This year has been huge for SEO; Google is finally clamping down on cheap, easy link-building and rewarding those sites with authentic, high-quality and engaging content.
The SEO industry is shedding its shady reputation and being recognised as a skilful online marketing art. Here are five of the most memorable updates the Branded3 SEO team were talking about this year:
Tweets Vs. Rankings
The increasing need for mobile SEO
Hitting UK searches in April this year, Google’s latest Penguin update fought against aggressive web spam tactics and aimed to clean up link profiles. It’s estimated that this update affected 0.3% of UK queries, but even to those it didn’t hit, it sent a clear message that Google was fighting ‘over-optimisation’.
Google has also continued to refine and modify the Panda algorithm update this year, which affects whole sites rather than just specific pages, and penalises low-quality sites with copied or useless content. So-called ‘content farms’ have been the target, confirming that Google’s aim is to reprimand those sites who try too hard with black-hat SEO tactics.
Although many webmasters and SEO’s had a tough time this year in the wake of these updates; moving forward, it means that sites can now focus on quality content and achieving user goals, rather than trying to play the system.
