Snuffleupagus, Godzilla, and the Future of Search Success

GODZILLA, SNUFFLEUPAGUS, AND THE FUTURE OF SEARCH SUCCESS

PLUS, PANDA & BEYOND

Gil Reich (@GilR)Managing Greatness

Most Radical Transformation Ever (?)

Gil Reich, Managing Greatness. @GilR

Google can make major changes tomorrow. But their general direction seems clear.








It’s easier to detect social spam than link spam ~@VanessaFox

Snuffy or Godzilla?


Google sees itself as Snuffleupagus; its critics see it as Godzilla ~@JeffJarvis

2001: The Australia Strategy


2012: Nowhere to Hide


Not Your Mother’s SERPs


What people once called search and SEO are dead. Search will increasingly involve social, local, personalization, video, etc.

Quality & Spam


The people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups.


The Thin Content Problem

Amit: We got a lot of good fresh content, and some not so good.

Matt: It was like, “What’s the bare minimum that I can do that’s not spam?” It sort of fell between our respective groups.


The Hole in Google’s Defense


Google’s Blind Spot (BP)

Pages: Mass produced Highly targeted Not spam

Sites: Trusted


Google’s Response

Panda Publisher Pollution Penalty Starts using signals previously

considered too spammable: User behavior Social profile

Penalty and Ranking Factor Site-wide (like a Penalty) Ranking Factor (like incoming links

…) Updated Infrequently (like PageRank)


It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping! ~Chevy Chase


Penalties: Before & AfterBefore After


Panda vs Demand Media

Document Classifier


IRSWikipediaNew York Times

ScrapersThin Content

Pogo-Sticking


… the number of times that other search results are selected after a particular search result is selected … may be used to improve search result ranking …

-- Yahoo! Patent

Pogo Sticking



It’s too hard now to fake a natural footprint well enough to fool Google ~@GregBoser


Don’t Rank Where You Can’t Deliver


Fix or Kill Your Worst Pages


Link Out

Better the user find the right site from you than by asking Google again.


Get Social

In May 2010 I said that we weren’t using Social Signals. Now we are. ~@MattCutts

SEO = Web Strategy


The job of SEO has been upgraded from SEO to web strategist. Virtually everything you do on the Internet with your website can impact SEO today. That is especially true following Panda.

-- Rand Fishkin


Google’s Timeless Problem

"Junk results" often wash out any results that a user is interested in …

the number of documents … has been increasing by many orders of magnitude.

People are still only willing to look at the first few tens of results.

-- Larry Page, 1998

SUMMARY


Panda …

Google corrected a key blind spot Penalties can be subtle & sitewide,

and are not just for spam Users hating some pages can now

hurt your whole site Google now considers all signals that

it can measure


Plus …

Build your social profiles Build relationships Engage others


… and Beyond

Harder to fake natural than to be natural

Harder to spam in the age of social Focus on relationships and reputation SEO inseparable from web strategy


If You Missed Anything …

Technology

Snuffleupagus, Godzilla, and the Future of Search Success