Back in February Google released a new search algorithm in the U.S. and later in April released the algorithm worldwide. Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts explained the update, which was nicknamed Panda, in a blog post on February 24, 2011:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.” source

Their main targets during this update have been content farms and, as previously stated, low-quality sites. The plan is to remove them from the upper ranks of the search engine results page so people are receiving trustworthy and relevant information.

Within days of the release, the update had affected 12% of the search queries through Google. In a blog post from May 6, 2011, Amit Singhal gave some guidance on how to work with Panda. Here are some questions to ask yourself about your website:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

How Are We Reacting?
Google’s new focus on “quality content” has us concentrating on delivering great blog content and verifying we have meaningful on and off site links.

Using a blog delivers quality content relative to your company or industry while also linking on and off your site. In addition, blogs are easy to update consistently, which keeps Google happy.

Along with blog content, link building has to be much more precise. If Google considers the link a“low-quality-site”, it will lead to the page rank being hurt. In addition, Panda is looking more at social sites, which means offsite linking could be a great way to help SEO.

Even though Panda has been out for a few months, people are still trying to figure out how this will affect their sites long term. We are reacting based upon our findings and feel we are successfully working with the new Google algorithm.

Extra Reading:
Wired.com’s interview about Panda with Google’s Amit Singhal & Matt Cutts.
Cnet’s Panda analysis.

Canonical Tags have been around for almost 2 years now, but there are still many developers who are either not aware of their existence or they don’t understand their practical application. Let’s take a look at what they are and why you might benefit from them.

Why should I use Canonical Tags?

When you have multiple URLs that represent a single website page, there is a risk that the search engines will see this as a duplicate content issue. This is a common issue with dynamic websites with multiple paths to product content.  For example, depending on how you arrive at a product page page in a dynamic website, you may end up with URLs that look like:

http://www.domain.com/product1.aspx?id=12

OR

http://www.domain.com/product1.aspx?id=12&this=true

In addition to the duplicate content issue, the URLs above can end up getting long and ugly. Fortunately the canonical tags can serve the purpose of solving both issues by allowing you to turn the URL into:

http://www.domain.com/product1.aspx

Implementing Canonical Tags

The Canonical Tag code must be placed in the header of the page. There are two ways to use the canonical tag; you can use absolute URLs or relative URLs, both of which can be seen below. It is recommended that you use absolute URLs over relative URLs but either should work.

The code for the absolute URL will be:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.domain.com/product1.aspx" />

For the relative URL it will be:

<link rel="canonical" href="/product1.aspx" />

Additional Applications

There is yet another reason to consider using canonical tags. When a web page has multiple URLs representing it, the PageRank will likely be split up among the different URLs resulting in a lower PageRank score than the page in question may have actually earned.  The canonical tag will help Google understand that the “link juice” should be focused on the URL specified in the canonical tag instead of being split up and should help minimize a loss in the PageRank score.

To be continued…

Stop back again later this week where I will post part 2 of my post about canonical tags.  I will be focusing on the differences between canonical tags, 301 redirects and standard forwards.  I will also look at when and why to use canonical tags over these other options.

“Congratulations!  That sounds so interesting!  So…what is it, exactly?”

When I hit the family calling tree to tell them about my new job doing Search Engine Optimization here at First Scribe, that was pretty much the stock response.

My family is a fairly web savvy group.  We correspond via email on a daily basis.  We talk on Skype.  When my dad dropped Tom Brady the week before he threw six TD passes in one game, there was no shortage of activity on our fantasy football league’s message board.  The basics, really.

But despite a strong showing in general Internet knowledge, Search Engine Optimization wasn’t really on anyone’s radar.  They had all heard of it, but nobody could really define it, not even me.   I had the general idea of course, but I pretty much stuck with, “I’ll be optimizing web sites for search engines.”

A couple weeks into my SEO crash course, one thing has become very clear: it can’t really be defined, because the steps you can take to optimize a web site are infinite.

In a nutshell, there are two key concepts in SEO.

It’s more than keywords in a meta tag.

A lot more.  When the Internet really started to take off in the late ‘90s, there were a few search engines that sort of gave you results.  For a lot of web sites, optimization essentially meant plugging a few key phrases into your header and waiting (forever) for Yahoo to approve your directory submission.

These days, those tasks are at the very bottom of the SEO checklist.  It’s not just relevant content, it’s how that content is set up.  It’s not just incoming links, it’s how those links are set up and where they’re coming from.  It’s endless, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the rules change and you need to figure it out all over again.

The job is never done.

You can put all the pieces in place and have a web site that ranks at the top of the search engines, but it’s not going to stay there without a little work.  The Internet is not a static world.  It’s constantly changing and the only way to keep up with the game is to follow suit and change with it.

There’s a lot to it all, but there should be.  There isn’t a magic piece of code you can hide in your web site to make it jump to the top, and there shouldn’t be.  Search engines give us useful results because you can’t just wish your way to the top.

But with a little work, you can be your own fairy godmother and grant that wish yourself.

In the overly saturated online marketplace, a wide-range of companies have turned to SEO, third-party social marketing, and other strategies to generate both short-term and long-term gains in sales, contacts, traffic, and brand recognition.  But while these approaches provide a lot of value when it comes to selling tangible goods and services online, the flip-side of the coin shows that in the ad-driven world of online publishing and content syndication, high placement in the search engines and a large volume of traffic are no guarantee of monetary success or brand extension.

As was mentioned in our previous write-up about Google’s expansion into browser-based games, there is a certain value associated with visits and time spent per visit, especially when a site is centered first and foremost on content. In an industry that still views impressions and click-thrus as reliable measuring sticks for success, a number of Web consultants make the critical mistake of overlooking the long-term implications of these two metrics.  But they are vitally important when looking at the current health and future trajectory of a website’s ad revenue and future brand potential.

While great content can drive visitors in by the tens or hundreds of thousands, an unfortunate and often unspoken fact is that first-time visitors are incredibly fickle and they rarely, if ever, make content creators any money. Traditional click-thru-based ads aren’t converted on in sufficient numbers and impression-based ads are often priced in the lowest tiers.  The key is to get these users to come back, again and again.  But retaining visitors over an extended period of time is getting more difficult as the amount of competition continues to increase.

In a medium where content consumption is done quickly and with little regard for the original producer or originating brand, the challenge involved in increasing on-site loyalty and exposure can seem monumental.  One solution that has been gaining in popularity is the promotion of active participation among a site’s regulars; allow the users to submit, create, edit, vet, and manage some if not all of the content. Naturally, this has been done famously by Wikipedia as a non-profit venture, but there are others in the marketplace who are attempting to further flesh out the collaborative process in the hope of making an honest dime.

One example of this is the Whiskey Media network.  Founded by CNET co-founder and former CEO, Shelby Bonnie, the Whiskey Media network combines a traditional editorial system with a collaborative wiki-like back-end system. Their content creation process leans heavily on their niche audiences; encouraging long-term participation and allowing users to proactively submit and modify existing content that both feeds into and runs alongside staff-written features. Much like the Wikipedia model, this process fosters a high level of user engagement.  As a result Whiskey Media’s properties boast not only high numbers for key metrics like monthly visitors, but also impressive figures for repeat visits, time spent on site, pages viewed, and more.

Another prominent example is the user-managed regional directory Yelp.  Like Whiskey Media, Yelp relies on its users to submit and manage a large cross-section of its available content.  With well over 12 million user-submitted reviews, event listings, and other locally-supported content, Yelp is working to become the most trusted online directory and advertising partner for local businesses.  All of this, of course, is being done for them by the site’s very active and enthusiastic users.

While it would be foolish to think that more traditional media would ever move over to a system like this, the incentive for smaller brands and upstarts to pursue this level of user feedback is quite high.  As both Yelp and Whiskey Media have quickly learned, providing users with the tools they need to stay active and engaged not only fosters a sense of ownership and brand loyalty, but it leads to the much coveted repeat visit that online media companies seek.  Given the impermanence of most online media ventures, it will be interesting to see where both of these properties are in a few years time.