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Google's self SEO Audit
4
Mar
Mar
Google has just published a SEO Audit (Search Engine Optimization) which analyzes 100 Google product pages, and the results are not as good as expected... it seems Google is not so good at optimizing their own websites (at least, not like seo pros).
Title Tags
Title tags: "html <title>" is one of the most important part of a webpage SEO, well, only 10% of their product pages actually follow "SEO Best practices". Indeed, most of their pages contain only the product name without any keywords or relevant tagline.
Meta-description tags
About meta-description tags, 67% of them are missing. That's why some of Google products appear on search engine result pages (SERP) without any relevant information or keywords.
For example:
To be efficient on search engines result pages, it is necessary to use the right keywords on title tags and put relevant content on meta-descriptions. Without these elements, it's difficult to understand what is the aim of your pages, and in this case, what is the Google Sky service all about? ;o)
Headings
About headings, Google say that 43% of their "<h1>" tags need improvement. h1 tags are important for SEO and usability because they state what a page is about. Many Google pages use "<h3>" or custom font styling tags instead of "<h1>" !
Permanent redirections
Google's SEO audit also points out some issues in their permanent redirections and most of them are linked to the trailing slash. Indeed, some of their product pages are accessible through "www.google.com/PRODUCT1" and some others with "www.google.com/PRODUCT1/" without redirecting. So when those 2 URL are crawled by search engines, that content is indexed twice creating a duplicate content issue.
Images
The audit from Google shows that 39% of their logo images don’t link to appropriate URLs, furthermore, some of them link to nonexistent URLs (404 error pages!). Additionally, 18% of Google’s products logos don’t have an "alternative text" tag, which is required by the W3C coding standards.
Google likes SEO now !
Google seems to be more and more interested in optimizing their own products so we guess that they will fix these mistakes very soon. However, optimizing the "on page factors" (the text and content on your web pages) is not enough.
If Google decides to follow our SEO practices, they could rank on the first position for queries like "search engines" on Google.com...
That’s why I invite Google engineers and everyone who is interested in SEO to subscribe to our RSS feed and to follow our blog.
Follow that link to download the Google SEO Audit
5 Ways Google Knows your Backlinks are Bullshit
15
Apr
Apr
Let’s think as a search engine.
First, the more backlinks you have, the more google considers your website as important. BUT, what if the backlinks come from the same webmaster?
The meaning is just that he’s linking his own websites, and not that his content is outstanding. So, these backlinks are less important in the point of view of the search engines, their “grade” should be lower. Your SEO won't work (or work less)
How can google know that it’s the same webmaster behind several websites :
1) Do you use analytics on all your websites with the same google account? Then google knows all these sites are more or less yours.
2) Do you buy all these domains with the same registrar account? Then google knows it through a whois query.
3) Do you host all these websites on the same server? Then google knows the IP, and is likely to consider that it’s the same webmaster behind.
4) Do you use the same google adwords account on these websites? Then google knows it’s the same person who is taking profit from them… aka same owner.
5) Do you use gmail account settings to use different emails with different domains? Then google knows that you are linked to these domains, so you’re probably one of the owners / employees / webmasters.
This list can probably be bigger, but here are some big things google can know about you and your websites, and therefore lower the “weight” they give to a backlink from one of your sites to another.
Truth is, they would do good by applying these rules, since this would make their search engine more efficient and more accurate…BUT, this is also a way to scare webmasters, and to make them NOT use gmail / analytics / adwords and go for the competition instead… which is a bad signal.
In your opinion, what is the policy google is following?
SEO and Google Maps
7
Apr
Apr
According to the Business to Business Survey 2007 by Enquiro, 65.3 percent of b2b buyers say they would start their research for a company with a general search engine. So, it is important to be high ranked in search engines (but this, we all knew it before).
The new thing is that search engine optimization is changing, because search engines are changing. Google now integrates google maps in its natural (organic) SERP (search engine reponse pages). So if I am in a location, and I type that location, I can find the closest service to me.
If I type hotel Beijing, he’s gonna show me google maps with hotels in Beijing, instead of just giving me web sites with the words hotel and Beijing in them.
Yes, it sounds cool, and the service for the user is improved… but it also means that if you have a company, you have to appear in these google maps reponses. You want an example, check the picture at the bottom of the post.
Yes, them.pro website is second when you type web development company in Beijing, and they are right, because… we are a web development company in Beijing! (Actually, the first company is not a web development company, so we should get rid of them soon ;o)
Question : what happens if you lie about your address? Say I am an offshore company in india, but I want customers from silicon valley, what if I indicate that I am in silicon valley, how can google find out? There is no answer yet … or maybe you do have one, then please put a comment to let me know.
After social media, I bet this is gonna be the next BIG THING in online marketing. Now when you think of Search Engine Marketing, also think about Geo targeting and geo localisation (but you were doing this also before right?).
Search engines are changing, SEO is changing, are you changing?
France doesn't Understand Search Engines
2
Apr
Apr
The goal of a search engine is to give the best answer to a search query in the minimum time. That is their reason TO BE, and AltaVista died because Google came with more ... accuracy. That’s it, that's the business.
Now, in the "assemblee nationale" the French most important chamber of representatives, they voted a new law which says "search engines have to give a better ranking to legal offers".
It's an attempt to decrease online music and movies piracy. i say an attempt, because of course, it cannot work, and here are SOME of the reasons why :
1) You are asking the search engines to change their... algorithm! You touch the very essential, the core of what makes their glory or their doom. And of course, they won't change it to please the French parliament. if
They become less accurate, they lose customers, so they lose money...
2) Who will decide what to promote and what NOT to promote? the new HADOPI structure? the French government? on which objective element?
- Elysee (French president office): hello Google, please give more importance to "la fnac" and less importance to "dailymotion" because la fnac has no copied content...
- Google guy : sure no problem mister president, do you want us to rank elysee.fr higher than whitehouse.gov for your convenience as well ... :o)
I just speak here of the SERP (search engine response pages) aspect, without talking of the many MANY other problems this law creates
(by the way, wasn't it supposed to solve problems.... hum, anyways).
What is Spamdexing?
24
Mar
Mar
You're guilty of spamdexing when you use several forbidden technics to trick search engines like google or baidu, to be ranked among the firsts while you shouldn’t.
Let’s take an example : say you sell cars. But you’re eager to have the maximum traffic you can have on internet, even though you just sell cars. If you try to be first on “chocolate”, if you use shadow pages “pages just with keywords”, then you do spamdexing.
I don’t want to show all the technics you can use here, I just want to explain than you should NOT be doing it for several reasons :
- The traffic you get is NOT targeted traffic, so it costs you bandwith and brings you NOTHING. So why the hell would you bother.
- You can be banned from SERP (search engine response pages), and sooner or later, you will be if you do spamdexing. Yes, you’re website will not appear on google for the keywords you were hunting, but for pretty much all the other keywords as well. And this hurts doesn’t it …
- You deceive visitors, and therefore you also hurt your brand. Is it really worth it?
You have to think as a search engine first. The goal of a search engine is to give the most accurate response. If you’re not, if you’re website is not, then, no need to appear in those pages. Focus on your customers to grow, and yes, I bet you what you want that “NO, you don’t reach all your potential customers yet”. So leave spamdexing behind and start the smart and hard work.
It’s not easy… but this time, it definitely worths it…
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which means the different techniques to improve your natural (also called organic) ranking in search engines like google, yahoo or baidu (chinese).
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume AND quality of traffic to a web site from "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search engine results.
Typically, the higher a site is (i.e, the earlier it comes in the search engine results list), the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.
You can buy ads to appear on google right side bar, but you cannot pay google to improve your naturel ranking in the central response pages. That is where you need SEO.
SEO Improves your website rankings in search engines. We improve your SEO.
