23 replies to this topic

[tktex]

Hi all,

I'm sure we all heard about Matt Cutts announcement that Google will start penalizing sites that are "over-SEO'ed". (Yay! Promote quality sites.... right?) Does anyone have any speculation as to what exactly this means? I'm imagining that exact keyword phrases may no longer be as necessary/relevant as Google will more so prioritize semantic context (synonyms, other related terms). I'm glad sites with quality, well-written content will be rewarded, I'm just worried if explicitly used keyword phrases within content/Title tags will be viewed negatively? If so, will SEO become more of just on-page writing/off-page and no longer a huge importance on keywords?

Any insight would be great! Where do you think on-page SEO is moving?

Thanks!

[chrishirst]

Any insight would be great! Where do you think on-page SEO is moving


It's not moving anywhere, it's staying exactly where it always has been for the people who do it right and work WITH search engines by providing good content for users rather than using "formula SEO" to try and fool the ranking system.
So it's just the "SEO by numbers" numpties who are going to be hit a little bit harder than they have been already -> http://www.highranki...ight-places-316

[Jill]

Chris beat me to it. It's no different than I said in that article. More Panda.

(That is assuming it's not just Google propaganda, which actually I think is more likely.)

[Mastersquidwardo]

At this point, it seems that SEO is becoming less important than SMM. G+ is now putting precedence to followers searching. So if you +1 a page about SEO and one of your followers are searching for SEO, the page you +1'ed will take precedence over, say, highrankings.com. As said before, SEO is not going anywhere. It's still highly important when searched by non-followers. But make sure to take into account the +1 strategy

[chrishirst]

"now putting precedence to followers" or so they say!

[Michael Martinez]

Some people are speculating that the recent crackdown on blog networks may be part of the push that Matt Cutts was describing rather vaguely. I don't think he meant that Google would impose a new penalty, necessarily. I think he was saying that Google was working on a way to reduce the advantage that aggressive Websites make for themselves, either with on-page or off-page tactics.

[StraightUpSEO]

(That is assuming it's not just Google propaganda, which actually I think is more likely.)

They are putting more into propaganda then their actual search algorithm!

Over optimization? What's the worst they could do? Remember: Any algorithm change also affects the quality web pages. Adding a relevant h1, title tag, and a nice mix of keywords is all you need. Don't worry about the Over optimization penalty hitting you, it's likely those very "hardcore" marketers who blast search engines with hundreds of scraped pages that'll be affected. Nobody cares about them anyways

[Jill]

Adding a relevant h1, title tag, and a nice mix of keywords is all you need.

Those are actually the types of pages/sites that have been getting hit by Panda and most likely even more so if/when this new algo hits.

You simply can't JUST do SEO in all the right places anymore. It's not by any means "all you need."

[StraightUpSEO]

How does Google categorize it's content?

Content's keywords aren't always going to be used in search? How exactly do you expect Google to know a page is about "Blue tennis shoes" without putting 1) Blue Tennis Shoes in your title 2) Blue Tennis Shoes (or related terms in the language vector) 3) Content about Blue Tennis Shoes 4) Pictures about Blue Tennis Shoes 5) Links to other Blue Tennis Shoes - ?

I'd love to hear how making relevant content is going to be penalized..

[OldWelshGuy]

Oddly enough I was discussing this earlier today, and referred to a post on this very forum from 2004 !

Google are putting more and more weight into semantic ranking, we all knew that, and we all said 'write naturally' and build for visitors.

[Jill]

Blue Tennis Shoes (or related terms in the language vector)

What's a language vector? I don't believe there's any such thing related to SEO.

[StraightUpSEO]

What's a language vector? I don't believe there's any such thing related to SEO.

Relevant feedback from users + Vector space model retrieval system = More relevant understanding of related keywords (Example: If users landed on a page that satisfied a search for "blue tennis shoes" - it's likely it won't have pictures with "dolphin" in the alt tag and "space frontier" in the header tag.)

Isn't this system how they create the "Searches related to" section on Google?.. It'd be strange if they manually made each one, wouldn't it be?

Edited by Jill, 22 March 2012 - 07:25 AM.
removed wikipedia reference

[chrishirst]

Errm? Yes, and you know Google uses that .... because???

[Jill]

Relevant feedback from users + Vector space model retrieval system = More relevant understanding of related keywords

But you mentioned "vector language" which has no meaning in SEO.

It seems you're just trying to throw words out there to confuse people.

[piskie]

It seems you're just trying to throw words out there to confuse people

Yes Jill, I think you hit the nail on the head.