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Google’s Search Quality Rating Guidelines (PDF) is a 157 page document that was created to guide human quality raters who were assigned a list of sites to rate. The guidelines gives insights into how Google defines what a a high quality site is. Hidden within that document, written between the lines as it were, are five important insights into the kinds of sites Google aspires to rank. The following five strategies are related to search marketing trends implied within Google’s document that you may not know about. 1. Content is Not King Google’s guidelines explicitly instructs the raters to judge a site according to how a page satisfies a site visitor’s goals. Thus, for an e-commerce site, a page is judged according to the consumer’s research and buying experience, not by how much content is on the page. It is about how the content satisfies user’s goals that matters. It’s not about publishing interesting content. Google’s Rating … [Read more...] about Strategies From Google’s Quality Rating Guidelines

I had the opportunity to interview a few speakers on the MarketingLand track at SMX West this coming March as part of SEJ’s partnership with Third Door Media. Be sure to attend Ric’s sessions on Tuesday (Day 1) and Wednesday (Day 2) and visit the SEJ booth in the exhibit hall! SMX West Bio: Ric Dragon is the author of Social Marketology and the DragonSearch Online Marketing Manual, both published by Mc-Graw Hill. He is the CEO and co-founder of DragonSearch, with more than 20 years of extensive experience in graphic design, information architecture, web development, and digital marketing. As an artist, Ric has been shown in countless group and solo shows. He is a regular guest columnist for Marketing Land, and Social Media Monthly, and a speaker at many marketing and business conferences. What are 3 key points or takeaways your SMX West sessions will be focusing on? I have the good fortune, this year, of speaking during four different sessions: two are boot-camp style … [Read more...] about The @SMX West Speaker Interview: @RicDragon on Vision, ‘Good SEO’ and ‘Deep Content’

Unlike doctors, most of us PPC professionals don’t have fancy-looking diplomas hanging in our offices. That’s if we even have an office at all and don’t work from a cubicle or, in the case of a lucky few, from the beach. Myself, I proudly display the certificate I got from Google about 10 years ago for having accrued a million clicks in AdWords. Back then, that was a big deal, but the paper certificate wasn’t the prettiest. Now Google’s offering to send a much better-looking certificate to any member of the Google Partners program who passes all six AdWords certification exams in the next two weeks. (You must be signed up to receive Partners News, Special Invitations, and Promotions to receive the certificate.) For the record, I’ve been hosting weekly refresher courses on behalf of Google to help people prep for these exams, but they didn’t ask me to write this article. As you can probably tell from my previous columns, I’m all about … [Read more...] about Cut AdWords Certification Time In Half With These Study Guides For Shopping & YouTube

Day one of our SMX Advanced show is almost over, but there’s one last session still to come: the traditional “You&A with Matt Cutts” keynote session. Search Engine Land’s founding editor, Danny Sullivan, will be sitting down for a lengthy chat with Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team. The session is due to begin at 5:00 pm, and I’ll be liveblogging it right here as fast as I can. Given all the recent Google-related news — Penguin updates, Panda updates, actions taken against link networks and more — it should be a lively discussion. See you at about 5:00 pm PT! We’ll be starting soon. While we wait, the stage has been decorated with animals that start with the letter “P” — a pig, pug and polar bear. And we’re underway with a packed house, starting with Danny asking if we use the NSA PRISM program, can we finally see Google’s “not provided” keyword data. HUGE roar of laughter … [Read more...] about You&A Conversation With Matt Cutts (Pandas, Penguins & Payday Loan Spam)

Is it a penalty? Or is it just a change to Google’s algorithm? That’s been one of the hot topics in search marketing in recent months thanks to the Panda and Penguin updates, and it was one of the topics of discussion tonight at our SMX Advanced conference in Seattle. During the annual “You & A with Matt Cutts” keynote session, Google’s web spam chief told Search Engine Land Editor-In-Chief Danny Sullivan that Google’s definition of a “penalty” is when manual action is taken against a site — and that Google doesn’t use the term “penalty” as much as they say “manual action.” Cutts went on to say that neither Panda nor Penguin are penalties; they’re both algorithm updates. He also mentioned — and this will be good news to many search marketers — that Google is considering offering a tool that allows web masters to disavow certain links, but that may be months away if it happens. … [Read more...] about Matt Cutts On Penalties Vs. Algorithm Changes, A Disavow-This-Link Tool & More