The May Day Update Part 2
In part one of our series we explained the Google May Day algorithm update, and how to determine if your website has been affected by the change.
If it has in fact affected your site, the next logical question on your mind will probably be, “What exactly about my site may have caused it to be affected by the change?” To answer that question thoroughly, the first thing you’ll want to do is review the actual content on your website(s).
Content Is Still The King
As we’ve all heard so many times before, and rightfully so, content is king. The first thing you should do is take stock of your web site’s content and evaluate whether or not it’s offering something useful to your web site visitors, or, if it is engaging in deceptive practices, intentional or otherwise.
Content Audit With A Fine-Tooth Comb
Pay especially close attention to your web site’s affiliate program. Ask yourself if this part of your business is simply mirroring other websites instead of providing unique, useable content for your visitors.
In addition, you’ll want to review your content from the perspective of an outsider looking in, because that’s basically what Google is going to do. Ask yourself if the content you’ve posted is engaging to the viewer, or if it’s poorly written and nonsensical in places.
Does your page or pages content read as if it would make people want to stay on your site for a longer visit, or simply hit the back browser and look somewhere else for the answer to their query? If you notice a degree of stagnation or incoherent writing, then you should consider updating it with some fresh, engaging content. Your aim here is to make the visitor stay long enough to really read what you have to say.
The Fall Of The Blogger Automatons
Prior to the Google May Day update, using auto blogger software had been an effective way to generate fresh content; many sites simply used content scrapers to populate their web site’s updates. This practice was an extremely effective way to generate fresh content while using minimal labor, time and expense.
Unfortunately, after the Google update, any articles that are not written by the original publisher of the content will most likely be seen by Google now as being of lower authority and will not return the ranking and traffic benefits that this practice once used to.
While this is not always going to be the case, it is what Google has stated as a primary goal of the update, and we are all painfully aware that they update the algorithm regularly. If they missed it the first time, chances are they won’t miss it a second time.
Don’t Forget Your Product Pages
It will also help to make yourself aware of any of your product pages that could possibly be viewed as unrelated or having inadequate content. Pages that fit that profile will not assist in ranking anymore. Site depth is one of the stated factors that Google is weighing heavier than ever, which is to say you should make sure everything appears as correct and as fresh as possible throughout your site, not just on the upper layers.
The Appearance of Authority
In addition to automated scraping, and reproduced blogging and content, your website’s “appearance” needs to be authoritative and legitimate. It needs to present itself as being a serious, “real” business. Google is now reducing relevance for web sites that appear to exist simply to convert visitors to a sale. That is not to say that Google is anti-merchant, but the effect will be that web sites perceived as being of that “conversion only” nature are going to be ranked lower under the new algorithm change.
Some websites that are known as “Thin Affiliate” sites, which to Google may appear to offer no additional value to site visitors beyond a sale, will see a drop in their rankings as well. These changes have affected a great number of businesses, and in a very significant way.
Internal Links and Back-links
Other factors for you to consider are your internal links or “internal linking” as Google sometimes calls it. A web site’s obvious lack of links to deep pages, for example any product pages coming from the homepage, are going to be devalued under the Google May Day update. It doesn’t matter whether this is intentional or not. The absence of links to deep pages can and will have a serious effect on your traffic going forward.
Lastly, take a hard look at your site’s deep linking or back-links. The May Day update reduces relevance for sites displaying a lack of links into the deep pages. When landing on your site, if your content appears to have all links which seem to point to the homepage, regardless of what is stated on each individual link, then you are probably one of the web sites feeling the effects of the recent update.
Deep linking is probably the most time consuming of all the solutions for the May Day update, but the easiest to make. Those links need to go somewhere, and unfortunately, all links pointing to the homepage won’t earn you any points with Google. If you have products to sell, consider modifying these deep links to go to new products or offerings. This is the equivalent of “killing two birds with one stone” as far as the Google update is concerned, and you should see some of your ranking or relevance return, and quite possibly even see an increase in ranking in certain areas.
For example, instead of linking: www.yoursite.com, use something like www.en.yoursite.com/new/product if you have multiple language pages. Even an URL like www.yoursite.com/julysalepage may be more effective for your purposes. The idea here is to differentiate these links from simply reflecting 10 links on your site that read www.yoursite.com but are hyperlinked elsewhere.
Spell Out Your Sell
Spelling out what you’re selling is beneficial in more ways than just the obvious; it will get you traffic from Google as well.
In general just keep in mind that these changes, while frustrating, are actually good for your business in the long run. Furthermore, you can be encouraged by the fact that there are multiple solutions and ways available to you to ensure a positive outcome for your business.
Next in the series, we are going to take a hard look at how to improve your web site’s quality to combat the effects of the May Day update, and we will make a few recommendations to get your traffic back, and in some cases, even improved.
***This article is the second installment in a five part series brought to you by our partners at Metamend, the Search Marketing Experts. Since 1998 Metamend has been widely recognized as one of the leading search engine optimization firms in the industry. Providing advanced organic search and Internet marketing searches to clients in over 60 countries, Metamend works to bring pre-qualified visitors to their clients’ websites and to convert those visitors into long-term commercial relationships. Metamend’s search and Internet marketing methods follow the best practices outlined by the major search engines, and its staff maintain strong personal relationships with others at all levels of the search marketing industry.
2 Responses to The May Day Update Part 2
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Hey! I simply wanted to say your blog is one of the nicely laid out, most inspirational Ive come across in quite a while. Thx!
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Grazie for your post, honestly, can you become a topic contributor for wikipedia because the current entries in there for our interest is next to useless. I don’t quite agree exactly with it but I agree with it on the most part and I wholeheartedly applaud your effort in putting it so succinctly.