Keyword Density
Panda has been coming down heavy on duplicate content, poorly constructed language, and intense keyword density to penalize sites that use too many keywords to try to increase their site rankings. Maintaining a keyword density ratio of 5% to 8% is a safe range to avoid being considered spam by Google or your users. Remember that creating original, unique, quality content is the most important.

Relevancy of Keywords
Keep an eye on the relevancy of your keywords and phrases. Sharing keywords and phrases with sites that tend to abuse those words and phrases for rank can be detrimental to your site. Watch the domain authority score for those keywords and phrases, and do a search to see what kind of sites are using them along side you.

Fix Broken Links
Check all links and make sure that the URLs still exist. If you find some that are no longer working, fix them or remove the links so that Google will not think that you are intentionally trying to abuse the search algorithm. Broken links give Google the impression you’re just a link farm.

Google is shifting focus from everything to almost everything, and to prove it they’ve decided to clean a little house. All around the Google-verse you may have noticed that certain features no longer work or have simply been removed.

Here’s a list of some of the Google products that are either being shut down or currently aren’t available:

With Google’s Larry Page taking over as CEO in April, this might be the first big change we’ve seen with him getting direct credit. Only time can tell how things will be different with a more focused Google.

Well, Google has decided to take this a step further and expanded its local, grass roots work to all of Texas with a new service called Texas Get Your Business Online.

It provides a free professional Web site for any Texas business along with a domain name. Sound too good to be true? Here’s the fine print…

The Web site has an extremely detailed frequently asked questions section that provides even the most novice business owner an idea of what it takes to get online. As with other local Google programs whether it will be coming to an area near you is still unclear. If your business operates out of Texas get ready for a surge in the local competition as many business owners are sure to take advantage of this offer.

I so wish that Google would do the same for the entire Philippines. Call it monopoly, but what the heck, I love Google. All Hail Google!

The big drawback to this change is that it’s very likely that the only inbound link data from Bing Webmaster Tools you’ll be able to get after the transition will be for your own site, and not data on other domains such as your competition. Therefore, I highly recommend for those webmasters out there on running what Site Explorer reports you want now vs waiting till it’s shutdown in the near future.

The Yahoo Site Explorer API was also a large source of information that fed our Site Strength Indicator tool, which scores sites based on a number of factors. In particular, all information about a site’s back link structure came from this API. It’s a big loss to the info-miners of the Web, but luckily there are independent web crawling companies out there. One of these companies is Majestic SEO, and their recently released Majestic Site Explorer. They also provide data via an API, and we’ve transitioned the Site Strength Indicator to use it. We’re still exploring how to best make use of this new data source, and will be tweaking and updating as time goes on. Your feedback and suggestions are always appreciated.

Malware is no joke and if you’ve had a run in with it lately – you’re not alone. Hundreds of thousands of personal computers infected with malware loaded through a fake anti-virus program have been flooding the Internet. The problem was so pervasive that even Google’s servers were affected. They were able to identify through their servers who was actually infected and made the unprecedented decision to notify users right in their search results.

The instructions Google provides basically advise running an anti-virus program. Which, as mentioned, was exactly what people were trying to do when their problems started. Of course Google addressed this by saying that users need to be sure that they have a valid anti-virus program.

Google has taken this all a step further and decided to go after malware at its source. All co.cc domains were recently deindexed due to a large number of the sites engaging in Web spam, phishing, and malware. Matt Cutts provides more information on how Google identifies problems and how they are working to protect users from malware on his blog.

Following the highly publicised rollout of the Google Farmer (Panda) update in the US, Google announced that the same algorithmic change had been rolled out to all English-language Google users. However, alongside the update a further enhancement was included to take into account sites blocked using the Chrome Personal Blocklist widget.

Google commented on the Webmaster Central blog:In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms.

This comment suggests that they’re still evaluating the effectiveness of including the personal blocklist in their algorithm. They are hesitant perhaps after concerns from worried webmasters that it’s possible for a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) style attack against a site where hundreds of thousands of hacked computers around the world are instructed to send a block request back to Google for a specific site.

Presumably, Google has some way to monitor the quality, volume and frequency of any blocklist requests, which as a last resort may come down to a manual review. It is more than likely that Google would seek to provide an algorithmic solution that would capture other similar sites rather than one-off global blacklisting against individual sites. Otherwise, one might take this to the final degree and ask, what would happen if we all sent a personal blocklist request against one of Google’s own sites?

As in the US, there have been significant winners and losers in this latest update. Figures produced early on by Search Metrics were disputed by some webmasters that the data was calculated prior to the Panda rollout having actually taken place. However, these figures were soon backed up by a second report from SISTRIX, which broadly contained the same results as the earlier Search Metrics report.

Some of the key losers were:

• Ehow.co.uk (84%)
• Ezinearticles.com (78%)
• Twenga.co.uk (79%)
• Shopzilla.co.uk (77%)
• Ciao.co.uk (81%)
• Hotfrog.co.uk (87%)
• Reviewcentre (89%)

Whilst some of the winners included:

• Ebay.co.uk (42%)
• Econsultancy.com (37%)
• Thisismoney.co.uk (30%)
• Mirror.co.uk (24%)
• Itv.com (22%)
• Metro.co.uk (21%)
• Independent.co.uk (21%)

From our own analysis of these figures it appears that the following sites were hit hardest:

• Voucher sites where the vouchers have expired, there is little unique information about a voucher, or there are too many links off the site.
• Price comparison sites with considerable outbound links and little original content.
• Sites with little original content, such as scraped content or little unique product information.
• Article sites with content duplicated on other article sites, and a significant number of outbound links.
• Sites with too much repeated content and with no canonical attributes set in the headers.
• Sites with too many adverts (particularly above the fold), including Google AdSense.
• Sites with broken RSS feeds.
• Job sites where the job vacancy information also appears on other sites. This is likely because many job sites in the UK pull their vacancy information from Broadbean, a central recruitment management site for recruitment agents.

And of the sites that won this battle, several were media sites (ITV, Metro, Mirror, Independent) where unique content (both content by journalists and moderated user comments) are created on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, ReviewCentre.com put out a blog post on 14 April updating users on the devastating impact of the Google Panda update, and how they found it inexplicable. They proposed that they had made a re-inclusion request, but as we mentioned last month, Google is ignoring any such requests with relation to Panda. Rather, it encourages site owners to correct what Google perceives to be the faults in their site.

Taking a glance at a ReviewCentre.com page at random, such as this one, it was clear to us that the site could well be falling foul on at least two counts. First, there are way too many advertisement links on the page relative to the content. Second, there are a lot of outbound links to Ask.com at the bottom of the page which do not have a nofollow attribute set in the link.

More positively, HubPages.com has been quick to realise just how bad its 72% loss in positions has been, and has taken immediate steps to update its policies on submitted content. In a blog post on 28 April 2011, it clearly laid out new standards for publication. Other article sites should take note. Clearly HubPages.com means business and intend to regain their positions through a significant improvement in content quality. Although it is not stated in the post, we have to consider if they will drop all or most previous content or revisit it against the new standards. As Google has made clear that moving forward, the content quality will affect positions and the content of the past is no exception.

Clearly, HubPages.com have been taking some good SEO advice. And, this is exactly where a good SEO expert is vital. If you understand the essence of Google Panda (and we’re here to help you with that understanding!) you will be best placed to give your clients expert advice to help them to regain lost positions.

One of the big winners of the UK update was reportedly Econsultancy.com. Interestingly, in their own blog post of 27 April, they highlighted that they’d not seen their traffic move. Even accounting for the Easter holidays it is interesting to note that the 37% increase in traffic had not equated to any more site visitors. This could be for a number of factors, though, not least that Econsultancy.com has traditionally relied on niche phrase traffic which may not have changed in the 37% headline figure. So, it may be that the dramatic headline figures (both positive and negative) might not equate to a massive change in site traffic. However, a longer time period to assess the change, without holidays and a Royal Wedding in between, could produce some different statistics.

The same blog post also highlights some further data from Stickyeyes.com, a search marketing company. Their statistics suggest that Panda so far has had narrower-ranging impact than both the Vince and Caffeine updates previously did. This may be the case where Panda, although it has affected a large number of sites, has targeted a narrow niche of particular criteria and there will continue to be many sites out there that have felt little to no impact. The post also details the impact across six specific market segments: Credit Cards, Gambling, Flights, Hotels, Holidays and Car Insurance. Of those, Gambling sites saw the highest position improvement with Hotel sites seeing the largest fall.

About.com was Google’s latest target in the Panda/Farmer Update killing spree. Google has once again stated that this update was a small one and only affects less than 2% on the results. (Not such a small amount if you’re that 2%).

Since the update was released several sites have complained that they have had big traffic drops. However, the most notable site is About.com, which is perhaps the most successful content farm there is today. They said they had a 10% drop in click through rate when the update was released. Other sites targeted include forums, some of which can be easily explained by poor content and poor moderation.

As we stated last month…here’s what Google had to say about it:

In some high-confidence situations, we are beginning to incorporate data about the sites that users block into our algorithms. In addition, this change also goes deeper into the long tail of low-quality Web sites to return higher-quality results where the algorithm might not have been able to make an assessment before.

While things are still settling down within the search results it seems like the biggest changes have happened. If your site is one that has been hit hard either within the US or internationally then read this byte to see the approach our experts are taking when supporting our FastTrack Members with it in-house.

Smacked by Google’s Content Farmer Update? Here’s what to do.

The lesson that has been hard learned by many webmasters this year is that when you don’t play by Google’s rules…you don’t win.

For certain ads in top positions, Google is adding your domain name to your headline. The domain will be all lowercase and won’t include the ‘www.’ You also get a normal (green) display URL below the description line, as usual.

This will even show up in ads where Description Line 1 is included in the headline as well, provided it doesn’t exceed a total of 68 characters.

David Rothwell points out:

Do the math: Google includes an extra 3 characters between your headline (25) and your description (35). That’s 63 characters, leaving only 5 to see your domain name if you use up all the characterss available. It’s the magic ‘68′ again, as with full display of your title tag (SEO).

Here’s Google’s full announcement.

Last year Google teased Place Page owners with a possible Google Store View allowing customers to virtually walk into businesses while using the Google Street View function of Google Maps. The testing was short lived and we were left thinking it was discontinued.

Well Google seems to have had a change of heart. They’ve officially launched this feature and it’s being called Google Business Photos. Currently it’s only available in certain cities in the US, Australia and Japan. The US areas include: Orange County, CA; the San Francisco Bay Area, St. Petersburg, FL; San Antonio, TX; and Phoenix, AZ.

When businesses apply to have the photos taken, Google sends a free photographer to their business to take the needed pictures. Currently Google is only hitting the most popular search for places – like restaurants, hotels, retail shops and other storefront businesses.

If you’re interested in getting in on this feature, then watch the video below on Google Business Photos to get the whole story:

Then you go ahead and sign up here.

At the end of May Google gave a formal announcement of the release of Google Wallet using NFC. NFC chips allow a user to simply tap their mobile device against special payment pads to process their transactions within the store.

The goal is to get enough adoption from merchants and users alike that Google Wallet will not only store a credit card or Prepaid Google cash card but also, help the shopper store coupons, gift cards and loyalty card numbers. The technology also allows users to store boarding passes and tickets to events. Google has already partnered with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint with more big names to soon follow.

Any merchant that already utilizes the Mastercard PayPass will be compatible with Google Wallet. It appears now that any device with a NFC chip should be compatible with Google Wallet and Google is willing to work with anyone that is interested in utilizing the technology regardless of the platform.

Google Wallet will also be integrated with Google Offers – via ‘deals of the day’. This allows users to find online coupons and deals that you can present at the store for discounts or tap to redeem. If widely adopted, the implications are pretty cool for vendors and shoppers alike. Demonstrations included someone tapping their smartphone against an outdoor ad to ‘capture’ a coupon.

As of right now the capabilities for Google Wallet are only available on the Sprint Nexus S but adoption to more phones is expected over the next few months as Google Wallet is further promoted and developed.

One company that is NOT happy to hear of this announcement is PayPal. The payment services giant filed a lawsuit saying that Google stole trade secrets as well as poached employees that were already working hard on PayPal’s own mobile payment services plans. The difference between PayPal and Google? PayPal charges a transaction fee and Google Wallet will not. Hard to argue with that.