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SEO is Changing - Google is changing
Posted by timethief • 11/23/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: bounce rate, google, matt cutts, metadata, page rank, personalization, SEO, traffic, universal search
WebProNews' Mike McDonald caught up with Matt Cutts of Google at the Hofbrau Haus in Las Vegas during PubCon to get his views on a number of topics.
"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.'" Matt Cutts
Read and view here www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/18/what-googles-matt-cutts-sees-in-2009
Discussion question: What did you learn from this video and article that surprised you?
User Comments
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I don't really find anything surprising in this. Traffic and conversion has always been the goal, and the only reason to shoot for high search rankings on competitive terms was because you generally got a lot of traffic that way, if your titles and descriptions were attractive. The various vertical search options have changed the face of that a bit, but that's been gradually happening for a few years. With more customization, that may narrow again, but the end goal is the same as it was ten years ago when people were stuffing keywords into their backgrounds.-
It seems that the gameplaying never ends and that the game players all whine that it's Google that's doing them in when, in fact, it's their scheming that provokes the changes.
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i agree with you MadameX.. SEO is always changing.. Slowly, right? -
Have you read Google's new SEO? -
hi timethief
As a new comer this doees helps a me a lot. I owe you this time. Maybe someday i shall treat you on dinner. Someday
Tq-
@ezalahmad
I'm so glad I helped you. You don't owe me anything - just pass it on the way I did. Everything you learn - pass it on - so the whole community can benefit.
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TT....he would like to take you to dinner
hehehe sorry! I will behave! -
Actually I might be agreeable if I'm ever in a place where I can accept the invitation.
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I dunno, I don't think you should accept dinner from strangers TT.
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So we're back on the good relevant copy theory again are we? Though personally I never deserted it in the first place. -
Google like all companies only give you the information that they want you to have based on how it is important to them. When Matt Cutts says "don't worry about being number 1 for your trophy phrase" he is full of himself again.
This is a complete google adsense centric view of things. First he ignores the fact while google has the most search volume and the biggest market share of any single search engine, they only have about 45% of the total market share with Yahoo and MSN getting 52%. He is neglecting to say that google personalization is hurting many content providers on google which often times gives results that when looked upon make the most money for adsense and google. It is also laughable that he says don't worry about being number 1 (unless he knows they plan on screwing people over soon. When he says that it is akin to saying no one clicks the top result, which is crap.
Matt Cutts and any other web marketing exec will tell you anything that will make their stock go up, be very careful what advice you take from them, they make less money when you make more. -
good points of view.In my opnion nothings change.....
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Wow, I just invested so much in SEO tools and company deals and this is really a setback on my part.
Thank you for the informed post where I found this particularly useful. -
This whole SEO thing is confusing and I don't really understand it. I just noticed that sometime during the last several days, my pr with Google dropped though. I'm not sure why as I'm not doing anything differently. But everyone says that pr and other Google rankings don't really matter so should I be concerned?-
If you want to blog effectively you can learn basic SEO and your blog will benefit. Some go overboard and become obsessed but that's not what I'm suggesting at all. If you are interested here's a useful link www.seobook.com/bloggers#background
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Thank you TT for always being so helpful. I'm off to read and hopefully educate myself on this issue. It's as you say though, I'm not wanting to go overboard but do want to be effective in my blogging.
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@recyclecindy
You can just watch videos and slowly learn the changes to make and gradually implement them. Some of the simplest things to do is to include your keywords in your post titles and subtitles as well as in the text. However, one must avoid "overkill" by insuring that the words actually fit into the text naturally, and do not disrupt the flow of the text. -
BTW you can check out voodookobra's short post on the subject here onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/seo-isnt-rocket-science/
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Basic SEO elements for bloggers
(1) Keywords in the url
(2) Keywords in the blog title and tagline
(3) Keywords in the meta data
(4) Keywords in headings and subheadings , , etc.
(5) Keywords at the beginning of pages
(6) Keywords in anchor texts
(7) Keywords in the body of the text (avoid keyword stuffing)
(8) Keywords in tags (images)
(9) Unique content that’s frequently updated
(10) Site Accessibility (maintain your links)
(11) Sitemap
(12) SEO themes
(13) SEO plugins
Reference: onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/basic-seo-elements-for-bloggers/-
Great! Thanks.... I will keep this list handy! -
@LSKcrochet
You're welcome. -
In site accesibility if someone wants to know, any page in your site should be no more than two clicks from the first page. -
@mugshot
Excellent point. Thanks for making it. -
NP I like to add knowledge where I can....it doesnt happen often!
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I have attempted at practicing SEO tactics whenever possible, but my blog is too specialized. It has been much more beneficial for me to seek out forums and related groups and become an active participant. But as others have said it does not appear that much has changed...content is still king!-
yeah content is king and link is queen
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SEO is mostly common sense actually, so I always wonder how it can be such big business and such a hot topic.-
Easy: most people lack common sense.
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That's so true. lol
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common scence is a quality of person
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BlogExplosion has been around for a long time. It has lower rankings than BC does. I did not find the traffic I got from there translated into faithful readers so I'm no longer a member and haven't been for years. I got a flood of one hit wonders who created a high bounce rate. On the other hand, BC does send us members targeted readers .
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That is right. SEO is evolving and changing. We better adapt these changes.-
yeah how can we adapt changes?
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Google's job is to present me with useful search results, based on the search phrases used, and whatever other individual parameter Google uses, e.g. previous search activity, links followed, sites visited, etc.
SEO attempts to second-guess and manipulate those search results, and IMO, while SEOptimizing my blog may be great for attracting traffic in the first place, it is not so likely that it will attract regular readers. Those readers will come based on my content. Content generates backlinks generates targeted readers.
I have already noticed that Google has become more and more personalized and localized: More often than not, if I follow the referrer link to the same search results that people use to get to my site, I cannot even find my site in there. So, while SEO certainly has a place, there is no guarantee it will work as intended, and SEO can not beat content in the long run.
Timethief (new avatar...again?) has summed it up nicely above. Basic SEO is very simple. If you match that with good content, you have a winner.
I pay attention to SEO, but I pay more attention to content, and I'd rather serve quality content to my few selected readers (ok, maybe not so few after all) than have a bunch of uninterested bouncers. Currently, my average visit lasts two minutes and views two or more pages. Increasing THAT number is more important to me than increasing visits through SEO. Good content leading to more (and longer) visits spreads via word-of-mouth (i.e. backlinks), not via SEO.
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