State of Search

By caiolae

Google, et al. are changing their algorithms – are you changing yours?

The rules for search have changed.

Since a February 2011 New York Times article alleged that J.C. Penney used a link scheme that violated Google’s Webmaster guidelines, major search engines Yahoo, Google and Bing have changed their algorithms to make them less vulnerable to manipulation.

According to the Times investigation, J.C. Penney had thousands of unrelated websites linking to its pages. J.C. Penney fired back, calling the investigation “misleading and unwarranted” and stating that it does not tolerate violations of its natural search policies — which, it said, reflect Google’s guidelines.

Whatever happened, one thing is certain: The article changed search strategies, says Mark Smith, founding partner of KeywordFirst, a search-engine marketing consultancy.

“There’s probably been more change and turmoil this year than there has for the last several years,” Smith says. “A lot of people have lost positions and rankings. That’s caused a lot of angst from retailers.”

Starting search fresh
Retailers are coming to firms like KeywordFirst to learn how to increase inbound links. But SEO experts can’t just wave a magic wand and bring the links back.

“It’s not an easy process,” Smith says. “They have to do it the old-fashioned way and that’s time consuming.”

 

KeywordFirst finds high-ranking websites that are relevant to retailers and has them link back to clients’ websites. “You have to be persistent and aggressive in getting those links, because that’s really going to move the dial,” Smith says.

It takes a lot more than just scraping some keywords off a suggestion tool to make paid search pay, and KeywordFirst has developed comprehensive, customized paid campaigns relevant to a client’s business.

“It’s understanding the business, understanding the language that their end users use when they search for products or services,” Smith says. It sounds awfully simple, but actually knowing your industry’s specific keywords goes a long way.

“Too often people try and win on general terms, but they miss the opportunity with niche keywords that could provide them with the most realistic opportunity to win in the SEO game,” Smith says.

Mobile search
Meanwhile, all trends toward search indicate it’s a mobile frenzy at the moment. According to a report from Forrester Research, retailers will spend some $220.9 million to capture these mobile search consumers this year.

That research complements a recent Oracle study, which found that 48 percent of consumers use their mobile devices to research or browse products and services. According to the report, this is up from 37 percent in an ATG consumer benchmark survey in July 2010 and from 27 percent in an ATG consumer cross-channel survey in November 2009.

Smith estimates that, by the end of the year, approximately 10 percent of all search queries will originate from a smartphone.

“We’re focusing on SEO, but the paid searches have become very important if you think about the real estate on a smartphone vs. a desktop,” he says. “You have six inches of space there and the combination of the natural search and the paid [search] is very critical.”

Facebook and Twitter feeds have also been de-emphasized within the algorithm, Smith says.
“That was a quick and easy way to get a number of links out there, but Google, Bing and Yahoo understood that possibly the system was being gamed a little bit,” he says. “This is the normal evolution of search-engine optimization. It’s been a cat-and-mouse game since this has started.”