| Does Your Search Engine Optimization Pass the Google Grandmother Test? |
Did you know that Google has a grandmother? Neither did I until
I recently re-read their advice on website optimization.
But it's your grandmother who is more important. Either of them
will do. Let's imagine that you have done something that is not
strictly above board. It's not specifically bad, but you wouldn't
want the whole world to know.
Would you tell your grandmother? Probably not. It would be too
embarrassing and you know already what she's going to say.
Now think about your search engine optimization techniques. And
imagine that Google is your grandmother. Would you tell Google
willingly what you have done to improve your rankings?
The bottom line of Google's business model is to provide its
users with good search results. As far as Google is concerned
that means good content that is appropriate to the search terms
entered.
Anything that artificially increases a page's ranking above
that which it would have achieved through the intrinsic merit
of its content is anathema to Google.
This includes the known no-no techniques of keyword stuffing,
invisible text, cloaking, bait-and-switch etc.
So many webmasters have instead turned towards link exchanges
as it is thought that Google values well-linked sites. But
this depends on the PageRank, as determined by Google, of the
pages that link to yours. Not the *sites* but the individual
*pages* that have the links. Pages that have hardly any content
other than links are noticeably downgraded in PageRank.
The one technique that until now has been unimpeachable as
a search engine optimization technique is to offer free
content, such as this article, which may be republished
as long as there is a link back to the author's site.
This gets a link on a content page, not a links page. So it
should look good in Google's eyes and enhance the ranking of
your site.
But the next question has to be just how many of these free
content articles are actually useful and worthy of being read.
There are tens of thousands of these articles floating around
the web, and as the idea catches on more widely it is
inevitable that the quality will drop.
And if Google is happy with the technique now, it is not
guaranteed that it will continue to be so in future.
No, the only way to be sure that Google's grandmother will
be 100% happy is not to use optimization tricks or techniques
at all. Pretend that Google doesn't exist and develop a
sensational website. Link only with partners who can provide
synergy to your site, and don't trade links or content just
for the sake of it.
By the way, Google can tell how much your visitors like your
site. When a visitor clicks from the search results page to
your site, Google can measure the time before they click
back again. If this is just a few seconds, it means that
your page wasn't relevant to the search terms.
I predict that this, and other methods that measure true
value, will become Google's, and other search engines',
true measure of worth.
Keep that well in mind as you develop your site.
RESOURCE BOX
David Mellor owns and operates websites that make a profit
on topics other than marketing, search engine optimization
and general snake oil, such as
http://www.record-producer.com. He also shares his expertise at
http://www.active-internet-marketing.com
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