Learn/Google's-Freshness-Update-Helps-Small-Business-SEO
Revision as of 22:44, 11 November 2011 by Aliza Earnshaw (talk | contribs)
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Google’s Panda Update caused havoc earlier this year, affecting 12% of all web searches - and this week the search giant updated their ranking algorithm with an even more important change.
However, the new ‘Freshness Update’ hasn’t caused nearly as much of stir, despite the fact that it affects nearly three times as many searches as Panda – 35% according to Google.
This is because the Freshness Update is more of an opportunity than a threat. Whereas Panda demoted sites with ‘thin’ content, the Freshness Update is more about offering short term ranking gains to sites with newer information, regardless of the number of links they build to their pages. And because most SEO action is reactive rather than proactive, most webmasters will miss out. After all, there’s nothing like a ranking drop to make your SEO team spring into action, but sadly the potential for temporary improvement and spikes in traffic seemingly isn’t as much motivation as it should be. What the Freshness Update Means for SEO
The Freshness Update rewards:
- Websites containing the latest information about events that occur annually (or frequently)
- Sites with up-to-date info about the latest news stories, even if they’ve just been published
- Pages offering new information on product launches, or other popular discussion.
This should signal the end of:
- High ranking results centred around last year’s event, e.g. the Wimbledon Championships
- Four-day old reports about current news events, despite newer reports being available
- Product reviews from the day of release, when updated reports have been published today
As an SEO agency, we can beat the rush, release a press release or publish a blog post the minute we hear about something related to a client’s product or service – and see huge spikes in traffic.
It’s also a fantastic opportunity for smaller sites to compete with the big boys by offering great content before anyone else. No longer will small organisations with low domain authority have to wait weeks or even months to see the fruits of their link building labours before our content brings in traffic.
What’s more, even if the rankings don’t remain high in the long term, the short term spike in our Analytics graph not only looks impressive to clients but as SEOptimise pointed out this week, provides great brand awareness.
The Freshness Update is a major opportunity – don’t let it pass you by.