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Just when you thought you were safe from the world of SEO acronyms comes another one – QDF, or Query Deserves Freshness. This one is brought to us by Google and it is a part of the Google search algorithm to help it determine which queries (not all!) should be updated to include new content because the subject matter of the search is changing rapidly. In other words, the searches want to deliver the freshest material first instead of older material which may not contain relevant information. You can think about the election of Barack Obama as an example of this – queries for Obama today will return news articles and information about the White House and his presidency, versus queries from a year ago that would have returned totally different results for the most part.
Google determines which queries qualify for QDF by observing search trends and which subjects are spiking over a period of time. Think of it this way – current event topics traditionally happen in spikes, and so queries about them (the election, a natural disaster, etc.) are not steady searches, but rather are concentrated around the time of the event.
So, what does this have to do with SEO? A lot! Because the thing about QDF queries is that sites that contain no link backs at all could potentially hit the top of the search queries at all could hit the top of the search engines because of their authority. For example, a search on Barack Obama may return today’s news from the New York Times as the #1 result not because of the link building, but because of the authority of the New York Times as a reputable site, and because of the QDF of the search term “Barack Obama”.
In other words, fresh content gets the “boost” – the article from the NYT rates at the top because it is fresh and relevant.
QDF for SEO is best achieved by focusing on the freshness boost aspect of it. You are in essence trying to ride the spike by being there at the front with fresh, relevant content.
How to do this? Web content optimization is the key here. Getting bloggers involved in talking about this subject before it hits the mainstream is a great way to get Google noticing that something is going on. You can also register domain names that contain the “buzz” topic that highlights the topic. Over time, you might 301 this back to your main domain – but for spikes, it can really help.
PPC also comes into play here for these spikes. Though pay per click advertising is not normally a tool that we use a lot in SEO, it plays an important role for QDF and topics that are buzzed up for a short period of time. Here you want to make sure that you “own” the top clicks, and PPC is one of the easiest way to do this in the short run.
To summarize, QDF is all about the “buzz”. What’s happening what now – and who has the freshest information about it? Used correctly, it can be a powerful advantage that a SEO company can use to drive sales and visits to its sites – and a great way to use SEO to build brand awareness through buzz campaigns.
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It can be frustrating trying to track down why suddenly a page (or even an entire site) that ranked well falls in the rankings or worse yet drops off Google’s radar completely. Is it because a competitor has done a better job, because Google changed their search algorithm yet again, or because you have been given a penalty by Google? Lately it seems the answer to this question has all too often been the third choice – and today I’m here to talk a little bit about what we are seeing and how as an SEO professional you can be prepared and try and take action before it hits.
First, let’s talk about Google penalties. Unfortunately, they don’t like to talk much about them or why they give them. However, historically, there has been a pattern to when and why these happen.
First, make sure that your site has simply not lost ranking to a competitor. Sometimes the simplest thing is the answer! Next, check to see if your site is still being indexed by Google using the site:url.com moniker in the search box. If it comes back negative then Google has removed (banned) you from search. Start working to cleanup your site and file a re-inclusion request with Google once you have your act back together.
Check to see if your site is still ranking for its domain name or other unique branded terms? If not, then you’ve probably been hit with a penalty because you are linking to bad sites, are engaging in paid link schemes or have on-site spam such as keyword stuffing or cloaking going on. Clean all of that mess up and then file a re-inclusion request and don’t do it again!
Try searching for some terms that appear in your title tags and see where you land. If you aren’t in the top 10-20 (and you were before) then most likely what has happened is that Google has wiped a lot of your links of their value. This happens pretty frequently, so you aren’t alone in this regard. The best thing here is to get more natural links from quality sites and build your site that way – it isn’t worth the time or trouble to get links from the “here today, gone tomorrow” sites.
Normally, if you get through this then you don’t have a penalty, but rather you just lost rank. It’s time to put some of those SEO skills to use to get that rank back up!
Now, before you get too excited, let me warn you. Recently Google has been applying algorithms to how they apply penalties and we’ve seen some additional behavior taking place. Let me explain what is going on best that I can.
First, in the past penalties usually affected an entire site. However, recently we’ve been seeing more and more penalties affecting only a single page. Now this is better than having your entire site banned – but it makes you wonder what they are looking for!
Keyword specific penalties are on the upswing as well. These are a pain to track down sometimes because they can be so narrowly focused. This usually occurs because you have paid links pointing to a page and they all have the same anchor text. However, the pain in tracking this down comes from the fact that long tail searches will work just fine, it’s only the very specific exact keywords that will be penalized.
The algorithmic penalties can be difficult to track down, but there are some tell tale signs it might be taking place: the page selling links are constantly being crawled by Google, and the penalty might appear one day and be gone the next as Google fine tunes their detection mechanism.
To detect such behavior, the following information might be useful:
- Do you have paid links from a link network that Google can detect automatically? If so, get rid of them!
- Paid links are all using the same anchor text and linking to the same page.
- The page being linked to doesn’t rank well for the target keyphrase.
- The page in question does rank well for the long-tailed searches, but not for the specific ones.
We’re still watching what Google is doing and this information is subject to change, but there is no doubt that Google is taking more automated, aggressive approach to keeping rank and search as natural as they can.
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Just when you thought you had finally mastered the SEO tricks and were skilled at getting your results to rank well on Google they go and throw another wrench in the works. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about Google Personalized Search (also known as Google Search Wiki) and how it has the potential to change the world of SEO yet again.
In November of last year Google rolled out Search Wiki as a way to let people annotate, re-order, add and delete search results. With the exception of the public comments, Google says at this time the other features are not visible to the general public – only the current logged in user (i.e., you!) So for example let’s say I am searching for “used cars” and I come across CARFAX, the vehicle history provider. I’m a big fan of CARFAX so I add my own note and promote it up to the top of my listings. No problem, right? Well, maybe not.
The first question being bounced around SEO circles is how will the public comments affect search algorithms and ranking? Will Google take into account public comments when it comes to finding relevant results? For example, if I am searching for “family vacation” and a bunch of people have commented using the words “family vacation” on a search result will that result rank higher even though the content of the site has nothing to do with content vacations?
Another concern, and one that we are seeing right now, is that spammers have already jumped on board the Search Wiki bandwagon. They are injecting porn spam and other worthless content into the comments sections which then show up on others searches. Not only is this annoying and devalues the feature, but it also could throw a wrench into search algorithms for determining rankings should Google decide to use comments for ranking.
The same worries hold true with re-ordering and deleting sites from your results. Let’s say that an organized group of spammers gets together and orders a bunch of irrelevant spam sites to the top of popular searches. If these rankings were to be included in the search algorithm for all users you could have a big problem with SEO value being destroyed with just a few clicks!
So now that we’ve told you about all the bad things to do with Search Wiki, just what exactly should you as a marketer or SEO professional be doing? First, you need to be involved with it. Use it, try out some of the features and don’t let it bite you in the rear. Be prepared for not if, but when it goes live. If the past few years have taught us anything it is that crowdsourcing is a trend that can’t be stopped. The voice of many is always more powerful than the voice of one.
Nothing is as certain as change, but in the SEO world you can be prepared for this one instead of just sitting idly by and finding one day your rankings have fallen off the map.
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Hello Fellows,
Recently Google Japan launched a new home page where it was promoting a list with the most searched terms typed on its search engine. It´s a kind of “HotWords” also found on Twitter.
Accordantly with TechCrunch, that new service has been already available to include in the iGoogle page of any user. The big trouble arose when Google Japan decided hire an online marketing company, Cyberbuzz, to promote that new tool, already available as a widget to webmasters, through pay-per-posts.
Continue Reading: Google Japan Punished by Using Pay Per Post PracticesRelated Posts:
It’s no secret that the web is more than just text and pictures anymore – video and rich multimedia content are is part of what is defining Web 2.0 and beyond. The problem is we all know how to apply SEO techniques for text and images, but how do we make sure that our videos are ranking high? Today we’ll talk a bit about SEO for video and how to make sure you get the links, the rank and the views.
Continue Reading: Video SEO: Optimizing For RankRelated Posts:
Let’s be honest – every time we are talking to people about SEO or search engines we don’t say “search engine” or “Yahoo” or anything else; we refer to search as “Google” as if there was only one search engine in the world. With over 63% of the market share it’s no reason why Google has become a synonym for search engine – they practically own the entire market. Yet is it good that one company owns most of the market for search? Are we losing out on innovation and a balanced marketplace since there is no real competition to Google? And, finally, why should an SEO company care?
Continue Reading: Google – Innovator or Innovation KillerRelated Posts:
So how many of us hang onto Google’s every word? When we wake up in the morning and Google had made a change, however slight, how often do we run around thinking the sky is falling and the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) world as we know it has come to an end?
If this sounds [...]
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Believe it or not, Google page rank is based solely on back links. Back links are the links that point to your website from another website, so naturally the more back links you have, the higher you’re PR ratings, and your Google ratings are soon to follow.
Continue Reading: 5 Simple Steps to Increase your Google Page Rank