This algo change is intended to reward high quality sites with better rankings and reduce the rankings of lower quality sites. The effects that have been seen so far have been neatly collated by SEOMOZ: Googles Farmer Update – Analysis of Winners and Losers.

They say:

Based on these, we have some guesses about what signals Google may have used in this update:

• User/usage data – signals like click-through-rate, time-on-site, “success” of the search visit (based on other usage data)
• Quality raters – a machine-learning type algorithm could be applied to sites quality raters liked vs. didn’t to build features/factors that would boost the “liked” sites and lower the “disliked” sites. This can be a dangerous way to build algorithms, though, because no human can really say why a site is ranking higher vs. lower or what the factors are – they might be derivatives of very weird datapoints rather than explainable mechanisms.
• Content analysis – topic modeling algorithms, those that calculate/score readability, uniqueness/robustness analysis and perhaps even visual “attractiveness” of content presentation could be used (or other signals that conform well to these).

Why is this update referred to as Panda or Farmer?

There is a tradition in the SEO industry to name key algo updates and the term ‘Farmer’ was first proposed by Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land as the update appeared to target content farms.

However, in an interview conducted by Wired magazine with Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts from Google it was pointed out that the internal name used by them was ‘Panda’ as this is the name of one of the key engineers responsible for the change.

How is Google assessing quality?

In developing this algo change Amit Singhal stated that Google used their standard evaluation system that they have developed. This involves sending documents (web pages) to outside testers along with a whole host of questions like: Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids? Do you consider this site to be authoritative? Would it be okay if this was in a magazine? Does this site have excessive ads? And others along the same lines.

At the same time they released the Google Chrome add on that enables users to block websites from their search results. They say that they didn’t use the data provided by this add on in this algo change but they found that there was an 84% overlap between sites that people had blocked and those which had been downgraded by the algo update and this gave them confidence that their change was headed in the right direction.

They have looked for signals that provide an indication of quality and it is thought that these include more emphasis on user behaviour along with a revision to the document level classifier.

Google can readily track click through rates (CTR) from the organic SERPs. They can also determine how long a visitor spends on a site page by detecting whether a visitor immediately clicks the back button to return to the search results and by collating data provided by the Google toolbar. Any toolbar that includes a Google page rank meter will be feeding information back to Google regarding the users web activity.

Some time ago Google filed a patent application titled: Method and apparatus for classifying documents based on user inputs and it is highly likely that Google is now using these signals, in combination with other factors, to provide an indication of quality.

What is the Document Level Classifier?

Back in January Google announced that they had launched a redesigned document level classifier that would make it harder for spammy content to rank prominently in their search results.

A document level classifier is basically a program that will look at various attributes of a web page and use probabilistic analysis to classify that page. It is now thought that Google’s document level classifier is looking at a multitude of page attributes and signals to determine whether or not a page should be considered as web spam.

What does this algo change mean for your website?

UK site owners have yet to experience the impact of the Panda update and many are naturally very concerned. It’s worthwhile looking at some of the sites that have so far experienced reduced rankings as a result of the update and considering whether your website is anything like them. Spend some time assessing the quality of your site content; is it unique, is it valuable, is it engaging etc.

If you are ranking prominently in the Google SERPs is it because your site is delivering quality content that has naturally attracted valuable and relevant backlinks? And if you do attract traffic from Google organic SERPs are you getting a good click-through rate? When visitors arrive on your site are they staying and do they move on to other pages within your site?

Basically, if your site pages are the best they can possibly be then Google will be working for you.

How to make your site pages the ones that Google wants to rank prominently

1. Focus on your visitors – not the Google search engine technology. This means focusing on what people want when they come to your site. If you run an ecommerce site focus on what people buy and the value you are providing to your visitors.
2. Pay attention to your online business strategy which should be all about your visitors and prospective customers.
3. Don’t get hung up on achieving #1 positions in the Google SERPs. It’s generally more beneficial to have multiple keyterms ranking in the top 5 or top 10 positions than having a few generic terms ranking at position 1. And it’s far more time consuming to achieve and retain #1 positions than it is to achieve and retain multiple top 5 or top 10 positions.
4. Don’t waste time looking for shortcuts, tricks and loopholes. Shortcuts are only likely to bring short term gain and could result in issues arising with the search engines.
5. Pay attention to your key site metrics including the number of visitors coming to your site each month, how many pages from your site are indexed by the search engines, the content on your site that is proving to be the most popular etc. Look closely at the paths that lead to conversion and determine why these are working.
6. Use your analytics data to identify new keywords that will provide genuine value.
7. Ensure that all pages on your site adhere to SEO best practices. This means:
   1. Concise, people-friendly URLs;
   2. Descriptive, accurate page titles;
   3. Powerful ‘calls to action’ in your meta descriptions;
   4. Content that is well structured and good for both visitors and search engines;
   5. Effective use of heading tags (h1, h2, h3 etc.);
   6. Content that provides value to visitors and contains relevant keyterms;
   7. Keyterms emboldened or emphasised (using em or strong tags);
   8. Images are implemented correctly with accurate ALT descriptions;
   9. All pages load quickly for all visitors (even those with slow internet connections);
   10. Internal links make effective use of appropriate anchor text.
8. Provide content that will naturally attract attention and links. Sometimes called link-bait or magnetic content. Creating and publicising attractive, valuable content is the safest way to garner valuable backlinks.
9. Make sure that it is easy for visitors to share your content via social networks by presenting prominent sharing icons (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Digg etc.)

Good Luck!
This is a guest post by Tony Goldstone who is Head of Search at Fresh Egg.

If you don’t know what’s going on in your business, it’s impossible to react intelligently. Knowledge is power. Which is why keeping a simple spreadsheet, list, graph or chart of your SEO performance is really important.

 Yes, regular SEO activity can keep you on page 1 of Google. But you can just as easily drop to page two if you don’t keep an eye on things. 

Google releases new and updated search algorithms regularly, usually with little or no warning. So your site positions can drop instantly and unexpectedly. Or soar just as quickly. 

Your business’s SEO destiny depends on competitors’ activity just as much as your own. You don’t do SEO in a vacuum. You’re constantly jostling with everyone else in your sector for the top positions. 

When you keep a handle on SEO trends you can react fast and fix things if your positions suddenly drop off the scale. Or take early action against a slow and steady fall. 

A strong, sales focused, benefit led meta description works wonders for SEO. But do you need to use all 152 characters?

No. It’s best to use common sense rather than slavishly create 152 character meta descriptions every single time:

• a short, sharp meta description can sometimes make your point more powerfully 
• make your meta descriptions readable and impactful
• remember to include your top key word for each page
• include your USP – check what your top competitor is saying and improve on it 
• keep it real and relevant, don’t over-promise or you’ll disappoint visitors
• test meta descriptions to identify which performs best
• every time you change a page’s meta description, check its performance (visitor numbers and bounce rate)

It’s wise to promote your internal pages as well as your site’s index page. 

Why? If you’ve designed your site structure with SEO in mind you’ll probably have a fistful of pages named after your most powerful long tail phrases. For example, one of my sites has pages called: 

• seo-copywriting-samples
• contact-SEO-copywriter
• freelance-SEO-copywriter

If you optimise each page for the long term phrase it’s named after, then promote each page in its own right, you’ll drive tightly targeted traffic to your pages.

• when someone wants, say, a fluffy green parrot kit, they type fluffy green parrot kit into their search engine
• if you promote your fluffy green parrot page well enough, your page will be returned high in the search results
• when they click on your link they’re taken direct to your fluffy green parrot kits page, without having to navigate from your home page
• provided the price is right a % of them will buy from you

There’s a second bonus. If you’re in a competitive sector and can’t beat the big boys on popular top level key words, promoting specific internal pages could be the best way to beat the competition and get your site in front of buyers.  

Last but never least, promoting your site’s internal pages helps your site look ’natural’ to search engines, who prefer natural growth based on merit to heavy SEO. Whereas having thousands of links to your home page – and none to internal pages - looks far from natural.   

What is a doorway page?

• a doorway page is designed purely with SEO in mind – a page absolutely stuffed with key words and phrases
• because it is created exclusively to rank high in search engine results, it doesn’t take human visitors into account 
• it will either contain a link to another site or will automatically re-direct you to another site  

Why are doorway pages a bad idea? 

They’re frowned upon because search engine algorithms are written to provide humans with the best possible search experience. Doorway pages take the mickey by trying to cheat the system. They dilute search engines’ effectiveness.  

Are doorway pages considered ’black hat’?

Yes. While a sneaky doorway page might deliver a temporary spike in traffic, you risk a stiff penalty from Google and co if you’re rumbled.

Cheating search engines isn’t worth the bother. It takes just as much effort as legitimate marketing. If your search engine optimisation person suggests doorway pages, drop ‘em fast before they get your business into trouble. 

Powerful meta descriptions and page titles win human visitors and keep search engines happy.

Write strong meta titles

Not so long ago page title tags – meta titles – were crucial to SEO, picked up by search engine algorithms as a key ranking element. 

Today their power has diminished. But because, when marketing, humans are just as important as search engines it is still a good idea to write a goodie. A strong meta title will attract more people to click through to your site.

• meta titles still help with SEO, so you might as well take advantage
• it’ll help your listing stand out above the rest in the search results and encourage click-throughs to your site
• in fact, many people make the decision to visit a site – or not – based on the meta description… so it is a mini-marketing opportunity not to be missed

What should my meta titles look like?

Search engines all display a different number of page title characters. But because Google is still the most popular search engine, many people stick to Google’s limit of around  60 characters. Do this and your whole title will display properly in Google’s search results and your message won’t get cut off in its prime.

If you want to make the most of your page title across all search engines, you can use up to 120 characters. Yahoo, for example, displays significantly more characters than Google. If you do this, make sure that the first 60 characters of your meta title makes sense on its own. That way it’ll display sensibly in Google as well as Yahoo. 

• create a unique meta title for every web page
• use it to describes the content of each page accurately and succinctly in an entertaining way 

Write powerful meta descriptions

Like your page title, your page’s meta description appears in a tag in the head of each web page’s code. Search engines use meta descriptions to rank sites, as well as displaying the text in their search results pages. So they’re a vital element of the marketing mix.

What should my meta title look like?

Create a unique meta description for every page of your website. Use it to showcase exciting and relevant info that you haven’t showcased in your meta title.

• make the description easy to read and entertaining, punctuated properly, in plain English
• ensure your meta description describes the content of each page accurately
• use your top key words in your meta description. But don’t over-cook it or you’ll look and sound spammy

How about length? Use a maximum of 160 characters. Each search engine displays meta descriptions differently. Google shows 160 characters. As I’ve already mentioned, because Google is still the most popular search engine it is probably wise to focus on Google for the time being. 

Install these two plugins for marketing benefits!

WordPress is one of the planet’s most popular open source blog packages. It also provides a huge number of useful plugins.

What’s a plugin? It’s an extra bit of software that you install to do stuff that the Wordpress package doesn’t do. 

Some are for fun, others have a serious commercial purpose. Here’s two of the best:

• I love social bookmarking – rather than trying to crowbar code into your WordPress files, choose this plugin and let visitors bookmark your posts in a wide variety of popular social networks including Digg, Del.icio.us and Stumbleupon
• all in one SEO pack – instead of fiddling around optimising all the various elements of your blog for SEO, install this plugin. It’ll make your blog SEO-friendly, automatically 

A great free SEO tool for DIY marketers and webmasters

My business support client, Lisa at letmedothatforyou, found websitegrader.com and told me all about it.  It’s an excellently simple SEO support tool.

Websitegrader measures the marketing effectiveness of your site. The resulting report gives you plain english advice about how to improve the marketing effectiveness of your website. And it delivers a score out of 100 based on key stuff like basic SEO, your site traffic, social popularity and a whole load of other techhie bits and bobs.

You can work through the report, make changes to your site and re-analyse it with webgrader to see if you’ve improved your score.

And you can display the Website Grader badge on your site once your score is good enough (my score for helpinthecity.com is 96.5)

I’ve been on page one of Google for my top two search terms for over a year now.

As you can imagine, being top of page 1 in Google’s SERPs brings in a lot of business. Today my positions look like this:

• freelance copywriter – Google UK – No 2 on page 1
• freelance copywriter – Google entire web – No 2 on page 1
• freelance copywriting – Google UK – No 3 on page 1
• freelance copywriting – Google entire web – No 3 on page 1 

My site was completely offline in early November for whole week because of hosting problems. But despite being completely invisible for seven days it held onto its ranking.

In contrast I didn’t get my personal art gallery site – decor-works.co.uk – up and running again until a fortnight after it disappeared. It has temporarily vanished from the listings.

It’s useful to know that if your site goes belly up for a week it’ll probably be OK. But if you leave it much longer you’ll have a lot more SEO work to do to get it back where it was before things went dog-shaped.

Search engines place great importance on fairness. I can only imagine that the reason my freelance copywriting site retained its ranking for week is because it would be horribly unfair for Google to de-rank it immediately without giving me a chance to re-instate things.

Thank you,  Google! XXX

Here’s a nice little online tool to help you optimise your website for search engines:

All you do is type in your site address. A second later seobugz returns a short and neat report showing you how to improve things like:

• meta keywords, meta descriptions etc
• H1 and H2 tags
• image tags
• SEO friendly inbound links

Once all the basic details are right you can concentrate on great content!