Google has moved on big-time in the past few years. First,
putting noticeable restrictions on spammers, and now to a
potential
death of inbound links. Companies across the world still
base their SEO strategies on link building and I can't tell
you how many times people approach me asking how to increase
inbound links. Sure, Yahoo and MSN could still be living
the early days where relevance of a site was determined by
incoming links, but Google is developing something new and
it could clearly be seen in their Information Retrieval Based
on Historical Data patent (by the way, if you read through
inventors of that patent, you'll see good-old Matt Cutts
that's been buzzing around the net to my great annoyance).
From the document:
A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types
of history data associated with the document. The system may
generate a score for the document based, at least in part,
on the one or more types of history data.
With this patent Google is remodelling their search algorithm
and the new age of search will be based on Clickstream. In
other words, Google is now able to measure user behaviour
on a website by tracking clickthroughs, cached items, history,
etc. Google makes it clear that the way users behave while
visiting your site after finding it through a search query
reflects on the relevance of that site. I have absolutely
no objections to that method. So what can you do get prepared
for the new wave of search algorithms?
Create an inviting Description Meta Tag
While there are still some meta tag critics, I wan to encourage
everyone to write a user friendly description tag. It doesn't
have to contain your keywords, the sole function of it is
to increase visitor CTR (click through ratio) when they see
your result in their search.
Establish a solid content base
When a visitor find himself on your site, there needs to
be information he/she was looking for. In other words, you
mist write useful and compelling content to grab attention.
This is where blogs are guaranteed to succeed, since it is
a blogger's goal to write quality content.
Make your site user-friendly
There is no other way to convert visitors to regular readers
other than making your site user-friendly. You should work
on obvious navigation, good color scheme, and anything else
that can be though of as attractive by a random visitor.
Make visitors want to bookmark your site
The patent hints that bookmarking can be though of as a measure
of your site's relevance/importance. Make it easy for users
to bookmark you and secure an extra returning visitor.
The path I've just described seems abstract and mathematically
unfocused. Fortunately (or unfortunately for some of us)
this seems to be the way Google is headed. Ranking a site
based on how visitors behave on it is a very good estimate
of that site's relevance and importance. For now, we all
must think in terms of the future and work for things that
are yet to come. Whatever it maybe, the only sure way to
high rankings is quality work and product.
Additional Sources: Information
Retrieval Based on Historical Data patent.
Ignat Drozdov is an SEO working in Washington DC, specializing
in new business launches in Europe and Asia. Ignat is also
an editor of
BlogSEO.
