Google’s Indexing Algorithms and Steps to Take to Rank Higher
After your website has been crawled and rendered by the search engine bots, they index it. Indexing refers to the process of analysing and organising pages in a way that will help users see results that are most relevant to their queries. In order to do this, the search engines follow certain algorithms to best evaluate your page. As a digital marketer, you need to be on top of these algorithms for they determine your site’s ranking and consequently the traffic it receives.
Deduplication
There are billions of pages on the web and a lot of them are very similar to one another. If google shows all such pages, the user’s time will be wasted. This is why they remove duplicate content from search results.
What does this mean for you?
- You have to create unique content.
- When you are writing on something that has already been written about, research well and try to fill in the gaps in knowledge.
- Be as creative as possible. Even if your topic is not unique, your style of delivery (the language, the visuals) should be top notch.
Exact Match Domain System
Google looks at the name of the domain to determine relevance. Most CMS create a domain name for you that describes your content, but if you are building a website from scratch, keep this in mind.
Caution – Do not create a domain name that contains the exact words a user would type, for instance,“best-biriyani-in-hyderabad”. Google’s system detects this tactic easily.
PageRank
PageRank is Google’s core ranking system. It helps google understand how pages link to one another and what results might be the most helpful to the users.
Things to Remember to Help PageRank Evaluate your Pages Better
- Get a quality backlink, i.e., get a popular and trustworthy website to have a link to your page.
- Optimize Anchor Text – Anchor text refers to the text that contains the link to a page. (Example: understand how rendering affects your SEO performance) Google uses this to gain information about the page linked. Make sure your anchor text is informative, it helps both the readers and the search engines.
- Use proper HTML structures. Texts that are written in larger and bolder fonts are given more importance.
- Create content where your target keywords appear naturally together, instead of simply listing them (keyword stuffing). Keyword stuffing can get your content marked as spam by Google and removed from results.
Neural Matching
Advanced language learning models, allows Google to best relate words with concepts. Gone are the days where a person could manipulate search results by simply stuffing their content with keywords. Make sure that what you write answers real queries. You are not writing for bots, your audience is people.
Removal Based Demotion Systems
When a page engages in practices like not respecting copyright, defamation and non-consensual dissemination of personal information, users can request google to have them removed. When Google receives a significant volume of such requests, they remove them from search results, and demotes all content published by the site to which these pages belong.
Reviews System
Google favours high quality and original reviews written by experts and backed by information that can be verified. When you are writing a blog, make sure to include an author’s bio that will establish subject matter expertise and enthusiasm of the author.
Spam Detection System
There is a huge amount of spam on the internet and most of them are generated by parties who wish to manipulate search results and obtain a ranking. It is very important for all digital marketers to note that such practices are unethical and have consequences. The following practices are considered spamming, make sure you steer clear of them:
- Cloaking – Refers to the usage of a different front to lure users. These pages basically pretend to be something else and once you click them you see that they are not what they promised to be.
- Doorway Abuse
- Having multiple websites with near similar URLs to increase reach
- making pages that do not contain any usable information but are solely created to funnel users to the actually relevant pages
- creating multiple pages that are virtually similar to one another to better match search queries.
- Expired Domain Abuse – Using a domain that has expired to host other content. For example, the expired domain of an NGO (.org domain) used to host a game of rummy.
- Hidden Text and Link Abuse
- Using black text on black background
- Hiding a text behind an image
- Positioning text off screen
- Hiding a link behind a barely visible link, like a comma.
- Keyword Stuffing – Mindlessly listing keywords without making any sense of them.
- Scaled Content Abuse – Generating a lot of unoriginal and low value pages simply to manipulate search results.
What to do When Your Rankings Drop?
Google is constantly reviewing its policies and algorithms to improve its user experience. These are known as core updates. Most often than not, these updates do not affect your website, but if you do see a sharp decline, make a note of the pages affected and ask the following self assessment questions, prescribed by Google itself in Google for Developers.
Content and Quality Questions:
- Is the information provided, original?
- Is it empirically sound and backed by verified sources?
- Is the topic substantially well defined and comprehensive?
- Are you saying something that has not been said before?
- If your content refers to other sources, does it simply rewrite them or does it provide additional information?
- Does the heading explain the content? Is it descriptive?
- Is your content shareable? Can it be understood by your peers?
- Can your content be referred to by other sources?
- Are there typos and stylistic issues?
- How does it compare to other pages that have similar information?
- Is your site spread out too thin, (outsourced to a large number of creators) for individual pages to get any attention?
Expertise Questions
- Does the presentation of the content feel like it has been created by someone who is knowledgeable and experienced in the field?
- Is there a way in which the consumers of the content know more about the person who has created it? Like an “about the author” page?
- Can the content be regarded as authoritative?
- Does the content have any factual errors?
Other Steps You Could Take, as Mentioned by Chuck Price, Founder of Search Engine Journal
- Craft meta-descriptions that align with what users are looking for (use tools like SemRush, to know what search queries are doing well on google). Do not rely on autogeneration, craft it yourself with the relevant keywords occurring naturally.
- Choose a few URLs that have important content, but are underperforming (Google Search Console will give you this information), and update it with new insights, citations, and add an FAQ or two.
Implement Schema Markup, it helps search engines analyse and understand your content better thereby increasing visibility.
Conclusion
When the internet was newly born, indexing could be manipulated by several means, most of such practices today Google can easily identify as spam. The stress of meeting goals often leads digital marketers to tread the path of ranking manipulation. Trust me, this is only going to hurt your page and undermine the trustworthiness of the entire site.
When you are writing or creating videos and images, do it with the intention of reaching actual people and not bots. Search engines are created to service people and not vice versa. A search engine is your tool not your master. There are undoubtedly some rules that one must follow while on the internet because every creator is responsible towards its audience. If your intentions are right, your content is creative, original and trustworthy, you will show up when someone asks a question to which you have the answer.
FAQ's
To improve ranking, create original content, answer real queries, use the right keywords without overstuffing, establish that your content is written by an expert, get a backlink from a reputable website.
Revise your content in meaningful ways like rewriting the title to better align with user queries, include a section, add infographics, simplify your language, create a meta description, add an about the author page, use FAQ scheme markup.
If a number of high volume keywords are present on your page, make sure that they occur naturally and are not simply there to increase traction. If you include keywords without explaining them, Google might flag your page as spam.
Your site may get demoted if a number of people request your pages to be removed from Google. This usually happens when copyright is misused, personal information is shared without consent and damaging things are being spread through the information on your page. Sometimes removals are also court-ordered in which case Google abides.
Google notifies you when there is a core update, which may change algorithms. Usually these do not affect your existing pages much, but knowing about the changes will help you craft your future content better.