Weekly SEO news: 8 January 2013
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

Credibility is an important ranking factor. The more credible a website is, the better it will rank on Google. How do search engines measure the credibility of a website and what can you do to improve the credibility of your own site?

In the news: How Google creates synthetic queries, Bing search insights, a new search engine just for tablets, and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO
1. How to improve the credibility of your website
Credibility is an important ranking factor. The more credible a website is, the better it will rank on Google. How do search engines measure the credibility of a website and what can you do to improve the credibility of your own site?

Google credibility

A) Proven elements that influence the credibility of your website

There are several elements that search engines have been using for a long time to determine the credibility of a website:
  1. Backlinks: the links that point to your website greatly contribute to the trustworthiness of your site. If your website has mainly automatically created low quality links then this won't have a positive effect on your rankings.

    Links from reputable websites will have a positive effect on the credibility of your own site.

  2. Links to other websites: if your website contains a lot of links to irrelevant websites then this can have a negative influence on the credibility of your site. If your website mainly offers affiliate links or if many of the links to other websites are broken then this might also have a negative influence.

  3. Error-free pages: search engines won't find your website trustworthy if it contains a lot of errors. Your web pages shouldn't contain broken links or missing images. A lot of spelling mistakes can also be a sign of a low quality website.

  4. Many website visitors: Google has many ways to track the number of visitors that a website gets (Chrome, Analytics, etc.). A website that gets many visitors seems more trustworthy than a website with only a few visitors.

  5. Good web page navigation: a clear website navigation that makes it easy to find pages is an indicator of a good website. If people find what they're looking for on your web pages, search engines will give these pages a boost. In addition, a good website structure helps search engines to index all of your pages.
B) New elements that can influence the credibility of your website

In addition to the proven elements above, there are some new elements that influence the credibility of your site.
  1. The number of social mentions: the more often your web pages are mentioned on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social media websites, the more credible your website can be.

    Of course, only real mentions from real people will have a positive influence. Fake likes and mentions might have a negative influence.

  2. Verified authorship: web pages with a verified author that has a good reputation can get better rankings on Google. At this time, the effect of a verified authorship on the rankings of your website seems to be low.
A credible website is important if you want to have a successful online business. In addition to higher rankings on Google and other search engines, people tend to buy much more on credible websites.

Use the Top 10 Optimizer in IBP to check if your web pages have all elements that are necessary to show search engines that your website can be trusted.

Try IBP now risk-freeBuy IBP now risk-free
2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Matt CuttsHow Google may create and use synthetic queries

"When someone searches at Google, their query might not express the informational or situational need that they have. It might be too broad, too ambiguous, or vague in some other manner. A well-formulated query instead might contain terms returning resources addressing the searcher’s intent, which might be measured by performance metrics."


Bing search quality insights

"Is it Swarzinegar, Swarneger, Scwarznagger or Schwartiznegar? [...] Bing’s Speller processes tens of millions of data points mined from searches, web pages, clicks and user actions to help you find the right 'Schwarzenegger.' [...]

It takes state-of-the-art machine learning, statistical modeling, information retrieval, and significant engineering muscle to deliver high quality web scale spell correction at high speeds."



Larry PageThe future according to Google's Larry Page

"Google CEO Larry Page envisions a future in which computers plan your vacations, drive your cars, and anticipate your whims. Audacious? Maybe. But Page's dreams have a way of coming true."



Yahoo ads: better sitelinks support

"Sitelink Extensions lets you beef up your search ads with up to six additional links, giving you the chance to take users deeper into your site to more specific pages, right from your search ad, potentially increasing customer engagement and SEM results."



Izik.com is a new search engine just for tablets

"izik (pronounced EYE-zik) is an application for tablets that allows you to search, explore and discover the Web. Tablets are getting further integrated into our lives in a fun and functional way. With izik, our goal is to have the practicality of the Web unfold at your fingertips in a fun and playful manner."

Search engine newslets
  • Baidu tests facial recognition search engine.
  • Google says Maps redirect on Windows Phone was a product decision, and will be removed.
  • How Google beat the feds. In search of Google’s dark side. Behind Google's antitrust escape.
  • Google's Android operating system has 53.7% market share.
  • Google finds unauthorized certificate for Google.com domain, scrambles to protect users.
Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
3. Recommended resources

seoprofiler

Try IBP now risk-freeBuy IBP now risk-free

Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
4. Previous articles
Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

Do you have a minute?