Does Google Have A Golden Rule?

Does Google Have A Golden Rule?
Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins
Get Free Copy of Derek Gehl's Six Steps You Need To Follow To Guarantee The Success Of Your Online Business!
As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it.

In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google's Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google's ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.

For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site?

Ten years ago it wouldn't have mattered what Google thought of your site for it wasn't even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want.

Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic - you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site.

Google doesn't as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it's getting close to 70% of U.S. traffic and in some countries it's up over 90%. But it's not only the search numbers which makes Google king - it is the prestige and power of the Google brand name. Google has truly permeated into popular culture and the public psyche like no other brand name in history.

Google brings respect and trust into the equation. Web users respect and trust Google to give them a quality answer to their question. That's why it was rather ironic, that for years webmasters have been asking Google about their ranking system, their algorithm, their practices... for years Google remained for the most part silent. This was mainly to keep at bay, those who would like to "game" the system in order to get high rankings within Google.

Until now that is, maybe it's just me but doesn't it appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just couldn't find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent with it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.

In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others... have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the "burning questions" webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for "Google Webmaster Help Google Groups" if you will to find these sessions.

Since I run several modest sites on webmaster tools and Internet marketing I am approached by more than a few people who want me to help them build their online site or business. One of the major issues that always comes up somewhere in the process (usually phrased in different ways) is this question:

What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?

Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.

What is Google's Golden Rule?

Many experts believe it is related to relevancy - the key to getting high rankings is how relevant your content is to the question being asked? Maybe so, but in order to explain it to a would-be webmaster, I had to find the words that would most appropriately sum up Google's prime directive?

After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue... this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:

"Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site."

This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the "visitor's experience" and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product, it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they're happy, Google is happy. And if everyone's happy then the kingdom grows.

Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can't be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.

However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you're trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous
websites. For the latest web marketing tools try:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com
If you liked the SEO tips above, why not try the Free 7 Day
Traffic course here:
http://www.marketingtoolguide.com
2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely
distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Sphere: Related Content

Google Reveals More Linking Secrets To Webmasters

Google Reveals More Linking Secrets To Webmasters
Copyright © 2008 Titus Hoskins
Get Free Copy of Derek Gehl's Six Steps You Need To Follow To Guarantee The Success Of Your Online Business!
One of the most problematic and confusing issues most webmasters have with Google concerns linking. How your links are ranked? How you should link out? How you should construct your internal links? How you should get more inbound links? How many links should you have on a page? And the list of questions goes on...

Perhaps, the most annoying aspect for the struggling webmaster, has been Google's secrecy in how it actually ranks links and pages. Google's whole PageRank and Ranking Algorithm is so complex that no one can fully boast they understand how the whole system works.

Google's ranking secrecy and complexity has probably been well-planned mainly because there are millions of webmasters who would like to "game" the Google Algorithm and achieve high keyword rankings through manipulation with so-called "black-hat" SEO techniques and reverse engineering.

Wouldn't it be ironic if this whole secrecy and complexity is more of a smokescreen rather than an actual deception on Google's part. What if the keys to the kingdom are actually yours for the taking? What if the solution is hiding in plain sight for everyone to see? What if the secret to high rankings in Google is not a secret at all? Wouldn't that be a hoot!

Actually, that's not a far-fetched assumption to make, mainly because many of Google's linking policies and recommendations are freely given by Google. Whether you can believe Google is actually giving you the goods is another issue that we'll put on the back-burner for another day; but for now, Google's advice on link building is rather generous and informative.

As a part of Links Week held recently, Google's Maile Ohye gave some pointers on what Google is looking for and how it does its index ranking. No big surprise that content and inbound links are the two most important factors. This is what most SEO experts have been saying for years.

A site's content is one of the main factors. Therefore, you should have a compelling site with interesting information and/or offer quality products, entertainment, opinions...

(Quoting Maile Ohye)

"One of the strongest ranking factors is my site's content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources -- however, one inbound link is from a spammy site. As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking."

"Given the user's query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site's content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user."

"As many of you know, relevant, quality inbound links can affect your PageRank (one of many factors in our ranking algorithm). And quality links often come naturally to sites with compelling content or offering a unique service."

(End Quote)

Then Maile Ohye explained further how to create unique and compelling content for your site:

(Quoting Maile Ohye)

- Start a blog: make videos, do original research, and post interesting stuff on a regular basis. If you're passionate about your site's topic, there are lots of great avenues to engage more users.

- Teach readers new things, uncover new news, be entertaining or insightful, show your expertise, interview different personalities in your industry and highlight their interesting side. Make your site worthwhile.

- Participate thoughtfully in blogs and user reviews related to your topic of interest. Offer your knowledgeable perspective to the community.

- Provide a useful product or service. If visitors to your site get value from what you provide, they're more likely to link to you.

(End Quote)

SEO experts have been telling webmasters for years that creating valuable, unique, relevant useful content is one of the best ways to get your site and pages highly ranked in Google. If you create valuable content then other sites will want to link to you naturally.

Linking out to other sites should be done in a "common sense" manner and it's a way of offering value to your visitor's experience. We expect helpful relevant links when we visit other sites since it's a natural way a good quality site should work; so be careful of linking out to spammy sites that only offer pages of links with very little or no unique content.

There are several things every prudent webmaster should be checking like making sure your site hasn't been hacked and hidden links placed on your site without your knowledge; those with WordPress blogs should be installing the latest security measures and updates. Make sure you keep checking all your outbound links regularly since you may initially link out to a valuable resource, but over time this page may be closed or replaced with one of those spammy-links-holding pages. It can happen to the best of us.

What has confused things lately is all the "link buying" which Google greatly discourages and has shown its displeasure by de-ranking many paid directories. The size of your "wallet" shouldn't be the determining factor in how pages and content are ranked. If you're selling a link, it should have the "no-follow" tag so that it doesn't pass PageRank along and confuse the system. Policing or deciding what is or what is not a "paid link" has become a major problem for the search engines, including Google.

You should not have more than "100 links on a page" as this can overload the search engine robots that regularly crawl the web, indexing pages. Likewise, your site's "linking architecture" should be natural and easy for both your visitors and the robots to follow. Make sure your important pages are no more than a few clicks away from your homepage.

As to interior linking, the two main points being: Intuitive Navigation for your visitors and Crawlable Text Links for the search engine robots. Use descriptive anchor text links that explain your content to your visitors. The anchor text is the underlined clickable part of the link and many SEO experts suggest you place your keywords or variations of them in your anchor text.

Make sure your site is transparent. Do not use "link cloaking" on your site. Make sure what your visitor sees is what the robots are indexing. Use a 301 Redirect if you have permanently moved any webpages. Again, there is stressed the need for a sitemap as this can be very helpful for both your visitors and robots to see and find all your valuable content. Make sure you have a sitemap and all your important pages are listed on it.

One final note, many professional webmasters and marketers don't worry about PageRank as much as they are concerned with SERPs. Getting those top rankings for their sites in the search engine results is what really matters. Again, quality content and building quality links play an important role in achieving those top spots and maybe Google has already given you the formula for getting them. Maybe, maybe not.

The author is a full-time online marketer who runs numerous web sites, including two sites on Internet marketing. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.bizwaremagic.com
Discover more about linking and ranking directly from Google here:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com
2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Sphere: Related Content