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Recovery and Survival From Google Updates – SEO for 2015

Posted by Joseph Erndt on Jul 7, 2015 in Blog

With all this talk about Pandas, Penguins and Hummingbirds, many non-techies are probably wondering if Google is trying to open up their own zoo. Anyone that runs their own website, however, will know exactly what these names mean. For anyone not in the know, Panda and Penguin are filters that sit on top of the all mighty top secret algorithm that ranks pages on Google. The Hummingbird update was more of an overhaul or replacement for system taking 200+ major ingredients into account and combining them into a new search algorithm. Different Animals The Panda filter was developed to weed out weak websites with thin or duplicate content. Penguin’s purpose is to stop website owners from artificially gaining popularity through key word spamming, poor links and other black hat SEO methods. The Penguin updates have hit many websites hard with only 7% reporting a full recovery. While Google’s aim is noble, creating and promoting high quality websites, the sudden changes have left some business owners reeling as they saw their page rank and thus their web traffic plummet overnight. The newest “Hummingbird” update helps advance Google in mobile searching and conversational searching. Hummingbird got its name from Google’s idea of creating a faster more precise search engine. Hummingbird is geared towards the way people search using their mobile phones and smart devices, including conversational searches (such as when a person uses voice recognition to ask their phone, “Where can I find a good place to buy socks around here?”). The newest update is better at learning each person’s search preferences and is able to deliver more custom results. As always they are in search of the most useful and organic websites out there. Are You A Penguin Causality? It was the Penguin update that hurt website owners most of all. If you are unsure whether or not your website was affected by the Penguin update, the best way to tell is by taking a look at your analytics. By checking your organic Google traffic on and around April 24, 2012 you should be able to easily spot any problems. If your traffic dropped significantly then you probably have some Penguin kinks to work out. Also look at your inbound link profile and the associated anchor text. You will be penalized for a large number of links from unrelated sites, especially those with unbranded or unnatural anchor text. What Makes Google Happy? The Penguin updates strive to make the internet a more educational and useful place for consumers. As a website owner your main concern should be writing high quality content that speaks to your customers. Your keywords and links should be natural, organic, and add to the content’s overall meaning. Penguin loves social media engagement and works in your favor if you are linking to and getting backlinks from other authority (high ranking) websites. If SEO isn’t your strong...