With Google’s Penguin fully functional and live at this point, people have become worried. At this time, there is no way to know for certain if you have been dinged by Penguin. Google suggests the website owners track their traffic. If the traffic to your website has decreased immensely since Penguin dropped on April 24, then chances are you were hit. If your traffic has increased, then you are actually benefiting from Penguin. The system is working in your favor.

Fortunately, if you feel you have been hit by Penguin then chances are Google has attempted to send you emails regarding the potential spam on your website. If you are unaware of any emails being sent from Google, they are more than likely waiting for you in Google Webmaster Center. All this means is that you have to verify your account through the Webmaster Center. Once everything is squared away, you have been verified, and the potential spam issues have been resolved, Penguin should become your friend again.
If you feel like you were incorrectly dinged by Penguin, Google has developed a form for web owners to submit so they issue can be investigated. The website is Feedback on our recent algorithm update (“Penguin”)

While there are people who have been negatively affected by Penguin, it is most likely due to the fact that they were spamming the search engine. Furthermore, while they web owners are upset over this new update, Penguin, it should be recalled that Google does own its own website, Google. Although it does have somewhat of a monopoly on search engines, there are other search engines out there that can be utilized by spammers. That is until those search engines wise up and include a Penguin-like update. The internet is still very much a business and Google doesn’t fall out of those parameters.

While there is some debate over whether or not Penguin is a good rollout or not, it remains unsettled. Some riot that Google is trying to shut small business down since they don’t use AdWords. Essentially, the companies that deserve the traffic are now getting the traffic they deserve and spam is less prevalent. Indubitably some web owners were incorrectly dinged by Penguin but by following simple procedures put in place by Google, these issues can and will be resolved.

Fresh Content

As Google continues to improve the way it ranks companies in its search results, the company has unveiled new changes based on content “freshness” that will impact an estimated 35 percent of search results. The company will now be evaluating website content based on how recently it has been posted, how relevant it is to search being conducted, and how often a website revises the content it publishes. This shift in search engine rankings is even bigger than the company’s Panda update, which affected 12 percent of searches conducted through Google.

Adjusting for Hot Topics, Recurring Events, Quality

One of the truisms about the world is that it is always changing, and Google’s goal with its improved search engine rankings is to reflect the fact that more recent information is often more accurate. The company estimates that its adjustments for considering content freshness will alter and improve search results by impact three typical types of searches:

• Searches for recurring events: Google will take into account whether a user’s search term pertains to an event which occurs on an annual basis, or even more frequently. It will then show the results which are “freshest” and thus pertain to the most recent instance of that event, rather than one which accused a year or two ago.

• Hot topics: The internet has become a place that quickly shifts its focus between a few hot topics, and those topics change by the day. Google’s search results will now be updated to reflect this; a search for a particular musician, for example, might focus on websites and news articles which relate to their most recent antics, rather than things which occurred several years or decades ago.

• Overall freshness of content: Google will also be rewarding websites with better search engine rankings for overall content freshness. Those websites with the latest content, the most frequent update, and the most accurate information will be ranked first by the search engine, while those which are typically lax on posting updates, or feature out-of-date content, will be relegated to lower overall search result rankings.

Freshness Could Lead to New Forms of Spam

As with all of Google’s search ranking algorithm changes, the emphasis on freshness is designed to thwart SEO spammers who have learned how to trick the company into ranking malicious pages first. But freshness is easy to attain for customers who merely alter “just enough” of their article for it to count as new, fresh content. In that way, it might end up being particularly futile for Google to value freshness. With clever rewording, old content can sound new; with a little work, outdated information can be perceived as the latest facts and figures.

Despite Focus on Freshness, Twitter Still Missing

Google has yet to fully integrate Twitter users and their tweets into its search results, which is almost comical as the company continues to promote website “freshness.” If the internet contains just one source of freshness, that source would be Twitter.

The company insists that it simply has no efficient way to crawl the abundance of data and information being shared by users of the microblogging service, which it stopped attempting to do in July. When contrasted with the way the company is punishing the keepers of internet content, it’s almost hypocritical for Google to neglect this robust source of breaking content.

Freshness is Improved, Not New

Google has always accounted for the freshness of website content when ranking those sites in its search results, but the company’s new algorithm is a big change to how it perceives new content. The company’s focus on fresh information isn’t new, but the way it crawls that content and checks it for accuracy and relevancy is all-new. Whether its improved algorithm will lead to improvements for website operators remains to be seen, but those in the search engine optimization industry should keep tabs on their analytics to monitor potential seismic shifts in their click-through rates.

The change was implemented due to user complaints that searched content was difficult to find after clicking a result. Searchers do not want to have to scroll past advertisements to get to what they want. Sites that present with large blocks of ads upon loading instead of relevant content are a poor experience for the user. Such sites will have a lower rank in the future.

Having ads at the top of a web page is a common practice, as it helps webmasters to monetize content. The change to the algorithm will not affect sites that contain a normal amount of ads, but will penalize those that devote an excessive amount of space to advertising above the fold. Packing the top of a page with ads moves content down and frustrates the user.

It is estimated the change will affect less than one percent of all searches conducted on Google. This would lead to results being reordered for one in 100 searches. Any webmaster who notices a change in ranking should look over their site and reconsider the presentation of ads to content. Google offers a browser resizing tool to help webmasters see how their site looks in different resolutions and across devices. There are other tools available as well.

Any changes to a webpage’s layout will be updated immediately after the next full crawl. The length of time it takes for the process to complete depends on the number of pages on the site, and how well the crawler can read the content. Most websites require several weeks of crawling before the changes show up in search results.

In the meantime, Google encourages webmasters to concentrate on providing the best possible content and to not worry about the algorithm adjustment, as it is only one of 500 changes planned for 2012.

Though SEO constantly changes, a few key factors remain the same. These factors have proven themselves pivotal in a website’s success for search engine ranking.

Off-page ranking factors

1. Global link popularity

Receiving quality backlinks from other established websites is a great way to boost your site’s SEO rank. However, obtaining these quality links may be difficult for new site owners. Most site owners find that by simply creating quality content, other website owners may link that post in their own articles.

2. Rate of new inbound links

For every new post, you should include quality inbound links to other sites. Google favors sites that include links to other informative articles.

3. Popularity/relevance of the traffic from the linking website

Google uses various statistics, such as bounce rates and direct traffic, to help determine the quality of a linking website. If the linking website has quality traffic that follows the link to your site, it may help your SEO rank.

4. Trust rank

Google highly indexes sites that it deems safe to visit. Some site owners have experimented with various privacy policies and discovered that their sites with a privacy policy tend to have more organic traffic than their sites without a privacy policy.

5. Age of website

Sites with quality content tend to rank higher after a few years of existence. However, sites with duplicate or poor content will not improve in rank, no matter how old it gets.

6. Top-level domain extension name (.edu, .com, .org, .au)

The domain extension name does not really affect SEO rankings in a local sense. However, if your site has a .au extension, it will appear higher on Google.au, rather than Google.com. Therefore, Australians will be your primary audience. Moreover, it is impossible to purchase the .edu and .gov extensions. Those extensions are exclusive to specific websites.

On-page ranking factors

1. Keywords in the Title

Some people claim that keywords are losing steam in the SEO game. However, logic will tell you that Google relies on these words the most to find relevant content according to various search terms. Google must index sites that match users’ search terms.

The keywords in the title, however, are especially important. These words tell Google what the content of that specific post is about. If a user wants to read a post about new SEO methods, Google will find a website with an article about that topic, relying on the post’s title’s keywords to match the search terms.

2. Keywords in the content

The content is the most important part of a website. Therefore, the words in the content are a very important aspect of SEO. The title keywords help Google initially recognize relevant content, but the words in the content assure Google that the content is relevant to various search terms.

Moreover, the keywords in the content must somehow relate to the keywords in the title. Otherwise, Google will negatively score that website for misleading content. Do not create a title about fishing methods if your content relates to how to buy various types of fish.

3. Page / Site Speed

Google has indicated that their search algorithms are due to change again as the search engine will factor in how quickly a web page loads to how well a site ranks in Google. I anticipate page and site speed to be even more important  in the next year or two.

4. Keywords in tags

Keywords in html tags — h1, h2, h3, bold and italics — used to have a great affect before 2006. However, Google places less importance on these tags, especially if they are keyword stuffed. Additionally, tags that are keyword stuffed may negatively affect the website’s SEO ranking.

5. Quality of website content

No doubt, content is king in the SEO game. Therefore, make sure your content is top-quality. You want to give your readers something of value, something that keeps them coming back.

6. Internal link popularity

The links you include on your site should point towards other high-quality sites. Don’t link to spammy or low-quality sites.

7. Keywords in domain name (www.keywords.com)

When users perform a Google search, Google will usually include any sites that have that exact search term as the website’s domain name.

8. Keywords in webpage URL (www. abc.com/keywords)

The name of each page on your website has ranking relevance. Page names show on your domain name. Make sure each page name is relevant to the content within the page.

9. Keywords in images

Any image on your site should have an alt text that has a keyword relevant to the image. Users who perform image searches may come across your image, which will link to your site.

10. Meta description

This method is less effective, but still usable. Meta descriptions have SEO relevance, so include keywords in your meta description.

11. Meta keywords tag

Some websites have specific meta keywords tags that allow site owners to properly identify what type of content is in the site. Use appropriate keywords in these tags.

12. Age of your document

As your article ages, it will become more established on Google. Google will refer to that document before other newer documents.

13. W3C validation

This method does not affect your SEO ranking(unless it causes spiderability issues), but sites with errors in their html tags may deter visitors from returning. Errors result in off-centered text and even blank pages causing site abandonment.

Getting the different concepts regarding the internet can be a bit difficult. It can help to compare these concepts with real life situations. A concept which most website owners have difficultly grasping is that of backlinks. To get a better picture about what these are, an easy way is to compare them with references.

A website can be compared to a resume. Like with ordinary resumes, the website will comprise different features. The goal of every website is to stand out among other competing websites. Also, two resumes can be similar in terms of content and presentation. The difference usually comes at the references. A resume can have numerous references or just a few. The quantity doesn’t count much. The quality of the references is what usually counts. Take the following example.

You are a human resource manager and currently going through different resumes in search of a potential employee. Since you had asked for a specific set of qualifications, almost all of the resumes are similar. However, in order to find the right person to employ, you are likely to look at the references. The people that the applicants put as their references says a lot about the applicants familiarity with the position to be filled. For example, a professor in statistics will be a better reference than a close relative for an applicant seeking a job in a research firm. A handful of references who are relevant to the job in question is better than many who don’t have a clue what the job is about.

Backlinks act in the same way as references when it comes to websites. Search engines can be compared to potential employers. There are many websites competing for high ranking positions. The search engine should be able to determine which website goes where in ranking. Since most of the websites will already be optimized for ranking for particular keywords, the search engine will have to use other methods to determine ranking factors. One of these is the use of backlinks.

Like for the case of a resume, the quantity of backlinks doesn’t count much. The website might have many backlinks from non authoritative websites or even irrelevant websites. Such links are low quality and don’t help search engines much. Websites which have quality backlinks will rank higher in search engines than those with many irrelevant backlinks. This however doesn’t mean that you should seek to have only a handful of backlinks from authoritative websites. In fact, linking only to authoritative websites which rank high in search engines might negatively affect your websites ranking. A good way to make the best of backlinks is to balance between the quantity and quality.

If you have a web based concept which needs translation, you can let me know and I’ll do my best to simplify it for the masses.

The process is fairly simple to use and promises an incredible increase to the workflow proficiency of having one’s online information listed in Google’s index. To take advantage of this function, simply use

Diagnostics>Fetch as Googlebot to retrieve the URL one wishes to submit for inclusion. When the website is successfully retrieved by the Googlebot function, an option to submit will appear next to the selected URL. When the URL is selected, further options to submit additionally linked content will appear. This is the heart of on demand crawling that is now available through this Googlebot feature.

Google’s original crawl function is algorithmic software that examines the web on a continuous basis. The crawler searches pages based on ranking and number of links related to a particular website. When the crawler discovers a page it examines that page for possible inclusion in Google’s index of the web. There are suggested parameters for increasing the crawl friendly nature of a website and its updates but Google operates this function on a strictly utilitarian basis and does not accept payment to increase the number of crawls. This is why the new on demand option can be more beneficial to drawing attention to a particular website despite its age.

There is also a crawl on demand request form that can be used without verifying. The Google form allows for very similar on demand service as the Fetch as Googlebot feature except one simply has to input the URL and hit submit rather than waiting for the bot to verify discovery. Both of these on demand crawling techniques have limitations as to the number of allowed submissions in a week based on whether the submission is a URL with or without linked pages. These Google crawl functions will potentially save webmasters the stress of waiting for their work to be discovered.

I Benefiting from these five local Austin Search engine optimization marketing tips will help you top the search engines like google while topping your competitors.

Researching The Market

How will you sell effectively should you not know whom exactly the same thing to? You won’t be required to ponder that question knowing without a doubt, and the easiest method to limit your market to help you plan a effective marketing approach is thru researching the market.

This includes doing market and keyword research for in your area enhanced key phrases. For instance, focusing on “Austin Search engine optimization Company” rather than focusing on “SEO Company” is a superb local Austin Search engine optimization marketing keyword.

Claim Profiles

Even when you aren’t prepared to set up an account page, proceed and claim your business title on profile/social networking websites like Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Bebo, Flickr, Facebook, and much more. Also claim your business title on the internet and Yahoo’s local business entries, as well as on review websites like Yelp, Citysearch, MerchantCircle, Insider Pages, and much more.

It’s vital that you claim your business title and profile page the moment you are able to to make sure another business that shares exactly the same title as yours doesn’t claim it first. For instance, there might be numerous restaurants available named “Bob’s BBQ,” but just one profile can claim the title.

Upload Photos

When you are prepared to start creating your profiles, upload photos of the business too. People may frequent a business they get in a business profile online if you will find photos. For instance, “Bob’s BBQ” could upload photos from the inside and outdoors from the restaurant together with several photos of Bob’s famous BBQ dishes. Remember to tag your photos together with your Austin Search engine optimization marketing key phrases to provide your profile ratings a lift.

Get Reviews

Invite your clients to depart an evaluation about your business online like Yelp. Search for local writers on the internet and request these phones give your products or services an attempt in return for an evaluation. Take it easy about getting negative reviews. Individuals are typically concerned about a business with 100% positively glowing reviews. When the review is especially negative or completely nasty, you could try to be removed by getting in touch with the rater or even the review website.

Get Active

If you are not taking part in your social networking profiles together with your clients, you’re missing a good way to improve the local business. Positively taking part in online conversations together with your clients will rapidly let guess what happens that like and do not like about your business. It is really an incredible method to tweak the local marketing to success.

It is also instant. A person can publish the way the font you utilized in your brand-new online ad is tough to see, and you will jump online to alter it within minutes. That’s an infinitely more effective approach than old-fashioned time-consuming marketing surveys.

By doing all of your local researching the market, declaring your business title on social networking and business profile websites, uploading photos, getting reviews, and getting together with your clients online, you will be on the right path to some effective local Austin search engine optimization advertising campaign.