Google: Why It Is So Hard To Confirm All Algorithm Updates

A couple hours ago, Google's Andrey Lipattsev a Search Quality Senior Strategist participated in a Q&A with Bill Slawski, Ammon Johns, Eric Enge and Anton Shulke.

Andrey Lipattsev gave one of the most detailed explanations on why it is so hard for Google to confirm or deny algorithmic updates, including why there was so much confusion around what it means that an algorithm is part of the core algorithm. Let me summarize the long explanations and then share transcripts (I type fast) and the video):

What Does Core Mean?

In short, it means that the algorithm that is part of the core algorithm is now pretty solid and consistent that it can just join the family of algorithms that Google knows works. Google will not update it that often anymore, they trust it just works. It will continue to run, just like PageRank runs.

In fact, he said he doesn't believe there is a list of which algorithms are part of core and which are not.

Why It's Hard To Confirm Some Update

Google is constantly making changes, some are experiments, some are samples, some are larger updates as well. Within some algorithms, they might make tweaks daily, weekly, monthly. Some algorithms they may launch once and not update it again. We've seen examples of the algorithms that get tweaked and then not get updated for a while with Penguin. With Penguin it was updated a lot after Penguin 3.0 launched and then laid dead for 15+ months.

In addition, some algorithms use continuous crawl data, some crawl their own data periodically, some have their own fetch systems. The cycles this happens can be on a pattern or sporadic or never, it depends on each element.

Finally, if Google makes a tweak to one line of code, is that an update. Or does it take 50 lines of code, 500 or 5,000 lines of code. When is it enough of a tweak to call it an update?

Source : https://www.seroundtable.com

5 SEO Trends That Are Dominating In 2015

The SEO industry is constantly evolving. There are new updates, better developments, and improved practices to keep pace with. It is important to stay with the times, if not ahead of them, in order to maintain a stable ranking in the search engines, and to keep the traffic inflow on to your website constant and steady. Failing to keep up with the latest trends may have a negative impact on the promotional aspect of a business. In several cases, this might have extreme consequences such as closure of the business altogether.

SEO Trends

In order to avoid such a disaster, here are some of the trends you should be aware of:

1. Focusing on mobile traffic optimization:

With the evolution of cloud computing, people are beginning to access the internet on their mobile phones with increasing frequency. To further verify the authenticity of this trend, Google’s latest update takes mobile optimization into consideration. Therefore, investing in a responsive, mobile friendly website is a smart move that will guarantee better rankings to the site.

2. There are penalties as well:

This is a side of the SEO culture that is not well understood, and often overlooked. While building a search engine optimized site has its advantages, failing to do so is not a neutral ground, as most businesses believe. A case of negative SEO, or Google penalty, can have a disastrous effect on a company’s rankings. The sooner this issue is handled, the better the chances of salvaging the situation. The bottom line is that it is not important to merely have decent content on the site, but to take care that it does qualify as negative SEO.

3. Using the magic combination of technical SEO and content marketing:

Technical SEO techniques are necessary, but hardly sufficient. Sure, they enable the site to comply with the SEO standards. However, they do not do much more than that. In order to guarantee a top ten ranking, and to make it to the first page of the search engine, content marketing is essential. Some of the techniques that incorporate these twin methods are:

Including a FAQ page on the site,
Cross linking content,
Focusing on the quality of content.

4. Expanding the scope of keywords used:

The Hummingbird Algorithm released by Google recently has shifted the focus from long-tailed keywords to broader and more precise keywords. This update requires both the kinds of keywords to be present on a site, to deserve better rankings. The more precise and buyer oriented the keywords employed on your site are, the better the chances of featuring on the top results of the search engine.

5. Taking advantage of traditional PR methods:

Traditional public relations strategies, which focus on relationship building, can be employed to further the link building for the website as well. The secret to achieve this is by focusing on building your business relationships, which will in turn guarantee a better outcome in the link building process.

Source : http://www.kudometrics.com/blog/5-seo-trends-that-are-dominating-in-2015/