PANDA, PENGUIN+ OTHER SEO ANIMALS

THE ORGANIC SEARCH ALGORITHM

Google’s algorithm is made up of approximately 200 parameters.

ON PAGE FACTORS Content Link Equity

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OFF PAGE FACTORS Link Equity

TECHNICAL FACTORS Server Response Codes Information Architecture Crawl Friendly Load Time

THE FOUNDATION

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

PAGE RANK “PageRank can be thought of as a model of user behavior. We assume there is a "random surfer" who is given a web page at random and keeps clicking on links, never hitting "back" but eventually gets bored and starts on another random page. The probability that the random surfer visits a page is its PageRank.”

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~Excerpt from Brin & Page’s Stanford paper.

THE ORIGINAL SEO ANIMAL: LINKS (LYNX)

SPECIFICALLY: EXTERNAL LINKS

METRICS Ø  The trustworthiness of the linking domain. Ø  The popularity of the linking page. Ø  The relevancy of the content between the source page and the target page. Ø  The anchor text used in the link. Ø  The amount of links to the same page on the source page. Ø  The amount of domains that link to the target page. Ø  The amount of variations that are used as anchor text to links to the target page. Ø  The ownership relationship between the source and target domains.

CATEGORIES Ø  Blogs Ø  Trusted Sites Ø News Media Ø  Shopping Sites Ø  Social Media Ø  Job Sites Ø  Business Sites Ø Directories

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THE POPULARITY CONTEST

Most Relevant = Most Popular Results

An inbound link is a vote for a site.

Each link is NOT created equal.

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ON-PAGE AND TECHNICAL FACTORS

Keyword Analysis Content and Messaging Utilizing Available Landing Page Opportunities Identifying New Opportunities Improving Usability Resolving Technical Problems

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LEVELWING’S PRIMARY FOCUS

THE INDEXING ANIMAL: SPIDERS … AKA (RO)BOTS

ON-PAGE + TECHNICAL FACTORS

Search friendly sites respond to spiders through: 1.  Content that can be indexed 2.  Thoughtfully linking content so spiders

can effectively maneuver through a site, as well as the web.

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SOURCE CODE

CONTENT THAT CAN BE INDEXED

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INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

MANEUVERING THE SITE and THE WEB

SITE STRUCTURE NAVIGATION INTERNAL LINK EQUITY OUTBOUND LINKING

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ALGORITHM UPDATES & REFRESHES

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm up to 500 – 600 times. While most of these changes are minor, every few months Google rolls out a “major” algorithmic update that affects search results in significant ways.

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GOOGLE’S GUIDELINES – BASIC PRINCIPLES

From WEBMASTER TOOLS

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Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.   Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank.

Matt Cutts – Head of Google’s Web Spam Team

GOOGLE’S DESIGN AND CONTENT GUIDELINES

From WEBMASTER TOOLS

Make a site with a clear hierarchy. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the "ALT" attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.

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Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it. Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

PANDA

Released 2/23/2011 (more than a dozen updates)

Named for: Google Engineer Navneet Panda. POOR CONTENT Focused on dampening the rankings for sites that contain shallow content as well as content found on other sites. Purpose was to spot content that wasn’t adding any real value to the Internet and remove its power to rank. Algorithm update designed to take action against content farms that were gaining top listing with low quality content.

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PENGUIN

Released 4/24/2012 (updated 5/26)

Named for: SerachEngineGuide.com post, “Algorithmically, the filter uses its "sense of smell" to associate authority (or lack thereof) related to the site much like penguins use their sense of smell to identify their partner or offspring.”

OVER OPTIMIZATION Google refers to it as an update targeting web spam – a.k.a., keyword stuffing and link schemes. Examples of poor quality signals the Penguin algorithm identifies: Ø  Large quantities of low-quality links Ø  Unusually high numbers of highly optimized anchor text Ø  Keyword stuffing tactics Ø  Duplicate content Penalty: the update simply removes any positive ranking benefit that the tactics had been supplying the offending site.

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GETTING LINK LOVE

Publish quality content on a user-friendly website that makes users want to stick around. Ø  Improve the visitors user experience Ø  Add value for your customers Ø  Acquire an audience/customer base

and keep them coming back for more It is that value creation through broader content marketing that will inevitably build links to relevant sites.

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FITTING IN

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How does organic search fit in with your digital strategy?

USER FRIENDLY

Organic traffic is often the best data resource for how visitors use a website.

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