Search Algorithms
Search engines have complex search algorithms which are used to ensure they are able to display the most relevant and useful results to their users. While algorithm changes are common and won’t usually affect a site’s ranking, search engines such as Google will occasionally introduce a major update which may impact search results. Our Hangout Notes cover insights from Google around these algorithms with best practice advice.
Test Sites Won’t Necessarily Perform Same as Normal Site in Search
Don’t assume that test sites will perform the same way in search as regular sites, because Google may treat them differently. For example, Google might judge that pages on a test site aren’t worth performing full rendering on because it doesn’t make sense for them to spend more resources on this page
Google Treats CDN Hosted Sites Same as Non-CDN Hosted Sites
Sites hosted using a CDN aren’t treated differently to non-CDN sites, as Google sees it as another way of hosting a site.
AdWords Quality Score Metrics Have No Relation to Organic Search
The AdWords landing page test and quality scores are completely different systems to organic search.
You Don’t Need to Optimise Specifically for Voice Search
At the moment you don’t have to do anything specific for voice search. If Google understand your content for other things in search, then Google should be able to understand the content for voice search.
Google Only Announces Algorithm Updates When There Are Actions for Site Owners
Google only announces updates to the algorithm when there is something specifically for website owners to work on, such as the speed update, the mobile-friendly update and mobile-first indexing. The most recent updates have been around relevance which is difficult to give broad, actionable advice for.
Quality Rater Guidelines & EAT Don’t Directly Impact Rankings
EAT and the Quality Rater Guidelines show where Google is heading in the future for providing better content to users, but they don’t directly impact Google’s algorithms.
Being Part of Organizations like The Trust Project Could Indirectly Improve Rankings
Belonging to organizations like The Trust Project won’t have a direct ranking impact, but may indirectly influence rankings as users may trust and value your content more if your website is associated with them.
Optimize for Relevance Rather than Ranking Factors
Avoid focusing on ranking factors and instead focus on Google’s long-term strategy, which is to show great, relevant websites to users.
Word Count has Nothing to do with Google’s Ranking Algorithms
The word count of a page plays no part in Google’s algorithms when deciding which pages should rank higher. Website owners can analyse word count to see which pages may be high quality or thin, but this doesn’t factor into search.
Entities Are Processed By Hummingbird Algorithm
Hummingbird is the Google search algorithm that deals with entities. The better that Google can extract information from a website in a machine-readable way, the more likely they will be able to understand topics and entities that are on different pages. Structured data can help with this.