• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Recommended resources
• Previous articles

Google's recent Jagger update has caused a lot of trouble for many webmasters. Although Google tried to eliminate spam pages from its search results, many spam-free web sites have also been hit by this ranking algorithm update.

During Google's update, MSN.com temporarily had a PageRank of 2. Even the spam-free blogs of some Google employees were removed from Google's index (they have been restored in the meantime).

It's obvious that Google had some problems with this ranking algorithm update and that not everything went the way it should.

Why did Google run such a big ranking algorithm update?

Google's founders are not satisfied with the quality of Google's search results. In a new book, Google founder Larry Page told the author what he thinks about the results:

"Well, Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google, is not very satisfied with the results of Google searches.

On a scale of 1 to 10, he thinks that Google delivers about a 3. They want to do everything they can to improve the quality of search."

Given that statement, we can expect quite a lot of Jagger style ranking algorithm updates in the future.

How to survive future Google updates

If you want your website to survive future Google updates, you must find out what Google is trying to achieve with its updates. Google wants to present high quality web sites that are interesting to web surfers in its search results. Whenever Google updates the ranking algorithm, they try to give those sites more relevancy.

If you want to survive future Google updates, you must make sure that your web site looks attractive to Google:

1. Your web site should have a certain age
   
   The older a website is, the less dramatic are the fluctuations with each algorithm change. If your website has a certain age and if the content of your website has regular updates then search engines know that it's worth to list your web site because you'll probably still be around tomorrow.
   
   
2. Your web site should have good content
   
   Search engines want to redirect web surfers to web sites on which they can find useful information. The more content your website has, the better you'll be listed. It's very difficult to get good search engine rankings with a website that has only a few pages.
   
   
3. Links from other sites are still important
   
   The more websites link to you, the more important is your website. Of course, you shouldn't link to every Tom, Dick and Harry and the other sites that link to you should also be related to your site.
   
   Consider how the link popularity principle was originally meant: you think that another website is a great resource and then you link to it. If you get links like that, you'll get solid search engine rankings.
   
   
4. Make it easy for search engines to index your site
   
   Many websites have great content but it is nearly impossible for search engines to index them. If you want high search engine rankings, you should make it as easy as possible for search engines to index your site.

We can expect many more ranking algorithm updates from Google and the other search engines. If you prepare your web pages as described above, you don't have to be afraid of upcoming changes.

Up next: Google calendaring

"The Web's been abuzz with talk that Google will unveil its long-rumored "gCal" calendar app at Esther Dyson's When 2.0 confab, [today] at Stanford. [...]

Do we really want Big Brother in Mountain View, viewing our appointments and to-do lists? [...] Imagine a world where you enter your doctor's appointment and are then inundated with drug or personal care ads.

Yahoo uses online behavior to target ads

"The Web portal company does not give personal information to advertising clients but tracks a few types of behavior by its users, including search queries, movement through Yahoo sites and the specific ads clicked. That lets it decide on the fly what ads are most appropriate for a user."

Froogle spam

"Froogle has a problem, and I assume Google Base will have the same problem. Because there are no setup fees and no per click fees, the results on Froogle are often made up of spammy results which make for a horrible user experience. Google might be great at general search and maps, but shopping search (in beta now for how many years?) needs serious attention."

Y!Q in Firefox, and hacks galore

"The Y!Q Greasemonkey script is now compatible with both Firefox 1.0 and Firefox 1.5. [...] enabling Toolbar users to select text on any Web page and get related search results on the spot."

 

Search engine newslets

• Google fixes Desktop Search loophole.
• Jonga is a new search engine (it is already supported by IBP's search engine submitter).
  

"Google Inc.'s search for revenue beyond its wildly popular pay-per-click advertising system has everyone from publishers to phone companies unnerved by the seemingly endless scope of the Web leader's ambitions.

Nowhere is this more closely felt than Madison Avenue, where the advertising industry sees Google encroaching on turf ad agencies and media buyers have considered their own for much of the past century."

Brin, Page, CEO win big in Google stock sale

"And at November's end, 14 Google executives and directors [...] raked in a combined $4.3 billion, by selling 18.6 million of their shares so far this year. [...]

The ones who took in the most were the search engine firm's co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The duo have each gleaned nearly $1.3 billion by selling 5.3 million of their individual shares via an automated trading program."

Phishing with Google Desktop

"Security researcher Matan Gillon has published a proof-of-concept flaw that exploits Google Desktop, the search software that runs on a local PC, and Internet Explorer 6. [...]

Gillon discovered that on certain pages, such as Google News, it was easy to extract the security key that the local copy of Google Desktop needs to permit queries to be executed."

Only in the movies? A privacy scenario

"Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, etc. are not small companies. They are made up of thousands of individuals, a few of whom just might be...well...a bit off balance. [...]

Imagine that an engineer at a major Internet company decides he has a thing for young blond women. [...] This engineer has access to, or can figure out how to get access to, pretty much all the information he wants on all the young blond women that use his company's services near where he lives (by zip, keyword, etc.)."

Disturbing facts about Google

"It's not that we believe Google is evil. What we believe is that Google, Inc. is at a fork in the road, and they have some big decisions to make."

PC Pro UK magazine about IBP

"So it's vitally important that searches return your web business near the top, otherwise no-one will visit. [...]

Use the Top 10 Optimizer to find the top ten results for your keywords. You can do this for all the major search engines, and see how each calculates its first page of search results.

From this, IBP tells you how you can change your keywords to get found more readily by the search engines."
PC Pro UK magazine, issue 135, January 2006

Another 5 out of 5 rating for ARELIS

ARELIS has received another 5 out of 5 stars rating. This time, eFreeDown.com was so impressed by the quality of ARELIS that it gave ARELIS the highest rating:

"ARELIS is a top-rated software program that helps you to build a powerful business network quickly and easily.

Your business will benefit in many ways from that network: You'll get highly targeted visitors to your web site, you'll benefit from new business contacts and your web site will get a higher ranking on search engines because of higher link popularity."

The next top rating for IBP

IBP has also received a 5 out of 5 rating from eFreeDown.com. If you haven't used IBP to get high search engine rankings yet, you should do so now.

"IBP is the multi award winning web site promotion tool that helps you to get more revenue with high search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo and all other major search engines.

The suite of 10 professional website promotion tools includes a search engine submission tool, a search engine ranking checker, a top 10 optimizer and a keyword generator. IBP creates professional reports in PDF, HTML and Microsoft Word format."

IBP is now available in three languages: English, German and Dutch

When you download IBP you can switch the language in the "File" menu in IBP. English and German are included in the download. If you want to have a Dutch IBP version, download this file.

• Is cloaking the holy grail of SEO?
• New features in Google Sitemaps
• Google Analytics - Is it worth its real price?
• Google's ranking algorithm update continues
• Are you ready for local search?
• Google's current ranking algorithm update
• View all past issues...