Gooogle made an update recently dubbed “The May Day Update” that has rang some bells in the SEO community. The main complaint is that it has shrunk the amount of traffic coming into websites as a result of long-tail searches.  Most websites didn’t see a drop in their rankings for their more important keyword phrases. Some websites, my dental internet marketing website included, actually saw a bump in results. There is only speculation as to why some have gained and others have lost. Google hasn’t confirmed or denied any of the theories.

One theory is that the drop in traffic isn’t really a result of Google changing the way it handles long-tail searches at all. It’s a result of Google further devaluing links from sketchy websites or websites of low importance. This means that websites that saw a drop after this update are simply seeing a drop in their rankings as a result of losing some of the links that maybe shouldn’t have counted before in the first place.

Others (See Tedster’s theory in this Webmaster World discussion thread) say that it is indeed a change in how Google deals with long-tail phrases, but only inasmuch as it has changed its phrase match methodologies. Meaning that if someone typed in “Denver seafood restaurant quiet dinning Lodo”, rather than just showing results that match individual keywords, it may be identifying phrases within the long-tail search, in this case, “Denver seafood restaurant” and displaying indexed results that are relevant to that entire phrase.

Another theory is that Google is just culling some pages from its index that it deems not important enough to take up space in its memory in order to keep the speed increase up that it has seen as a result of its Caffeine update. This would mean that if your site was getting traffic on some of its ancillary pages from long-tail search phrases, it’s not that Google has changed how it’s displaying results for those phrases, it’s that those pages of your site are just GONE from Google’s index, so they aren’t showing up anymore.

Whatever the cause, if you’ve seen a change in your traffic from long-tail search phrases, stop and take stock of your traffic. How much has it dropped? Be sure to look a month or two before May 1st and compare it to now, bearing in mind that not quite a month has passed since the May Day Update hit. Do a site: search on Google and see if you have fewer pages showing up in Google’s index. Use some internal link building to donate some link juice from more important pages to some of the long-tail content that was dropped from the index so that Google may re-include them. Acquire some more high-quality links to replace some of the low-quality links that Google may have discounted. Above all, just make sure that your SEO strategies are focusing on sound, white hat SEO techniques. If you’re doing that, you’re less likely to feel the sting of these updates. In fact, most algorithm updates will help you!

On Aug. 10, Google announced Caffeine, suggesting a shift in the Google algorithm. Matt Cutts, the head of Google's webspam team, indicated Caffeine is basically a rewrite of the search index, roughly comparable to the Big Daddy upgrade of 2005-2006.

The once hush-hush project is supposed to revitalize the Google algorithm to provide users with a better search experience. The official word is that the update is “the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and other dimensions.”

Based on that, it sounds like we’ll get faster indexing speeds, with more pages indexed and a more comprehensive search results page — necessary advances as the web becomes more unwieldy. For search marketers, it means more competition for single, generic-type keywords, less stability of rankings, and an increased focus on long-tail keywords as they become more relevant to sales conversions.

That’s all good news if your website is well ranked for your best keywords. If not, it’s time to optimize now. Make sure your site conforms to Google’s new infrastructure to avoid any loss of rankings.

How important is Caffeine?
Many SEO experts believe Caffeine is a major search algorithm update. Google is soliciting feedback on the changes from experienced users and web developers, but comments are open to the public as well. Google is currently interested in any differences between the current and new systems, and wants to know what types of sites rank better or worse in the news system, as well as what should or shouldn’t rank. It would be wise to check out Caffeine and learn how it will affect your site.

The first thing to do is log off from your Google Accounts (such as iGoogle, Gmail, and AdWords) to avoid skewing results based on your own browsing history and personal settings. Then, open up a new window to compare your SEO campaign between Google’s regular search engine results pages (SERPs) and Caffeine.

To check results with Caffeine, conduct a search on this infrastructure preview. To give feedback, look for a link at the bottom of the Caffeine search results page that says "Dissatisfied? Help us improve.” Don’t forget to include the word “caffeine” when leaving feedback.

Comparing search results between Google and Caffeine
Google Tutor provides five tools that can help you compare the new and old systems:

1. Google Caffeine Bookmarklet This tool makes it easy to check Caffeine results by clicking the bookmarklet in your browser.
2. Firefox plugin This adds the Caffeine search engine to your Firefox search bar.
3. Ranking checker A tool that checks your ranking at Google and Caffeine simultaneously. It does not show actual search results for comparison, but provides a quick way to check rankings.
4. Google vs. Google Caffeine Gives you a split screen for side-by-side comparison of search results from Google and Caffeine. Very useful if you do a lot of testing.
5. Google.ie and Google.de vs. Caffeine Another split- screen tool to compare Irish and Deutsch versions to the U.S. version of Google.

In addition, there are other tools available:

1. Google Caffeine Compare by facesaerch lets you easily compare “caffeinated” results with “decaffeinated” results by typing and searching as usual.
2. Compare Google Caffeine by Black Dog and Get Caffeinated by Doubleshot. Enter a query and see returns for both Caffeine and Google side by side for easy comparison.

Google wants input, so feel free to tell them what you like or dislike about Caffeine. This project started last month and will evolve as Google continues to get feedback. Some people have reported seeing changes already, as Caffeine begins to affect Google results.

What changes can you expect with Caffeine?
Here’s a list of changes, based on early findings from various blogs. Keep in mind that this is an early reading, so it’s unknown if these changes will result when the final upgrade is implemented.

1. Higher keyword density. Caffeine SERPs feature site titles and snippets with higher phrase and/or keyword density.
2. Faster index. Most people report Caffeine queries are returned at faster speeds.
3. Fresher results. Caffeine results are more current, including blog posts from the last few days. This shows Google’s concern and focus on real-time search.
4. More emphasis on social media. Caffeine SERPs contain more sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger, etc.
5. Less emphasis on universal search. While this is a popular feature and was also implemented by other search engines, it doesn’t help Google’s paid search revenue. Therefore, universal results will be moved lower on the page to make paid search more visible.
6. Increased prominence of video. While news and image listings moved further down the page, Caffeine SERPs are prominently featuring video listings.
7. Keywords in domain name. Google has always favored keywords in the domain name, and the new SERPs seem to weigh keyword domain names even higher. If you’re launching a new site, a microsite with your keywords embedded within the URL might be wise.

Are SEO tactics changing?
Most white hat optimization tactics will continue to prevail. On-page tactics are still important, as are off-page tactics. Webmasters should follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines as they have in the past, perhaps with an added emphasis on the changes mentioned above.

Here are some basic SEO best practices to keep in mind:

• Create a site with clear hierarchy and text links.
• Create a site map with links to important pages.
• Create information-rich pages describing your content clearly and accurately.
• Use keywords in text.
• Give preference to text over images.
• Make
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• Keep links on a given page to a reasonable number (<100).
• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• No cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages with malicious behavior (phishing, viruses, trojans, badware).
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or “cookie cutter” approaches like affiliate programs with little or no original content.

The final product
Google’s search results change regularly, but with the impending launch of Caffeine, people are wondering if the minor changes noted are the upgrade. Google’s Matt Cutts told Search Engine Land on Sept. 17 that Caffeine was not yet implemented into Google search results. However, Twitter is churning with questions.

Some say Caffeine has already launched or is about to launch in a few days. Google’s announcement does not specify when testing will end and changes will be implemented into main search results and only says “most users won’t notice a difference in search results,” but “web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences.”

To that end, ReadWriteWeb reported on a study by U.K. online marketing firm Summit Media that indicated search results aren’t much different with the Caffeine update. The study examined 9,000 keywords and found only “a tiny change in ranking,” with the algorithm update favoring pages that are updated more often with fresh content.

Conclusion
While there are discrepancies in the effects noted to date, the Caffeine upgrade will likely produce a faster, fresher index with more visibility of social media sites and decreased importance of universal search in the SERPs (except for video listings).

Google says its primary mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Its unstated secondary goal is to dominate search and internet advertising. Caffeine may be a major index improvement, but the parent company never loses sight of profitability.

Link Building Services – Link Building company – Link Building Consultants

Much of the time when we take on a new client, one of our recommendations is that they íncrease the amount of unique, keyword-targeted, text content on their site. We generally recommend having at least 250 words of content per page, a number that continues to grow as the years go by. Ten years ago our minimum was 75 words. However, as competition on the Web becomes greater, the barrier to entry gets higher as well. Search engines are seeking even more expert content as a way to determine the most relevant sites for a particular keyword.

Conversely, there is no maximum number of words you can put on any one page so long as you are adding quality content. You’ll notice that some BruceClay.com pages are over 5000 words. However, before you go after a strategy of building lengthy pages, remember that you want to build depth of content in your site. It’s not about saying everything you have to say on one page. While it is possible to rank for a one page site, it is very difficult. It is much easier to establish a site wide theme, supported by depth of content and good internal linking.

Pages should be structured to address customer questíons or product information as they become relevant. This can seem to be a daunting task for many people, but it’s actually quite manageable as long as you start your copywriting project off in the right direction.

Search engines want to be treated like any other visitor to your site, but while they are coming closer to the ability to mimic human judgment, they’re not there yet. Search engines can still have trouble trying to accurately define what a page is about if the content is written in anything but a clear and well-defined style.

To understand what you should be writing, you first need to understand a little bit about the history of the search engines. The first search engines were set up for the people who were using the Internet at the time. Because the population of the early Web was largely researchers, scientists and educators, the focus of search engines was to bring back pages that fit the thesis model. This model persists today in the way Web pages are written: a title, description and some keywords that help define what the focus of the paper or page is.

In order to write effective pages to support your search engine optimization goals there are a few guidelines you should keep in mind. Assuming that you have generated a solid keyword líst (See Lisa Barone’s article, Five Steps to Effective SEO Keyword Research, and have assigned the words to pages, your next step should be to brainstorm the best way to represent the keywords in an informative way.

Brainstorming works best if you throw out all your filters. Don’t critique any of your ideas, just write them down. The idea is to get out everything–great ideas and garbage alike. At this stage, no idea is too stupid. You can narrow it down later.

If you are writing content for your own Web site, your first response might be to feel frustrated. What on earth are you going to write about? Everyone knows everything that you could possibly tell them and you’re not a writer anyway. But that’s just the thing, they don’t and you are.

Let’s pretend that your business is selling cowboy boots.

Brainstorm everything you can think of that relates to cowboy boots, even if it’s only somewhat related. Once you have all your ideas down, pick a few of the best. For example, you’ll want to focus a section of your site on the keyword “buy cowboy boots”. Everyone, you think, knows about how to buy boots. It’s just a matter of finding the right fit and style. You don’t need to explain it to your site’s visitors. But it’s one of your keywords so you sit down and simply write all the obvious information.

You are an expert in your area. Of course you know how to chëck the fit of your boots and which styles will work best for which people. It’s obvious to you that your jeans should be tucked inside your boots if you’re working outside and that you should take certain steps to care for your boots. But for most people, that’s not the case.

That’s why they’re coming to your site in the first place. Your expertise is a valuable resource for the development of content. Explaining something that is obvious to you is probably the best way to introduce new customers to your products.

When I write my first draft, I like to keep the keywords that I want to incorporate on the page in mind. I’ll tape them to my monitor or put them at the very top of the document. However, I don’t worry about densities or forcing them in. If it doesn’t sound natural to use the keyword, I don’t use it. The first draft is just to get the information out. Use your keywords as a guide for the content.

Once you have a first draft, take a look at the tone of your piece. Are you writing to the right audience? Is your content engaging and informative? Does your content solve a problem or help the customer make a decision? If you’re in a highly technical area where your customer isn’t likely to know enough to ask intelligent questíons, have you educated them enough to feel comfortable?

Revise your draft with these ideas in mind. Knowing your audience means putting in the kinds of words that they will be looking for, the same kinds of words that will help them understand what the best choice of products will be for them.

After your next draft, the best thing to do is ask someone else to read it over for you. The best person for this task is someone who fits the profile of a site visitor. Have them read it to see if it answers their questíons in an easy to understand way. If not, revise the content to meet their understanding.

Once you have a final draft, incorporate your final product into the destination page and use the SEOToolSet’s KDA or any other page rating tool to determine the strength of the document. Tweak it if necessary. Keep in mind what your linking strategies will be and how the content will support the Web site theme as a whole.

The final thing to remember about writing for search engines is that there is no magical formula for writing the perfect copy. It takes work and attention to detail to meet the needs of both the search engines and your human visitors. The best thing to do is start writing and go from there.

How successful is your website? Do you really know how well it is performing for your business?

Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that the more traffíc they get to their website the better, and they work towards this end. It is better to focus efforts on bringing in targeted traffíc that will convert to sales or enquiries. To understand more correctly how well a website is performing, and who is visiting the website, a good website statistics package is required, as well as an understanding of the data these website reports produce.

With many website hostíng packages free, website statistics are available. However, the information is not always easy to understand or doesn’t always give you the information in a way that is easy to understand.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great application that Google provides absolutely free. It tracks all activity on your website, not just visits through Google. All you need is a Google Account, and FTP access to your website to insert a small amount of code in your website, and away you go. If you don’t already have a Google account, I encourage you to set one up as soon as possible! You can do so at: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount . Not only will you have access to Google Analytics, but having a Google account gives you a whole host of other tools.

Visitors

As a start, it is a good idea to find out how many visitors are coming to your website. Visitors are broken down into new and returning visitors. While it is great to attract new visitors to your site, you should aim to see a decent percentage of returning visitors as well, as this gives a good indication that people find your site interesting enough to come back to.

Depth of Visit

How many pages are viewed during a visit to your website?

Length of Visit

How much time do visitors spend on your website? If they are spending very little time on your site when you have an information-rich site, then you need to start looking at the navigational report to find out where you are losing them.

Keywords

The Keywords that people are finding your website through, are a good indication of what keywords are performing well for you in the search engines. Are the keywords that are displaying for you truly reflective of what you offer? If not, then it is time to revamp the content on your website.

Referrals

Which referrals drive the highest quality traffíc? This report lists activity coming via referrals from other websites. This is useful for tracking links that you cannot control. You can gauge the overall effectiveness and importance of PR activities, partnerships, etc. The referrals are compared to the number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average value per visit.

Navigation

Which navigation paths resulted in conversions during the visit? For each navigation path, this report shows conversion rates and the value per visit.

Exit Pages

From which pages do visitors commonly exit your site? This report shows the number of exits from pages on your site. If you notice a high number of exits for specific pages, it is time to seriously analyze these pages and try to improve them, because it is very likely that people are not getting the information they expect or want.

Conversion data

Arguably this is one of the most important pieces of information. Conversion data gives you a true understanding of how successful your site really is.

Conversional goals can be set up through your Analytics settings. Take time to think about what goals you want to track. These may be sales or web enquiries you are receiving, or specific pages in your website that you want to focus on. Keep in mind that if your visitor contacts you by telephone or fax, this will not be reflected in the goal conversions. However, you can set your contact page as being a goal to get a feel for how many people are looking for your contact details.

By monitoring the changes in conversion rates for your primary goals, you can monitor the overall effectiveness of website changes, marketing roll-outs and other events.

Organic vs Pay-Per-Clíck comparison

How does paid search compare with organic search in driving high quality traffíc to my site? This report compares paid and organic referrals with respect to number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average visit value.

Date Range

Throughout the report it gives you the ability to track your website statistics between various date ranges. At this time it only allows you to see a maximum of a month’s data at a time. The reports also allow you to compare data, so you can find out how your site is tracking against a previous date period.

Beta Version

The current Beta which is just in the process of being released, provides a lot more flexibility, and one of the most exciting things about the new version is that it allows you to schedule reports, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. This is great news as it makes the process of accessing your website reports even easier.

Google Analytics Features

There are many other features that Google Analytics offers, and it is worth spending the time having a good look at them and trying to understand what they have to offer you. Alternatively, speak to your webmaster or SEO specialist and get them to help you understand how Google Analytics can help improve your website performance. By having a better understanding of it, you can potentially íncrease your profíts significantly.

Final Note

When you analyze the data from your website statistics with the intention of improving your site, or getting a good indication of how your site is performing, it is important that you have a decent snapshot of the data to work from, i.e. make sure that you are not making assumptions based on the data of a single day, as trends vary over time, and even from day-to-day. IMPORTANT- never become complacent! Make sure you review your website reports at least weekly or monthly–if not daily–to make sure that your website is performing to your expectations.

Anybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any clients on the losing end of that equation however we have called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming. After a weekend of analysis there are some curiosities in the results that simply require further tweaks in the ranking system.

This update seems to have revolved around three main areas: domain age, backlinks and PageRank.

Domain Age

It appears that Google is presently giving a lot of weíght to the age of a domain and, in this SEO’s opinion, disproportionately so. While the age of a domain can definitely be used as a factor in determining how solid a company or site is, there are many newer sites that provide some great information and innovative ideas. Unfortunately a lot of these sites got spanked in the last update.

On this tangent I have to say that Google’s use of domain age as a whole is a good filter, allowing them to “sandbox” sites on day one to insure that they aren’t just being launched to rank quickly for terms. Recalling back to the “wild west days” of SEO when ranking a site was a matter of cramming keywords into content and using questionable methods to generate links quickly I can honestly say that adding in this delay was an excellent step that ensured that the benefits of pumping out domains became extremely limited. So I approve of domain age being used to value a site – to a point.

After a period of time (let’s call it a year shall we) the age should and generally has only had a very small influence on a site’s ranking with the myriad of other factors overshadowing the site’s whois data. This appears to have changed in the recent update with age holding a disproportionate weíght. In a number of instances this has resulted in older, less qualified domains to rank higher than newer sites of higher quality.

This change in the ranking algorithm will most certainly be adjusted as Google works to maximize the searchers experience. We’ll get into the “when” question below.

Backlinks

The way that backlinks are being calculated and valued has seen some adjustments in the latest update as well. The way this has been done takes me back a couple years to the more easily gamed Google of old. This statement alone reinforces the fact that adjustments are necessary.

The way backlinks are being valued appears to have lost some grasp on relevancy and placed more importance on sheer numbers. Sites with large, unfocused reciprocal link directories are outranking sites with fewer but more relevant links. Non-reciprocal links lost the “advantages” that they held over reciprocal links until recently.

Essentially the environment is currently such that Google has made itself more easily gamed than it was a week ago. In the current environment, building a reasonably sized site with a large recip link directory (even unfocused) should be enough to get you ranking. For obvious reasons this cannot (and should not) stand indefinitely.

PageRank

On the positive side of the equation, PageRank appears to have lost some of it’s importance including the importance of PageRank as it pertains to the value of a backlinks. In my opinion this is a very positive step on Google’s part and shows a solid understanding of the fact that PageRank means little in terms of a site’s importance. That said, while PageRank is a less than perfect calculation subject to much abuse and manipulation from those pesky people in the SEO community it did serve a purpose and while it needed to be replaced it doesn’t appear to have been replaced with anything of substantial value.

A fairly common belief has been that PageRank would be or is being replaced by TrustRank and Google would not give us a green bar to gauge a site’s trust on (good call Google). With this in mind one of two things has happened; either Google has decided the TrustRank is irrelevant and so is PageRank and decided to scrap both (unlikely) or they have shifted the weíght from PageRank to TrustRank to some degree and are just now sorting out the issues with their TrustRank calculations (more likely). Issues that may have existed with TrustRank may not have been clear due to it’s weíght in the overall algorithm and with this shift reducing the importance of PageRank the issues that face the TrustRank calculations may well be becoming more evident.

In truth, the question is neither here nor there (as important a question as it may be). We will cover why this is in the …

Conclusion

So what does all of this mean? First, it means that this Thursday or Friday we can expect yet another update to correct some of the issues we’ve seen rise out of the most current round. This shouldn’t surprise anyone too much, we’ve been seeing regular updates out of Google quite a bit over the past few months.

But what does this mean regarding the aging of domains? While I truly feel that an aging delay or “sandbox” is a solid filter on Google’s part – it needs to have a maximum duration. A site from 2000 is not, by default, more relevant than a site from 2004. After a year-or-so the trust of a domain should hold steady or at most, hold a very slight weíght. This is an area we are very likely to see changes in the next update.

As far as backlinks go, we’ll see changes in the way they are calculated unless Google is looking to revert back to the issues they had in 2003. Lower PageRank, high relevancy links will once again surpass high quantity, less relevant links. Google is getting extremely good at determining relevancy and so I assume the current algorithm issues have more to do with the weíght assigned to different factors than an inability to properly calculate a link’s relevancy.

And in regards to PageRank, Google will likely shift back slightly to what worked and give more importance to PageRank, at least while they figure out what went awry here.

In short, I would expect that with an update late this week or over the weekend we’re going to see a shift back to last week’s results (or something very close to it) after which they’ll work on the issues they’ve experienced and launch a new (hopefully improved) algorithm shift the following weekend. And so, if you’ve enjoyed a sudden jump from page 6 to top 3, don’t pop the cork on the champagne too quickly, and if you’ve noticed some drops, don’t panic. More adjustments to this algorithm are necessary and, if you’ve used solid SEO practices and been consistent and varied in your link building tactics – keep at it and your rankings will return.