Search Engine Optimization Blog

Google Personalized Search, death to search engine placement

2010-02-09T20:47:00.001-06:00

I don’t normally write about changing issues with the search engines, however, a situation has surfaced that directly effects all website owners and their visitors.

On December 4th, 2009 Google announced “personalized search”
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html

“Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide”

That's a staggering statement meaning that every computer now accessing Google is being personalized, if you’re signed in to Google or NOT. So any desktop, or laptop will start tracking everything everyone does and no two people will be able to access the same search results from any two machines.

The possible impact to all website owners is staggering.

This pretty much makes checking your placement in the search engine results almost meaningless!

This Google option is “Opt-Out” only, you are now automatically enrolled into personalized search anytime you use a Google property (Gmail, Docs, Maps, etc). If you have the Google toolbar installed on your browser, you cannot stop the personalized search function…. Without un-installing the toolbar…

Personalized search can influence what you see on Google’s results pages. As an example, in December you may have searched for a fishing rod for uncle Bob, You might still see fishing rod ads while searching with Google in February because you looked at them while logged in to personalized search.

There's something about always getting personalized search results that is troubling, too. I can see it creating a kind of ostrich phenomenon, where the average user is less and less exposed to anything new.

If you disable the personalized search results, It can still come back ON! Every time you visit a Google property it turns back on. You end up playing “whack-a-mole” turning it back off all the time….

Here’s instructions on how to disable personalized search (at least until you revisit a Google property)

If you aren't signed in to a Google Account, your search experience will be customized based on past search information linked to a cookie on your browser.

To disable history-based customizations, follow these steps:
In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
On the resulting page, click Disable customizations.

Remember it turns itself back on automatically!!!!!

There may eventually come a time where you will be unable to figure out where you rank for specific key terms.

I’ve been watching the situation over the last 60 days, this issue and the release of Google’s new Caffeine search algorithm released on Jan 1st and the NEW partnership with the NSA have made the current search results listings a wildly changing place. There’s several issues with Google that are beginning to make Google appear a lot like “Big Brother” (I.E. George Orwell – 1984).

“You will be assimilated”
(the Borg – Star Trek)

“Today we’re helping people”
(the Gorg – Google, Inc)

Disappearing Web Ranking

2009-11-24T09:48:00.003-06:00

Well, you've got a new website... And you've spent hours going over every SEO aspect. You release the website, tell the major search engines about your site, and wait...

In a couple weeks you see your website high on the first page of results for your carefully chosen term. But, a week later, it's nowhere to be found... What happened?

Usually a new website receives a "honeymoon" period where the site is placed high in the rankings to see how it does. If the web site has merit it may remain near that position from the beginning. Usually, the site will begin to fall away until it finds it's own ranking area.

So If your website flashes to the top of the serps immediately, don't start patting yourself on the back for a job well done in the SEO area. If you can keep it there for a year, then you can pat yourself on the back.

Web Page Content Optimization

2009-04-26T15:59:00.004-05:00

Your web page content is the single most important search engine optimization component. If you expect people to find your web site in the search engine listings for the word "widgets", make sure your web page content is all about "widgets".

You CANNOT get off your search term topic with web page content and expect to be found in the search engines.

Examine your own web page, how much of that web page is actually about your search terms? A blurb, or a couple of sentences is not enough to tip the search engine placement in your favor. Think about the big picture, the search engine is delivering search engine results from web pages based on a specific keyword or key phrase. The search engine results page shows web pages that are "all" about "the term", not... here are web pages with "something" about "the term". The more your web page is about your target keywords or phrases the better you will do with search engine placement.

If you intend to drive search engine traffic to your website with organic search engine listings, your web page must contain your keyword or key search phrase. If your web page content is thinned out by other extraineous information, this dilutes the overall pertinence of the key search terms on the web page.

Sometimes less is more when it comes to optimizing a web page for search engine placement. A web page with a small amount of content sometimes comes out on top of the search engine listings. Due to the small amount of content, there would be no thinning out of the web page content by other off topic information. Stay focused on your keywords when optimizing your web page for search engine placement. Keep your web page keyword strategy to 1 or 2 keywords or key phrases per page at most. Herein lies one of the major keys to search engine placement, the balancing act that is performed. Use your keyword too much or too often and you stand a chance of getting banned from the search engines for "Keyword Stuffing". If you don't use your keyword enough then you drop like a rock in the search engine results.

SEO for web page titles

2009-04-16T21:48:00.005-05:00

Search Engine Optimization - web page titles

The web page title tag defines the content within your web page. It's like the table of contents for the web page. Your key search terms should be placed within the title tag using your most important terms first. The most characters in a title tag that search engines utilize is the first 70 characters. You can use up to 255 characters in the title tag of your web page, however anything past the 70 character limit is usually ignored by the search engines.

If you use the serch term "widget" in your web page title, there should also be content on that web page that also utilizes the same search term. Don't spam the web page title with terms that have nothing in common with your web pager content. The terms used in the web page title tag must always be used within the content of the web page.

Some companies utilize their company name within the web page title, unless you have a well known brand stick to using your key terms within the web page title tag.

You can create your web page title using commas as seperators between your keywords and terms like this example:

Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3, etc.

or..

Key Term Phrase 1, Key Term Phrase 2, etc.

You should use phrases as web page titles if your attempting to target specific search phrases such as "Buy Widgets" or "Free Widgets" etc. remembering to follow that with on page content relating to the search term.

Remember, title = search term = on page content

Search Engine Optimization

2009-04-15T20:43:00.006-05:00

Search Engine Optimization Hints Tips and MORE!

Search engine optimization or SEO is a way to make your web pages rank higher in the search engine listings. The higher your web pages rank, the more visitors you will receive and hopefully you can convert the visitor to a sale in the process. SEO is not rocket science, however it does require you to re-think the way you view your web pages.

Keep 3 things in mind at all times:

(1) Your web page is being compaired to other similar web pages from the Internet, along with the way that web page is grouped with other internal pages on your web site. This ranking algorythm is nothing more than a program. Cold machine logic with no ability to see pictures. Since we're not even close to having true AI for search engines, the ability exists to feed the search engine exactly what it's looking for. Good SEO practices, will benefit your web site forever.

(2) Since most of the search engine algorythm's are highly secret, you have to spend enough time using trial and error to figure out how things work internally with Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Each search engine has a different method of ranking your web page within its listings. You may rank well on Google, but have trouble with Yahoo listings, or Bing listings. This is expected.

(3) Remember, the search engines rank "WEB PAGES", they do not rank "WEB SITES". Each web page is ranked on it's own merits, and associations.

Now you can get the benefit of over 10 years experience providing great SEO for thousands of customers.

I'll explain the search engine optimization process in simple easy to use sections that you can use on your own web site to increase your ranking in the search engines.

We'll start at the top and work our way thru a complete optimization of a single web page, allowing you to learn how to optimize your own web pages.