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Why Google is not happy with its results
Google's recent Jagger update
has caused a lot of trouble for many webmasters. Although
Google tried to eliminate spam pages from its search results,
many spam-free web sites have also been hit by this ranking
algorithm update.
During Google's update, MSN.com temporarily had
a PageRank of 2. Even the spam-free blogs of some Google
employees were removed from Google's index (they have been
restored in the meantime).
It's obvious that Google had some problems with this ranking
algorithm update and that not everything went the way it
should.
Why did Google run such a big ranking algorithm
update?
Google's founders are not satisfied with the quality of
Google's search results. In a new book, Google founder
Larry Page told the author what he thinks about
the results:
"Well, Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google,
is not very satisfied with the results of Google searches.
On a scale of 1 to 10, he thinks that Google delivers
about a 3. They want to do everything they can to improve
the quality of search."
Given that statement, we can expect quite a lot of Jagger
style ranking algorithm updates in the future.
How to survive future Google updates
If you want your website to survive future Google updates,
you must find out what Google is trying to achieve with
its updates. Google wants to present high quality web sites
that are interesting to web surfers in its search results.
Whenever Google updates the ranking algorithm, they try
to give those sites more relevancy.
If you want to survive future Google updates, you must
make sure that your web site looks attractive to Google:
- Your web site should have a certain age
The older a website is, the less dramatic are the fluctuations
with each algorithm change. If your website has a certain
age and if the content of your website has regular updates
then search engines know that it's worth to list your
web site because you'll probably still be around tomorrow.
- Your web site should have good content
Search engines want to redirect web surfers to web sites
on which they can find useful information. The more content
your website has, the better you'll be listed. It's very
difficult to get good search engine rankings with a website
that has only a few pages.
- Links from other sites are still important
The more websites link
to you, the more important is your website. Of course,
you shouldn't link to every Tom, Dick and Harry and the
other sites that link to you should also be related to
your site.
Consider how the link popularity principle was originally
meant: you think that another website is a great resource
and then you link to it. If
you get links like that, you'll get solid search
engine rankings.
- Make it easy for search engines to index your site
Many websites have great content but it is nearly impossible
for search engines to index them. If you want high search
engine rankings, you
should make it as easy as possible for search engines
to index your site
We can expect many more ranking algorithm updates from Google
and the other search engines. If you prepare your web pages
as described above, you don't have to be afraid of upcoming
changes.
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