SEO News this week includes advice regarding the number of pages, directory and article submissions and whether they're blackhat and more. Read on.
This week we look at the latest advice regarding large number of pages vs. small number of pages, whether directory and article submissions are black hat and ask was there an algorithm update last week?
Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller has shared advice for websites that are reviewing their content strategy or launching a new website.
When asked whether webmasters should approach topics at a niche or more general level, John Mueller explained that it is more of a strategic decision than technical. He explained that if you have fewer pages, generally those pages tend to be a stronger organically.
If you have more pages, the value is spread out a little bit more. He also said that depending on how competitive your market is will affect how well pages do if you have a lot of them.
He also suggested that new websites should start with having fewer pages so that you can build these up to be as strong as possible in that area or topic. Once you’re happy with that area and its strength, then you could build out more and target specific niches.
Google have said that linkbuilding techniques such as Directory Submissions, Article Submissions and Bookmarking are generally seen as artificial links which are against the Webmaster guidelines.
In the document, Google list several examples of links that violate their guidelines for linkbuilding:
Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass PageRank.
Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.
Low-quality directory or bookmark site links.
Keyword-rich, hidden or low-quality links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites.
Widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites.
Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature.
SEMrush, SERPmetrics and RankRanger’s tools all show an increase in volatility on September 24th and 25th. There has been chatter amongst SEOs and several people have noted that they are experiencing very high traffic drops.
Google however, have not made any comment on the matter and have remained silent so at this point it cannot be confirmed or denied. It is worth noting though that Google have started to preannounce large core updates, as they did in July and December.
John Mueller was asked if quality backlinks or thoroughness in content is a ranking factor or affects SEO.
Asked if quality backlinks or thoroughness in content are ways to measure E-A-T, John Mueller quickly explained that E-A-T is not a specific ranking factor or measurement.
He says that instead E-A-T is something that Google use to help Quality Raters who are reviewing the changes to the algorithm. Search Quality Raters look to help Google measure the quality of search results and they assess how well a website serves users. These ratings then help Google to benchmark the quality of their results.
He goes onto further explain:
E-A-T is not a ranking factor and does not directly affect SEO.
E-A-T is specific to certain kinds of websites and certain kinds of content.
E-A-T primarily exists to benchmark the quality of Google’s results.
Quality raters use these guidelines to review Google’s algorithm.
And that brings us to the end of our SEO news! If you'd like to discuss anything mentioned in this blog, please do not hesitate to get in touch.