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Jagger, Google Analytics, And The Future Of Search & Seo
By Glenn Murray, Fri Dec 23rd
/p> Two big things have just happened in Google-land: Jagger andGoogle Analytics. Together, these two events may have changedthe face of search forever.
Jagger
First, let's discuss Jagger... Just like hurricanes, Googleupdates have names. (A Google update is a change to the wayGoogle determines its rankings. Google makes these changesperiodically, and they're universally feared because they canimpact dramatically on a website's ranking.) The latest updateis called Jagger, and it has search engine optimizers (SEOs) allaround the world in a state of panic.
Why was Jagger such a fearful update? Simple... With Jagger,Google once again outsmarted huge numbers of SEOs. You see,many/most SEOs spend their time (and their clients' money)trying to trick Google into thinking that their websites aremore relevant and important than they really are. They do thismostly by swapping links, buying cheap links, and placing linkson free directories. While there's nothing wrong with thesesorts of links (i.e. they're not considered 'black-hat'), theydon't really show that the site is relevant or important. Allthey really show is that the site owner has made a deal withanother site owner. In these deals, the incentive for thelinking site owner is a reciprocal link, money, or increasedlink volume. Google much prefers it when the linking site addsthe link simply to enhance the value of their content or toincrease their own credibility and authority.
In other words, Google wants its search results to containrelevant, important sites, not sites that merely appearto be relevant and important. To this end, Google investsmillions of dollars and employs the world's smartestmathematicians to create algorithms which identify sites thatare trying to trick them. And that's exactly what Jagger did;and when it found those sites, it simply adjusted their rankingto more accurately reflect their true importance.(Unfortunately, it also demoted some sites which actuallydeserve a high ranking. It is hoped that these mistakes will beironed out with future minor updates, but that's a topic foranother article...)
From a technical standpoint, Jagger was well described by KenWebster in his article, Google's Jagger Update - Dust Begins ToSettle?. To summarize, Jagger: 1) Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy? 2) Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links)Relevancy? 3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to #1 & #2)? 4) More weight thrown back to PR @ top domain? 5) Increased importance on AdSense placement relevancy? 6) Possible introduction of CSS Spam filtering? 7) Overall Blog demotions? 8) New and unresolved "canonical" issues?
Some more interesting effects were reported by WG Moore in hisJagger article. Mr Moore runs a number oftest sites for purposes. By monitoring the links to his testsites as reported by Google, he established that:
"all reciprocal links had vanished. We think that this isbecause Google is down-grading or eliminating reciprocal linksas a measure of popularity. This does make sense, actually.Reciprocal links are a method of falsifying popularity. Sort ofa cheap method of buying a link, if you want to think of it thatway... During the second week of the Jagger Update, a few of ourreciprocal links did come back up. However, we also noticed thatthese were from places where we had highly relevant content.They came from articles where we discussed our area ofexpertise: Web Analytics, or from forums where we had relevantthreads. So we feel that these links came back because ofcontent, not linking.
The other group that came back up was one-way inbound textlinks, regardless of the originating web site. These links alsohad strong relevance to our web analytics business. In otherwords, they contained keywords and/or phrases related to oursite and its business."
In short, Jagger undid the hard work of thousands - if notmillions - of people! As a result, hard-won high rankings andrevenues plummeted.
Interestingly, article PR (article submission) came throughJagger seemingly unscathed. My SEOcopywriting website, for example, went from no.4 to no.1worldwide for "copywriter", and I've employed article PR almostexclusively. Whether it was promoted or the sites around it weredemoted, one thing is clear: article PR is one of the best waysto obtain a high ranking.
Google Analytics
The second monumental event to occur recently was Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a freeweb-stats solution which not only reports all the regular sitestats, but also integrates directly with Google AdWords givingwebmasters and insight into the ROI of their pay-per-click ads.According to Google, " Google Analytics tells you everything youwant to know about how your visitors found you and how theyinteract with your site."
Why is this such a landmark move? Because for the first timeever, Google will have access to your real web stats. And thesestats will be far more accurate than those provided by Alexa.Furthermore, Google's
privacy statement says: " We mayalso use personal information for auditing, research andanalysis to operate and improve Google technologies andservices." Now let's put two and two together: 1) Google is 'giving' every webmaster in the world free accessto quality web-stats. 2) Millions of webmasters will accept this 'gift', if onlybecause it integrates directly with their Google AdWordscampaigns. 3) Google will then have full access to the actual web stats ofmillions of commercial websites. 4) Google will have the right to use these stats to develop newtechnologies. 5) What's the next logical step? Google will use thesestatistics to help determine its rankings, of course!
It should come as no surprise. It's been on the cards - andfrequently discussed - for a long time. For example, JaydeOnline CEO, Mel Strocen, recently published an article on thisvery topic, The Future ofWebSite Ranking. She quite rightly asserts that:
"Google's "democratic" vision of the Web will never be achievedby manipulating algorithm criteria based on content. It willonly be achieved by factoring in what is important to people,and people will always remain the best judge of what that is.The true challenge for search engines in the future is how toincorporate web searcher input and preferences into theirranking algorithms."
In fact, the Jayde Online network already owns and operates asearch engine, ExactSeek which incorporates user popularitystatistics in its rankings.
The Future of Search & SEO
To date, ExactSeek is the only search engine which uses visitorstats as criteria for its rankings. But Google isn't far behind.We all know that Google specializes in taking a good idea andimplementing and adapting it brilliantly. This is exactly whatwe'll see in this case. By combining link popularity and userpopularity statistics, Google will be the only major searchengine to consider both what other sites think of your websiteand what your visitors think of your website. And because theyhave the most advanced algorithms for assessing link popularity,and will soon have access to the farthest reaching, mostaccurate web stats to assess user popularity, its competitorswill be a long time catching up.
So if that's the future of search, what's the future of SEO? Thefuture of is undoubtedly one where:
* one-way text links from relevant pages continue to be the mostvaluable links * reciprocal linking continue to decline * the 'shotgun' approach to link buying declines * mass email link requests decline * free directory submission declines * niche directory submission increases * article PR (article submission) increases * article submission sites (e.g. EzineArticles, GoArticles,and ArticleBlast) play a much bigger and moreimportant role in helping online publishers locate qualityarticles (due to the increasing article volume) * user popularity is just as important as link popularity, whichmeans: - the quality of article PR improves in order to increase sitetraffic, credibility, and loyalty - the quality of website content improves in order to converttraffic and encourage repeat visits
Clearly, the choices for SEOs will be pretty much limited topaying for links at niche sites and/or engaging in article PR.Being an copywriter, I may be a little biased, but for mine,article PR is the hands-down winner in this comparison:
* It satisfies Google's criteria for relevance and importance.Linking site owners include your article and link because, indoing so, their site becomes more useful to visitors, and theirbusiness gains credibility and authority. * It generates hundreds of free links quickly enough to make itworth your while, but not so quickly as to raise red flags atGoogle (in the form of link dampening). * Links are permanent and you don't have to pay to keep themthere. * You get a lot of qualified referred traffic who already trustyou and your expertise. This satisfies Google's visitorpopularity criteria, while at the same time bringing you a lotof extra customers.
For more information on article PR, read How to Top Google with Article PR.
Conclusion
The lesson from Jagger is, don't try and trick Google! They'vegot more money and more brains than virtually any company in theworld. It'll only end in tears! Don't spend time and moneytrying to make your site look important and relevant. Instead,spend that time and money actually making it important andrelevant! Content - the real content behind the optimization -is the answer. After all, whether it's an article or a web page,it's the content that keeps 'eyes on paper', and that's whatit's all about.
Happy optimizing! About the author:* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and articlesubmission specialist. He is a director of article PRcompany Article PR and also of copywriting studio DivineWrite.
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