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Jagger, Google Analytics, and the Future of Search & SEO
Two big things have just happened in Google-land: Jagger and
Google Analytics. Together, these two events may have changed
the face of search forever.
Jagger
First, let's discuss Jagger... Just like hurricanes, Google
updates have names. (A Google update is a change to the way
Google determines its rankings. Google makes these changes
periodically, and they're universally feared because they can
impact dramatically on a website's ranking.) The latest update
is called Jagger, and it has search engine optimizers (SEOs) all
around the world in a state of panic.
Why was Jagger such a fearful update? Simple... With Jagger,
Google once again outsmarted huge numbers of SEOs. You see,
many/most SEOs spend their time (and their clients' money)
trying to trick Google into thinking that their websites are
more relevant and important than they really are. They do this
mostly by swapping links, buying cheap links, and placing links
on free directories. While there's nothing wrong with these
sorts of links (i.e. they're not considered 'black-hat'), they
don't really show that the site is relevant or important. All
they really show is that the site owner has made a deal with
another site owner. In these deals, the incentive for the
linking site owner is a reciprocal link, money, or increased
link volume. Google much prefers it when the linking site adds
the link simply to enhance the value of their content or to
increase their own credibility and authority.
In other words, Google wants its search results to contain
relevant, important sites, not sites that merely appear
to be relevant and important. To this end, Google invests
millions of dollars and employs the world's smartest
mathematicians to create algorithms which identify sites that
are trying to trick them. And that's exactly what Jagger did;
and when it found those sites, it simply adjusted their ranking
to more accurately reflect their true importance.
(Unfortunately, it also demoted some sites which actually
deserve a high ranking. It is hoped that these mistakes will be
ironed out with future minor updates, but that's a topic for
another article...)
From a technical standpoint, Jagger was well described by Ken
Webster in his article, Google's Jagger Update - Dust Begins To
Settle?. To summarize, Jagger:
1) Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy?
2) Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links)
Relevancy?
3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to #1 & #2)?
4) More weight thrown back to PR @ top domain?
5) Increased importance on AdSense placement relevancy?
6) Possible introduction of CSS Spam filtering?
7) Overall Blog demotions?
8) New and unresolved "canonical" issues?
Some more interesting effects were reported by WG Moore in his
Jagger article. Mr Moore runs a number of
test sites for SEO purposes. By monitoring the links to his test
sites as reported by Google, he established that:
"all reciprocal links had vanished. We think that this is
because Google is down-grading or eliminating reciprocal links
as a measure of popularity. This does make sense, actually.
Reciprocal links are a method of falsifying popularity. Sort of
a cheap method of buying a link, if you want to think of it that
way... During the second week of the Jagger Update, a few of our
reciprocal links did come back up. However, we also noticed that
these were from places where we had highly relevant content.
They came from articles where we discussed our area of
expertise: Web Analytics, or from forums where we had relevant
threads. So we feel that these links came back because of
content, not linking.
The other group that came back up was one-way inbound text
links, regardless of the originating web site. These links also
had strong relevance to our web analytics business. In other
words, they contained keywords and/or phrases related to our
site and its business."
In short, Jagger undid the hard work of thousands - if not
millions - of people! As a result, hard-won high rankings and
revenues plummeted.
Interestingly, article PR (article submission) came through
Jagger seemingly unscathed. My SEO
copywriting website, for example, went from no.4 to no.1
worldwide for "copywriter", and I've employed article PR almost
exclusively. Whether it was promoted or the sites around it were
demoted, one thing is clear: article PR is one of the best ways
to obtain a high ranking.
Google Analytics
The second monumental event to occur recently was Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free
web-stats solution which not only reports all the regular site
stats, but also integrates directly with Google AdWords giving
webmasters and insight into the ROI of their pay-per-click ads.
According to Google, " Google Analytics tells you everything you
want to know about how your visitors found you and how they
interact with your site."
Why is this such a landmark move? Because for the first time
ever, Google will have access to your real web stats. And these
stats will be far more accurate than those provided by Alexa.
Furthermore, Google's privacy statement says: " We
may
also use personal information for auditing, research and
analysis to operate and improve Google technologies and
services." Now let's put two and two together:
1) Google is 'giving' every webmaster in the world free access
to quality web-stats.
2) Millions of webmasters will accept this 'gift', if only
because it integrates directly with their Google AdWords
campaigns.
3) Google will then have full access to the actual web stats of
millions of commercial websites.
4) Google will have the right to use these stats to develop new
technologies.
5) What's the next logical step? Google will use these
statistics to help determine its rankings, of course!
It should come as no surprise. It's been on the cards - and
frequently discussed - for a long time. For example, Jayde
Online CEO, Mel Strocen, recently published an article on this
very topic, The Future of
WebSite Ranking. She quite rightly asserts that:
"Google's "democratic" vision of the Web will never be achieved
by manipulating algorithm criteria based on content. It will
only be achieved by factoring in what is important to people,
and people will always remain the best judge of what that is.
The true challenge for search engines in the future is how to
incorporate web searcher input and preferences into their
ranking algorithms."
In fact, the Jayde Online network already owns and operates a
search engine, ExactSeek which incorporates user popularity
statistics in its rankings.
The Future of Search & SEO
To date, ExactSeek is the only search engine which uses visitor
stats as criteria for its rankings. But Google isn't far behind.
We all know that Google specializes in taking a good idea and
implementing and adapting it brilliantly. This is exactly what
we'll see in this case. By combining link popularity and user
popularity statistics, Google will be the only major search
engine to consider both what other sites think of your website
and what your visitors think of your website. And because they
have the most advanced algorithms for assessing link popularity,
and will soon have access to the farthest reaching, most
accurate web stats to assess user popularity, its competitors
will be a long time catching up.
So if that's the future of search, what's the future of SEO? The
future of SEO is undoubtedly one where:
* one-way text links from relevant pages continue to be the most
valuable links
* reciprocal linking continue to decline
* the 'shotgun' approach to link buying declines
* mass email link requests decline
* free directory submission declines
* niche directory submission increases
* article PR (article submission) increases
* article submission sites (e.g. EzineArticles, GoArticles,
and ArticleBlast) play a much bigger and more
important role in helping online publishers locate quality
articles (due to the increasing article volume)
* user popularity is just as important as link popularity, which
means:
- the quality of article PR improves in order to increase site
traffic, credibility, and loyalty
- the quality of website content improves in order to convert
traffic and encourage repeat visits
Clearly, the choices for SEOs will be pretty much limited to
paying for links at niche sites and/or engaging in article PR.
Being an SEO copywriter, I may be a little biased, but for mine,
article PR is the hands-down winner in this comparison:
* It satisfies Google's criteria for relevance and importance.
Linking site owners include your article and link because, in
doing so, their site becomes more useful to visitors, and their
business gains credibility and authority.
* It generates hundreds of free links quickly enough to make it
worth your while, but not so quickly as to raise red flags at
Google (in the form of link dampening).
* Links are permanent and you don't have to pay to keep them
there.
* You get a lot of qualified referred traffic who already trust
you and your expertise. This satisfies Google's visitor
popularity criteria, while at the same time bringing you a lot
of extra customers.
For more information on article PR, read How to Top Google with Article PR.
Conclusion
The lesson from Jagger is, don't try and trick Google! They've
got more money and more brains than virtually any company in the
world. It'll only end in tears! Don't spend time and money
trying to make your site look important and relevant. Instead,
spend that time and money actually making it important and
relevant! Content - the real content behind the optimization -
is the answer. After all, whether it's an article or a web page,
it's the content that keeps 'eyes on paper', and that's what
it's all about.
Happy optimizing!
About the author:
* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article
submission specialist. He is a director of article PR
company Article PR and also of copywriting studio Divine
Write.
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