Give Google What It Wants And Google Will Give You What You Want.

[AlexSafie]

Many internet marketers are always thinking about when the next Google algorithm change is going to be and how will it affect them.

Just recently with the Panda update you can read in this and other forums stories of people’s traffic and income declining.

And instead of analyzing what they did wrong everybody was blaming it on Google and their evil ways and the war between affiliates and "The Big G".

And in my opinion, all that is the wrong approach.

We have to understand that internet marketing is a business and like in any other business you have to build win – win relationships in order to have long term success.

When you build a nice website with quality content that is unique, well researched, useful and entertaining you are giving Google what it wants; relevant content to show to its users and that will satisfy their needs in the most convenient way.

When Google does that, it builds a win –win relationship with its users. Google wins because that satisfied user will return every time she / he needs some kind of information and will even tell a friend or two about their nice experience with Google. And the user wins because he / she found what they were searching for.

So that is why when you build a website that helps Google satisfy their customers you build a win – win relationship with Google. Google wins because you supplied recourses that helped Google achieve its goal of having a satisfied customer. And you win because when Google sees you as a valuable and relevant site it will award you with higher rankings, which in turn you can convert into money.

I know all of these is obvious, but sometimes we are so caught up in the day to day grind that we forget what it is all about.

A CHAIN OF WIN –WIN RELASHIONSHIPS WHERE EVERYONE IS SATISFIED.

[Tom Byrde]

I agree. And Google is female by the way

[Zach Crawley]

I try telling everyone, Google is not evil, they just want quality and they want to give the user what they want. Build a business like it should be built and Google will reward you for that.

[stodog77]

Well said. If you simply build high quality site with good content you will win at this game. Not brain surgery.

[AlexSafie]

Originally Posted by Tom Byrde

I agree. And Google is female by the way

Ok so give her what she wants...

uuhh.. that even sounds more appealing

[Ofthemix]

I might get some heat for this, but I'm going to say it anyways. I've noticed since the Google update, that my websites which were SEO optimized have had a drastic decrease in traffic, while the ones that weren't optimized have received more.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by AlexSafie

Just recently with the Panda update you can read in this and other forums stories of people’s traffic and income declining.

I don't know about other forums, but in this one you can also read many stories of people's traffic and income increasing, since the Panda update. It was a real boon to article marketers: clearing so many of those article directory listings out of the way has enabled us to rank the articles on our own sites even more easily.

I agree with the rest of your post, though.

[Black Hat Cat]

I think it's cute how naive some people are. Folks, there are 10 spots on page one, yet thousands(if not millions) of people "just giving Google what it wants" for any given keyword.

You do the math.

[spectrefax]

Google wants blogs/articles that spend 5 hours+ on each daily post with zero grammatical or spelling errors, plain and simple. The more you give away for free, the more google will love you.

The days of mass producing sites and enjoying lots of google traffic are over. Eventually the only viable business model for google will be authority sites with unique, in-depth content.

[Ofthemix]

Originally Posted by spectrefax

The days of mass producing sites and enjoying lots of google traffic are over. Eventually the only viable business model for google will be authority sites with unique, in-depth content.

I honestly couldn't agree more. With every update, Google catches more and more people who game their system and eradicates their online businesses.

[ilikemuffins]

Great post Alex!

[baseball_card]

Great post and it reminds us to write relevant content on our sites that isn't mass produced. The lazy way is to just put something together, but thinking about how best to present something meaningful obviously is of more value to everyone.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat

I think it's cute how naive some people are. Folks, there are 10 spots on page one, yet thousands(if not millions) of people "just giving Google what it wants" for any given keyword.

You do the math.

You need a new calculator - at best, those 10 spots are incredibly dynamic based on a multitude of variables and subject to change by the moment.

The OP is essentially correct that focusing on not gaming their system brings far more benefit in the long run that constantly finding new methods that fail in the short-term.

If you really understood the math behind it, you'd realize the OP is not being naive....someone else is.

[x3xsolxdierx3x]

Originally Posted by zachcrawley

I try telling everyone, Google is not evil, they just want quality and they want to give the user what they want. Build a business like it should be built and Google will reward you for that.

Google has told us what it wants all along....it really has, just like you said.

The sites that were hammered the hardest in traffic were the one's who neglected to build their businesses, and safeguard the very thing you had mentioned, zach: quality.

[Ken_Caudill]

Originally Posted by spectrefax

Google wants blogs/articles that spend 5 hours+ on each daily post with zero grammatical or spelling errors, plain and simple. The more you give away for free, the more google will love you.

The days of mass producing sites and enjoying lots of google traffic are over. Eventually the only viable business model for google will be authority sites with unique, in-depth content.

You said a lot there. Google doesn't want anyone selling anything unless it's them.

If you can make money giving away your products, more power to you.

I'd rather sell mine.

[alexander13]

Ken's point about google being in the affiliate game is spot on. They sell links all the time in their adwords system. also I just got a call from them about their new service "offers". It's their response to Groupon wanting too much to sell.

Black cat makes some good points too about their only being 10 spots and really only top 3 matter. For the most competitive keywords you have to have an edge and do more than just "post good content" because the other 2,000 real competitors for competitive keywords are also posting good content.

[Eric Lorence]

How about giving people what people want?

Let the fortune 500 search engines figure it out for themselves?

No, they are not "evil", nor are they all that "good" - they are a for profit generating business.

[thecableguy]

Ken Evoy in his MYSS (Make Your Site Sell) back in the late 90's said the same thing way back BG (before Google...almost). As I remember he had this cartoon drawing of a guy chasing a girl (you chasing the searchengines), and another with the girl chasing the guy (the searchengines chasing you). I think he called it 3rd generation websites or something. The only thing I'd add is it also keeps the advertisers happy which keeps Google happy and functioning. Once the searchers find a better source of content they'll leave, which is kinda what Google did to the "Big 8" of the late 90's.

[spectrefax]

Originally Posted by Ken_Caudill

You said a lot there. Google doesn't want anyone selling anything unless it's them.

If you can make money giving away your products, more power to you.

I'd rather sell mine.

I'm not advocating giving anything away for free, quite the contrary. I'm simply commenting on how google SERPs always have and continues to frown upon sites who aren't giving away content for free.

Example:
Let's say you write an ebook on whatever topic matter and write an article for its promotion.

Another person writes an article which contains everything you're selling in your ebook.

All other things being completely equal, the free content will ALWAYS out rank you with the way google is heading.

[AlexSafie]

Originally Posted by Alexa Smith

I don't know about other forums, but in this one you can also read many stories of people's traffic and income increasing, since the Panda update. It was a real boon to article marketers: clearing so many of those article directory listings out of the way has enabled us to rank the articles on our own sites even more easily.

I agree with the rest of your post, though.

Thanks Alexa

And you're right, as Google cleanses its index, websites with relevant content will start to move up in the rankings.

Each time Google updates its algorithm they are looking to ensure the delivery of quality, laser targeted content for the specific query of the searcher.

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

You need a new calculator - at best, those 10 spots are incredibly dynamic based on a multitude of variables and subject to change by the moment.

The OP is essentially correct that focusing on not gaming their system brings far more benefit in the long run that constantly finding new methods that fail in the short-term.

If you really understood the math behind it, you'd realize the OP is not being naive....someone else is.

Thanks Big Mike

That's exactly what I was referring to. Trying to play the system (with shortcuts or tricks) will never bring you long term benefits.

When building a website your mantra should be "how may I serve" and the more you serve the more you're rewarded.

[Jeremy Kelsall]

Edit: 10 char

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

You need a new calculator - at best, those 10 spots are incredibly dynamic based on a multitude of variables and subject to change by the moment.

The OP is essentially correct that focusing on not gaming their system brings far more benefit in the long run that constantly finding new methods that fail in the short-term.

If you really understood the math behind it, you'd realize the OP is not being naive....someone else is.

If you take Blue hat cat's post literally, then you are correct.

However, I read BlueFartcat's INTENT of his post to mean that even if you give Google what it wants, they may be others giving Google what it wants too, but are also doing SEO.

Now who wins?

[Scott Skinner]

Great post Alex. Unfortunately so many people are looking for the easy way out, they shortcut the basics.

[celente]

Originally Posted by Eric Lorence

How about giving people what people want?

Let the fortune 500 search engines figure it out for themselves?

No, they are not "evil", nor are they all that "good" - they are a for profit generating business.

Eric you are totally right.

Screw google!

They are constantly changing and ream people for no apparent reason. They just have the monopoly but you do not have to bow down to them because of this.

What OP failed to mention is that you want money. So you have to give people what they want, not google. Google is giving people what they want. and making money from this, it is their style of business.

The only reason I make money is I have a list of people whom I know what they want and are looking for. These days I do not care about ranks, and wake up at 3am to check my seo score. What a waist of life that would be.

[wallytr1]

I'll throw my hat in the ring... spam blogging is dead...

[Steven Fullman]

Google's search model is: "scrape every site, sell ads, make billions"

Try to scrape Google, however, and they'll ban your IP. Quick smart.

Those crazy boffins...

[AlexSafie]

Originally Posted by Kurt

If you take Blue hat cat's post literally, then you are correct.

However, I read BlueFartcat's INTENT of his post to mean that even if you give Google what it wants, they may be others giving Google what it wants too, but are also doing SEO.

Now who wins?

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but if you do things the right way you have a better chance of winning.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by Kurt

If you take Blue hat cat's post literally, then you are correct.

However, I read BlueFartcat's INTENT of his post to mean that even if you give Google what it wants, they may be others giving Google what it wants too, but are also doing SEO.

Now who wins?

Originally Posted by AlexSafie

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but if you do things the right way you have a better chance of winning.

That's great, but you seem to imply that what Google wants is the only "right" way and didn't really answer the question.

Two people give great content to Google and one does SEO and the other doesn't. Whose page will rank the highest?

And what if I write a quality article that's really good, and also do SEO, who wins?

Unless Google's results become random in the future, there will always be a reason why one page is listed above another.

And since google is bound by logic, it must have good relevant SERPs and not random ones, so we can assume that even if everyone writes "great" content, there will be SEO to determine in what order those "great" pages are listed.

[Tim Franklin]

Good post, it is really amazing to me how quickly so many content publishers seem to decide that google is or is not accurate in its value of content, however all that is inaccurate, the actual truth is that Google has little to do with what the consumer finds to be of value, oddly enough the one thing that so many people seem to forget about consumption of content online is that google is not the consumer.

People are the ultimate consumers.

I find this to be ironic that we have companies like Ezine articles, that have chosen to believe that spelling and grammar will help them get back into the google search results that is really funny to me, great post.

[JamesGw]

You also win because your customers are more likely to keep coming back to your site. Unfortunately, I think the Panda update hurt a lot of people unnecessarily, especially those that were relying on web 2.0 sites.

Another unintentional casualty of panda were ecommerce sites, which sucks. You shouldn't have to add a bunch of original content to a retail website in order to have it rank above your competitors. With that said, it does provide a good opportunity, since you're most likely competing against other etailers, many of whom won't be doing that. Easy money.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by Kurt

That's great, but you seem to imply that what Google wants is the only "right" way and didn't really answer the question.

Two people give great content to Google and one does SEO and the other doesn't. Whose page will rank the highest?

And what if I write a quality article that's really good, and also do SEO, who wins?

Unless Google's results become random in the future, there will always be a reason why one page is listed above another.

And since google is bound by logic, it must have good relevant SERPs and not random ones, so we can assume that even if everyone writes "great" content, there will be SEO to determine in what order those "great" pages are listed.

As things are today, I have to agree, albeit grudgingly, that yes, SEO will factor in to who ranks first.

But...more and more I'm noticing that I am ranking for keywords that I'm not using. This demonstrates to me that Google is continuing to focus on contextual relevance rather than simply SEO.

So, they drop the shallow or otherwise crappy content and focus on context and yes, if everyone is writing great content, then the most relevant will rank better.

It doesn't mean that good quality content can be easily outranked even with SEO - it simply means that depending on the user query, some content may be more suitable than others because of the slightly different context involved.

Tim Franklin got it - it's the consumer driving it...

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kurt

even if you give Google what it wants, they may be others giving Google what it wants too, but are also doing SEO.

Now who wins?

The one doing the best job of giving google what it wants? Maybe I read Alex wrong but I didn't get the impression he was saying don't do seo. It seeemed more along the lines - do it by giving Google what they want. Maybe I am reading my own understanding into the OP. I never took it as an either or statement but how to do SEO that can last all algo changes.

[Fernando Veloso]

Guys, I just want to ask this:

If someone discovers the absolute truth of what Google wants, please send me a PM cause I have been trying hard for 8 years and so far nada.

Thanks!

[yukon]

I'm not reading this entire thread, I will say this.

Since Google first started in the late 90's one thing has never changed "keywords", everything else is just fluff.

keep it simple, stop over analyzing.

[Carl Brown]

All Google wants is for you to provide THEIR customers (live human beings) with the quality content they're looking for instead of trying to manipulate the search engine with the tactics so many keep using, like spun gibberish. It might benefit you for awhile, but you'll lose in the end. Just produce the best sites you can for their customers and everybody wins.

[AlexSafie]

Originally Posted by Kurt

That's great, but you seem to imply that what Google wants is the only "right" way and didn't really answer the question.

Two people give great content to Google and one does SEO and the other doesn't. Whose page will rank the highest?

And what if I write a quality article that's really good, and also do SEO, who wins?

Unless Google's results become random in the future, there will always be a reason why one page is listed above another.

And since google is bound by logic, it must have good relevant SERPs and not random ones, so we can assume that even if everyone writes "great" content, there will be SEO to determine in what order those "great" pages are listed.

In order for Google to stay at the top of the game they should only want what the searcher wants.

So you're right, I should change the title of this thread to:

"Give the searchers what they want and Google will give you what you want".

And yes, SEO is very important to help the search engines know what your site is about and index it properly.

All I'm saying is that we should always keep the end user in mind

Originally Posted by Tim Franklin

Good post, it is really amazing to me how quickly so many content publishers seem to decide that google is or is not accurate in its value of content, however all that is inaccurate, the actual truth is that Google has little to do with what the consumer finds to be of value, oddly enough the one thing that so many people seem to forget about consumption of content online is that google is not the consumer.

People are the ultimate consumers.

Exactly

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

The one doing the best job of giving google what it wants? Maybe I read Alex wrong but I didn't get the impression he was saying don't do seo. It seeemed more along the lines - do it by giving Google what they want. Maybe I am reading my own understanding into the OP. I never took it as an either or statement but how to do SEO that can last all algo changes.

That is exactly what I was trying to say (algo proof content).

A good SEO strategy should not only focus on things like; keyword in title, keyword in URL, anchor text backlinks, etc.

It should combine on and off page SEO best practices with a good user experience (high quality, entertaining, unique, relevant and informative content).

[YasirYar]

Just read through this thread and here are my 2 cents. Google's latest Panda update has had less than favorable consequences overall because it seems to reward some websites which are total content scrapers. It also reduces the traffic and rankings of websites which were ranking very well for certain keywords and were well-optimized.

This has been confirmed by SEO Book.com and has gotten a lot of webmasters into trouble.

Even my own website (which is still ranking in the top spots) for certain keywords is not getting a single visit using those keywords.

The conclusion is, think of ways to generate traffic outside of Google.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

The one doing the best job of giving google what it wants? Maybe I read Alex wrong but I didn't get the impression he was saying don't do seo. It seeemed more along the lines - do it by giving Google what they want. Maybe I am reading my own understanding into the OP. I never took it as an either or statement but how to do SEO that can last all algo changes.

Hi Mike,

The problem I have with this is that Google doesn't want you to do SEO at all. So if you do what Google wants, you can't do SEO, as they are exclusionary.

According to their new guidelines, now Google doesn't even want you to do keyword research:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: More guidance on building high-quality sites

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?

IMO, while the statement in bold doesn't specifically say "keyword research", it does address the major purpose of keyword research, trying to figure out the best words to use to get ranking/traffic.

So according to Google any attempt to optimize for keywords that you think will give you a better chance at ranking is against what Google wants.

Now any article writer, no matter the quality, that uses keyword research is a black hatter and not giving Google what it wants.

[JasonB]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Guys, I just want to ask this:

If someone discovers the absolute truth of what Google wants, please send me a PM cause I have been trying hard for 8 years and so far nada.

Thanks!

Google wants to be #1 and MONEY!

[YasirYar]

Originally Posted by GuruCreation

Google wants to be #1 and MONEY!

Chances are, because of trying to monetize the search results so much and by making SEO difficult to do, Google is going to lose a lot of market share to Bing/Yahoo.

[JustaWizard]

It's not 100% one way or the other, spammers are still getting away with ranking well with sites that amount to internet pollution, beating quality sites, and vice versa.

But if you look at the big picture and think long term, why work hard for short term results? Sure, the best of the black hatters will say that's where the money is (or even that they're doing Google a favor by exploiting it's weaknesses) but in the end, pollution and low quality and spam is just that.

I'm not a naive SEO, I know Google can be gamed; but really, think about it, why spend time creating crap sites that do nothing more than make you a few bucks while polluting the web? Why not find a niche you're actually interested in and passionate about, and make a killer site that makes you money?