Google Is Like a Box of Chocolates: You Never Know What You’re Gonna Get
Date: December 17, 2015Category: Author: Jaren Martineau
Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”. –Forrest Gump
With all the changes and twists that happen in Google search, Google is also very much like a box of chocolates—you can never tell exactly what you’ll get.
Online marketing and SEO are continually evolving. Google is by far the largest search engine, changes to Google have widespread implications. In order to stay relevant and excel, you must keep up with and often anticipate changes.
Location Search
Most SEO experts are aware that location continues to increase in importance in the Google algorithm and that the website author needs to do little more than represent the location of the business accurately to Google. Google then takes that accurate location and matches it to searches when it determines that the search has local intent. Since it knows where the searcher is located, it can deliver highly relevant results. For example, a search made for “South Mountain Park” from someone in Phoenix will result in results for South Mountain Park, which is just south of Phoenix. But if that same search is made in Hagerstown, Maryland, Google will show results for South Mountain State Park in northern Maryland.
Mobile devices make the idea of local search especially appealing and useful. It’s no secret that Internet use from mobile devices has risen at a staggering pace. Moving forward, Google will continue to make changes and improvements with this in mind.
It does come as a surprise, though, that although searches with local intent are becoming more important, Google has recently removed the ability of the average person to simulate a local search from a location other than their own.
This feature was useful for people planning trips, but especially for search marketers. It allowed a searcher to enter in a zip code or a city and run a Google search as if they were in that location. This made it simple for a search marketer to check the search results for people living in markets different from their own. There are a few ways to get this same information, but none of them are as quick and convenient as this way.
New Penguin update
For quite some time, Google’s been working on an update to Penguin, the part of its algorithm that looks at link quality. Google’s own Gary Illyes led us to believe that this update would likely happen before the end of 2015. Google recently revealed it’s running behind schedule and that we should expect to see this update released in 2016.
This new release of Penguin is expected to run in real-time. Previous releases of Penguin have been rolled out manually at scheduled times. This release should continually run in the background, offering website owners who’ve been penalized a chance to clean up their links and have their websites re-evaluated when Google examines their links again, instead of waiting until Penguin is updated or refreshed.
Google+
Google+ recently underwent drastic changes. It has now completely separated Google+ from Google MyBusiness—no longer displaying basic business information such as hours, location, or reviews. Check out Mike Blumenthal’s recent blog post about this change.
This is disappointing to many businesses who’ve invested significant resources into building and promoting their Google+ page. Additionally websites can no longer directly link users with company Google reviews.
SSL
An SSL encrypted website currently gives a small ranking boost in Google search results. This ranking boost is nothing more than a “tie breaker” in the algorithm. However, this may be set to change in 2016.
Gary Illyes mentioned this past summer that Google plans to strengthen the importance of SSL in the algorithm. Google sees this additional layer of website security as an additional reason to “trust” a website, and will reward this extra effort accordingly.
JSON-LD
Structured data is a way of presenting information on your website that is simple for Google to accurately interpret. It helps Google to take some of the guesswork out of what particular pieces of information on your website mean.
There are a variety of ways to present this information. Google announced recently that structured data, specifically JSON-LD, will become even more beneficial in the near future. Google has given a number of nods toward JSON-LD as opposed to other structured data formats and plans to expand its usefulness in 2016.
Conclusion
SEO always has been about change. The Internet ecosystem is continually evolving and Google as well as other search engines must continually respond in order to meet user needs. Website owners must also continue to evolve to better cater to their visitors. When you cease to change, you cease to grow. There are many great opportunities yet to come!
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