SEO Company Oracle Digital Explains How Quality Content, and not Quantity, Affects Google Rankings

Aug. 9, 2012 - PRLog -- According to experts, and contrary to popular belief, content on the Internet has always been important to search engines. Search engines were originated to help users find contents that are relevant to their searches. Indeed, it was the main reason for creating a search engine in the first place. In the early days of the Internet, search engines could be trusted to provide exactly what the user was looking for.

Experts further explain that as marketers began to fathom what many saw as the infinite potential of the Internet, they figured out how to manipulate search engines to help them make money. Eventually, Internet marketing entered what industry experts lovingly refer to as the “Wild West days.” Consumers began to notice that the majority of their search results were sites that contained mostly spam, and were only designed to get the user to click onto a sales link.

SEO experts explained that a practice known as “keyword stuffing” became extremely popular, and many went as far as to type their keywords numerous times in white text, which was invisible to the reader, but told search engines that their sites were relevant. Some didn’t bother to hide their stuffed keywords. Others wrote paragraphs that were readable, but said nothing.

Google adjusted by changing their algorithm and this started a battle between Google and spammers that is known in the vernacular as the “Google Dance.” Since then, it has been a battle for legitimate SEO firms to not only compete with other SEO firms, but also to adjust to the changes in Google’s algorithm.

Statistics show that with every Google algorithm update, many of those who practiced black hat SEO saw their websites disappear from the Google rankings altogether, but so did many legitimate websites. Indeed, every Google update produced a new “shortcut” from those who wanted only to “game” the system. When backlinks became important, many found ways to spam backlinks.

When Google released the first Panda update in February of this year, and followed it up with the Penguin update in April, they served notice that they had gotten wise to a lot of shortcuts, and that they had decided to make relevant content important again.

According to Google, they used artificial intelligence to create the updates, and they were created to lower the rank of “low quality sites” or “thin sites” that were positioned on page one of search results. The algorithm change had mixed results. It eliminated a lot of “thin sites,” but it also dropped many legitimate sites out of the rankings.

While many in the online marketing field saw the updates as disastrous, some SEO companies saw them as an opportunity, and the average consumers in search of information started to notice that they are getting more relevant information and less spam. Google still uses other criteria in their algorithm, but the main focus is now quality, relevant and original content.

It is now essential that site owners and businesses, large or small, provide relevant content for users if they want to see their website on page one of Google. According to James Corby, Business Development Director of Perth SEO specialist Oracle Digital, “While backlinks and on-page SEO still matter, there is one more thing that a business has to do to take a website to the top of Google: they must provide great content.”

Corby added, “There are no more shortcuts. Webmasters and businesses are simply going to have to provide value to the consumer or their sites won’t make it to page one.”

The SEO experts at Oracle Digital provide effective blog and content management services to companies who want to do what is necessary to improve their search engine rankings. They are committed to helping small and large businesses by providing SEO-friendly and optimised contents that will help take websites to the top of Google and keep them there for a long time.

Oracle Digital is a web marketing firm which offers the following services to clients from Perth and the surrounding areas: Search Engine Optimisation, online reputation management, online press releases, and communications strategies. For more information, please visit their website: http://www.oracledigital.com.au/ or call them at 1300 899 851.