There’s one specific aspect of this topic that many experts have been questioning, and it’s whether or not Google is being hypocritical in regards to their latest algorithm changes penalizing sites with too many ads above the fold.

Danny Sullivan, of Searchengineland, went in-depth into this and looked at a couple of results pages which featured a good amount of ads above the fold. I thought his analysis was very interesting,

The blue box surrounds the content, the search listings that lead you to actual merchants selling trash cans, in this example. Some may argue that the Google shopping results box is further pushing down the “real content” of listings that lead out of Google. But the shopping results themselves do lead you to external merchants, so I consider them to be content.

According to Danny, Google also released a statement in regards to the criticisms they received involving their own ads…

This is a site-based algorithm that looks at all the pages across an entire site in aggregate. Although it’s possible to find a few searches on Google that trigger many ads, it’s vastly more common to have no ads or few ads on a page.

Again, this algorithm change is designed to demote sites that make it difficult for a user to get to the content and offer a bad user experience.

Having an ad above-the-fold doesn’t imply that you’re affected by this change. It’s that excessive behavior that we’re working to avoid for our users.

Many of the users on WebProWorld had interesting input regarding the subject.

One of our users provided this image, asking the question – So, I fully expect Google to penalize itself now. *chuckle*

Many responses have been in support of Google. Jeff Dishman, a Google employee said this of the ads presented on results pages, in a conversation involving the subject on Sullivan’s Google+ post.

when the post says “sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change”, you can consider the ads at the top of a Google search to be “content”. It all comes down to relevancy; if someone is searching for credit cards, those ads at the top are likely to be something they are interested in. Also, the fact that this change will affect less than 1% of searches means that it’s targeted at sites that blatantly throw a ton of ads (where they are not relevant at all) at you in a way that will drive people away.

I know this probably won’t do anything to change the way you feel about this, but thought it was worth saying. *Disclaimer* – these are my views, and are not necessarily the views of my employer.

Another interesting aspect of this is how Google Adsense tells users that ads above the fold tend to do better. Providing users a chart of “hotter” areas to place ads.

To be fair, they also say Adsense users should place visitors first when determining ad placement and quantity.

Another WebProWorld user had an interesting take on the battle between Google’s ad network and improving their results page:

I nearly found myself in total despair of finding the correct word that describes googles arm wresting with itself. (left hand battling the right)

The right word may possibly a derivation of the word dyslexic
(dys·lex·i·a (d s-l k s – ). n. A learning disorder marked by impairment of the ability to recognize and comprehend written words.)

I like – dysgooglic (dys-goog-lic. A self inflicted disorder marked by a total impairment of any understanding of things it already understands.

or ‘Dysglooglic’ – biting your own balls syndrome.

It seems the consensus is that Google isn’t necessarily doing anything wrong with their algorithm update, in fact it’s a benefit to users. However, the lack of details regarding the changes along with their strategies given to Adsense users certainly provides plenty of questions.

We’ve seen Google’s answer to the problem of clogging ads above the fold; by way of an algorithm update. The two words that site owners and SEO experts dread like the Ghost of Christmas Future.

As with many algorithm updates, the problem rests with the general and arbitrary information shared to everyone regarding it. Looking at the original blog post regarding the update, I could paraphrase it as such: “We’re rolling out an algorithm update which will penalize websites with too many ads above the fold, it should affect 1% of searches globally”

If you’re a user then you’re probably clapping and cheering Google for this update. If you’re an SEO expert, or an owner who’s sole income comes from a website or group of websites then depending on how neurotic you are, you’re either slightly concerned or freaking out.

The reason for the concern is so much of a site’s success is dependent on key points of data, and many times specific numbers, ratios, and trends involving this data. When generalities are used, it’s hard to gauge what is needed in order to be successful.

Which is why so many owners and experts become concerned when they encounter an update such as this one. Questions like this instinctively arise:

- How many ads are too many? Is there a specific number?

- Is Google only targeting Adwords, or is there a collective database of ad networks they’re targeting? Is there a shared element in various ad codes where they’re able to determine what is or isn’t an ad?

Depending on your level of concern, these questions feature an assortment of capital letters and other colorful words. Let’s do a quick visual exercise to dig deeper into this update.

First, where do intersticial ads and pop-ups come into play regarding this update? Really, they’re the Men-in-Black of ads when talking about layout, as they work outside the system. However, they can be just as intrusive if not more so than banners and other page ads.

Which would be considered worse in Google’s update?

This, IGN’s front page which has a single ad that expands to take up nearly half the page (based on where the fold is on my screen) …

Or, Rottentomatoe’s front page which has a banner, video ad, and a background ad? In terms of “being above the fold”, the content/ad ratio isn’t technically as bad.

You then have Forbe’s strategy which loads a timed intersticial, an ad that gets its very own page. How is Google viewing this in their new update?

The matter of intersticial and pop-ups brings a whole new element into the mix. Is Google penalizing sites on ad/content ratio averages, or are they targeting specific pages? Certainly, if they’re only targeting specific pages when they’re penalizing then having interstitials and pop-ups seems like it would be more beneficial to a site than relying on trying to gauge how many ads above the fold is too many.

In conclusion, after all the questioning and worrying, the mantra of Google still rings true – try to create the greatest user experience possible. There is definitely a common sense element at play, but we still don’t know where the line is and if a site is even crossing it.

SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkin, is the only responder I’ve seen who’s released a video concerning the update. He discussed the changes with Mike King of @iPullRank. One of the most important takeaways from the video is how they believe timestamps, specifically in the XML sitemaps could see a boost in terms of importance. A trend you’ll notice as you read more reactions.

Gianluca Fiorelli, of I Love SEO calls the update, “Caffeine 2.0″ and shared some interesting thoughts about how this change was brought about by advertising needs. Claiming that Google is driven by ad space, and needed to make changes to reflect this:

“Google is an substantially an editor (even it will never recognize it) that sells ad spaces, and Search is still its main product to sell toward the advertiser. So Google needs to have the best product to continue selling ad space. That product was ironically endangered by Caffeine. With Panda Google tries to solve the content issue and with the Social Signals linked inextricably to the Authors and Publishers tries to solve the obsolescence of the Link Graph.”

Ben Will, an author over at Marketing Pilgrim, has already devised strategies to succeed from the Google Fresh changes. He makes note that having correct and up-to-date time-stamps is of utmost importance, like Fishkin and King stated above. However, one of his strategies struck me as interesting. Adding forums.

Forums…the original social network. The benefits are the fluid conversations that happen. The downsides are that forums require a fair amount of work to be managed. Choose this option carefully.

One aspect of this change which I saw go unnoticed by most is how it will impact paid search. Jeff Allen, of PPCHero, believes the changes will have an important impact.

“Google didn’t specify if this change would have an impact on paid search. However, their trend has been towards narrowing the gap between organic and PPC. Because of this, I would venture to guess it will have some impact in the future. Time will tell, but my guess is that advertisers in verticals affected by these changes (such as eCommerce sites selling SLR cameras) will want to keep their content fresh.”

As I’ve read reactions, it seems to me that this could potentially be the most subtle algorithm update Google has released. Most of the strategies I’ve read in reaction to Google Fresh, are ones most have been trying to follow for quite some time. It’s always been about producing relevant content, and doing so on a consistent basis. If your site is based around a topic which doesn’t require timely updates, then this change probably won’t have an effect. That is if Google’s claim concerning recency only affecting certain topics holds true. On the flip side, if your site relies on current events or timely topics, you’re probably giddy about this update.

Have you noticed any changes in your results, since the Google Fresh update went live? Do you see vast potential for your site from Google placing more relevance on freshness?

Update: There have been more reactions to the algorithm update. There seems to be a divide over whether or not Google putting relevance on freshness will indeed provide better quality for readers. Most of the skepticism comes from those are unsure whether or not Google will know when recency should truly be important.

A user from WebMasterWorld had an interesting reaction to the update, “So you think the pro staffed sites have been at an advantage before? How about now? On the surface, this looks like the dagger for a lot of folks. Hope I’m wrong. A small enterprise of a few cannot compete with freshness of hundreds of staffers. I haven’t dug into this, but certainly this adds to the already pile of BS that a lot of us have been dealing with and now it’s another heaping truck full on my door step.

With all the changes, Google results must really have sucked. Guess it was a fluke to gain that market share on a system that so broke that it needs to be gutted. In real terms, there is something fundamentally wrong with ADD characteristics of a company that has 97% of mobile search and what 80%+ or regular search.”

Could the update lead to certain businesses creating blogs, simply for the aspect of showing up as a fresher result?

According to Google, nearly 35% of searches will be impacted by this update. It’s building upon their Caffeine system, which they touted as a better way to crawl and index more quickly and on a larger scale. They provided the keyword “olympics” as an example.

“If I search for [olympics], I probably want information about next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics (the only time my favorite sport, cricket, was played). Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I just type [olympics] without specifying 2012, I still find what I’m looking for.”

There are three key features being highlighted in the update:

Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.

Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you’ll see the latest information.

Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.

As with all algorithm updates, there are some problems with the changes. The first is structuring it in such a way that it recognizes when results need to be fresh, and when being current isn’t a requirement. They assure users that the improvement is being designed to know when freshness is an important factor.

As with all algorithm updates, we’ll all be sitting in anticipation to see how this will impact both webmasters and users.

He cites Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s comments about branding being the cure to cleaning up the "Internet Cesspool" and a quote of his from the company’s most recent earnings call in which he said, "Wouldn’t it be nice if Google understood the meaning of your phrase rather than just the words that are in that phrase? We have a lot of discoveries in that area that [we] are going to roll out in the next little while."

Here is the text of my discussion with Aaron Wall:

Chris Crum: With Google giving big brands so much attention, how does the little guy stand a chance?

Aaron Wall: They will always have some balance to the search results, but part of the longterm search game is going to come down to building a brand. Keep in mind the current brand changes are mostly happening for core industry keywords, and smaller websites will still be able to get decent exposure by working longtail keywords.

CC: You say the January 18th Google Update was bigger than Florida, but few people noticed it. Why do you think that is?

AW: Well the Florida update was a big update with a more violent change in the overall rankings, but it just required a few more technical hoops to jump through. Building a brand is time consuming and difficult…it is much more difficult than jumping through a few more algorithmic hoops. If Google expands on this front many people who have a mechanical approach to SEO and online marketing will be looking for a new job in the not too distant future.

I think few people noticed this update because there was a smaller change in rankings, and many of the search results are relevant sites that are logical to rank…whereas with the Florida update some of the sites that were ranking were quite off topic, or only near matches.

CC: I’m intrigued by the other point you pulled from Schmidt’s earnings call about Google understanding the meaning of your phrases rather than just the words. Clearly this would greatly increase relevancy on a lot of searches if they are able to get it right. How close do you think they are to being able to pull this off?

AW: They still have a long way to go to get where they want to be with relevancy, but some of the issue of search is simply creating the incentive to make people want to create the content that really answers search queries well in a good format. Sometimes I see Matt Cutts post great how to posts about how do different things in Ubuntu. I believe he does that in part to feed answers into the search engine, especially if/when it did not provide an answer that was as good as he would like.

Another big issue is information accuracy…which is yet another reason they might want to put a lot of weight on brand.

Sidenote (CC): With regards to relevancy and branding, there are some interesting possibilties on the way as ICANN begins accepting more new generic Top-Level Domains. This is discussed in the following exclusive WPN interview between SEOMoz’s Sarah Bird and Clarke Walton of Walton Law Firm:

CC: Do you think this (Google recognizing meaning over words) is something the majority of searchers want to see happen or do you think they would prefer to have to specify their own searches further?

AW: We like to feel like we are in control, but we under-estimate our own laziness. People prefer Google to be sophisticated under the hood rather than having to re-query again.

Thanks to Aaron for talking with me. Read his article "Google’s New Search Engine Rankings Place Heavy Emphasis on Branding". It’s full of illustrated examples, and I think you’ll find it quite interesting.

Update: Matt Cutts has shared the following video regarding the subject of Google placing weight on brand. He says it’s not really about brand….

Yahoo disclosed the latest update taking place for its search engine today. Priyank Garg and Sharad Verma said on the Yahoo Search blog they were rolling out various changes to their algorithms.

Crawling, indexing, and ranking should all see changes over the next few days. The post comes a day ahead of another announcement, Yahoo’s Q1 2008 financials, which takes place April 22 after market close.

Part of the update included a fix for an issue being reported by several webmasters to Yahoo. Some encountered problems deleting URLs from Yahoo’s Site Explorer.

Garg wrote that the issue in question has been fixed. As always when a search engine drops some updates into its secret sauce, rankings for sites may have changed. Site publishers should check in to Yahoo over the next few days to see if their websites endured any such changes.

Previous episodes of unavailability at Digg have been related to tweaks and fixes being put in place. Those changes included adding an Images category to the site, and shifting around the navigation elements (remember when links ran down the left side of the page?)

At other times, the algorithm needed work. People gamed Digg for the chance to gain a spot on its front page. Digg fought back with updates to thwart those tactics.

Rose said on his blog the time had come for another algorithm fix:

Digg

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/rose-explains-diggs-outage-algo-update-2008-01/feed 2 http://www.webpronews.com/trust-and-authority-in-googles-algorithm-2008-01 http://www.webpronews.com/trust-and-authority-in-googles-algorithm-2008-01#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:46:59 +0000 Michael Gray http://www.webpronews.com/?p=43547 If you’ve ever been to search engine conference and attended a site review session chances are you’ve heard panelists mention duplicate content penalties and filters.

For “normal” people these problems are real, however with Google a double standard exists for trusted authority websites.

 

Case and point the SERP for [Green Real Estate] screen shot below:

]]> If you’ve ever been to search engine conference and attended a site review session chances are you’ve heard panelists mention duplicate content penalties and filters.

For “normal” people these problems are real, however with Google a double standard exists for trusted authority websites.

 

Case and point the SERP for [Green Real Estate] screen shot below:

The #7 listing goes to this page on Forbes.com

The #10 listing goes to this page on MSN.com

Ok first off I don’t mean to imply that MSN is scraping Forbes, I’m quite sure there is a syndication arrangement in place and no copyright laws are being broken.

However the content is identical, so identical that Google should have no problem realizing one is a copy of the other, however they don’t. The simple fact is that right now trust and authority are weighted so high within the algo that they completely trump all other factors.

Comments

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/trust-and-authority-in-googles-algorithm-2008-01/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/addressing-assumptions-of-the-original-pagerank-2008-01 http://www.webpronews.com/addressing-assumptions-of-the-original-pagerank-2008-01#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:57:36 +0000 Navneet Kaushal http://www.webpronews.com/?p=43506 When the original PageRank algorithm was conceived, it was built around the a mathematical formalization called random walk or RW.
]]> When the original PageRank algorithm was conceived, it was built around the a mathematical formalization called random walk or RW.

Considering a normal surfer to be a random walker, it was assumed that an individual would browse the Internet and randomly visit one of the pages followed by more pages through the hyperlinks on each of the landing pages. When the process ends the visitor would have surfed all the pages.

Out of all the pages, the most visited pages would get the highest rank as they are the ones with the maximum number of incoming links.

The problems arise because a normal surfer doesn’t follow the random walk formulation, hence the assumptions of the PageRank might not apply to a surfer in the real world.

There has been an intriguing post written by Bill Slawski which highlights, how the assumptions of the PageRank are flawed and how the recent patent for the "User-sensitive pagerank" addresses some of the assumptions of the original PageRank.

The flaws highlighted center around some of the assumptions made by the PageRank.

All the links are created equal: The problem here is that the surfers just don’t hit on hyperlinks at random, we read the hyperlink, mentally calculate it’s value and then click on it. If this is so the How come all the links are equal?

Bored Surfers Go to Random Pages: True, that we sometimes get bored with a page and move on to another. But, the next page is not chosen at random, rather it’s carefully chosen.

Bored Surfers Only Go to Trusted Pages: While it’s true that bored surfers don’t go to random pages, rather think and then move on, but the page they choose might not necessarily be a trusted one.

Pages Change and Lose Value at Same Rates: The pages can lose value during their lifetime but can they at the same rate. There are a myriad factors governing each pages’ popularity and each one changes in value differently.

PageRank Calculations are reliable: This assumption talks about the ‘blocked’ PageRank," however  the patents application suggests that these aggregations are not perfect.

The User-sensitive pagerank patent application would include various aspects of user behavior to calculate a better PageRank. These aspects pertain to Link Weight; Likelihood of Randomly Leaving to a New Page and Satisfaction with Found Pages.

This patent again underscores the need to design websites which intrigue the visitors to spend a longer time at the website and explore it. However, other aspects such as the usability is important too. There have been many discussions about the PageRank and many people seem to think that there is a need to replace the PageRank with something superior, it seems that we have it already.

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]]> http://www.webpronews.com/addressing-assumptions-of-the-original-pagerank-2008-01/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/can-googles-algo-co-exist-with-trust-2008-01 http://www.webpronews.com/can-googles-algo-co-exist-with-trust-2008-01#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:42:38 +0000 Richard Burckhardt http://www.webpronews.com/?p=43360 In a previous article, Is Universal Search Harder?, I discussed how a universal type of search can actually make finding what you are searching for more difficult. Google includes their own version of Universal Search in many of their search results pages, bringing us news, images, videos and so forth along with traditional web pages.

]]> In a previous article, Is Universal Search Harder?, I discussed how a universal type of search can actually make finding what you are searching for more difficult. Google includes their own version of Universal Search in many of their search results pages, bringing us news, images, videos and so forth along with traditional web pages.

Now, however, Google has also decided to become its own social network as well. Sharing is now very popular with the search giant. The most recent evidence of this is their ill-received roll out of sharing in Google Reader, which kicked off a fresh round of privacy concerns.

Even ranking well in Universal Search requires joining their "social" circle. You need to be sure share your content with YouTube, Google News, image search, book search, etc. to cover all of your bases these days. Being in all of those can mean the difference between a presence in the top search results and not ranking at all. For instance, your web site might not show up in the top results for a given search phrase, but your video just might.

With Personalized Search, you’re sharing your search history, not with others, but with Google so that they can dish out results based on that history. Sites you’ve frequented often will rank higher when you are logged into your Google account. Of course, if you forget you’re logged in, you might have a "What the ****?" moment over the same site coming up high in your searches. I’ve had the experience of wondering why a certain page kept coming up #1 when I knew it normally doesn’t (I was logged into my Google account without knowing it). It would be very helpful if there was an easier way to know you are logged in, like the page background changes or something.

Then there’s the added clutter of ads and promotional sites that make finding what you are really looking for in Google search even more difficult. Google has gone from concentrating on what it does best – search – to attempting to be everything to everyone.

With Google trying so hard to compete with social sites like Facebook, where you can find information based on trusted sources rather than the shotgun approach of Universal Search, what does this mean?

Could trust kill the algorithm?

To be clear, I don’t see Google getting trounced by Facebook or any of the other social sites, but it is very clear that a lot of searchers are finding their way to these sites to find information from sources that they trust rather than navigate through the hodgepodge of ads, videos, news, images and so forth being dished out in search results these days.

It’s interesting that ranking in Google depends, in part, on backlinks from trusted sites, but searchers are finding their way to Facebook, StumbleUpon and so forth to find trusted results.

How many more hats can Google put on before they start leaning to one side and eventually tip over, their newest hat being the social networking hat? Can a search engine dish out results based on trusted back links as well as trusted social connections?

Can the algorithm co-exist with trust?

Will we wind up with FaceGoogStumble?

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