Google's Matt Cutts On Telling If Your Site Was Hit By Algorithm

Google's Matt Cutts On Telling If Your Site Was Hit By Algorithm
The truth is, for an experienced SEO, this video sheds nothing new
about the question on determining if your site was hit by an algorithm
or not.

In short, the best way to tell if you were hit by a Google
algorithm such as Panda or Penguin, is to see your analytics and see if you had a major dive in traffic from Google on a specific day. If so, then write down that date, go to our Google updates section here and see if the date corresponds with anything reported here. If not, then you are out of luck. Well, not exactly.

Matt describes three reasons why a ranking drop might occur:

(1) Manual Actions
(2) Crawling Errors or Issues
(3) Algorithmic Penalty

(1) Manual actions show a notification in Google Webmaster Tools, so it is clear cut, Matt said.

(2) Crawl errors also are likely to show in Google Webmaster Tools, often clear cut also.

(3)Algorithmic penalties are not thought of as a penalty, they are
algorithms for ranking. General quality and algorithms will determine
rankings. So it is hard to tell if an algorithm is hurting you. But
Google will communicate large scale algorithm changes, such as Panda or
Penguin. They will tell you on what date they run, this way you can
check the date and see if that algorithm had an impact on your site.

But as you improve your site and the algorithms run, your rankings can improve.

At WebmasterWorld, GoodROI, the administrator, said:

Forpeople (especially newbies) having trouble making money online they
should remember most things are interconnected. For example if you
publish poor content it will lead to weak link development because no
one likes linking to poor content. There are ripple effects when working
on different parts of your site.

by Barry Schwartz

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Lots Of Google Search Activity: Likely Manual Vs. Algorithmic

Lots Of Google Search Activity: Likely Manual Vs. Algorithmic
The ongoing Webmaster World thread that tracks Google activity has webmasters and SEOs asking if there are algorithmic updates going on, either Panda or Penguin. I can say, Google has not told us about any update but there has been a heck of a lot of penalties, manual actions and widespread targets on the manual side that happened over the past couple weeks.

For example, this week, we had a blog network penalized impacting many of the publishers associated with that network. Last week, Google took action on link networks in Spain, Germany and Italy. Earlier, Google also target networks in Poland and France.

Google has clearly stepped up their activity in a very manual way, targeting
networks that use links to manipulate Google's rankings. This is both
on a large scale, going after larger networks, as well as the daily
smaller scale manual actions.

So while there may have been a Panda refresh, since they are kind of pushed out monthly. But if Google pushed out that softer Panda update, Google would have likely told us.

I may be wrong, but most the tracking tools seems pretty flat, with the exception of one.

by Barry Schwartz

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Google's Matt Cutts: New Softer Panda Update Coming Soon

Google's Matt Cutts: New Softer Panda Update Coming Soon
At SMX West Matt Cutts of Google announced they are actively working on the "next
generation" Panda update that will "soften" the algorithm.

Matt specifically said this is aimed at helping small businesses that may be impacted by the Panda algorithm. There was no date given on its release but he made it clear, this will be a bigger update that will make Panda less of an impact on certain sites.



Yes, that is a Google Glass vignette view from Danny Sullivan while on stage, with my Search Engine Land story on the topic.

Didn't Google already soften the Panda algorithm? Yes. They announced it last may and rolled it out in July. With that, only 18% recovered fully with that last softer Panda update.

I assume when it rolls out, Matt Cutts will let us know, unlike other Panda refreshes.

by Barry Schwartz

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Google: Keep URL Length Shorter Than 2,000 Characters

Google: Keep URL Length Shorter Than 2,000 Characters
SEOs obsess about the smallest things, even how long is too long for a URL.

A Google Webmaster Help thread has SEOs and webmasters asking how long can they go for a URL. Google actually answered the question.

John Mueller of Google said, while there is "no theoretical length limit"
and they can go forever, Google does recommend you keep it under 2,000
characters. Google's John Mueller wrote:

As far as I know, there's no theoretical length limit, but we recommend keeping
URLs shorter than 2000 characters to keep things manageable.

It is interesting cause DoubleClick, a Google company, maxes out
on 2,000 characters in a URL. It seems the GET method maxes out on
2,000 characters for a URL and that Internet Explorer can't go beyond
2,000.

If you are unsure if 2,000 characters in URLs is too much, this is what it looks like:

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219-google-url-characters-18219123.html

 So it isn't easy going all the way to 2,000 characters in a URL.

by Barry Schwartz

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Got A Google Penalty? Should You Start A New Site?

Got A Google Penalty? Should You Start A New Site?
As more and more Google penalties become more transparent, recovering from them seems to get harder. Even when you do recover, the rankings don't always return.

In a recent column by Eric Ward named When The Best SEO Move Is To Kill The Site where he concluded that "in almost two-thirds of the cases I advised that the best move was to kill the site." This is when it comes to unnatural link penalties or Penguin related issues.

The question is, is that true? Is it often easier to kill off the site?

Matt Cutts has said time and time again that digging yourself out of a spam hole is often harder then starting fresh.

Also, now that we know penalties may follow you
to your new domain, if you don't start a fresh new web site, then
making the decision to kill off a site is even more costly and timely.

If it was as simple as copying your site to a new domain name, switching
might make sense more of the time. But if you need to rewrite your
content, redo your CMS and design, then it can take a long long time.

Google's John Mueller posted on Google+ a comment about Eric Ward's article saying:

It's never a decision to make lightly, but there can be situations where a
website has built up so many problems, that it may appear easier or
faster to start over with a fresh & new website, rather than to try
to fix all of those problems individually. This isn't an easy way to get
past problems that have been built up over the years, it's a lot of
work to create a new website, even if you already know the business
area. If you feel you're in this situation, make sure to get
advice from friends & other people that you trust (including
webmaster communities where you trust their opinions) before doing
anything drastic!

In a Google Webmaster Help thread, John Mueller gave advice to someone in a hole that if he will
go the new site route, he should start fresh. John wrote:

If you're creating a new website, and don't want to be associated with the
old one, I'd strongly recommend really making a *new* website and not
just moving the content to a different domain. You don't need to wait
for anything in a case like this -- it's fine to remove (or block) the
old website, and to create a really new one elsewhere at the same time.

So making the decision to start new is not easy. If it was me, I'd go in this order:

(1) Try removing the bad links
(2) Submit a reconsideration request
(3) Repeat this a few times until it is successful
(4) Wait two months for traffic to change
(5) If no traffic change then start a new site

Of course, it is not always this black and white and the specific situation might change
the solution. Like if you put a ton of money into your brand name and
you can't go elsewhere. Or if there are investors you need to worry
about. Or if you simply can't make a new site.

It is a shame to have to deal with this stuff.

by Barry Schwartz

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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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