The SEO model has changed with Panda

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The SEO model has changed with Panda in that, rather than getting as many URLs as you can indexed, you now want only your highest-quality, most important URLs indexed. Great post by Search Engine Land.

What Does This Mean For SEO?

It has been common practice for many years to monitor overall site indexing in each of the major engines (mostly focusing on Google, naturally). Sites that weren’t being indexed deeply would need specific tactics to push that number up, and sites well indexed would be monitored closely to ensure that was sustained.

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What’s different post-Panda is that indexing, as a metric or signal, is no longer viable, simply because Google seems to want everything it can get in its index. The index is not a signal of anything, anymore, except that Google has the URL in its databases.

5 Best SEO Practices:

Consistent signals should be sent as to which pages are most important

1. Decide which URLs are canonical and create strong signals (rel canonical, robot exclusion, internal link profile, XML sitemaps)
2. Decide which URLs are your most valuable and ensure they are indexed and well optimized
3. Remove any extraneous, overhead, duplicate, low value and unnecessary URLs from the index
4. Build internal links to canonical, high-value URLs from authority pages (strong mozRank, unique referring domains, total links, are example metrics)
5. Build high-quality external links via social media efforts

Pay special attention to number 3 above. If your properties have low-quality or significantly duplicative content, it is best to remove those URLs from the indexes. Even a site with some high-quality content and lots of thin or low-quality content could see traffic deterioration because of Panda.

The new SEO, at least as far as Panda is concerned, is about pushing your best quality stuff and the complete removal of low-quality or overhead pages from the indexes. Which means it’s not as easy anymore to compete by simply producing pages at scale, unless they’re created with quality in mind. Which means for some sites, SEO just got a whole lot harder.

8 SEO Trends for 2010 from SEOmoz.org

According to Rand of seomoz.org, here are some important SEO trends for 2010 we SEO´s have to be aware of:

#1 Real-Time Search: Microsoft and Google are integrating Twitter data in their SERP´s.
Microsoft initially announced their integration with Twitter data in their SERPs. And in response, Google released an early test version of Twitter integration.

#2 – Twitter’s “Link Graph” is the Real Deal: Google has always strived to keep up with the latest ways that content is being recommended and suggested. It’s how they determined popularity and relevance with PageRank and I think Twitter’s data is merely the next evolution. Tweets are going to carry their own weight in helping pages rank in the not-too-distant future.

#3 – Personalized Search: Google released their “permanent” personalization of results last week, and Bing released their own just this week. So visit history, time on page, bookmarks, etc., are going to influence big time Search Results.

#4 – It’s Going to Be a Two-Engine, 80/20 World: Google continues to slowly gain market share in the US, while Bing & Yahoo! compete for the rest: 80% Google, Yahoo-Bing 20%.

#5 – Site Explorer & Linkdomain will Disappear: Yahoo! and Bing mentioned that Site Explorer is off to the great beyond. The expense of maintaining a web index isn’t something Yahoo!’s willing to invest in once they don’t have to, and Bing’s given no indication that they’re going to re-open the portal to link information.

#6 – SEO Spending Will Rise Dramatically, according to a Forrester Report: The study concludes that in the next 3 years the following interactive marketing tactics spent will grow most: Created Social Media, Online Video, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Mobile Marketing, among others.

#7 – 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization: The most under-utilized and highest ROI activities in the marketing department, but more awareness is on its way. CRO isn’t just about testing; it’s about building a process for improving conversion over time. Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this, yet few invest.

#8 – More Queries will Send Less Traffic: Google & Bing are both doing more to make their visitors stickier and get their queries answered without ever having to leave the engine. So a lot of results like time, wheather, game´s scores and so on are giving to visitors without having to leave the Engines.

For a much better understanding of these predictions please visit: seomoz.org, as this is a lazy post from myself and copied everything from them.

We found a great video from Michael Gray where he approaches the Duplicate Content issue and how to build a healthy Site Structure.

Having a healthy Site Structure will include avoiding any duplicate content issues . When the same content is displayed under different URL’s, we would say that the Site is having duplicate content issues which is one of the reasons why many pages of a Site don’t show up in search engine results. For example when the same article in a Blog is displayed under different categories:

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http://www.mysite.com/widgets

http://www.mysite.com/green-widgets

http://www.mysite.com/small-widgets

So check the Video, it’s only a few minutes long and it really explains how to build a healthy Site Structure and how to avoid duplicate content issues.

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So downlowad the toolbar and start learning SEO now!

(If you find the information at the SEO Practices Blog useful, please help us support it by giving this Blog some “Link Love”: Linking to us or bookmarking our site.)

We have a Book Store at SEO Practices Blog now! We thought of sharing the best books we read related to Search Engine Optimization and Marketing, books every Search Marketer should read.

You won’t find this information at any forums or blog posts, that’s why we wanted to have this online Book Store, you’ll be surprised about the great information you can get of each reading. If you are a creative SEO/SEM and like to keep up to date with the latest trends on the subject, you must read these books. Some of them are:

“Don’t Make me think”, a Usability book from Steve Krug, it shows you how to put yourself in the position of the person who uses your site. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book.

“The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. He offers a visionary look at the future of business and common culture. The long-tail phenomenon, he argues, will “re-shape our understanding of what people actually want to watch” (or buy, read, etc.).

Go on and check the rest of our recommended books and reviews at our SEO Book Store here at seo practices blog.

Take a comprehensive SEO quiz at seomoz.org

SEO Professional – 74%

Are you an SEO Expert?

Uh! I’m an SEO Professional according to SEOmoz’ quiz that values your knowledge of Search Engine Optimization.

(If you find the information at the SEO Practices Blog useful, please help us support it by giving this Blog some “Link Love”: Linking to us or bookmarking our site.)

I took the quiz, it’s about 75 questions on SEO, it kind of told me I have a lot of reading to do, but it’s very interesting to know, how you’re building up your knowledge, of course by reading every day like 50 something blogs on SEO, plus attending work, posting etc.,… It’s good to know that you’re up to the standards.

There’s a lot of reading to do, I better get my a** back to reading, SEO it’s a constant changing field.

So take the quiz and let us know how you do, you might be surprise…

Usually SEO is overlooked in the initial process of planning and building a Website creating a series of difficulties. Search Engine Optimization should go hand by hand with Web Design. When building a site, there are a number of techniques that can be used to ensure your site is indexed and well positioned in the major search engines.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a Website, throughout different techniques that involves:

* Domain Name Selection
* Web Site Copywriting
* Meta Tags (Title, Description, Keywords, Heading, Alt Tags)
* Basic Links, Hypertext Links and Site Map
* Directory and File Names
* Spider Analysis
* Robots Exclusion File
* Link Popularity

Paul J. Bruemmer at Pandia.com , wrote an article explaining the basic seo practices to have in account for each of the steps mentioned above.

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