“Do as I say, not as I do”
Sometimes Google does things it warns others not to do:
1. Don’t be top heavy
Google just updated it’s “Top heavy” algorithm. For sites that show many ads at the top, or make users scroll to see content, penalties can apply.
2. Don’t scrape content from other websites
Matt Cutts of Google is actively seeking reports of what would be considered “scraper sites”. One SEO responded with a screenshot of Google scraping wikipedia. 🙂
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-scraper-site-report-18184.html
In other news, Google will now start showing restaurant menus for those keyword searches. But the restaurant brands do not know exactly where Google is scraping this data from, and how to update it.
Read the whole scoop here: http://searchengineland.com/now-official-google-adds-restaurant-menus-search-results-185708
3. Links on user generated content sites that pass pagerank
For most sites, Google insists that links created by site visitors are “nofollow”. But Google+ allows links that are curiously “dofollow”. Other sites could indeed be penalized by this.
4. Sell Links
Almost $17 billion of Google’s almost $17 billion in revenue from last quarter was from “selling links”. But of course, they aren’t “dofollow”.
A couple more items have garnered Google’s attention:
1. Rich snippets should be used for good, not evil
Google has been levying a manual penalty against sites using rich snippets in a spammy fashion.
http://www.link-assistant.com/news/rich-snippets-penalty.html
2. Don’t try to insert too many keywords with your business listing
There used to be an distinct advantage in having your keywords in your business name. Now Google wants to make sure the business name you use in your business listing matches you business name.
– Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.
– In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers locate your business or understand what your business offers.
– Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors.
– Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are “Starbucks Downtown” or “Joe’s Pizza Delivery”. Examples that would not be accepted would be “#1 Seattle Plumbing”, “Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery”, or “Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas”.
See more: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
So what to do?
Create a content generating, curating, sharing machine.
1. Post full versions of your content to your site, but also Google+, linkedin, and promote your content at other relevant places around the web.
2. Tag your content with rich snippets, facebook open graph, twitter cards to increase it’s “sharability” and categorization.
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