Virtually every blog which discusses blogging, make money online , SEO and such stuff gets fresh content to discuss every time Google proposes or rolls out an update. Since last year Google’s updates have been sounding the death knell for sites, businesses and blogs in every corner of the world wide web. Gigantic posts are concocted even when there’s a rumour of Google rolling out some fresh disaster. I will try to make sense of Google’s updates from my experiences and try to present the sum and substance of these updates, the essence of what it is asking us to do. Its true that we have had our traffic losses whenever the guys at the coding team get bored of soccer and decide to have some real fun but then Google also has the power to give us back what we have lost, if we do what they expect us to do. The first step is to realise that both Google and we are running a business and whatever happens to us can be corrected if we take proactive action.

Making sense of Google panda- Quality

I understand Panda very well. I ran a low quality website which excelled at being low quality. It got its content by copy pasting what others wrote, lacked anything known as grammar, the site did everything to ensure that the bounce rates were high because nothing of value was found on the site and when the Panda penalties came, my traffic reduced by 80%.

From that experience I came to know what’s quality content. Quality is not equal to length. Quality content does not mean long boring content. What many bloggers sacrifice in the name of quality is user engagement. Do you think that by typing  a huge post which is above 800 words one can ensure quality. No I don’t think so. One of my friends who is a blogger does not accept any guest post which is lower than 800 words in length or even writes something which is below 1200 words but his content is not the benchmark of quality, for the simple reason that what he writes is repetitive, boring and doesn’t engage anybody.

Quality means engaging. If your post is engaging then your bounce rate will be lower which is a measure of whether your site needs be penalized. The best way I engage my audience is by writing like talking. And even if I write long posts user engagement is ensured because I write it in a way that people are not bored. The flow of communication shouldn’t vanish.

Your post need not be of epic proportions to achieve high rankings. Secondly quality need not be limited to only writing an epic post. With your blog you’re solving a problem. What Google doesn’t want is a sales page. Go the extra mile in educating your audience by a video, an infographic, a presentation on Slideshare, pie chart, anything which can solve a problem in the most efficient manner should be used. Its very easy to get traffic from YouTube when compared to getting traffic from Google. People like seeing a thing being done rather than trying to understand it by reading.

Ranking your site is a function of the degree of ease you could provide to your audience.

Making sense of Google Penguin- Honesty

Photos which became synonymous with Google’s updates were the kung fu Panda and angry penguin. Why is the Penguin angry? Before the updates were launched people could easily  rank any site by getting a couple of links from some high pr site. SEO was limited to buying and selling some links. Spammers made the art into a money spitting machine and over exploited it to such a degree that Google dropped a nuclear warhead.

As a result even while commenting one has to ensure that anchor texts are not over exploited. A recent tweak in the Penguin algorithm did away with sites which had a lot of make money online anchor texts. Repeating any keyword too often can cause Google to sue your site. Be careful of the fact even when commenting.

One of the ideal ways for link building is by submitting your posts to content curators like blogengage and press releases. There are enough Fiverr gigs having a lot of positive reputation that submit your articles as press releases giving you hot backlinks. You can also dominate Google by guest posting. You can outsource the job to bloggers who offer it as a service and in exchange get high pr backlinks.

The man behind youngprepro did something like 267 guest posts and many of them on small blogs to drive traffic from search engines. He gets 134 extra unique visitors due to those seo oriented guest posts.

What Matt Cutts the man behind “blogger’s sorrow” says about link building-“ Your links should not appear natural, they should be natural.”

Making sense of the Exact Match Domain update aka EMD, well what’s in a name??

I was betting that the next update would be called Dolphin. You know what, the names have lost their sex appeal. When I was on the hunt for  a domain name my conditions were that it should be easy to spell and sound great- SEEKDEFO is what I came up with. Call me a prophet but I knew that keyword stuffing in the domain would meet its doom. Lo I was right and I need not worry about naming any site on keywords.

As always there are some good sites which suffered along with the ones which had no content. Google ended their immeasurable love for keywords in domains so abruptly that many people’s money making cash cows  dropped dead in the field. Some lost their their traffic by 80% others 60% some lost it all.

What I can say is that when building those sites people never cared about the content quality only the keywords and Google assumed all those sites of being low quality. The EMD update also has to do with Google panda and penguin. Quality and honesty.

Here’s what led to the update-“ From a long time people have been complaining that we at Google have been attaching a lot of importance to keywords in names and with the EMD update we decided to do away with it.” 

Google is penalizing several sites which use exact match domain as their main marketing technique or the only marketing technique. See my point!

Sub micro niches in health consisting of the exact words which spelled the disease have utterly been wiped out and its only one of the examples.

Google has actually made our work easy!! Am I mad?

Yep Google has taken away the pain of having to compete with those site owners who with their large stack of cash can pump up rankings with artificial back links or buy  a keyword certified domain name. What matters is whether you can solve problems and make others like you. Its the best time to start a site. You need not care about what others are doing or even copy pasters because they will get their due.

What is the Google vision?

Let me try to see it from the eyes of Google. I have heard that 90% of the global searches are made on Google. Being in such a position of authority there comes a responsibility( I am not copying spider man). A responsibility of providing exactly what people are looking for. Since Google is also running a business, that responsibility becomes a must done task. If you are a blogger what’s your vision with your blog? To provide readers what they are looking for. You see each blogger who is successful does something in such a way that he is the one best at it. Google is best at providing people what they are searching for. They are not best at providing the best OS. Microsoft does that.

So Google needs to run a business of providing people what they are looking for and to stay afloat they need to keep searchers happy and that’s what they are trying to do no matter how they mask it with technical words. They have to remain in business and so must we too.

So whenever you post something remember a question. Is what I am posting going to help the person who reads it. Secondly can anybody else provide it in a way better than me. If the answer to the first question is yes and the second question answers no, you have succeeded in the internet world.

Don’t believe me just check your bookmarks. Each person provides something of irreplaceable value.