt Cutts Stops By WebmasterWorld After Three Years Of Silence

Google's Matt Cutts Stops By WebmasterWorld After Three Years Of Silence

The last time Matt Cutts of Google posted something at WebmasterWorld
was over three years ago on January 4, 2011. He broke his silence
there yesterday posting in a private member-only WebmasterWorld thread.

Why does this matter? I am not sure but he was the infamous GoogleGuy at WebmasterWorld
for years and years. Not posting there, which was like a home to
Cutts, for three years, is a pretty long time. Of course, Matt is busy
helping webmasters at a larger scale with his videos and blog posts.

What
did Matt post? I won't share all the details of the thread exactly,
since it is a private thread. But I will say a large site (which was
unnamed) accidentally blocked themselves with a robots.txt file and was
looking for ways to get reindexed quickly. Matt suggested to use the
Fetch as Googlebot feature to expedite things.

Here is a screen cap of what Matt wrote:



So the tip is useful in that we know Fetch as GoogleBot can expedite some indexing.



by Barry Schwartz

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Signs Of More Google Algorithm Updates Early This Week

Signs Of More Google Algorithm Updates Early This Week

We reported about a possible Google update around February 13th
and I do believe there was something rather large on that date - but
now there is more chatter about a possible update early this week, this
past Sunday and Monday at Google.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a lot of discussion from webmasters about a possible update. Here are some recent comments:

Has anybody noticed a drop in their rankings yesterday or today specifically?

Yes, but could just be the continual state of flux I see. Though Mozcast reports activity, so you may be on to something.

Another
update happened 100%. Expect a bumpy few days. If you recover, great.
If not nothing you can do. Check your money terms, see if the organics
have all but disappeared below ads & image results. My money is they
have used Google Shopping data to spot the money terms. If your site
relies on that term kiss goodbye to organic traffic.

Now, some of the tracking tools show higher than normal activity on those days including Mozcast and Algoroo but SERPs.com and SERP Metrics seem pretty flat.

Did you notice ranking changes and referral changes from Google earlier this week?



by Barry Schwartz

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Google February Update: Possibly A Google Panda Refresh?

Google February Update: Possibly A Google Panda Refresh?

There is a tremendous amount of chatter going on about Google updating over the past couple days or so at WebmasterWorld.

On February 6th we had the Page Layout algorithm update but that didn't cause much of a fuss in the SEO forums. But something over the past couple days is.

Moderator, Travelin Cat, said:

I'm
following about 25 client sites and all but 3 had a huge jump in
traffic on the 11th. Some doubled their traffic. Hoping this is a trend
going forward. Also, these are all in the U.S., on the West Coast.

There are a lot of people who agree and are noticing changes between the 11th and today.

Mozcast shows heavy activity earlier on but not on the 11th. However, it has not updated today yet, so who knows. SERPs.com also shows a steady high volatility pattern. SERP Metrics is off the charts on February 12th and Algoroo also shows a lot of high activity.

Plus, we have a lot of chatter at WebmasterWorld and the other Google forums.

Have
you noticed a change in rankings at Google on February 11th through
13th? Some are suspecting it might be the monthly Panda refresh.



by Barry Schwartz

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Google's Page Layout Algorithm Updated For Third Time

Google's Page Layout Algorithm Updated For Third Time

Yesterday, Google's Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that they have pushed out a refresh to the Google Page Layout algorithm on or around February 6th.

He
did not specify how much this impacted the search results but based on
my analysis of the SEO community, it had a very small impact on most
SEOs.

This would be the third update to the page layout algorithm.
Since it is just a refresh, it doesn't mean Google updated the
algorithm, but rather reran the algorithm and updated it's index. So I
doubt Google would classify it version 3.0, but rather 1.2 maybe.

Previous Updates For Google's Page Layout Algorithm Was:

• Google Page Layout Algorithm Launch on January 19, 2012
• Google Page Layout Algorithm Second Update on October 9, 2012
• February 6, 2014, the third update

What does it look like when a site gets hit by this? Here is a screen shot from WebmasterWorld of someone who was hit:







Again, very few seem to have been impacted by it but there are some and
they are complaining in the forum threads I link to below.



by Barry Schwartz

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Is Google Misleading Us? If So, How?

Is Google Misleading Us? If So, How?

You've all seen it, parking signs that are so confusing that
sometimes you wonder, is the local government trying to mislead you...



Webmasters
are asking themselves the same questions about Google. With all the
blog posts, videos, guidelines, is Google setting SEOs and webmasters up
for disaster one way or another?



Last year, we asked you if you felt Google was lying to you and only 10% said no. The rest, over 55% said Google is lying to us and 31% said Google lies to us sometimes.



The post has 150+ comments with examples and debates.



The new WebmasterWorld thread asks in more of a subtle way. Asking "What Official Google SEO Advice is Misleading or Misunderstood?"



Greg Niland started off saying that guest blogging is one of those examples:

For
example Matt Cutts has recently said that if you were using guest blog
posts "you should probably stop". This led many SEO people to start
assuming that Google will consider every guest blog post to be bad. Matt
Cutts had to clarify his initial statement and say that some guest blog
posts when done in a relevant and professional manner can be good for
your online business.

I am sure you all have many examples - do share.



by Barry Schwartz

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Google To Bring It On German Link Spammers

Google To Bring It On German Link Spammers

 Yesterday, Google posted a stern warning on the German Google Webmaster blog telling webmasters that you will be penalized for unnatural links.



Matt Cutts then Tweeted
the same warning saying "A reminder (in German) that paid links that
pass PageRank violate our guidelines." This comes the week after Google
took action on a French link network, where Matt also dropped a hint on German link networks getting hit as well.



The
question is when will German SEOs take notice of this? Which networks
will this impact exactly? How much of an impact will this have on
SEOs?



Former Googler, Pedro Dias tweeted
that he thinks this is going to target "German Newspapers that sell
links." But I am hearing from others that these are much larger than
just newspapers, but massive link networks in Germany.



Anyway, as I said before, Google likes to issue warning after warning and then issue notices and then ranking impacts - why? To break their spirits.



by Barry Schwartz

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Google Sends Manual Actions For Rich Snippet Spam & Spammy Structured Markup

Google Sends Manual Actions For Rich Snippet Spam & Spammy Structured Markup

Rich snippet spam has been an issue since rich snippets came out and eventually added a report rich snippet spam tool. Then Google dropped the amount of rich snippets showing in the search results recently.



It seems like Google is now sending out notifications to those who have been spammy with their rich snippets.

One webmaster posted a notification he received in the Google Webmaster Help forums of a manual action he received for "Spammy structured markup."



Here is the text of that notification:

Spammy structured markup 

Markup
on some pages on this site appears to use techniques such as marking up
content that is invisible to users, marking up irrelevant or misleading
content, and/or other manipulative behavior that violates Google's Rich
Snippet Quality guidelines.

This is the first time I have seen a webmaster report getting a manual action sent to them for spammy structured markup.



by Barry Schwartz 

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DMOZ Drops Over 1 Million Sites From Directory?

DMOZ Drops Over 1 Million Sites From Directory?
Did you notice that DMOZ, one of the oldest and largest human crafted
web directories, has removed over 1 million sites and 10,000 editors
from their directory?

A DigitalPoint Forum thread first noticed it. If you look at the live site now,
you will see 4,261,763 sites, 89,252 editors and over 1,019,865
categories in the footer. But if you go to the Way Back Machine archive you will see 5,310,345 sites, 99,997 editors and over 1,019,508 categories.

Here are screen shots:

NOW:



OLD:



As you can see, DMOZ dropped about 1 million sites from their directory
and 10,000 editors. There was no announcement about this, so I am not
sure if this is just a glitch on the footer.

They did however post a rare blog post announcing a new feature for reporting listings.
Of course, most of you don't bother with DMOZ listings anymore anyway but
still, interesting to see 1 million sites just vanish from DMOZ.

by Barry Schwartz

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Can You Rank In Google Without Content?

Can You Rank In Google Without Content?

A WebmasterWorld
thread has a webmaster who has a site that doesn't have any real
content. It is basically statistical downloads and specifications
downloadable as PDFs or Zip files.



Can you rank web pages with no content at all in Google?



A good example of a page that ranks without having the exact words on it is the Adobe Reader page which ranks for [click here].



But what about a page with almost no content? It is possible to rank on anchor text alone?



Yes, but it has to be very obscure and non-competitive words.



by Barry Schwartz

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