Google Search Algorithm Evolution: What Will Future SEO Entail?

People are always wondering what direction Big G will take the Google Search Algorithm in the future. It’s a sound pondering for any serious webmaster or blogger. You always want to make sure that your site and your style are to your benefit since if your material doesn’t rank, no one will see it, and really, what’s the point then?

I’ve been looking into this and decided to pull some of it together for the benefit of those who may not yet understand it all, or how the sum of the parts are greater than the whole of SEO.

Hey, I like how that sounds…

Let me go into some of my own history and frustration with this whole SEO thing from the perspective a a guy (me) who always loved to just sit down and write away, and how it kept me from blogging my thoughts for a time when I saw that since nothing ranked, what was the point of wasting my time.

You know, you can only do so much SEO before it comes back to bite you.

So I started hobby blogs years ago and played with Blogger, or Blogspot as it was then known. I was on that before Google bought it. I just viewed blogging as some online diary, and it had no direction or purpose other than to be a creative outlet.   Then again, I originally couldn’t see the synergy of merging PDA’a and phones- big DUH for me.  Just call me Captain Obvious. (self deprecating sarcasm)

Well, that didn’t last long. When I had the discipline to do it I wrote about non targeted things, and I had no clue about doing keyword research or anything like that.

I saw blogging as a waste of time. Pure hobbyist time wasting.

Yeah, sometimes it takes a bit for the usefulness of something to emerge.

In time, blogs became powerful publishing platforms that enabled normal people to create professional visually stunning websites that could be rearranged with a theme change. All of that PHP and SQL on the back end runs circles around regular HTML or web editing.

It wasn’t until I got into affiliate marketing that all of this research and targeted content creation’s benefits became starkly apparent.

So, as time marched on and I learned the art of that keyword research and SEO, I got frustrated again. I mean, here these experts were telling me that in order to rank in Google you need all of this research and that you have to have x many keyword mentions in your content, your tags, etc or you won’t rank. Well, that can be very restrictive for many creative types. They want to sit down and let the unadulterated thoughts gallop out onto the screen, not worry about their keyword density every few lines of text.

There is another thing here to ponder, or worry about.

Google is a moving target. The Google search algorithm is always changing and evolving, so as it does, in its cold coded heart, it will penalize those who violate its mandate. They say all is fair in love and war… and the internet search arms race, which pits site creators and Google against one another in some ways.

What I am saying here is that what was legal and good to guarantee ranking yesterday might get you penalized tomorrow when the Google search algorithm changes, er, evolves. So, you have to provide lots of information in your posts, not just keywords. Also, not all of your posts should be keyword optimized. I have started to write articles where some are keyword optimized, and others are not, while some are a hybrid. This ensures a good overall site profile and when Google analyzes and quantifies your site, they see a natural site, not a crazy link or keyword farm.

So What is it about the Google Search Algorithm that I Should Be Aware Of?

Well, for starters, it’s changing and evolving all of the time and you’ll never know exactly how.

Get over it.

People out there who are doing searches on the search engines are typing in questions more and more. I’ve watched countless people do it. They type in things like “Why are we getting so much snow” and “will there ever be peace” and any manner of specific or open ended question.

The Google search algorithm has to then analyze and dice up that question, attain the proper context, and sift through the billions of website results out there in order to return a relevant answer.

Now listen up, we all like to bitch about Google. I do it. You do it. Your mama probably does it.

What we have to realize is that it is a big job to provide relevant search results on a global and international basis, in many languages, so sometimes we need to realize what kind of resources that takes and tip out hats to Google for accomplishing this monumental feat.

Okay okay let’s not go too far. Google gets my respect but there’s a lot to go with that.

So what is the answer here??

Well, from a blogger, webmaster, or SEO standpoint, it HAS to be that relevant content is KING. Relevant content is what you need to be serving to your visitors who have found your site and your content. They most likely found it from Google, and they won’t find it through Google if the content isn’t of a good enough caliber to be indexed by them. It’s THAT simple.

When you break it down to its most basic components, Google wants to deliver the most relevant helpful information to it’s users, the searchers. That is their primary mission and if they fail in that, then all of their other businesses are at risk.

So, while you have to see what people are searching for and do your basic on page SEO and whatever you do for off page SEO, you can take it too far.

Don’t stuff keywords.

Don’t hide links -> I’m referring to making links invisible to human readers – Google can detect that and they WILL slap you silly for it.

Stay away from barely readable spun content.

Don’t make thin useless content only meant to rank so that you can send them on to the lucrative money offer.

If you’re not a native English speaker and you are writing for the English speaking internet, then you’ll have to learn how to string together English sentences in a way that native speakers will understand and appreciate.

Read up on what the Church of Google lists as it’s mortal sins and do not tread there, or at the least tread very lightly.

On the flip side, create very useful content around your keywords.

There are other things you can do too.

As I said above, you want a mix of post types on your site. At least right now, you still have to do on page SEO and keyword optimization, but you can mix in articles that are fun that are not optimized at all. You should still write around the types of topics in your niche, but you worry less about scientifically building it into a perfectly optimized machine.

This does 2 things.

First, it shows Google that you are not merely a keyword repository. It enhances the natural look of your site. You can usually tell a highly optimized article from one that flows as naturally as water from the well. Google is getting better and better at this too. Anything that makes your site look more natural is a good thing.

Second, it’s fun.

Writing naturally and taking a break from the strict keyword tailored articles gets your creative juices flowing and adds to the fun factor of what you do. Those who really enjoy writing will see the largest benefit, because since they really enjoy the process of writing and conveying thoughts to others, they will relish the “freehand” articles that just flow from the soul.

Google is always ranking articles for keywords, so as long as you stick to your niche topics, (and have enough backlinks) the article WILL be ranked for all sorts of keywords anyway. Depending on your authority and other ranking factors you will rank for a variety of low, medium, and maybe high competition keywords. This grows over time, so as your authority and credibility grows, your same content will eventually be ranked for more and more higher competition keywords.

About the only frustrating thing I can see for the non optimized articles, is that you may not know what you are ranking for, so it will be difficult to check for how the page is ranking.

Another method that some bloggers are using is to optimize a very long 1500-2000 word article around one major keyword, and then sprinkle related keywords into that article. This way, you have a massive article that draws in the searches once it’s indexed and properly backlinked. The article must be very value oriented and not merely keyword stuffed. The keywords have to make sense in the context of the article. This is all basic stuff, but these methods will protect you in the future as they update the Google Search algorithm to be more savvy. Google recently purchased an Artificial Intelligence company, named DeepMind in the UK, so if they start adding AI to their mix of raw computing power and algorithmic changes, you are going to have to be pretty darn smart to outfox them. why not just create great content from the start?

A Word about Google Authorship

Google Authorship are those little snippets that now show in the Google search algorithm results. In their complete format, they show an author’s photo, name, how many Google+ circles they are a member of, the page title, the URL, and the meta description. I think that’s it.

Google now is breaking that up and showing more or less of the sum of those components next to authors’ search results. So, one author might have all of it next to their snippet, while some will show everything but the picture, some might not show the Google+ circles, some may not even show the author name at all. Google seems to be using this as a reflection of how well an individual author ranks for that page. The same author may have all or most of the information for one page and less to none for another, so it seems to go on a page by page basis.

There are reports that Google has cut authorship in the search results by 20%-40%, and this has “dramatically” increased the presence of high quality authors in their search results.

You can get a feel for how this affects you by going to the Google search bar and looking at your indexed pages with the site:URL command, where URL is replaced with your actual URL. (no need to include the http://)

I wanted to provide a heads up for the selective Google Authorship showing, so I hope that was useful. It is also worth noting that setting up Google Authorship is a pain for many people. There are plugins that help facilitate this, like Authorsure, and in other cases you can poke the code right into your site’s PHP files or other custom code area. I have had my issues setting that up and sometimes even when it’s set up there are little errors that raise their ugly little heads.

There are volumes written on many blogs about setting up Google Authorship correctly. If I ever do one of my own, I’ll link to it from here.

Social Signals Don’t Matter for Search Ranking

Google and Matt Cutts seem to claim that all of the social signals out there, like FaceBook likes, Twitter Tweets, etc are NOT factored into the Google Search Algorithm results.

Now I take that with a grain of salt because there is one social network that does matter to Google, and it’s the one that they have control over. That would be Google+ and this network seems to matter. It is integral to the photo that shows with the Google Authorship, and Google Authorship ties right into your Google+ profile and Google+ pages.

As far as the rest go, it does make sense that they wouldn’t be able to count that because while social shares ARE votes, in a way, for content, they are seldom sticking and if Google doesn’t have the permission to index a certain site and their crawler programs are blocked, then they can’t include that.

Cutts also mentioned that there are domestic situations where they shouldn’t be indexing and showing stuff, like in domestic abuse cases. So, these things are not good for ranking. That being said, they can’t hurt and they can drive prospects to your site and affect Alexa rank and other things, so they are not a waste. Syndicating to these platforms is helpful in other ways, so keep doing it, but understand that it won’t likely increase your rank in the Google Search Algorithm results.

URL Length

This is an old one, going back to at least 2008, but watch how long your page URL’s are. They can be longish, but stay away from the ridiculous keyword stuffed ones because all they’ll do is raise flags.

I found a good one online so here is the example of the type of thing that I mean.

http://www.gadgetguy.com.au/small-kitchen-appliances-toaster-kettle-coffee-machine-blender-juicer-channel7-sunrise-australia-42.html

That’s pretty bad, but that is the type of thing that is meant here. Stay FAR away from that sort of thing.

Conclusion

So, as you can see, there are many factors to consider when you create content that you wish to rank when it is run through the Google Search algorithm. That golden piece of code that they use will analyze and judge your content, site, authorship, your content’s relationship with the rest of the internet, and anything else relevant to your site and content.

It’s like being up there facing the deity of your choice on Judgment Day. It can be daunting and scary.

Well, with the right outlook and skills, you will not only survive, but thrive in the SERPs, because good engaging content is ALWAYS rewarded.

You can always partner with me to get on the fast track.

Until next time…

Tom Connelly