Page 12 - Payout Magazine Online Volume 9.4

Preparing For and
Recovering From
Google Updates
Websites are bounced around in the
search results pages because of Google
updates around 14 times a week, or hundreds
of times a year. Most are minor and don’t do
much to upset the status quo. However, every
so often, Google will release a big one that
creates disruptive waves in the web sphere.
Google is always striving to present its
users with web pages that provide the best
user experience, which means it’s critical
that webmasters keep up with and adjust to
Google’s many algorithm changes.
For many organizations, a website is integral googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.
to their marketing strategy. While first page
rankings remain stable, everything coasts along
nicely. However, when a big update hits, the
entire digital marketing strategy can be thrown
into disarray.
Unfortunately, where a page ranks in the
search engines can mean the difference
between making bank or a trip to the poor
house. It’s crucial you learn how to prepare your your website rankings during minor and major
site for Google updates, and have strategies in
place which can help you recover when they
are released.
12 PayOutMagazine
Use Google’s Guidelines for Quality
Content
One of the best ways to ensure your site
is prepared and can weather the storm of
each update is to take the advice of Google
themselves.
Google doesn’t just rely on machine-based
algorithms to ensure quality search results;
they also make use of human employees who
are aptly titled Search Quality Evaluators.
The evaluators are provided a comprehensive
set of guidelines [link: https://static.
c o m /e n // i n s i d e s e a r c h / h o w s e a r c h w o r k s / your traffic stats in the short-term, but if it
assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf]
to help them rate the quality of a site.
On page 21 of the document, you will find
the terms Expertise, Authoritativeness, and
Trustworthiness (E-A-T). If you use the E-A-T
guidelines when populating your site with
content, it should provide a buffer to protect
updates.
If you think you have recently been bumped
from the search results, it could be that your
E-A-T score is a little off and needs improving.
Here’s how you can improve the quality score
of your site to recover and protect it from future
algorithm updates.
1. Add an Author Byline
As far as Google is concerned an author
byline is about more than satisfying a reader’s
curiosity, it’s an essential piece of data to reveal
who is providing the information.
Not only does Google want their users to
know who is responsible for the content they
also require that the author be contactable if
the page is a service or product page.
2. Remove the Low-Quality Content
Poor quality content may be bumping up
continues to remain a part of your site, it will, in
time, bring down your overall E-A-T score. Start
improving your stats by removing any content
you think Google deems to be low-quality and
replacing it with higher quality variations.
Whenever a major algorithm update hits,
improving quality content is the type of advice
you will most often hear as a strategy for
recovering your rankings.
3. Forget About the Quantity and Focus on
Quality of Backlinks
We’ve known for a while now that backlinks
from a rough neighborhood can hurt your site.