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Google's Latest "Dance, "Looks More Like "Slam Dancing!"
by Merle ©Copyright 2004

Google's recent November changes to its algorithm, now known as 
the "Florida Update, have left many site owners in a quandary. 
Many who were enjoying top placements, have lost their spots, 
and apparently, for no real reason. 

Now keep in mind, that periodic algorithmic changes are a normal 
and vital maintenance feature of "ALL" major search engines, but 
the effect of this particular "Dance," as these adjustments have 
come to be called, has been truly enormous, and carried with it
consequences, still yet unmeasured or understood.

It's hard to tell what kind of "dance" Google was doing, as, 
to many, it appears to be more of a form of "slam dancing". 
Algorithms are what are used to rank web pages, and periodic 
changes are to be expected, but this one is being hailed as 
the most substantial change at Google in years.

Google is definitely trying to clean the spam from its database, 
but many innocent people, who claim not to be using illegal 
search engine optimization techniques, were hurt in the process. 

Certainly Google's main goal is to provide relevant results to 
its users. If they didn't, no one would want to use them for 
searching. There was no advance warning of the change, but that's 
pretty normal. No real surprise there. 

What is a surprise, however, is that many site owners who felt 
they were doing nothing wrong, were penalized in the process.

Manipulative behavior is definitely being punished. Google is 
certainly enforcing their guidelines and has grown tired of those 
website owners using "spammy optimization" techniques and having 
little or no real content. Google claims the change is all part
of their continued efforts to improve their search engine \
results, but many others have their own "conspiracy theories" 
about what lies behind the big change. 

Keep in mind that this is all purely speculation:

1) Some say Google is trying to force small business owners to 
join their "AdWords" Program. Since most of the sites that were 
hardest hit by the flux, happen to be highly competitive, 
commercial ventures by nature, there are whispers in the 
shadows, that perhaps an unpredictable index rating might 
convince the "freebie" seeker to join "Adwords," in order to 
obtain an ascertainably better placement.

2) The other theory is that Google is trying to increase their 
"perceived value" in the eyes of the business world, as a whole, 
before issuing their IPO. This would make them a far more 
attractive commodity to potential investors with big bucks.

Certain genres of websites were definitely hit harder than 
others. That is a fact, which is not even being debated. Anyone 
can quite easily verify that with a minimal effort of research. 
The biggest classifications to suffer from the slam, seems to be:

1) Real Estate Agent Sites
2) Search Engine Optimization Sites
3) Travel and Tourism Sites

It would appear that a lot of the sites, now ranking highest 
with Google, are more editorial, instead of commercial. Is this 
purely coincidence?

So why is everyone so shaken up by this change? Well, with over 
3 billion pages in their index and with Google powering so many 
other of the major search engines, they control a lot of the 
search engine pie. Lose ranking with them, and you lose a lot. 

As a site owner with a good marketing plan, you should be using 
many other promotional / marketing methods, and not putting all 
your "eggs in the Google basket" so to speak. Those who were 
using Google for their main source of traffic are definitely 
hurting right now. Let this serve as a lesson to diversify your 
marketing efforts.

So what's an "honest" site owner to do? Stay away from irrelevant 
linking and link farms, and build a quality site with good solid 
content. Use keywords in the first 250 words of text on the page, 
but don't go overboard. If, when read "out loud," it sounds 
funny, it's overkill.

Google outlines their guidelines for building a "search engine 
crawler friendly" site over at: 
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

If you haven't read this in awhile, or maybe you never have, you 
just might want to take an attentive look at it now, in hopes of 
safely improving your ranking, by conforming to their guidelines.

Google is also now integrating its "Froogle Listings" on its 
pages, so if you sell a tangible product, then you may very well 
want to use Froogle as an opportunity to get better placement. 

Froogle is an extension of Google's search engine, which many 
people use for product research, before making a purchase. If 
there's a Froogle match on an attempted search, the results will 
show up on the results page. For more on Froogle go to:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle/merchants.html

Remember, search engines should only be one small part of your 
marketing mix. By relying too heavily on any "single" search 
engine for your traffic, you'll likely find yourself in the 
position of being irretrievably out of balance and completely 
at their mercy, whenever such an algorithmic quake is inserted 
into the index. 

So be sure to always use a wide variety of marketing/ promotional 
tactics, thereby, ensuring that the next time Google goes "Slam 
Dancing," you don't get an unintentional elbow in the eye or your 
feet stepped on.

================================================================
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