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 Content
and the New Google Algorithms
First Published: Feb. 2004
Last Update: Sept. 2004
Author: Bob Wakfer
It has been almost a year since (November 16, 2003) the famous, or infamous,
Google Florida update. Most observers agree that this was the start of some
fairly radical changes in the way Google determines how to place sites on their
search results pages (SERPs). Their algorithms have continued to fluctuate and
change ever since. Nobody, including the author, can be sure of the changes that
have been made, or what the most important criteria for SERP placement currently
are. However, I will suggest in this article that the old dichotomy between
content and links may have been reconciled by the changes in Google's algorithms
over the past 10 or 11 months.
In the past there have been various approaches to Search Engine Optimization.
Two distinct schools of thought have arisen and have been expounded. On the one
hand, the school of "Content is King" claimed that content was the most
important element in SEO. While on the other hand the school of "Links are
King", claimed that inbound links were the best way to get top rankings. I
believe that the new Google algorithms may draw these two schools of SEO thought
together.
A word about Google before we go on. I will use the term search engine and
Google interchangeably through out this article. I am aware that there are other
search engines, but Google still has in excess of 50% of the search engine
traffic and is really the major target of most SEO.
What we know for sure:
The reason there has been such fierce debate between these two camps is that the
search engines will never reveal their formulas for ranking web sites in their
search results. Debate tends to be supported by questionable empirical evidence,
and a high degree of speculation. What we do know for certain is the following.
Content:
If one builds a web site in which the content is unique, Google will rank
that site in the SERPs on the basis of the this content. This is a combination
of the words found in the title, the on page headings, and the body of the text.
This fact was demonstrated a few months ago in an experiment done by Mel Nelson,
and reported on
WebProWorld.
What Mel's experiment indicates is that, for pages in unique niche markets, the
content of the web site may be adequate to obtain a high ranking in Google's
search results. Webmasters who work on pages of this type maintain that content
got them their ranking and that content is the only really important element in
SEO success.
This is an interesting claim with regards to Google, because Google was built
upon the founders’ use of PageRank. PageRank assumes that incoming links are a
type of"vote" for the importance and relevance of the page. Google's algorithms
have always used, or placed a great deal of importance on, inbound links in
ranking pages for position in their SERPs. In fact, Google will not keep a site
in its index unless there is at least one inbound link.
Despite this, the "Content is King" school persists in some circles, and is
characterized by a thought, or claim, that anyone who participates in aggressive
link building is slightly suspect, or is in some way cheating the system.
Linking:
We also know that it is possible, through aggressive link building campaigns, to
have a site rank very high in the SERPs because of search terms or keyword
phrases that do not appear anywhere on the page. In the past, this was achieved
by using the keyword phrases in the anchor text of the link. This practice has
become known as "Google Bombing" and may still be illustrated by doing a search
with the phrase "miserable failure", which returns the official White House
biography of George W Bush in number one position.
For the uninitiated ,anchor text is the actual text phrase on which users would
click to follow the link. In the past, "Click here" was commonly used for anchor
text. Today, one can almost tell whether a site has been optimized by the
absence of "click here" used in links.
The "Links are King" camp maintains that content is relatively unimportant to
the ranking of a site. Unfortunately, this is often interpreted as an assertion
that there should be no effort or thought given to content. While this may be
true for pure SEO achievement, even the "Links are King" advocates acknowledge
that once visitors arrive on the site they must find what they are looking for
or the site will not be successful. However, to get people to the site via the
search engines, content is not important for sites in highly competitive market
segments that wish to rank well for popular search terms.
Content should be written as completely and as carefully as possible, but for
competitive search terms, it is not critical to getting a site a top ranking in
the SERPs.
How the new Google may reconcile these two camps:
Google has made some dramatic changes in the ranking of sites in their SERPs
since November 16, 2003. There have been several more adjustments, or updates,
since then, but things are definitely different now than they were prior to
November 16th.
No one can be certain of the changes Google has made. Google watchers know that
over the past couple of years, the search engine has bought companies and
registered patents for a variety of technologies involved in semantic
analysis.Many believe that Google is attempting to do a more in-depth analysis
of the relevance and of the content of the page on which the inbound link
originates.
In the past, PageRank was simply a mathematical calculation based on the
PageRank of all the pages linking to each other or sharing links. The original
assumption, no doubt, was that people would only link to and from pages with
similar, or complementary, information. In other words, relevant information. As
the value of links, or backlinks, as inbound links are known, became
evident,webmasters started to solict link from non related sites.
The problem with this sort of system is that it is open to a certain amount of
spamming. It is now thought that Google is using some combination of
Local Rank,
Applied Semantics,
Topic Sensitive
PageRank, Hilltop
or
Stemming in an attempt to more precisely measure the relevance of an inbound
link. These tools, or technologies, would all perform some degree of content
analysis of the page containing the link. This analysis would determine if the
page was relevant, or topically related to the content or information on the
page to which it is linked.
The Connection:
If what has been said in the section above is true, suddenly content has a new
importance in the ranking of a page. Now it is not so much the content of one’s
own page that will get it ranked in the SERPs, but the content of the pages from
which the links are coming. All interconnected pages are now giving each other a
boost in relevance. In addition to the mathematical PageRank boost, it suddenly
becomes important that all interconnecting pages have relevant, or related,
content.We may have come full circle. Links are the factor that will get a page
ranked highly in the SERPs. However, content is what will give your backlinks
their ultimate ranking value.
About the Author:
Bob Wakfer is the owner of Computer Partners and a long time student and
practitioner of SEO. Computer Partners offers web site design, hosting and
search engine optimization for its clients. If you would like to discuss any
ofthese services with Bob you can e-mail him at
bob@compar.com
Links to other SEO resources and information:
Below are some Search Engine Optimization books you may find interesting:
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