It's been a year, one calendar year since I joined Distilled. My first task was to write a post for SEOmoz as the rest of the Distilled office (all in London then) was going to be out on holiday (the Brits and their bank holidays ... geez). So I geared up to write my first blog post on SEOmoz, as my others were always YOUmoz posts.
In light of the fact that I have the honor of posting one year later, I wanted to review what has changed in SEO. We always talk back and forth about how things change so much and yet stay the same. The basics are still the basics, good architecture, content and links are the name of the game. Some take that as the industry never really changes -- maybe we all make it up how things "change", but I disagree. And this has been a rather tumultuous year for SEO.
Now most of what I mention will be Google based. We do have a tendency to be very Google focused in SEO as most sites see a majority of their search traffic come from Google. If you know of any other changes in SEO I might have missed, please let me know in the comments and I'll credit you.
Please note that these are in no particular order ... not by date, not by importance, just my rambling.
Panda/Farmer/Scraper
The most recent of the Google updates, there has been much written on this on Distilled, SEOmoz, Search Engine Land, SERoundtable and many more. I am not going to babble on, but in short this update went after low quality sites using major advertising and little original content. We called it the Farmer update, Google called it the Panda Update, and soon after came the Scraper update ... targeting scraper sites.
Mayday
The Mayday update was the first after I started, it was the beginning of this wonderful mess (I said wonderful ... ) of an SEO year. If you think back, this update is very similar to the most recent update (Panda) in that it went for thin content sites ... only this time it went after those that were ranking for long tail terms. This sent many sites into panic and reset so many marketing campaigns and site designs. The spotlight was shifted to not only creating good content, but creating the right amount of content at the highest quality that will gain links.
Caffeine
Around the same time as Mayday, Google released the Caffeine Index. This provided Google a way of offering fresher content, faster. The update helped get content found and indexed faster and lead to the future of SERPs pages that included social and integrated local results (which we will discuss later).
Google Instant
Google Instant is an area of pride for Distilled. Rob Ousbey first posted about it before Google announced it (sorry guys!) and then just this last week, Justin Briggs noted the addition of the term "scam" to the blacklist of Instant results. We know that pornographic terms and many others do not show Google Instant results, but now scam doesn't either.
(But "scams" does *shrugs*)
Site Speed
Those were the major changes to the algorithm and updates, but one other thing that has occurred in the last 12 months was the announcement that site speed was a factor in ranking. A minor factor, but something that Google wanted us to pay attention to.
Loss of US Market Share for Google
All Google, all the time. I know what you all are thinking right now. But this year did bring a bit of bad news to the Googlers in California. We have seen smaller drops over the last few years, but we have really started to see Google lose market share over the last year. The next 12 months should be interesting with Bing's push to close that gap.
Bing/Yahoo Final Change
Speaking of Bing, one major change was of course the completion of the Yahoo/Bing merger ... well search merging. All the paid accounts completed their merges and Yahoo's results became Bing's results. Sad day, but it's not like Yahoo was always its own search engine anyway. *kicks dirt*
Multi-lingual Site Changes
2010 was the year for many companies to start thinking about taking their online strategy global. International SEO is one of the more advanced topics and something I personally have talked much about this year. But there was one big change to how international multi-lingual sites might operate. We all know that translating content is necessary to target certain users, but the same content just translated can pose problems for ranking and indexing. Google is trying to help with the rel alternate tag allowing sites to denote the same content in a different languages. This is not however the saviour to all of your international issues. This just helps with templetized content being translated on the same site ... getting into targeting different countries, now that is still somewhat challenging.
SERPs Changes
Once Caffeine took effect, it swung open the doors for a wide variety of changes to what content was shown on SERPs pages and how ... on Google that is. We have gone from 10 blue links and descriptions to Products, Maps, Integrated Local, Brand Refinements, Faceted Search, and user input. The most recent user input is of course the +1 button, in addition to the ability to flag and hide sites from your search results.
But the biggest change has been in preferred results from your social circle. This has been tested in many forms the "posts from your friends" at the end of results to avatars showing below search results noting which of your friends recommended the page. Things are getting real and it's getting harder to game results that are totally dependent on a user's actions and social circle.
Others of Note
There have been many other changes including those from players in the SEO world, many movers and shakers, and much news from the other sides of online marketing like social and paid. But I would be talking forever if I included all of those.
However, there were a few more that impact SEO directly and I thought they were worth mentioning.
- Keyword Tool Change - Google updated their Keyword Tool, making it more relevant (or less in other's eyes) by numbers but still not fully accurate.
- New Analytics Interface - Brand new and still in beta (sign up here), but will definitely impact how SEOs do some of their work.
- Weighted Sort - A personal favorite, but there was the release of weighted sort within Google Analytics. Just awesome.
Year in Review Takeaways
This wasn't an earth shattering post for most, and I hate to leave you just reminiscing about what happened in the last year. We are all about teaching and learning at Distilled/SEOmoz (I'm sure some of you will school me with big things I missed on this list), so here is what I think we can all learn and take back to projects after this last year.
- Put Users First - plain and simple, if you keep them in focus you won't go wrong by Google or Bing.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff - Small changes in ranking, site speed, or any future algo changes should be taken with a grain of salt. Follow the first lesson and these changes should have little effect on you.
- Keep Your Ear to the Ground - But after that last note, I do recommend always knowing what is going on in the industry and with your own site. You should know at all times how your site is performing so that when the boss comes calling about not ranking for a keyword (personalized results FTW!), you can back things up with hard data and related industry trends.
- Create Good Sites, Good Content, and Get People Talking - Marketing. It's all about marketing. Do it right the first time and don't cut corners. Integrate your whole marketing plan and you will have many opportunities to get "real estate" on a SERPs page.
... And all the things that are going to change this year... That was my thought after reading your post Kate. And how some of those changes seem so distant, was another thought.
I think that one day, when this sort of revolution in Search will have it's "History Book", we will have to start from the Vince update and the introduction of Universal Search and two big Macro changes in Online Marketing:
And then there were the some other news, minor, but have affected our daily job, i.e. MicroFormats, the boom of SEO for Video (and the Video Sitemaps) and so on.
But one word comes to my mind when I look back and then observe what's the panorama of Search now: blur.
If once SEO was a well defined discipline, almost technical and with a touch a copywriting skills, now is blurred. SEO is still tech (and even more techie then once), but Content Marketing has gained a huge weight. SEO was not social, now SEO and Social are getting closer and closer influencing one the other (aren't we already talking of Facebook Search Optimization? Aren't we seeing new tools which are all about Social Search?), SEO is entering in fileds that weren't so predominant before, as Conversion Rate Optimization, because rankings - hurray! - are not those idol metric they were before.
It is not just Search what's under a revolution, it's the same concept of SEO as we knew it. OH! I'm not saying SEO is dead, just saying that we are assisting to an evolution of the SEO species :)
Another noticebale change is evolution of SEO from mere on-page optimization and link building to full fledged inbound marketing. I can see how Inbound marketing is becoming must for a successful SEO campaign in many industries. Google added the impressions and CTR data in Google Webmaster tools and 'in-page analytics' feature in Google Analytics. I think these are also major updates for some people like me.
You don't really notice how much happens in a year until it's all laid out. Nice job Kate, thanks for the summary. - Jenni
To me, the most significant Google update in the last 365 days was Place Search. I suppose that if you don't work with local businesses, this impacted you less. However, Place Search dramatically changed the local search landscape.
The next most significant is probably social signals.
Nice Post, you almost completely cover the previous year. I love the quote by Bill Gates (It seems like Microsoft (Bing) just started to follow this) ‘either change or Die’. The last year was great for search and SEOs around the world. All SEOs regardless of Black or White hat were on their toes some were working hard to meet the Google standards and some were busy finding loopholes in the system.
I personally believe that to improve and to grow, change is necessary. Over all a great post!
Thanks for reading. Love the quote, and yes we were all on our toes. White or not. :)
Great post Kate! There truly has been a ton of changes over the last year that have shaken up the way many SEO's optimize and rank websites. It will be interesting to see what happens this year as Google continues to tweak their algo to "week out more spam sites" and clean up the SERPs.
Congratulations on a year in office Kate. I take it you are launching your re-election campaign today? ;) Cheers!
Totally. Well I think I get an automatic extra term ... no one has kicked me out of (the) office yet. *looks around* ;)
Create Good Sites, Good Content, and Get People Talking
This sums it up pretty good!
Happy 1 year Kate! Great roundup of all the changes that has happened, I'm sure a few of us have forgotten some of them.
This is a great summary over the last year. We need to use this guide and "course correct" if we have gone off the beaten path for our particular sites.
Congrats on the 1 year! I agree that the quality of your site is the TOP priority.
Thanks for the update recap for the past year!
Congrats on your year 1 anniv and your nice roundup. Years tend to go by very quickly in this industry. Well done. :)
This is one of 8 so far and it feels like yesterday I was working in Overture. *sigh*
I agree although some aspects haven’t changed the whole areas as a whole has I remembered when I first started SEO back in 2005 it was all about links no matter where they came from the industry is allot more refined now.
I agree with you about Goolge although I would be paying allot of attention to Bing as well now they currently have a large share of the market in the US and I think this will have a factor in years to come.
I think SEO is going to change massively over the next 5 years again and I think it will become a slightly smaller than social media.
Nice article. Greate research base on seo changes in last one year.
Great article Kate - Hard to extract what was potent from an exciting year in the business.
I agree with the list of changes in SEO with the addition of the Google & Bing webmaster tools updates as well. I would recommend that we add a few things to the “Year in Review Takeaways” such as measuring, more controlled testing, and acting on the information (not over reacting!). SEO changes will continue to happen over the next year but I would assume that the fundamentals will remain the same. We just need to have good information to seize the opportunity.
Really nice info.
I also tried to explain the Google Panda Update for .ro (google.ro) and specifically wrote that the algorithm has not been implemented for all countries, because there are differences. I did use some of your charts or metrics, because otherwise it would've been harder.
It can be found (in Romanian) on https://e-business.inotec.ro/seo-sem/despre-google-panda-update/, hope it helps some guys :).
I worry that some site owners are overreacting to the information on site speed to a point where it can hurt the user experience. For instance doing things like removing photos or choosing a design that loads faster may help site speed but makes your website less engaging.
Hope to see you to continue and let us know the same update in compilation next year, great compilation of last year updates, Kate !
agree some are missing but a person can’t be a computer anyway great memory or documentation Kate !
I like the google localize update much because it helps my customer to find them in click and direct the roadmap
Yup, the one thing that this post shows me is that you have to pay attention. Or you will get left behind.'
"Keep your ear to the ground" - Stay current, because in just one year so much has changed, and will continue to change.
Blogger also is launching new functionalities that there are interestings. :)
Great post. Really useful and a few things here that I missed.
Thanks.
i love these changes because after this i have to learn a lot new things, unless my ranking not hurt :p
Thanks for reviewing almost all major changes and updates within 1 year. Being a webmaster every changes like mayday, farmer updates, +1 etc. excits me a lot. I have always tried my best to dig dipper into the reason behind these changes and predicting future consequences on SEO. But every time i starts with a new project one thing that always stricks my mind is "do you really think the basics of successful SEO is changing".
I liked your post but the most influencing line for me within this post is -"We always talk back and forth about how things change so much and yet stay the same. The basics are still the basics, good architecture, content and links are the name of the game."
May be i am not an SEO geek, but i would like to ask other webmasters that do these updates has changed the way you used to handel your SEO projects a year ago as comparing to the way you are doing now.
These updates iimpact some of our clients at Distilled, but didn't change how we do our job or what we recommend. But it did change many people's business plans and thoughts for link building projects that included building content sites just for links. There were some techniques that worked last year that no longer work due to these updates. So while the basics do not change, the more "creative" techniques for links and ranking can change with updates. But the best way to do business is to focus on the end user. Making them happy first will ensure that few updates ever impact you.
Hi Kate, there have also been some nice improvements in the Google Webmaster Tools and in the Bing Webmaster Tools.Not to forget the mobile scene.
But as you said, you can't write about all changes - this would certainly go beyond the scope of that post.
My boyfriend (who works for Microsoft but not Bing) brought that up too. We just focus a lot on Google as it's still the major traffic source in the US. But I did forget to mention mobile. I'm hoping maybe someone will follow this up with a post on mobile updates too. I'm really interested in that space as it is exploding! :)
Good post, alot of changes in the last year if you are very busy with projects and working like crazy thing move quickly you really need to keep up and stay ahead of the SEO game.
But with all the changes most of the basics of SEO still stand you just need to integrate new bolt ons to your strategies.
you missed off the happenings in October. Firstly google fekked the index with many sites home pages dissapearing and random deep pages being listed quickly followed by some sort of update that send many sites spiralling out of the top serps.
Give me some links and I'll add in if appropriate :)
Nice round up of the previous year in SEO and congratulations on you first year at Distilled.
Have to agree that getting the basics right still count a great deal despite all the other ranking factors that are now a big importance.
I think so long as you get the basics right then it's a case of choosing which of the other factors will give you the biggest benefit in the SERPs.
Lots have happened in the last year. Good post.
Nice post. I was searching such thing and my search got end when I reached here.
Thanks
Nice post it sums up all the changes nicely and also shows the trend to give more weight on content and trust.
I'm wondering if there is also going to be a shift to give branded seo factors more value. Matt Cutts was even talking about devaluing exact match domains. If this change is going to happen it's going to have some major impact on the serps.
When you lay it all out like there, there certainly have been a lot of changes in the last year! I think for the most part everything that has happened in the past year has been for the better. The Google updates centered around creating a better user-experience by cleaning up the SERP and getting spam sites out of the results. While some sites may feel like they were unfairly hit (mostly by the Panda update), in the end I think it is for the best.
Funny thing is I edited some stuff out. So much has happened, its weird to look back and see everything.
Time has come when Internet Marketers can worry less about Google updates as Google has started loosing share to Socal Media; Google is no longer the only major traffic source. High Quality websites & businesses can recieve sustainable traffic without much Google's assistance. The best part is that the offline marketing efforts trasnalte into website traffic very well with help of social media (which doesn't happen in case of Google).
Google is trying to adjust with +1 but like Google wave, it too seems to be sailing in the wrong direction.
Btw, Great post Kate! And congratulations for completing 1 year with Distilled :)
"Google is trying to adjust with +1 but like Google wave, it too seems to be sailing in the wrong direction."
Can you elaborate on that? I think +1 is a step in the right direction but am curious why you think it is not.
I'm with brulok, I actually think the thought process behind plus one is a good one. I have no idea if it'll work, but giving power to users is a good idea. I am just more worried about gaming it.
Hi Kate & Brulok, Google's intent with +1 is right. I am concerned about things like:
Rest, I think Google should have introduced a social feature like this long time back; it's just that Google's bad track record with social media is making me a little skeptical on success of this particular feature.
So you basically said everything I was about to say to the above posters before I read yours. Google keeps trying to reinvent the wheel with social and they keep failing hard. Their "inventions" come off as cheap immitations to the real thing. The social graph is already owned by-in-large. Facebook and Twitter have it. Work with them not against them. Continually trying to 1 up (+1) people who are better at social than google isnt doing them any favors. If anything its junking up thier serp interface while alienating users and encouraging gaming and spam. The +1 system is worthless. I wonder how long it will take the big G to announce it going the way of wave. Bets anyone?
I'm with you on this - you can't impose social networking on users - it's about engagement and connection. Add this to the loooong list of Google "beta" fails.
i complete agree with pulkit, the reason he has shown are quite genuine.
One more thing i would like to add is - things which works well in facebook and twitter may not work for Google. For undersanding this i have reffered a meta search engine (Zorbis.co.in) that shows facebook shares and twitter tweets for every websites in search result.
There i found that inspite of the fact that people shares numerous links in facebook on daily basis, still we can see only few websites are having facebook likes/shares within the search result.
This stricks me one thing that Google deals with billions of web pages and encounter millions of queries on daily basis. So if i have +1 some website then my friend will able to see it only if he search of the same query or any similar query that can have the impression of the shared website. If you count the probability then you will find (1/millions) its too low.
So i really wonder how many people will going to +1 websites across the web and how their social connections will get benifited through this.
While a lot of Internet traffic is now flowing through social media, I don't think it is replacing search engines. Nobody goes in to facebook and types in digital cameras if they want to buy a new digital camera, they either choose a brand of shop, or they go to a search engine. Quite often they do both, in which case showing several sales options with better deals is a great way to make a conversion.
Wow, missed the new Google Analytics info the first time I read this... sounds fantastic. Follow that link for gems like this: "you can now view multiple advanced segments without needing to also use All Visits" Can't wait to be able to compare my low percent mobile data from different OS's without my All Visits making the graph completely useless!