Category Archives: SEO News

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What is Google RankBrain and How Does it Work?

RankBrain, artificial intelligence (AI) program is used to help process Google search queries. It is designed as a machine learning system so that it can embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities (vectors) that the computer can understand.

RankBrain is unique because, when it sees an unfamiliar word or phrase it uses AI to instantly search terms that have a similar meaning that a user has typed. Next, it filters the result accordingly.

rankbrain-artificial-intelligence-program

Google has taken this exceptional initiative to give its users only the most useful results for their search queries. Google’s goal is to offer the searchers the most appropriate and relevant content. According to Google, RankBrain offers different results in different countries for the same query.  This is because the measurements in each state are different, despite the similar names.

Does Google RankBrain Work?

Is the AI doing a good job? So far, it seems like it. After all, Google promoted it from merely processing parts of the unknown key phrases to using it for all search queries.

And why wouldn’t they? After all, RankBrain appears to be doing a better job at improving search results than the Google engineers themselves. In fact, when it was pitted against a number of engineers to find the best page for a search query, the AI outperformed the humans by 10 percent.

 

Quite impressive, isn’t it?

The cool thing about RankBrain is that, in contrast to global changes to the search algorithm, it can improve search results on a per-keyword basis. This makes the SERPs more precise than before and allows for more granular improvements.

Also, ironically, even though RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm, it actually increases the influence of human users on search results. That’s because the AI can use direct feedback from how users interact with your content to judge its quality. For that reason, you need to focus less on pleasing the machines (read algorithm) and more on actually swaying people to click on your stuff.

RankBrain is a machine that learns the artificial intelligence system, transforming letters and numbers into a mathematical algorithm. While this is a technical definition for RankBrain, Google uses this algorithm to improve its search results. With RankBrain, Google learns what users want, what they’re looking for, and plans to deliver better results to users. Search location, keywords entered, etc. By taking into account the variables, Google aims to learn exactly what the user is looking for and how they try to reach a conclusion.

The RankBrain algorithm is considered the third most important factor that evaluates which results should be shown in any search based on Google sources. RankBrain also affects less than 25 per cent of searches worldwide.

Read more When Does Google RankBrain Algorithm Influence a Query Result

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How will Google Possum Algorithm change local SEO

The latest algorithm update, called by SEO experts s Possum algorithm affects the local search and appearance of the business listing. The ranking of 3 pack and local results are affected by the algorithm.

Many local businesses that have an office address outside the main city but found it difficult to get ranked in the searches. The Possum update is going to boost the local rankings of these businesses. This is good for the businesses as they can now get listed for the keywords including the city name for their services though they are having their physical address outside the city.

Google filters the results of the businesses with the same domain name or phone number. It only shows one or two search results. The latest Possum update is now filtering more such businesses. Now any business can not show up in the search results if they are located in the same building or if the owner is the same even if the business names are different etc.

The Google Possum update made the local search result filtering more sophisticated. There is no need to worry about dropping of local rankings as the update is not going to hurt the rankings. The rankings actually will go up organically for competitive keywords.

Separation between local and organic search

Local and organic search are drifting apart with the latest update. For example, in the past if the URL you were linking to in your GMB listing was filtered organically, it would have had a negative impact. Since the update, this no longer seems to be the case.

Many local businesses will likely see positive results from this, while businesses without a local market might face some competition for rankings.

Location and affiliation

Google is now filtering based on address and affiliation. For businesses that fall outside city limits, ranking for keywords that included that city name was difficult. Since Possum, these businesses have seen a huge spike in rankings.

Conversely, this may cause rankings to drop for clients with one main GMB listing and several affiliated GMB listings.

For example, we have a client who owns a clinic with a primary location, but has separate GMB listings for individual doctors. Google isn’t necessarily removing the listing or enforcing a penalty, but is simply picking the most relevant listing and filtering out the others that are too similar – in some cases, Google is suspected to be going as far as to find an affiliation by owner, even if addresses, phone numbers, websites and Google accounts are separate.

These listing haven’t disappeared, and can be viewed by zooming in further on the local finder.

The location of the user

If you’re searching from a different physical location other than that of the business, you’re likely going to encounter a completely different result. As a general rule of Possum: the further the distance, the lower the ranking. This is unsurprising as many local businesses are looking to optimize for “near me” searches, which doubled from 2014 to 2015.

Read more How does Google Possum Algorithm change search results

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How does Google Possum Algorithm change search results

Here are the changes the search engine giant has incurred through its Possum update:

  1. Ranking Advantage For Businesses Beyond The City Limits

Previously, it was a major pain for businesses located outside the city limits to appear in the Local Pack Search Results. A lot of local establishments with their services within major cities and the brick and mortar locations outside the perimeters found it enormously tough to get listings in local searches. In spite of putting all their efforts in getting highly optimized accounts, they were stuck in ‘ranking purgatory’.

Possum has fixed the issue by making the geographical proximity of a business a less important factor to get top ranking. Now, a business that is not within the physical limit of a city but close to it can experience a huge spike in ranking as the algorithm has been running a proximity test prior to preparing the listing.

  1. Filter Enhancement Based On Address And Affiliation

In local search, there are tons of businesses with multiple listings, which lead to the appearance of the same listing repeatedly in search results. Till the Possum update, Google used to detect such duplicate listings based on the phone numbers provided by the businesses or their domain names.

Now, Google has enhanced its local filters by adding two new dimensions – ‘address’ and ‘affiliation’ to them. It essentially means, if the physical addresses of multiple listings in the same category are similar, only the ‘best’ and the ‘most relevant’ one will be shown in search results whereas others will be filtered out.

However, Possum is not penalizing the other listings. Rather, it is simply working as an organic search algorithm to push other listings down lower in the SERPs and ensure a better user experience.

  1. Listings Made Sensitive To The Locations Of Searchers

The geographical locations of the searchers were never so crucial for ranking in local search results before the launch of Possum. Earlier, it was only the keywords or the search terms which influenced search results heavily, but now, as the latest algorithm has changed, the physical location of the searcher matters the most.

Google has decided to offer an outstanding search experience to the mobile community with the help of this location-sensitivity. It is now using IP addresses of the searchers to provide tailored search results and hence, it has become of utmost importance to set the right location in order to trigger the most accurate listings.

  1. Search Results Affected By Slight Keyword Variations

In the past, two different searches with almost similar terms used to yield same results in local searches. The scenario has changed these days as Google has turned finicky about even the slightest variations in search terms with Possum.

As the local listings have become extremely sensitive to keyword changes, the results are also varying widely for two slightly different search terms. So, make sure that you test and evaluate your Local SEO efforts by using multiple iterations of a particular key phrase and pick the one with the maximum search volume.

  1. Local Search Filter Precedence Over Organic Search Filter

Before the arrival of Possum, Google’s local search filter was dependent on its organic search filter. As a result, a lot of businesses, linked to certain websites which are filtered out from the organic results, were listed out from local search results.

The change in algorithm has separated local search filter from the organic search filter in order to facilitate its independent functionalities. Hence, businesses with poor listings in SERPs can now achieve good rankings in local search results.

Read more How will Google Possum Algorithm change local SEO

_______________________________________________________________________________

Please contact us for seo service packages at TDHSEO.COM.

TDHSEO Team

Email: tdhseo@gmail.com
Skype: tdhseo
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Thank you!


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How does Google Fred Algorithm affect on your website?

After Fred rolled out, it was clear that it was a significant core ranking update tied to quality. If you’ve read my previous posts about Google’s major core ranking updates, you will see many mentions of aggressive monetization, advertising overload, etc. Well, Fred seemed to pump up the volume when it comes to aggressive monetization. Many sites that were aggressively monetizing content at the expense of users got hit hard.

With that quick intro out of the way, let’s hop into specific examples of impact from Fred update

Example1 – Getting smoked.
A major hit based on UX Barriers, aggressive monetization, and low quality user experience.
The first two examples detailed a major surge and then a site dealing with the gray area of Google’s quality algorithms. Now it’s time to enter the dark side of Fred. There are many sites that got hammered by the 3/7 update, with some losing over 50% of their Google organic traffic overnight (and some lost up to 90%).

The next site I’m going to cover has dealt with Panda and major core ranking updates in the past. It’s a relatively large site, in a competitive niche, and is heavily advertising-based from a monetization standpoint.

When Fred rolled through, the site lost over 60% of its Google organic traffic overnight. And with Google representing a majority of its traffic, the site’s revenue was clearly hit hard. It’s also worth noting that Google organic traffic has dropped even further since 3/7 (and is down approximately 70% since Fred rolled out.)

Drop from Fred update.

UX Barriers Galore
If you’ve read my previous posts about Google’s major core ranking updates focused on quality, then you’ve seen many examples of what I call “low quality user engagement”. Well, this site had many problems leading up to the 3/7 update. For example, there were large video ads smack in the middle of the content, deceptive ads that looked like download buttons (which users could mistakenly click thinking they were real download buttons), flash elements that don’t load and just display a shell, and more.

And expanding on the deception point from above, there were links in the main content that looked like internal links, but instead, those links whisked users off to third party advertiser sites. Like I’ve said a thousand times before, “hell hath no fury like a user scorned”. And it looks like Fred had their back.

To add insult to injury, the site isn’t even mobile-friendly. When testing the site on a mobile device, the content is hard to see, it’s hard to navigate around the site, etc. Needless to say, this isn’t helping matters. I can only imagine the horrible signals users are sending Google about the site after visiting from the search results.

This is why it’s so important to analyze your site through the lens of these algorithm updates. Understand all “low quality user engagement” problems riddling your site, weed them out, and improve quality significantly. That’s exactly what Google’s John Mueller has been saying when asked about these updates (including Fred).

Example 2 – Tired of the gray area. Better late than never.
The next example I’m going to cover is a large-scale site driving a lot of traffic from Google organic historically. The site has been in the gray area of Google’s quality algorithms for a long time and has seen major drops and surges over time.

The company finally got tired of sitting in the gray area (which is maddening), and decided to conduct a full-blown quality audit to identify, and then fix, “low quality user engagement” problems. They began working on this in the fall of 2016 and a number of the changes did not hit the site until early 2017. In addition, there are still many changes that need to be implemented. Basically, they are in the beginning stages of fixing many quality problems.

As you can see below, the site has previously dealt with Google’s major core ranking updates focused on quality. Here’s a big hit during Phantom 2 in May of 2015, and then recovery during the November 2015 update:
Impact from Phantom 2 in May of 2015

When a site is in the gray area of Google’s quality algorithms, it can see impact with each major update. For example, it might drop by 20% one update, only to surge 30% during the next. But then it might get smoked by another update, and then regain some of the losses during the next. I’ve always said that they gray area is a maddening place to live.

When Fred rolled out on 3/7/17, the site dropped by approximately 150K sessions per day from Google organic. Now, the site drives a lot of traffic so that wasn’t a massive drop for them. But it also wasn’t negligible. In addition, the site increased during the early January update, so the company was expecting more upward movement, and not less.

Here’s a close-up view of the drop. More about the second half of that screenshot soon (not shown). 

Initial drop after Fred rolls out.

It can be frustrating for site owners working hard on improving quality to see a downturn, but you need to be realistic. Even though the site has a lot of high quality content, it also has a ton of quality issues. I’ve sent numerous deliverables through to this company containing problems to address and fix. Some of those changes have been rolled out, while others have not. Currently, there are still many things to fix from a quality perspective.

Example 3 – Soaring With Fred
The first example covers an amazing case study. It’s a site I’ve helped extensively over the years from a quality standpoint, since it had been impacted by Panda and Phantom in the past. It has surely seen its share of ups and downs based on major algorithm updates.

When Fred rolled out, it didn’t take long for the site owner to reach out to me in a state of Google excitement.

“Seeing big gains today. Traffic levels I haven’t seen in a long time… Is this going to last??”

Needless to say, I immediately dug in.

What I saw was a thing of beauty. It was a surge so strong that it would make any SEO smile. The site literally jumped 125% overnight (and this isn’t a small site with a minimal amount of traffic). Google organic surged by 110K sessions per day and has remained at that level ever since. Here are screenshots from Google Analytics and Google Search Console:

Surging after Fred rolls out.

Clicks and impressions surge after Fred rolls out.

Reviewing the audits I performed for the site revealed many low quality content problems and “low quality user engagement” barriers. And that included aggressive monetization. So the remediation plan covered an anti-Panda and anti-Phantom strategy.

Read more Something important about Google algorithm update

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Please contact us for seo service packages at TDHSEO.COM.

TDHSEO Team

Email: tdhseo@gmail.com
Skype: tdhseo
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Thank you!


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Google hummingbird algorithm and what to know about it all

Category : SEO News

Hummingbird is the name Google calls its new search algorithm (the thing that determines which results to display when a user types in a search), and it means a lot for your website. Google says the name Hummingbird is used because of the “fast and precise” birds that we find in nature. So let’s have a look at the hummingbird so that we can get a better understanding of Hummingbird.

Google has always had a simple message for website owners: concentrate on users. That advice applies to Hummingbird more than any other algorithm or update that has been released in the last 15 years.

Google does not want you to over-optimize your pages and websites purely for search results IF your website or page does not answer the searcher’s query. Remember that all Google cares about is the searcher. It has no loyalty, contract or responsibility to websites or website owners. This is good news if you’re a true beginner building a new website.

To stay high in the search results you need to focus on the user too. This all comes down to content. Hummingbird loves in-depth, good quality and original content because that is what users want. So the best way for you to deal with Hummingbird is to create good content.

Hummingbirds are one of the smallest species of birds in the world. But they’re able to flap their wings incredibly fast (this is where the hum comes from) which allows them to reach flight speeds of 34 miles per hour. And they are the only birds that can fly backwards. It is these impressive abilities that led to the Aztecs revering these birds to the extent that they wore them as a talisman. To the Aztecs, hummingbirds represented vigor, energy, skill in battle, and sexual potency.

Google’s Hummingbird has nothing to do with sexual potency (as far as we know, although there are probably Google fetishists out there somewhere). But the other characteristics of the hummingbird are important to discuss in order to get a better understanding of this new algorithm.

Hummingbird is a more vigorous attempt by the search kings in Google to be more human. Up until now when a user typed in a search query Google would pick out what it considered to be keywords. It used those words to go hunting for websites that might be what the user was looking for, and displayed those websites in its results.

But the search engine didn’t really understand what the user was asking. With Hummingbird Google can now better understand the context of a search query. The search engine is working harder and in a more agile and energetic way to deliver results that actually answer the user’s query, rather than looking at keywords in isolation and making an educated guess.

This means that Hummingbird is more than a search algorithm update – it’s a vigorous and energetic attempt to up the skill level, react to a user’s search, and deliver better results. Knowing the details of Google Hummingbird will help you keep up with the Joneses of SEO.

Read more Something important about Google algorithm update

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Please contact us for seo service packages at TDHSEO.COM.

TDHSEO Team

Email: tdhseo@gmail.com
Skype: tdhseo
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Thank you!


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Something important about Google algorithm update

Category : SEO News

From time to time, Google changes its search algorithms. These updates stem from Google’s commitment to improve your experience with their search engine, to promote the most relevant content, and to penalize websites that attempt to game their system.

A Brief History of Google Algorithm Updates—and What They Mean for Your Website’s Content

Panda Update

In 2011 and then again in 2014, Google released a series of eight search engine algorithm changes. All of these changes are part of what’s called the Panda update.

The differences between each minor algorithm tweak is pretty nuanced. However, the changes all had the same goal: to decrease the ranking of thin, poorly researched, less useful content in Google search results.

What does this mean for you? The Panda update is essentially a content filter, weeding out bad, spammy content and promoting in-depth content. In order to stay on top of Google search results, you must consistently produce high-value, well-researched web content that answers your audience’s questions. That content must be concise, free of grammatical errors, and, with rare exception, never be duplicate. The sources it uses also must be credible.

Penguin Update

In 2012, Google released the Penguin update to address the widespread overuse of keywords and links. Prior to this update, sites could boost their search result ranking by building links to other popular websites. They also could manipulate the search engine through keyword stuffing, i.e. adding so many keywords that the text sounds unnatural and does not provide any real value to the reader.

How can this update influence how you produce content for your website? The Penguin update rewards natural link building to credible, relevant sources as well as the strategic placement of relevant keywords. If you use great sources in your in-depth content, you will see your Google search results improve. If you use appropriate keywords and do not overuse those keywords, you will see your Google search results improve even more.

One more important consideration: pay attention to which sites are linking to yours. Because of the Penguin update, your site can be penalized if spammy sites build links to it. Monitor the sites that link to yours and, when they do not appear credible, use Google’s Disavow Backlinks tool to sever the link.

Hummingbird Update

In 2013 and again in 2015, Google engineers recognized that many search queries contained conversational phrases and questions. To help catch what users intended to search for rather than to catch only specific keywords, they released the Hummingbird update.

Due to the Hummingbird’s focus on conversational language, it rewards long-tail keywords that hit on the user’s intended search. For example, in the post-Hummingbird era, content with the keyword, “how to knit a sweater,” would perform better than content with the keyword, “sweater knitting.”

As a result, how-to articles and other tutorial-style web content have become more prevalent and users have been able to locate informative content more easily. Unlike the Panda and Penguin updates, the Hummingbird update does not focus on penalization or utilize specific methods to decrease search rankings.

Pigeon Update

In 2014, Google effectively combined search queries with Google Maps to offer more localized search results.

How did this update change search queries? Users can now type in “what is the best pizzeria in Manhattan,” “best pizzeria Manhattan,” or, if they’re currently in Manhattan, just “pizzeria,” and the search engine will list local pizzerias in Manhattan. The results will also include their locations embedded on Google Maps and the restaurant’s address, operating hours, and phone number.

The Pigeon update, unlike other algorithm updates, doesn’t require you to change how you produce content for your site or how you incorporate keywords. The update also doesn’t penalize your site.

Fred Update

In March 2017, Google dropped its latest algorithm change, the Fred Update, without releasing any information about the update’s intended goals.

A week after the update, SEO consultant Barry Schwartz analyzed which sites benefited from Fred and which got hit hard. He identified that revenue-driven sites with significant amounts of ad placement lost between 50 and 90% of their traffic from Google searches.

How does this influence your site? Be cautious about the number of ads you feature on each page of your website, and make sure that your content focuses on providing value to your readership instead of simply generating revenue for your business.

Read more How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?

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Please contact us for seo service packages at TDHSEO.COM.

TDHSEO Team

Email: tdhseo@gmail.com
Skype: tdhseo
https://www.facebook.com/tdhseo

Thank you!


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The awful tips to earn money online without selling anything

Of course, you already know one popular option for monetizing your blog — you could create a product. But you just don’t feel ready yet. And besides, creating and promoting a product takes time.

What you need right now is a way to earn a little money from your blog without a ton of work.

Fortunately, a way exists that’s highly effective, requires little ramp-up time, and is used by some of the most respected names on the web.

Many bloggers have heard of it, but for a silly reason completely ignore it…

If you don’t have a product to sell, one of the best ways to earn money from your blog is to sell products that other people have created.

It’s usually referred to as affiliate marketing. Here’s how it works…

You introduce your readers to a product, and if they happen to make a purchase as a result of your introduction, you get a commission as a thank you.

It’s pretty simple, but you’d be hard pressed to find a topic that inspires as many strong opinions.

Some revere it; some despise it.

Some use it; some abuse it.

But you don’t consider it because hawking someone else’s products has always felt, well…

Promote Valuable Free Content, Not the Product

Even when a product is outstanding and you’ve achieved great results with it, directly asking your audience to purchase it can sometimes be daunting.

Luckily, many product creators also develop high-value free resources for you to promote instead — resources that ultimately tie into an offer to buy one of their products.

Usually, they work like this:

  1. You send your audience (via a unique link) to a free resource created by a second party that will teach them something valuable (a free video course, for example).
  2. After going through the free resource, they will be sent an offer to purchase a more expansive, related product.
  3. If they purchase that product, you receive a commission.

Never Promote a Product You Don’t Use

One of the worst dinner parties I’ve ever been to centered around a pork belly dish the host had never tried making before.

Rather than going with a recipe he loved and had cooked before, he went with something brand new from a random blog he’d only just found.

The party itself wasn’t bad, but the food most definitely was. Fortunately, everyone was able to laugh about it.

Offering a product to your audience sight unseen, risks a similar catastrophe. And your readers might not be as forgiving as those dinner party guests.

Think about it — would you recommend to a friend a restaurant you’ve never visited? Would you put your in-laws up in a hotel in a strange part of town you don’t know? (Well, depending on your in-laws, maybe you would! But you get the picture.)

Just as you normally wouldn’t do those things, you should never promote a product you haven’t used.

As Pat Flynn says, “Before deciding to actually promote it as an affiliate, it’s always best to use that product first so you can understand the user experience that THEIR PRODUCT will provide for YOUR AUDIENCE. You have to understand what that’s like because the trust that you have with your audience is the most important thing in the world.”

Pick a Product That Builds Their Trust

Many bloggers choose a product based on the commission structure — how much it pays, whether it’s recurring, etc.

It might sound like greed, but more likely whenever they ask their readers to buy something, they feel like they’re asking for a favor. And since you can’t ask favors too often, they figure they might as well make as much money as they can when they do.

But that’s totally the wrong way to look at it. Promoting a product is not a withdrawal from the “trust bank.” It’s a deposit — if you choose the right product.

According to Pat Flynn, commission levels shouldn’t factor into the decision you make to promote a product as an affiliate:

It’s not about the commission… it’s whether or not that product will completely help your target audience. You’ll have more click-throughs, more conversions, and more trust with your audience.

Pat’s answer hints at an often-overlooked benefit of making a successful affiliate sale — if your audience buys the product through you and has a great experience with the product, their purchasing trust in you increases.

To put it simply, they’ll more likely buy from you in the future, whether you’re recommending another affiliate product or launching your own.

And even if they don’t buy from you again, you’ll have strengthened the relationship by introducing them to a product they love.

So when analyzing affiliate opportunities, consider more than just the amount you’ll make off each sale. Consider how many outstanding experiences you can create and, ultimately, how much trust you can build.

If you get a sizeable commission — great. If the commissions are recurring — even better. But consider these details bonuses or cherries on top rather than key factors that guide your decision-making.

Read more Earning money from your website with the amazing ways

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Please contact us for seo service packages at TDHSEO.COM.

TDHSEO Team

Email: tdhseo@gmail.com
Skype: tdhseo
https://www.facebook.com/tdhseo

Thank you!


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The secret of Google rankings

Since Ranker’s launch in 2009, the site has amassed more than 100,000 rankings across dozens of broad categories, encompassing almost any topic that people could have a passion for.

When the website first launched, however, it had very few resources, and Benson explains that he had to learn SEO from scratch in order to give the website a strong foundation.

Luckily, earning traffic was never a problem for the site, because the type of content published on Ranker was uniquely suited to catering to Google’s algorithms.

“We’ve never been hit by any algorithm changes – we’ve always grown our organic search traffic year over year over year, steadily, for the eight and a half years we’ve been live.

“You never exactly know what works in SEO, because Google doesn’t tell you what works, but I’ve always believed that the best intelligence on what to do comes from the public statements Google makes – their best practices.

“And one of the key factors that Google says is in their index is freshness of content. Content has a lifespan. In our case, because our rankings are dynamic and always changing – people are adding things to them, voting things up and down – this makes for perpetually fresh content.

“We have a lot of content that is six, seven, even eight years old that is still doing as well as it was years ago, and in some cases it’s even growing in traffic.”

One of Ranker’s most evergreen pieces of content is a list ranking the ‘Best Movies of All Time’ – which is more than 5,000 items long.

“Obviously that’s a topic that there’s a lot of passion and a lot of competition for [in search rankings]. And in the last few years, we’ve been on the top three or so results on Google for that term.

“We’ve watched that page just grow in rankings over the span of seven or eight years. I can only guess it’s because the page is always changing.”

User-curated content

At the time of writing this article, Ranker’s front page is currently spotlighting a list of best-dressed celebs at the 2018 Oscars, a best TV episode names ranking, and a list of possible game-changing deep space observations to be made by the Webb Telescope.

Anyone can add an item to a list on Ranker, although Ranker’s content is not purely user-generated. Ranker has an editorial team which is made up of people who, in Benson’s words, “have a mind for cataloging things” rather than people who specialize in writing a lot of prose.

Lists are typically started off by one of Ranker’s editors, and when a user wants to add a new item to a list, it’s cross-referenced with Ranker’s database, a huge data set made up of more than 28 million people, places and things. If the item isn’t found in the database, it’s added to a moderation queue.

Rather than UGC (user-generated content), therefore, Benson thinks of Ranker’s lists as something he terms UCC – user-curated content.

How did Ranker build such a huge data set? Beginning in 2007, a company called Metaweb ran an open source, collaborative knowledge base called Freebase, which contained data harvested from sources such as Wikipedia, the Notable Names Database, Fashion Model Directory and MusicBrainz, along with user-submitted wiki contributions.

This knowledge base made up a large part of Ranker’s data set. What’s interesting is that Freebase was later acquired by none other than Google – and is the foundation of Google’s Knowledge Graph.

Additionally, not every list on Ranker is crowdsourced or voted on. Some lists, such as Everyone Who Has Been Fired Or Resigned From The Trump Administration So Far, don’t make sense to have users voting on them, but are kept fresh with the addition of new items whenever the topic is in the news.

Can other websites do ‘Ranker SEO’?

Benson acknowledges that Ranker’s setup is fairly unique, and so it isn’t necessarily possible to emulate its success with SEO by trying to do the same thing – unless you just happen to have your own crowdsourced, user-curated list website, of course.

With that said, there are still some practical lessons that website owners, particularly publishers, can take away from Ranker’s success and apply to their own SEO strategy.

Read more The basical knowledges of Google Panda Algorithm

_______________________________________________________________________________

Please contact us for seo service packages at TDHSEO.COM.

TDHSEO Team

Email: tdhseo@gmail.com
Skype: tdhseo
https://www.facebook.com/tdhseo

Thank you!


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How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?

Our first peek into this data came in spring of 2010, when Google’s Matt Cutts revealed that “on average, [Google] tends to roll out 350–400 things per year.” It wasn’t an exact number, but given that SEOs at the time (and to this day) were tracking at most dozens of algorithm changes, the idea of roughly one change per day was eye-opening.

In fall of 2011, Eric Schmidt was called to testify before Congress, and revealed our first precise update count and an even more shocking scope of testing and changes:

“To give you a sense of the scale of the changes that Google considers, in 2010 we conducted 13,311 precision evaluations to see whether proposed algorithm changes improved the quality of its search results, 8,157 side-by-side experiments where it presented two sets of search results to a panel of human testers and had the evaluators rank which set of results was better, and 2,800 click evaluations to see how a small sample of real-life Google users responded to the change. Ultimately, the process resulted in 516 changes that were determined to be useful to users based on the data and, therefore, were made to Google’s algorithm.”

Later, Google would reveal similar data in an online feature called “How Search Works.” Unfortunately, some of the earlier years are only available via the Internet Archive, but here’s a screenshot from 2012:

Note that Google uses “launches” and “improvements” somewhat interchangeably. This diagram provided a fascinating peek into Google’s process, and also revealed a startling jump from 13,311 precisions evaluations (changes that were shown to human evaluators) to 118,812 in just two years.

Is the Google algorithm heating up?

Since MozCast has kept the same keyword set since almost the beginning of data collection, we’re able to make some long-term comparisons. The graph below represents five years of temperatures. Note that the system was originally tuned (in early 2012) to an average temperature of 70°F. The redder the bar, the hotter the temperature …

You’ll notice that the temperature ranges aren’t fixed — instead, I’ve split the label into eight roughly equal buckets (i.e. they represent the same number of days). This gives us a little more sensitivity in the more common ranges.

The trend is pretty clear. The latter half of this 5-year timeframe has clearly been hotter than the first half. While warming trend is evident, though, it’s not a steady increase over time like Google’s update counts might suggest. Instead, we see a stark shift in the fall of 2016 and a very hot summer of 2017. More recently, we’ve actually seen signs of cooling. Below are the means and medians for each year (note that 2014 and 2019 are partial years):

  • 2019 – 83.7° / 82.0°
  • 2018 – 89.9° / 88.0°
  • 2017 – 94.0° / 93.7°
  • 2016 – 75.1° / 73.7°
  • 2015 – 62.9° / 60.3°
  • 2014 – 65.8° / 65.9°

Note that search engine rankings are naturally noisy, and our error measurements tend to be large (making day-to-day changes hard to interpret). The difference from 2015 to 2017, however, is clearly significant.

Are there really 9 updates per day?

No, there are only 8.86 – feel better? Ok, that’s probably not what you meant. Even back in 2009, Matt Cutts said something pretty interesting that seems to have been lost in the mists of time…

“We might batch [algorithm changes] up and go to a meeting once a week where we talk about 8 or 10 or 12 or 6 different things that we would want to launch, but then after those get approved … those will roll out as we can get them into production.”

In 2016, I did a study of algorithm flux that demonstrated a weekly pattern evident during clearer episodes of ranking changes. From a software engineering standpoint, this just makes sense — updates have to be approved and tend to be rolled out in batches. So, while measuring a daily average may help illustrate the rate of change, it probably has very little basis in the reality of how Google handles algorithm updates.

Do all of these algo updates matter?

Some changes are small. Many improvements are likely not even things we in the SEO industry would consider “algorithm updates” — they could be new features, for example, or UI changes.

As SERP verticals and features evolve, and new elements are added, there are also more moving parts subject to being fixed and improved. Local SEO, for example, has clearly seen an accelerated rate of change over the past 2-3 years. So, we’d naturally expect the overall rate of change to increase.

A lot of this is also in the eye of the beholder. Let’s say Google makes an update to how they handle misspelled words in Korean. For most of us in the United States, that change isn’t going to be actionable. If you’re a Korean brand trying to rank for a commonly misspelled, high-volume term, this change could be huge. Some changes also are vertical-specific, representing radical change for one industry and little or no impact outside that niche.

On the other hand, you’ll hear comments in the industry along the lines of “There are 3,000 changes per year; stop worrying about it!” To me that’s like saying “The weather changes every day; stop worrying about it!” Yes, not every weather report is interesting, but I still want to know when it’s going to snow or if there’s a tornado coming my way. Recognizing that most updates won’t affect you is fine, but it’s a fallacy to stretch that into saying that no updates matter or that SEOs shouldn’t care about algorithm changes.

Ultimately, I believe it helps to know when major changes happen, if only to understand whether rankings shifted due something we did or something Google did. It’s also clear that the rate of change has accelerated, no matter how you measure it, and there’s no evidence to suggest that Google is slowing down.

Read more: How Often Does Google Update Its Algorithm?

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