BrightApe SEO

With algorithm changes such as the Panda, we’ve seen Google focus over the recent months on improving the volume of high-quality sites shown within the SERPs.
Algorithmically, Google accesses the quality of a site which leaves the question – what exactly counts as a high quality site?

Google’s latest post on the “Official Google Webmaster Central” blog details 23 questions that the Google bots could be asking themselves when they knock on your site’s door. Take a look at the post from the Webmaster Central blog here: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

For those of you who are too lazy to read through that article, here’s the questions:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

If you’ve been Google slapped as a low-quality site, don’t expect to be ranking as per usual any-time soon. Matt Cutt’s was asked how long a user can expect to regain traffic after they’ve completely re-worked the site and this was his reply:

“short version is that it’s not data that’s updated daily right now. More like when we re-run the algorithms to regen the data.”

Better late than never though, right? If you’ve been hit, don’t sit back and expect everything to be fine. If Google is a major source of traffic for your site, bend over and give in to Google. Ask yourself the same questions as they’ve listed on the webmaster central blog (and more!). Do you have spelling errors, factual errors, low-quality content? Even if you have one article on the site that Google sees as low quality it could be affecting the rest of the site so get rid of it!

If you haven’t been hit yet, don’t sit back either…future proof yourself.

Don’t take these questions as gospel, because they’re not. They’re no means a requirement – don’t go grabbing SSL for your forum because you read “Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?” use common sense – like anything with SEO.