According to one of Google’s parrot magazines, Search Engine Land, the latest ‘unofficial’ algorithm update “shakes the SEO world.” I think the writer of the headline must mean a little shake to wake black-hat SEO marketers up.
The latest update has been named ‘Fred’ following a joke made by Google spokesman Gary Illyes. The search engines web master trends analyst said recently, that all Google algorithm updates should be called Fred from now on. Ha-ha, ha…
Google hasn’t actually confirmed “Fred” is an actual update to their core algorithm. However, a shift in search rankings is a clear indicator it is. Some digital marketers have noticed a slump in rankings whilst others are seeing more traffic.
Personally, I noticed an increase of around 30 visitors a day for Master Mind Content this past week, but it is quite a normal for us to see an incline every 4 or 5 weeks anyway. So we’re obviously doing what Google wants – publishing quality content!
What’s the Fred algorithm update?
Stats from a 3-year old free WordPress blog
The concern amongst digital marketers is allegedly stemming from the ‘black hat’ SEO community. It’s safe to say the latest algorithm is a quality update. And most probably targeting spammy links. Yes, that old chestnut.
If you’re not familiar with black hat link building techniques, just be wary of any digital marketers that offer inbound links from the third party sources. Especially, if you’re asked to pay several hundred pounds.
I looked into guest blogging again recently and discovered that even so-called reputable publications such as Huffington Post and Forbes are charging for advertisers to publish content. Sure enough there is an outbound link to the writers website or affiliated website.
Google does not accept this as organic traffic. And rightly punishes black hat marketers trying to cheat the system. Google relies on inbound links from the online community of publishers to help them determine which websites are publishing quality content.
High-Quality Content ranks in Google
Look at it this way; Google is a service provider. It is their job to match search queries with websites that provide relevant answers. No small feat, but to their credit, the search engine is producing some fairly decent results these days.
But Google still relies on help from publishers. For years, the search engine has encouraged webmasters to publish high-quality content that offers value to readers. If you’re not doing that, you cannot expect to rank well.
I’ll give you a tip; stop paying peanuts for non-native speakers to rattle off 500-word articles they have regurgitated from another source. The result will be a poorly written article that is void of fresh ideas. Furthermore, it will read like it was written by a primary school student.
Consumer are not going to read that crap! They certainly aren’t going to trust your business enough to buy your products. Paying low fees for low quality content will result in low-quality search rankings. It’s that simple.
MasterMind Content not only produce high-quality content, we also devise a content marketing strategy that gives your readers what they want, when they need it; Google calls this ‘Micro Moments.’
Our content strategy incorporates a wide range of content including blogs, in-depth articles, news items, interviews, F&Q’s, How To articles, visual content and much more.
