How Google Works

Google Engineer, Matt Cutts, recently wrote for an article for "Google's Newsletter for Librarians." The article, entitled, "How does Google collect and rank results?" offers an excellent outline of Google's methodologies which are similar, in fact, to the methodologies of other major search engines.

Below is a snippet of the article that focusses on relevancy and the importance of inbound links ::

Now we have the set of pages that contain the user's query somewhere, and it's time to rank them in terms of relevance. Google uses many factors in ranking. Of these, the PageRank algorithm might be the best known. PageRank evaluates two things: how many links there are to a web page from other pages, and the quality of the linking sites. With PageRank, five or six high-quality links from websites such as www.cnn.com and www.nytimes.com would be valued much more highly than twice as many links from less reputable or established sites. But we use many factors besides PageRank. For example, if a document contains the words "civil" and "war" right next to each other, it might be more relevant than a document discussing the Revolutionary War that happens to use the word "civil" somewhere else on the page. Also, if a page includes the words "civil war" in its title, that's a hint that it might be more relevant than a document with the title "19th Century American Clothing." In the same way, if the words "civil war" appear several times throughout the page, that page is more likely to be about the civil war than if the words only appear once.

As a rule, Google tries to find pages that are both reputable and relevant. If two pages appear to have roughly the same amount of information matching a given query, we'll usually try to pick the page that more trusted websites have chosen to link to. Still, we'll often elevate a page with fewer links or lower PageRank if other signals suggest that the page is more relevant. For example, a web page dedicated entirely to the civil war is often more useful than an article that mentions the civil war in passing, even if the article is part of a reputable site such as Time.com.

Budget for Inbound Links

When all things are equal, the site with a better structure of quality inbound links will out perform its competition in organic search rankings. With the increasing value of quality inbound links to your web site, it is necessary for marketing professionals to consider a line item for inbound linking in their 2006 Internet marketing budgets.

Quality inbound links give your web site credibility in the eyes of the search engines. The assumption is that if other sites around the Internet are linking to your site, your site must therefore hold value.

The science behind securing inbound links is in determining the value or quality of links. When it comes to inbound links, think quality before quantity.

While there are a variety of ways we do this for our clients, one common method is to use the Free Google Tool Bar available for download @ http://toolbar.google.com/ . The PageRank feature will give you an idea of how a web page is viewed in the eyes of Google. Be careful to understand that each page of a web site has its own value, and when looking at web sites, you should drill down to the page where your link would actually be placed before considering it.

As with any part of a search engine's ranking algorhtym, there are numerous factors to consider when improving your inbound link structure. "Value" of the link page, anchor text, landing page are all elements that reflect how much a search engine will value an inbound link.

New web site? Re-designing in 2006? A well formulated inbound link structure is the fastest way for search engines to find new sites and re-index older ones.

Search Engine Marketing Myth - #1

Quite often when we propose our services to a potential client, we receive a follow up call to clarify some of our services. Many times we are told that a competitor offers ongoing search engine optimization services that require a monthly retainer. “Where is that in your proposal?” they ask. “Your competitor offers monthly submissions to the search engines?” When we tell them that isn’t necessary, we are often met with skepticism.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about search engine submissions. Though many search engines offer a “Submit URL” and some are free – that doesn’t necessarily mean that your site will be admitted to the engine’s index. Furthermore, if a site is already present in a search engine’s index, there is no need to continually re-submit it! It will NOT increase the frequency of indexing, nor will it help with your rankings.

Let’s look at Google as an example. Google offers a submit URL page at http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl . Google also offers a very hand “Webmaster’s Do’s and Don’ts” section too http://www.google.com/webmasters/ . A particularly interesting section is the “How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google” section.

Here are a few direct quotes from that page ::

• “The method by which we find pages and rank them as search results is determined by many different factors”
• “Submission isn't necessary and does not guarantee inclusion in our index”
• “We DO NOT add all submitted URLs to our index and cannot predict when or if they will appear”
• “You can submit your site as often as you like, but multiple submissions won't improve the likelihood of your site being added or accelerate the process.”
• "The best way to ensure that Google finds your site is to have pages on other relevant sites to link to yours. Google's robots jump from page to page on the web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to your pages, the more likely it is that we'll find them quickly. "

I am the first to promote search optimization as a “process” not a one-time “project.” But I continually warn potential clients to pay for only what they need. In this day and age, quality inbound links play an essential role in search engine success, most notably in the “discovery” process for new web sites. Rather than spend your money on a monthly retainer to “re-submit” your web site to the same search engines over and over again, we recommend consumers spend their money on a well implemented inbound link campaign. Such an initiative will not only improve the speed at which new sites are discovered by search engines, but it will also promote the credibility of existing web sites, increase index frequency and ultimately improve search rankings for well optimized pages.

Results of search engine optimization take time. For new web sites, it is unlikely you will see the true benefits of a well optimized page for 6-8 months (especially in Google). For existing sites with a strong network of inbound links that time may be cut in half.

Rather than spend your money on useless monthly submissions, we recommend the following ongoing budget considerations::

1. Continually add to your quality inbound link structure
2. Monthly search position reporting
3. General web site updates (stale sites will suffer from poor rankings)
4. Minor adjustments to web pages to maintain cutting edge optimization technique.

Consumers should take time to understand a search marketing company’s services, and avoid paying for what you don’t need.

All Internet Marketing Predicated on Keywords and Phrases

The first step in any Internet marketing program is to determine the keywords and phrases people use to find a business like yours. This is true whether you are pursuing Sponsored Search Listings, Search Engine Optimization, Online Press Releases or E-Mail Marketing Campaigns.

Old school marketers are handy at crafting new names or descriptions to add “savvy” to a product description or service. The downside is that the terms being used don’t match the intent of the end user, you are not likely to get the all important “click-thru” to your web site. Furthermore, if the terms differ greatly, you are not likely to have your web site or advertisement display at all!

Take for example a client we have been working with recently. One of their many services is IT Staffing. Keyword Analysis shows a bustling business for that term. However, marketing pros not concerned with Internet marketing efforts changed the name of this practice to “staff augmentation.” Unfortunately, in order to attract the “IT Staffing” market, we requested we change the name of the practice back to “IT Staffing.” This is always a difficult position to defend.

In essesnce, if you target the wrong phrases, all of your subsequent Internet Marketing efforts will be in vain.

A better example I once read asked viewers to picture two independent circles. In one circle are the practice and product descriptions of the company, and in the other circle are the terms and phrases used by the target audience to find that company. Unless those circles show significant overlap (i.e. terms used are the same), the benefits of an Internet marketing campaign will be few and far between.

This is especially true with Sponsored Search Listings and Search Engine Optimization efforts. If the terms don’t match – your ad or listing won’t appear. When the end user sees results on the search engine results page (SERP), they have their search query in mind, and they are looking for results that match that query. You have a pitiful 1.9 seconds to convince them that your listing answers their query.

The same is true with online press releases. The value of this marketing effort is not necessarily to have highlighted by journalists, but to provide the near term benefits of high search rankings and the long term benefits of a credible inbound link to the web site as many online wire services archive such documents for long periods of time.

While the temptation is to pay old-school marketing pros to “polish” your image, when it comes to Internet marketing it is more important to stick with what your target market already knows.

E-Mail Marketing :: Multi-Part MIME

Though almost all e-mail client programs can see HTML e-mail messages, studies show that upwards of 15% of message recipients either are unable to view HTML messages or they have turned off the feature within their e-mail software.

Multi-part MIME is a method by which you can send both an HTML message and a text message within the same document. The recipients e-mail software will detect a Multi-Part MIME message and display the appropriate version (HTML or text) based on the program’s current settings.

For modern e-mail marketing campaigns, it is critical to use a platform that has the ability to send Multi-Part MIME messages, and to create both a visually stimulating HTML message, and a well crafted text message as well.

Quick Skinny on Search Engine Optimization

1. META tags alone will not get you any search engine rankings. In fact, many of the most popular search engines give very little "weight" to the contents of the META Keyword tag. A well crafted META Description tag (specific to each page of the site) would provide better results - but there is no silver bullet for search engine rankings.


2. What search engines do recognize is a "limited redundancy" of a term throughout various features of the web page. Search engine ranking algorhythms are far more complex than they used to be.


3. If you target the wrong keywords, all of your optimization efforts will be in vain. There is data available to determine what the most popular terms are that people use in search engines to find a web site like yours. For example, the term "lawyer" is searched for far more often than "attorney." If you are looking to increase business from higher search engine rankings, target the terms your market is using.


4. In general, you don't want to target more than one to two closely related terms per page. This allows you to use all of the page features to target a term well. Search rankings are all about competition. If you are targeting 5 independent terms on a single page, you are never going to outrank a competitor that is using the same methonds to target a single term.


5. If the term or phrase you are targeting is not in the page text (usually several times), than there is 100% chance you will NOT be listed for that term. For search engine optimization, CONTENT IS KING!


6. For "organic" or "natural" search engine results, search engines also consider external or off-page factors such as inbound links to the web site. Inbound links from theme related sites give your site credibility in the eyes of the search engines. It also increases the frequency of search engine indexing.


7. Results from optimization take time. In general, we tell owners of established web sites 4-6 weeks until valid results are seen, and new web sites 6-8 weeks (especially for an engine like Google). There are programs offered by Yahoo! and MSN Search that can expedite results for their respective engines. A higher number of quality, inbound links would shorten the time frames quoted.


8. Target geographically. Don't target "divorce attorney" - target "Chicago divorce attorney." The term is better focussed to your target audience, and it will have far less competition.