GOOGLE UPDATE - Your Website Must be About Helping People
About two weeks ago Google did another one of their many SEO ranking algorithm updates, they called this one Fred. And though it is not named after some animal like their previous updates (Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird), it is more than likely a stricter form of an existing ranking update.
Google has hit many websites that have lots of low quality content that are focused on selling products with affiliate links and other ads sprinkled throughout the content. If a website is focused on making money and not helping its website visitors, Google is dropping their rankings and thus the traffic to that website.
I INFORMED EVERYONE ABOUT THIS NOT LONG AGO
Last month I created a training tutorial called, How to Write Content for Affiliate Marketing that Ranks, see link below, and in it I explain about the Google Affiliate Marketing Program Webmaster Guidelines. People with affiliate sites that do not follow these guidelines will see lower rankings and less traffic.
How to Write Content for Affiliate Marketing that Ranks
I realize that we all want to make money but our websites should be mostly made up of content that helps our website visitors and does not sell to them every chance we get. With this recent Fred Update, Google has tightened the screws on those SEO ranking guidelines.
Hundreds of websites were affected by this update and if you saw your traffic and rankings drop off around March 8th, 2017, then your website was hit by this algorithm update too. Many of those websites that were hit have since recovered a little bit by removing many of their ads and affiliate type links.
I AM HAPPY I NEVER WANTED TO USE ADSENSE
Part of the problem is the over use of revenue generating ads like Google AdSense on websites that have low quality content with word counts under 1000. Google expects to see websites that are optimized to help the user and not the use of keywords for the sole purpose of getting rankings.
Keywords are still important but like Kyle has said in his training, “keywords are not the be all and end all of content creation.” Kyle also teaches us that we need to be creating a lot of helpful content rather than loading up our websites with affiliate links.
By using AdSense it cheapens the look of a website by presenting advertisements to your website visitors and distracting them away from your content, which is why they clicked on your website link. This distraction creates a poor user experience which is one of Google’s ranking factors.
I find it kind of ironic that though Google doesn’t mind if people use AdSense, its use helps to justify this new Fred update. As stated in the article at the link below, “Fred Google update did indeed hit low-valued content sites aimed at revenue generation over the goal of helping their users and readers.” You can read more about the Google Fred Update at the link below.
http://searchengineland.com/googles-fred-update-hi...
Recent Comments
157
Thanks for sharing this Robert. I've never been a fan of Google AdSense as I think it cheapens a site and does not add any value. With this Google update, it's more important than ever to centralize your affiliate links rather than including them in every article you create. This is taught in the WA training as well.
Thank you very much for sharing this. Very useful. And of course it sucks if our websites ransk lower, but I do apprecaite that google focus so much on qaulity. Just proves that quick fixes and short cuts to get rankings does not work in the long run. It might give you quick results, but in the long term google will ounish those practices.
Thanks for sharing,
Mikael
I don't know all the ins & outs of online as this is my first time doing anything like this. That said, I think I am happy about it as I am sick to death of scammers & ppl promising ppl the moon just to take their money. Granted I want HEAPS of money flowing in but, not by lowering my morals or values & taking advantage of ppl, those are the ppl that need to fade away imo
Yes, if you practice ethical behavior it will come through in your content, and that will help is several ways: (1) Trust, (2) Authority, (3) Traffic, (4) Leads, and over time...(5) Conversions...
The money will come, it is an ancillary result of providing something of value to the reader that they want and may not even know they need...
If those scammers worked as hard on creating good content and providing something of value, they likely would make a lot more money...
Lead by example is what I used to say (still do actually)...
Cheers!
Dave : )
There is a certain amount of irony in this Robert Google sets the rules and Google runs, AdSense.if it was in the bricks and mortar world regulatory authorities world be on the war path, there seems to be a disconect, or am I being cynical.
On the other hand, I totally agree with you, the amount of content produced hour in hour out is astronomical I suppose it is a way of sifting the good from the not so good. the best favor that we can do for ourselves is to produce original content.
Yes, the Google clamping down on revenue generating ads but yet promoting their AdSense is definitely ironic.
Thanks Boomer. I use Amazon affiliate on my aviation website which reviews WWII and Viet Nam era aircraft. I have about three or four model aircraft available through Amazon of the different aircraft I have reviewed. I s this excessive? My rankings have never been very high. So I didn't see much of a change in rankings because of Fred.
My thoughts are if someone read the review, they might want an aircraft model of the type that was reviewed.
Thanks,
Bill
No, that is not excessive.
I would say to make sure to provide lots of content that does not have affiliate links in them. But do make sure to link these non-selling pages back to the pages with the affiliate links.
Thanks for this info Rob.
Glad I wasn't attracted to Adsense either. I understand it works wonders for many (when used correctly) but I feel it should be ones last resort if they have no other ideas to monetize their sites, would you agree on this or not?
Regards,
Kamil
Yes, it should be a last resort and only considered once a website is getting at least 1,000 visitors per day.
Definitely a last resort. And if you have to resort to that, it means you haven't built a website that is offering enough value to the readers to prompt them to purchase the products or services of whatever the niche you are in.
Hi, Robert...
I find it ironic that Google is ok with AdSense on websites...A little self-serving maybe?
It does bring up the question of how some sites that are e-commerce stores rank higher than more content-based websites as it seems they are advocating...
Jovo has written some posts where there are related sites that are consistently ranking higher in search engine results than his, although they have less content...They are e-commerce stores to boot!
I can understand his questioning this - for example, our e-commerce stores are rather sparse when it comes to content - but we are adding in blogs now that relate to the products and niche that should help...
For affiliate marketing...
I think if you just keep on adding more content and focus on a few items that you promote you will be OK...I never was one to go for AdSense or for Azon...
My solution...
For me, it is better to tie in content to products that I own and sell...No commission, the sale amount minus expenses goes to my PayPal account!
Still, this is good to know...Thanks for sharing...
Cheers!
Dave : )
Dave,
One must remember that the search results are based off of the search query. If you were to type in, where can I buy Air Jordan basketball shoes, Google will most likely present an ecommerce website in the top result.
But if you were to search for Air Jordan basketball shoes review, or even something more specific like, Air Jordan basketball shoes review for women, Google will more than likely show an affiliate site.
Another thing to consider is that many ecommerce stores are more well established, higher trust and authority, than some affiliate sites. Plus not all ecommerce site have low content. Just look at Amazon. They have a TON of content with the addition of reviews, comments and the like.
Adding helpful content that does not have to always be about selling, is what Google likes to see. This is what they say in their Affiliate Program Guidelines.
Good points Robert...
Actually, the authority and trust a site has can make a difference I think too. I pointed that out to Jovo (as well as e-commerce sites generally being set up to be very user-friendly, as in (1) secure, (2) fast-loading, (3) dedicated IP, etc.)...
I get your point though regarding content...If it is ONLY selling, that likely is not going to work well, there are video sales pages, regular sales pages, ads, or online stores for that...
Amazon is certainly a good example and maybe the best one that has set the standard - They have combined content with social proof and a rating system that people look for...
When it comes to blogs or curated sites, I do see a lot of selling but it is more subtle...Let's tale Huffington Post, for example...
They have guest bloggers, many that are pretty good writers...
Between the journalists and the bloggers, they also sell...They insert the ads into their helpful content naturally (native ads), and these are clearly marked as such...
In Google's case, I do not think they are dropping the rankings of the website or app, but we are not the Huffington Post...
What I like about native ads is that I think they may be more effective because the reader can see that they are essentially ads written as content...
That means when you get someone to the location of the article, they are showing an interest so already they have committed to a degree...
Lots of ways to skin a cat we used to say, and in this business, at the core is the content and the experience you provide to your audience...
Give them content that is engaging, entertaining, useful, and relevant and they will come back for more (and over time take action on your calls to action)...
Good dialogue, thanks for your feedback!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Robert, this is not so. Ecommerce will popup regardless if you use 'buy' or 'review' in the keyword. I never use the word 'buy' so how could I see them when I search for my keywords? But I do see them all the time, mostly above me.
If you wish I can provide tons of examples from my niche. They popup all the time.
You simply do not know what Google want to see and I do not understand how you can claim something like this. Because WA teaches differently? Well, it is the time that they change the tune.
Just look around, do not take anything that I am saying for granted. But the reality is as I describe it here. I wish it was not so.
The reality is that Google does not care about our great helpful content. My reviews are up to 4000 words and yet ecommerce image galleries outrank me easily with several sentences.
Jovo, I would be interested to know the difference in social interactions between your posts and pages versus the pages that are ranking above you, in spite of their lack of content...
I am thinking that this entire subject brings up the point that there must be some other factors (more than one I would imagine) beyond content that Google is including in their ranking algorithms...
That is the only thing that makes sense. It would be hard to discern all the technicalities (i.e. hosting, speed, dedicated IP) the other site may have or use, but certainly, site loading speed, numbers of keywords used and how often they are used can be measured...
For instance, do both use videos as an additional means of communicating with the audience, and if so, where is that video hosted and what is the ranking of it on Google (could it be helping the site that is ranking higher?)...
It is clear to me that content alone will not get you over the hump all the time, but of course, it sure gives you a leg up,
I will agree that SEO plays a part...This is evident based on your experience as well as what I have seen and read about...There are members here who have used SEO techniques beyond content and keywords and gotten boosts in rankings...
So, does that site have some backlinks that are from high authority sites that provide a boost in rankings some manner from Google?
What about the age of the domain and the trust awarded by Google for rankings, does that make a difference?
Is the outranking website more involved in social interactions and what kind of interaction...What kind of user rating system are they using?
So many questions beyond content that MAY be figuratively 'putting a finger on the scale' to allow them to rank higher...
Maybe after an analysis to compare the two on a point by point basis with all the known ranking factors that can be determined plus any other differences noted might bring up some pointers for us all...
The more you know, the more you know you don't know I guess!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Hi Dave, I cannot say much about ecommerce sites, did not try to analyze them, do not see the point, so do not know anything about their backlinks and social media strength. I doubt that they waste time on this, some of texts are computer generated and most of them just copy-paste specifications from Amazon or from the brand's site. So what value can they share?
I am definitely weak in social media.
Videos: they do not use them. I use videos but not my own, with this I may lose some visitors but do not think the number is big. I give videos in order to provide information, people will search in YouTube in any case, so better to give them the info in the site.
SEO: this should be my strong side. Though, I may be overconfident about my SEO skills.
Some of them do have some user rating system. I have the plugin in one site (my own rating but it has option for visitors as well) and it indeed appears in snippets as red stars, so this can make difference because the post stands out from the rest. I was reluctant to add it to my main site, to avoid having them too many.
As for the rest, cannot say anything. But I do not think my case is unique, this must be in any niche.
I love your final statement.
Google does not rank solely on keywords and yes, social media is a ranking factor, one of about 200.
When doing a Google search for one of the backpack reviews on Jovo's website, he appears on Google page 1 position 2. So I checked the ecommerce site in position 1 and they have a big social media footprint.
On Twitter 375K followers, Pinterest 112K followers, a Facebook page with a lot of related info and follower interactions, and dozens of videos on their YouTube channel. Now of course they have been doing their social media since at least 2008.
I personally know that using social media definitely matters for some portion of rankings and it definitely increases traffic and comments. And as we should know from the WA training, comment and social media interaction, leads to better rankings.
This adds value to the discussion Robert, so thank you for this, but my guess is you have stumbled upon one of just a couple of such good sites, if you tell me the name I can tell you more. Those good sites are REI and BackcountryEdge, but only the latter has videos on YouTube and this is not a ecommerce site, this is a quality site. Those are my biggest competitors and I can outrank them sometimes, I am better in SEO.
But there are 5 times more and you can see this example with a computer generated text which has nothing to do with the item they promote, I blogged about it at WA. This was on position 1 in Google for a while: Does SEO make any sense nowadays?
This is a huge company with shops throughout American continent. The company itself is from 1938 if I remember correctly, the most important in the US for anything outdoor. Nobody can compare with them, this is just out of the scope.
They may look like a typical ecommerce, but there is much more behind, quality texts, analysis, their own products. Simply beyond any comparison. But I can outrank them (sometimes).
Frankly speaking, being outranked by them is not a shame and I would not complain about this at all. Normally I never see their videos on YouTube but they have them in the site.
I do not believe in this. The author is just making a buzz to attract visitors. He himself is writing this is 'unconfirmed by Google'.
I clicked on the first link he gave to see this drop and here it is in the picture below. Do you really see anything here? This is just a periodic oscillation we all have.
On the other hand, I see all ecommerce sites in their usual top raking positions. Nothing new on the front.
Who then am I to believe?
The very first affiliate program which approved my application is Adsense. What will i do now?
But Rob is true in his observation that advertisements are all for money. I don't even know how will I be having money from them.
Of course ads are all about money, what else? All sites are about money.
If anything of all this is true then you would not see ecommerce sites top ranked. They provide no value for visitors so how do they rank?
Adsense belongs to Google so why would Google be against it. But Adsense will not bring you income in any case unless you have thousands of visitors per day.
What you will do? Do the job as usual, keep working on your site.
Remember, this beast called Fred is not confirmed by Google. people just make stories to get visitors.
There is one part of this that's true. Websites that create quality content get better rankings. Never saw a single thing in all the news feeds I read about A Fred update.
What's interesting is that the article by techywise holds the #1 spot on Google and says the unconfirmed update is about poor quality backlinks. Just keep writing quality content. Don't stuff ads or affiliate links and you'll never have to worry about an algorithym update.
How many adds or affiliate links is desired in a site. I only have one but many advertisements?
There's no exact rule but 2 links tops. 3 for very long articles over 2500 words and 1 for shorter posts. I use no more than 3 ads. 1 under my website header and menu, another half way through the post, and the third in my sidebar.
Shorter posts should not have an ad in the middle.
I have quite a number of posts with 5-7 affiliate links and they are on the top page in Google. This myth about the number of links is nothing but a myth.
I disagree with your statement about quality content that ranks better. This can happen but there is no guarantee. Ecommerce sites do not have quality content and they are almost always top ranked. Can show you examples of computer generated texts on position 1 in Google.
I don't know all about quality content, I just write what I think is related to my site.
Please enlighten us with what affiliate links do to the website when they're just having advertisement which we don't benefit from.
Don't listen to Kyle at your own risk. I do understand what you're saying but that's not a good way to start.
You can believe what you want but this was an actual Google update as stated by people from Google on Twitter.
Remember, Google makes updates to their algorithm every week and sometimes twice a week. They do not officially confirm all of them, only the real big updates.
Fred is just an update to the Penguin update, making it more robust, going after content sites with low quality content, lots of revenue generating ads and links, as well as poor backlinks.
If you do a search on Google for Google Fred Update, you will see more than a dozen unique articles about this real update, as well as several videos on YouTube.
Did you see the Google Analytics of the 10 plus websites that took a hit on March 8th? That one example you provided has many more similar outcomes.
This update does not go after ecommerce websites because those types of websites are not content sites. This ranking algorithm update is only for sites that are content driven.
Believe Google, they are the ones who set the guidelines for us to follow.
As far as AdSense goes you can keep it if you want but don't expect to make much money from it. You will more than likely never get rich from it and it will steal people away from your affiliate offers.
The Fred update is not a made up story, just search Google for it and you will see it is a legitimate update reported by more than a dozen reputable SEO websites.
Plus Google never confirms any of the small updates they make every week, only the big updates they make yearly.
The Fred update is one of Google's many weekly updates that they never confirm. The reason it is named Fred is because that is what a Google SEO engineer called it on Twitter.
Basically Fred is an update to the Penguin update going after sites with low quality content, lots of revenue generating ads and links, as well as poor backlinks.
"This update does not go after ecommerce websites because those types of websites are not content sites".
So how do you know this? Every site should have content, should not it?
Where is the statement about this by Google or by anybody else?
Why would Google make difference between sites? I do not see logic in this statement.
Thanks for the info Buddy .. I was not aware of this.. although i do not have affiliate links on my site at all yet.. waiting to get a lot of traction first
i did have Adsense though .. but got fed up of it always displaying ads that had absolutely nothing to do with my content.. so i trashed that too :)
Thanks
Chris
You are welcome Chris.
Yeah, AdSense is a waste of time. First it mainly displays ads not associated with your niche and it steals people away from your content and affiliate links. Not worth it at all.
See more comments
Hi Robert, Thanks for the info about Fred. In the true sense, the google search should be informative and educational in nature. First thing somebody wanted to learn or find out about something is to hit google search. With unnecessary ads and affiliate links, it becomes intrusive at times. So this latest algorithm is a welcome change. Thanks for the link. [Kelsey]