Google’s Effects On Small Business Websites
If you are reading this article then I can safely assume you know what Google is but do you know how Google works? Google uses a very scientific and very secretive algorithm to determine how relevant your website is to the keyword that is typed into the search engine.
This algorithm is constantly being updated and improved, it gets around 500 updates per year. Over the past year there have been two major algorithm changes affectionately called Panda and Penguin
Google Panda Update
The Panda update is a change to the search ranking algorithm, and was first released in February 2011. This updated aimed at awarding sites with good quality content by ranking them higher then sites with a lot of advertising or were considered to be “Gaming” the system.
If a website has a poor content page this could have an effect on the websites ranking as a whole and keyword stuffing is one of the factors Google looks at. Keyword stuffing is when you over use a specific keyword in your web content and Google can penalise your site if the density is higher than 2%. There are a few online tools available to check if your content is under the 2% mark.
Google Penguin Update
Early is 2012 Google released a new algorithm with an update called penguin. This update was related to both on page and off page factors, on-page optimization and linking to your small business website from other websites. Googles determines whether the link is “Real” or “Fake”.
A real link is a type or link that the major search engines want to see and is created by a webmaster putting a link back to your website that is relevant to their web page. They will also use anchor text to describe the link.
A fake link is there not because the webmaster particularly cares about your content but because there is some kind of incentive for the site owner to place your link on their website.
It is very hard to tell the difference between the two and if the fake link is done well then Google could consider it a real link and give your small business website credit for that link. The Penguin update is Google’s attempt at fixing this problem.
If you are or have been involved in a paid link scheme this could seriously affect your website’s ranking but there are ways of fixing this. First content the site owner and ask them to remove your links, if they won’t or try and charge you for the service Google provide a service in their webmaster tools called disavow links. This tool allows you to list the sites that have your link, Google will then not count them as back links and this should hopefully help improve your ranking.
Getting good rankings for your chosen keywords can be difficult and takes time but if its done properly your small business website will reap the rewards for years to come. For more information call Bell Media today.