Many website owners were shocked and dismayed to find their
sites had suddenly disappeared from page one of the world’s most popular search
engine after Google launched its Penguin 5 Update at the end of April. While Google’s recent action has left many
website owners blindsided and scrambling to recover lost rankings, the move,
while ruffling more than a few feathers, was hardly unprecedented. So if you have suddenly fallen out of favor
with the 800 lb gorilla in the room, what you need to ask yourself is whether
you want to get mad, or whether you want to get even.
Even Gorillas Get the
Blues
More importantly, you need to ask yourself what is it that
the gorilla wants that you aren’t currently providing. For the most part, the Penguin Update was
seeking to redress issues regarding link spamming, where sites rely on paid
links that have little relevance in the real world and only exist to game the
search engines. So if you have been
dabbling with link farms, or otherwise engaging in building links with questionable
sites, it is time you stopped this practice.
Google also took issue with such tactics as keyword
stuffing, where keywords are dropped without rhyme or reason throughout a site
in order to influence the search engine spiders. If
your text is peppered with keywords that have little relevance to your storyline,
or you have hidden text readable only by the googlebots, then you need to clean
up your act.
In fact, one of the best ways to get back in Google’s good
graces would be to conduct a bit of spring cleaning in order to prune old or
irrelevant content, links and keyword spam.
Instead of crying over spilt milk, perhaps you should look at this as a
wakeup call that could be put to good use.
If it has been more than a year since you updated your site, this would
be the perfect time to add some sizzle by dropping in a video or two, or adding
Google+ to your social networking scheme.
Both these and additional blogs will do more to boost your links and ranking, as
well as giving your site a fresh new look.
While there are a few additional and highly technical details
that the Penguin was designed to curtail, for the most part what every website
owner needs to know that if you are more interested in gaming the search
engines than you are in engaging your audience, then you can only expect to get
as good as you give. What I mean by that
is that if you provide consistent, relevant content on a regular basis that
improves visitor experience and delivers value to your customers, then you are
going to wind up not only wooing the search engines, but wowing your audience
as well, which is why you should be working the web in the first place.
So, if you really want to create a web presence that is more or less bulletproof to the ever changing whims of search engine operators, then you need to stay focused on creating the kind of site that people will want to come back to read time and time again. And always beware of booby trapped umbrellas.
Carl Weiss is
president of http://wsquaredmediagroup.com
and co-hosts the weekly online radio show Working the Web to Win on http://blogtalkradio.com/workingthewebtowin
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