Recently there has been buzz about the largest Google update, ever.  This is larger in my opinion than the Florida update in 2003 where people lost their #1 ranking – overnight.

See, many of us know how Google and other search engines use an algorithm to evaluate how pages are ranked in their search engine.  This algorithm is a mathematical equation.  The only human influence in the ranking is the creation of the algorithm.  Google is consistently tweaking their algorithm to provide the most natural, relevant results possible.

The Florida Update 2003

Since 1998 Google won market share because of their ability to provide the most relevant results to searchers.  It was the power of their algorithm where they (Brin and Page) realized that a web page’s popularity can be measured by the endorsements received from other pages, in the form of an inbound link.  The more links, the more ‘friends’ that site had, the more popular that site and in turn, Google’s computers would give ranking to that site.

I’m sure daily the algorithm is being tweaked and occasionally they’ll launch an update so significant that major businesses are affected and in fact, the entire GDP of the ecommerce transacted on the Internet is influenced by this.  Google holds tremendous power, perhaps more than our president in regards to influencing commerce.

November 14^th, 2003 Google’s algorithm update was named ‘Florida’.  Many pages simply disappeared from their index.  It appear pages that had repetitive inbound links with the same anchor text were among the culprits.  Other pages that disappeared were pages with heavy repetition of the keyword in the page title and pages that served up heavy keyword density.

Pages that were properly optimized for a user, were not affected.  Go figure.  Point is, that update cleared Google’s index of clearly spammy pages and Google made it more difficult for the black hat guys, fortunately made my position easier!

Typical updates are just this, Google’s attempt to provide relevant results and not spammy results.

For anyone who knows my philosophies on SEO, I’m not an SEOer!  I’m a marketer.  Old fashion marketer who provides the democratic state we call the Internet exactly what it wants, effective quality content and solid ethical online promotion.  By doing this, my clients and my sites easily outrank others.  I know you know this. 

The Vince Update January 18th, 2009

Did you notice a change in your rankings?  Probally note too much.  Check this out.

Taken from RankPulse.com, a site that monitors search rankings for 1000 keywords.  When searching for the keyword [car], on January 17, 2009 Toyota, Honda and Ford were not on the front page.  The morning of January 18, 2009 they we’re on the front page, all of them!

 

 

Now check out the rankings for [airline tickets]

 

The sites that made the jump are carriers!

Do you notice a trend yet?  BRAND NAMES.  Do some homework for yourselves.  Google is favoring brand names.

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt gave some insight into this late in 2008 where he states “The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.

“Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

“Brand affinity is clearly hard wired,” he said. “It is so fundamental to human existence that it’s not going away. It must have a genetic component.”

Another thing Schmidt hinted on was word relationships.  He states “Wouldn’t it be nice of Google understood the meaning of your phrase rather than just the words that are in that phrase?  We have a lot of discoveries in that area that are going to roll out in the next little while.”

Vince Update

This is a scary update.  What defines a brand?  How do you earn the right in Google’s eyes to define a brand?  How does this affect Universal Search?  How does one influence what Google thinks is a word relationship? 

While there will be 1000’s of SEOers scambling and posting junk on these questions and how to fool Google into believing you’re site is a brand, I have been enjoying an increase in rankings.  I have made a brand for myself.  I have branded our agency and our clients for our most competitive keywords.  Word relationships are the obvious.

People go on to say Google’s Matt Cutts covers their [Google's] algorithim weakness by suggesting Cutts only focuses on the obvious.  To increase rankings, provide quality content.  I couldn’t agree more!  Whether in the form of audio, video, podcasts, Squidoo Lens, articles, blogs, references, testimonials, reviews or web 2.0 properties, quality content comes in many forms.  The greater a website’s exposure and less transparency that is involved with increasing content, better relationships with the users and simply a goal to enhance a user’s experience, you will rank.

I don’t care about updates.  I never will.  I try to take every SEO strategy I’ve ever heard and ask…would this work in the traditional world if I were to promote my business?