The recent Google Algorithmic update affected the rankings of many websites. No one really knows what happened but still I assure you, links still play a vital role in the computation of Page Rank (PR) and the calculation of SERP. As long as Adobe.Com is ranking top for the keywords “click here” you have nothing to worry about unless your website is full of crap.
My niche sites’ ranking were not affected, not a surprise as the content or posts they provide are useful and informative and I add quality content once a month or so. My beloved competitors who are also niche sites are still out there ranking on the top. Although some websites appeared unexpectedly on first page like I mentioned earlier in my previous post. Sites like Wikipedia.org, About.com, Howstuffworks.com, etc suddenly appeared on first page flushing away some websites to second, third page and worse some really fell of.
Now let’s analyze what Google has to say:
Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.
First, they mentioned high quality content. With a multibillion dollar company, Google can definitely integrate to its algorithm spell check, basic grammar check, and other functionalities to determine if the content being crawled has good quality or not. I could even guess that the algorithm is much smarter than MS Word in checking the document as a whole. Fortunately, the robot cannot read, it will only follow the program that it was designed to do so. And one factor which makes a post with good quality (again in my opinion) is the length of it.
Placing your keywords too much will also flag the robot, so be careful. For me, I just place my keywords twice or thrice. Don’t bother with keyword density, you can find people arguing in forums about it; some are confidently saying the proper percentage to be placed and I do hope they are successfully ranking their sites out from it. But in my opinion and practice, I only place my keywords once in the title and twice in the body of my content and had been successful ranking it.
I discovered this by accident. I was checking the ranks of my web pages when I discovered unexpectedly that one of my posts was ranking 3rd page on a highly competitive niche without doing any backlinks. The keywords were only written once within the post and it was not placed within the title or not even in the URL. So I boosted the ranking of that web page by placing backlinks, rewrote it, added the keywords in the subheading of the article and in a month or so it reached the first page.
Going back about the length of the post, you may argue that you are ranking certain web pages with short posts. Well I have nothing to say about that because I don’t know the algorithm and I exercise only what has worked for me successfully in the past. I am not saying that high quality content means having lengthy posts or articles but based on my experience, I am successful ranking web pages with lengthy articles. Lucky for me, since I started putting up niche sites, the minimum number of words I slap to them (sites) ranges from 450 words to 1,000+ words.
Regarding with what they said “wonderful websites” or “high-quality sites,” I really have no idea what does it mean per se. No one can really define what high-quality site in the eyes of Google, but it gave us an idea or short description about these sites as quoted after this paragraph. But in my opinion, I consider these quality sites providing high quality contents, posts or articles and which are update regularly that addresses the query of Internet users.
Below is what Google has to say about high quality sites:
At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
On the other hand, I still see websites ranking at the top with only one or three web pages and contains bunch of affiliate links and promises making you filthy rich overnight and have no quality in them. Although these sites are ranking for keywords that are not competitive and are not searched highly, still Google has to do something. Well as what they said, it is only an 11% algorithmic change addressed in awarding quality sites (for competitive keywords I assume) for their quality content.
(Posted – 02/24/2011) To start with, we’re launching this change in the U.S. only; we plan to roll it out elsewhere over time. We’ll keep you posted as we roll this and other changes out, and as always please keep giving us feedback about the quality of our results because it really helps us to improve Google Search.
Update April 11: We’ve rolled out this algorithmic change globally to all English-language Google users and incorporated new signals as we iterate and improve. We’ll continue testing and refining the change before expanding to additional languages. source – Finding more high quality sites
The blog post we have been discussing has been updated and now the algorithmic change has been applied globally. If your site has been affected negatively, do some changes to it. Keep in mind that the algorithm, robot, spider or what the hell you call it has no feelings and does not accept reasons; it only relies on predetermined instructions given by its creators or engineers. Like I said, posting high quality content will help you improve it.
On the other hand, if your site climbed successfully, then don’t doubt what you are doing, keep it up. I assume that you have been following what Google is happy about. And if you are one of those who are lucky that maintains crap sites and were not affected, then stop doing it and put some good content in your site.
If you want to earn decently from Google AdSense think long term. I can see web pages ranking highly which were written 3 – 5 years ago but because of their high quality content they provide, they are still on the top list earning well and providing quality information to Internet users. Doing this requires a lot of work, effort and time. And don’t forget that providing quality content is just one of them, acquiring quality backlinks is another important factor which you must do.
Well, you can earn (little) fast by doing foolish non-sense but I tell you, it will not last. You may rank a crap site easily and earn a few bucks but this will not last long and this has been proven again and again by AdSense Gurus.
I’ve read several articles in several sites and blogs and most of them are saying that niche sites are affected adversely (and are coming to their end) which I certainly disagree. Well it all depends again if the niche site in question is with high quality or not. Try searching for keywords targeting specific niches and still, niche sites providing high quality content are still ranking at the top. High quality sites do not mean authority sites generally, like I mentioned before, no one really knows the definition of a high quality site in the eyes of Google. But fortunately, Google said those sites providing high quality content addressing the information needed by Internet users are prioritized.
Now as I write, many of my web pages which I have been patiently promoting for the past months (3 – 6) have climbed to the top (first page of Google). Some are now making money successfully from AdSense which again only proves that Google AdSense is not a Scam!
