SEO Expert
Chris Ainsworth
about me
"Hello! I am Chris Ainsworth, a 27 year old SEO Expert/Web Developer dwelling in the mean streets of the UK. This is my blog about life, work, everything and anything." read more...
Search engine optimisation is very much like underfloor heating. You might ask how I can say this, but bear with me and you’ll discover the SEO is indeed like this ostentatious, yet very cosy, form of heating.
After a couple of months of collecting feedback Google have now closed the developer preview version of the Caffeine algorithm update.
Matt Cutts stated that they have received very positive feedback during the test period and will now be rolling out the Caffeine update in one of their data centers. Cutts stated that the algorithm will be rolled out after in the chosen data center after the thanksgiving holidays in the US.
When asked about integrating the update into UK based search results Cutts stated:
I don’t think you’ll see Caffeine on multiple data centers before January
You can’t avoid spam, its equivalent is likely to happen in any other industry. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Some of the worst kind of spam is automated link spam or comment drops – which simply degrades the experience of the genuine internet user.
It seems that some SEO people/companies include these techniques as part of their ‘campaign’. It is sad because it gives all SEO firms a bad rep, when genuine SEO is about creating useful, relevant content that goes as directly as possible to the people who are looking for it.
Harsh times for Google and I don’t mean financially! It would appear that rogue sites and dodgy links are being moving higher up in their rankings. Google are being outwitted by being tricked into displaying compromising web pages as a way for cyber-criminals to hijack end user’s computers, downloading personal information and stealing credit details. One attempt that has been successful in their activities has been to entice specific groups of people by using the phrase ‘Cheap vista for students‘ in Google search terms.
The Google search algorithm has come a long way, and is arguably the most advanced search engine service around. Although the exact way it works will remain a mystery, many SEO specialists have pinpointed how to ‘work’ the algorithm to their advantage. But one question that often occurs as regards the algorithm is ‘Can Google Identify Bad Writing?’
Google Analytics is an almighty tool with many spectacular features which all web-masters to track the performance of their websites within search engines. However the default statistic reporting of Analytics can be frustrating for webmasters attempting to analyse the true statistics behind their website.
Google provide data tracking from 41 search engine by default such as Google organic, Yahoo organic, Bing organic and so forth; however by default there is no way to track visits to your website which came regional searches and searches via Google News. By default, any traffic visiting the website via Google News and incorporated into Google Orgaic data, inevitably meaning there is no way to distinguish between organic visits and visits via news.google.co.uk data.
Search engine giants Google are on the verge of a major update to their search algorithm. Codenamed Caffeine, Google will attempt to put search engines such as Bing back into the shadows.
The upgraded version of the search engine, currently still in the pre-beta test phase, is a major release from the search engine giants which, according to Google, is said to be the:
first step in improving the speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of search results
It’s difficult to deny the visual allure of the splash page. Whether it’s in Flash or another animation/motion graphics vehicle, the splash page makes a company look good. It might be thought of as a kind ‘cover’ – much like you would find on a novel or a magazine.
But how does having a splash page affect your SEO? The truth is that most of the SEO community would tell you it’s a bad idea. Often, the problem lies in the fact that a print designer has been given the job of doing the splash page – and indeed the design of the entire site; the hitch is that print designers frequently have more interest in how pretty their splash page looks, rather than how well Google can index the website.
For a while now various SEO companies and Webmasters have been reporting that corporate brands seem to getting a push in search results, favouring a bigger trusted brand over smaller less well-known organisations.
In March 2009 Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, explained the latest update ‘Vince’ (named after a Googler called Vince who created this modification) could help to improving search ranking for larger named brands and websites with a higher authority within search.
Matt Cutts addressed these concerns stating that the latest changes in search results do not necessarily constitute an ‘update’ rather ‘minor changes’ within Google’s algorithm factoring more trust into for big brand names and generic search queries.
Anyone who knows anything about SEO will tell you Google Webmaster Tools is an essential key in the optimisation process. The use of Webmaster Tools can provide an vast insight into the performance of a website and potential problems a website may face; this inadvertently happened for me today.