Penguin 2.1 Update - Another Spam Filtering Update by Google

Google Penguin Update 2.1 

Google's head of search spam Matt Cutt announced a latest release of Penguin update 2.1 on 4th of Oct 2013. It is said to be believe that this second generation update is going to effect almost 1% of search queries. 

Still there are lot's of talks happening around this latest update, but nothing has been officially announced that what are the actual changes and how they are going to effect the search queries.

Penguin 2.0 version was released on 22nd of May 2013 which effected almost 2.3% of English queries. After the launch of penguin 2.0 Matt Cutt said that it was fourth launch related to penguin but Google claimed it to be penguin 2.0 release as it was a algorithm change not just a data refresh.

First Google penguin algorithm was launched in April 2012 which was focused on reducing the spamming activity on internet. Later Google release two different versions of algorithm in May and October of 2012.

As per webpronews.com Google's comment on initial launch of algorithm was "The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics."

All you want to know about SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimization : Tips & Tehniques

SEO always has been a misery for all the webmaster, as it  is complicated to define the right techniques for right way of doing SEO. Every Single SEO experts have their own way of defining SEO techniques.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization (Organic and Natural results ) is an online marketing technique to get higher search engine visibility in different search engines. 

Search Engine Optimization

Why an Industry requires SEO for their online business?

Their are many statistics, figures and articles available online who defines the importance of SEO for any online business. This is an important aspect of marketing to reach out the targeted audience present online who are looking for your business services and products.

Important facts why SEO for my website :

• Almost 85% to 90% users click on organic results 
• Conversion rate for a user is more through higher search engine visibility in organic results
• Users trust organic results more than paid results
• SEO results stays for longer terms in comparison to paid results
• Credibility is always higher for organic results 

Why SEO

After knowing the importance of SEO, it is required to understand how to do SEO in correct manner.

Types of SEO :

SEO is broadly divided in two main category 

• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO       
  

But here we will understand SEO in four different ways

• Technical SEO
• Architectural SEO
• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO

 Technical SEO : 

There are many technical factors which are considered to be very important from SEO point of view. A webmaster should always take care of :

1. Website/Webpage load time 
2. Redirection 
3. HTML and CSS errors
4. Coding Issues 
5. Error Page

1. Website/Webpage load time : Website or webpage load time plays important role in SEO. Search engines do consider how quickly webpages load for users on different internet speeds.

Check your webpage speed

2. Redirection : There are two different redirection 301 redirection and 302 redirection. 301 redirection is permanent redirection which is used when a page has to be moved permanently to another page. 302 redirection is temporary redirection used to move one page to another in temporary way.

Proper redirection are very important as this way websites does not loose their targeted audience.

3. HTML & CSS Errors: Search engines do look for a bug free and error free coded website. Check your website errors @ W3C Validation 

4. Coding Issues: There should be no error in code. Errors can be like broken links, missing links or too much use of scripts, external functions calling or any other sort of other coding errors.

5. Error Page (404): Webmaster should always create a 404 error page for their website, so that if users look for a non existing page they should visit that page. This way webmasters can ensure of not losing their targeted audience.

Architectural SEO:

There are few below points for architectural SEO:

1. Web folder structure & naming

2. Proper navigation 

3. Use of breadcrumb

 1. Web folder structure and naming : Webmasters should ensure that they should have a properly named folder structure and all the pages should be stored under respective web folders. i.e there should be a proper hierarchy defined for webpages which helps users and search engines in understanding of website.

 2. Proper Navigation : There should be a proper navigational structure present on website, which should be easy to understand and helps users to navigate through the site. There should not any issue where users are not able to find a way to reach a particular page on the site.

3. Use of Breadcrumb: Search engines have started giving preference to breadcrumbs. Breadcrumb is a kind of navigation panel for users and search engines, which shows the users journey on the website.

On-Page SEO: 

On-Page SEO consists of many important factors 

1. Domain Name
2. URL Structure & Naming
3. Meta Tags - Title, Description & Keywords
4. Web Content
5. Image Tags
6. Heading Tags
7. Title Attribute
8. Sitemap.html & sitemap.xml file
9. robots.txt file

1. Domain Name : While thinking of a website development, first think which should come in mind for webmaster is the right selection of domain name. if domain name includes targeted business or industry main keyword, it is always said to be good from SEO point of view.

2. URL Structure and Naming : URL naming part we have already covered by doing a proper web folder structure.

Previously search engines were not able to read special characters like @, & ? + = in a dynamic URL, due to which redirection were required to change a dynamic URL into a static URL.

 For example in above image we can see that a dynamic URL got ranking in search results.

3. Mata tags : Titla, Description are very much important for each page, as it clearly defines what each page is talking about. We need to define them effectively so that a proper message can be transferred to users and search engine crawlers  that what they will get when they come to particular page.

Meta keywords used to play an important role in search engine rankings, but Google has stopped giving priority to that. If a webmaster is targeting Google, then he does not have to worry about meta keywords. But it is not harmful to use meta keywords as there are other search engines as well, who do consider keywords as part of their ranking algorithm.

4. Web Content: Content is king online. 

Every search engine looks for fresh, quality and user engaging content. So if you have a very good and quality content written on your website keeping user engagement and interest in mind, you should not be much worry about getting higher search engine visibility.

5. Image Tags : Image tags or Alt tags are attributes assigned with each image present on a webpage. Webmasters should always name all the images properly present on their website and they should try and keep image small in size so that webpage does not become to heavy.

6. Heading Tags: There are six different heading tags present from H1, H2, H3 to H6.

7. Title Attribute : These attributes are basically assigned with links present on webpages. Title attribute helps search engines to know what that link is going to talk about.

8. Sitemap.html and Sitemap.xml file : Both the sitemap are made to make search engines and users journey easy on website.

Sitemap.html file is one stop for users where they can see all the web URL's present on that site. This file also helps from internal link point of view and search engines can easily navigate through the site.

Sitemap.xml file is especially created for search engine crawlers. With this file crawlers come to know about all the links present on website and also the frequency at which they have to revisit the page.

9. Robots.txt : Robots.txt file is created for search engine crawlers to define what all pages they are allowed to crawl or not.

Off-Page SEO: 

With Google algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda, off page activities or link building activities have become very complicated.

Main idea for link building is now to focus on quality and relevancy not on quantity. 

Also user generated content or to be particular social media participation has started playing a big role in search engine rankings.

Best Off-Page techniques :

1. Social networking platforms sharing 
2. Content distribution or syndication on high quality Article Sites, Blogs
3. Social Bookmarking
4. Forum Participation
5. Asset Optimization - Document Sharing, PDF Sharing, PPT Sharing, Press Release, Videos etc
6. Guest Blogging
7. Classifieds
8. Directory Submission - Now a days not much priority is given to these sites

Off-page or link building activities differs as per the industries as it completely depends where exactly your audience is present.

US Government shut down Impact on Online Industry

Government Shut Down Impact on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A shut down of US Government as impacted many US .gov sites where we can easily see a message being populated “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.”

What exactly does US Government shutdown mean?

As per Wikipedia "On October 1, 2013, the United States federal government entered a shutdown suspending discretionary services deemed "non-excepted" by the Anti-deficiency Act. Because of the government's failure to enact regular appropriations or a continuing resolution for the 2014 fiscal year, appropriations have lapsed and about 800,000 federal employees were indefinitely furloughed without pay, while another 1.3 million "excepted" employees were required to report to work indefinitely without pay until a budget is passed."

US government has experience similar situation in year 1995-96.

But as we all know that this situation is not a permanent one and one day all issues will be resolved. Once US government is on track all the .gov sites will again start providing useful and informative information to audience looking for that.

Again for .gov websites there is one issue that once those sites are back it will take time to get crawled and indexed by search engines like Bing and Google.

For such sites, there can be two different solutions :

1) Place a 404 Page : .gov sites should place a 404 error page having a message stating "Page you are looking for is not available" 

2) 302 Redirection : .gov sites can place 302 temporary redirection as well, which will redirect users to home page or error message page.

By implementing above two methods webmasters can ensure that previous URL's will remain the same and they will not lose their audience. 

Get more information on Search Engine Land .

Google Confirms Webmaster Bug

Google confirms webmaster tool bug and ensures that it will be resolved in coming weeks

As per Search Engine Land, Google has confirmed that they had a bug in their webmaster reporting tool. Due to which webmasters were not able to see any search query data from 25th Sep onward.

Google has said that search query data from webmaster are delayed as of now and it can be expected to return to normal results in coming days.

We were not able to see any search query data from 25th sep onward, but now data is available for 26th Sep as well but not for after dates.

Google webmaster tool has experienced many bugs in past, but now since Google has stopped passing keywords data through search engines, it has become very much important to get information through webmaster tool.

Waiting for Google to completely resolve this Bug.

Google Webmaster Blocks Search Queries (Keywords) Data

Another update or Google step towards not sharing Keywords data with Webmasters

Google has come up with yet another move, to not provide keywords information for users by blocking search queries information through webmaster tool.

In October 2011, Google changed the way it harvests data from search to protect users’ privacy.

If a user is logged into a Google product (such as Gmail, Google Plus, Youtube, etc) while searching, their search is conducted over SSL (Secure Socket Layer). As such, the referral data relating to that search is hidden.                                                                                               

SSL process of displaying keywords (Keywords Unavailable or Not Provided ) hit hard on online marketing agencies who completely depends on keywords data and analysis.

Initially SSL searches were limited to personalized searches, but recently Google updated it's search method and changed it's search result process to SSL searches. So now all the searches happening on Google are secured searches, and as a digital marketing agency you won't be able to see which keyword drove traffic to your website.

Google's new move of stopping keywords data from webmaster account has given another shock to digital market.

As per many blogs, forums and conversation happening on Twitter it is confirmed that webmasters around the world are not able to see any keyword data from 25th Sep.

As per Search Engine Land Founding Editor Danny Sullivan it may be a bug as well as similar incidents have happened in past. Search engine land tried to reach Google for the detailed information on same, but did not receive any response.

So friends let's wait and watch what new change Google brings in.