Lost Your Google Rank? Tough Luck!
I called Shari Thurow about her take on the new Google Print function, in which Google provides book results in their search results. Before we got started on the new function though, she gave me an earful on her opinions of the recent Google algorithm update.
The essence of her opinion? "I think Google got better."
She said that only one of her clients was affected by the Florida Update, an old client who used mirror sites without telling her.
Her thoughts on affiliate sites who lost their listings? "Boo hoo."
Look at the number of affiliates out there. They're all offering the same things, which loads Google up with duplicate content. Duplicate content diminishes user experience.
"If you're a commercial site," she says, "you should be buying ads."
When she begins design work for one of her clients she begins with a single question: "what does your site offer for free?"
It could be information, downloads, email service, search results, whatever.
Why would a search engine optimizer ask this question first? Because, in her words, "your website is the be all, end all of web marketing. That's what most search engine marketers don't get - they're reverse engineers, not designers. What they're doing is essentially spam."
Regarding commercial sites with good information, "they'll bounce back."
For the record, Shari believes that pay for placement services in the search engines, especially those that display ads with results, diminish the user experience.
New Keyword Strategy. During my conversation with Shari this morning she had some strong opinions about keyword strategy.
Here's the gist of what she said:
Every site should have at least 100 keyword phrases some of these will be better money makers than others. This way you're spread out, so if Google or anyone else changes their algorithm you'll still have some traffic coming in through the engines.
"Besides," says Shari, "optimizing your site for only one keyword is just spam waiting to happen."
|