Combating Against Future SEO Algorithm Changes

Earlier this year, we saw huge changes to google’s search results algorithm by the name of Panda and Penguin.  It literally destroyed the traffic of many companies.  It even  made the main stream media.  This Wall Street Journal article pointing to the drops in search marketing traffic by small companies showed how it was literally hurting proprietors.  However, the focus has changed from “What do we do to respond to the changes by google?” to “How can we proactively conduct our SEO so that we’re not hit with these changes in the future?”  

Proactive SEO

Last month in a post on Search Engine Land, there were reports that Google would be continuing it’s significant changes in it’s algorithm.  It identified how they were tightening their standards on the “quality results” they hoped to provide users of the ubiquitous search engine.  But did it require a post in one of the prominent search marketing websites to help us know this was coming?

Not really…

The news and information about Google’s changes have been coming from the horse’s mouth for years.  If you haven’t checked out Google’s “Inside Search” blog, you’re really missing out.  While it does talk about the finer details and it can be quite boring for most, it at least gives companies the chance to become much more literate when it comes to search engine marketing.  It also doesn’t give you all an excuse anymore for being surprised about the changes.  You could be asking a lot more questions to prospective SEO vendors by having this information at your disposal.

For example, they highlight all their changes on a monthly or regular basis.  Here are the search algorithm changes in June and July of 2012.  Here are details about the “Image search” algorithm in July.  Frankly, this is becoming a larger and larger source of traffic, IMHO and I would definitely be paying attention to it.

Other SEO Resources

Also, if you haven’t heard of Matt Cutts by now, you really should start listening to him on occasion.  Here are some good addresses to pay attention to:

• Matt’s blog – Google/SEO Category Posts
• Matt’s Google Plus Page
• Lots of videos on Google Webmasters on Youtube including several by Matt

Frankly, after reading this, you have much less to excuse yourself from not knowing about the search engine marketing world.  🙂