It seems there is some talk that the Google Penguin Algorithm update is focused on small businesses, so here is my take on it.
Google Penguin is an Over Optimization Filter designed to lower the rankings of pages using excessive SEO techniques to “artificially” improve their rank, rather than by proving good high quality content – here is the official Google Webmaster discussion on their blog for you to read.
Some examples of SEO Over Optimization:
- Have too many keywords on the page;
- Exchange too many links;
- Doing things in excess when compared to others;
- Writing content for the keywords you want to be found for, rather than what reader’s are searching for.
As a result of the Penguin update “over-optimized or over-SEO-ed” pages are dropping in the search results, those pages with good content have no choice but to bubble up to the top of the rankings. And who would tend to NOT be optimizing their pages (maybe even non-optimized pages altogether) but small businesses?
If these pages have better information that can benefit the “Googlers” why shouldn’t they rise to the top? Delivering quality search results is always a trade off between Content and Authority for Search Engines, which is why quality pages with Less Google Page Rank or Google Juice have been able to out rank pages with Higher Google Page Rank on the Search Engine Result Pages.
Please reach out regarding this, or with any SEO / Internet Marketing questions you may have.
Cheers!
Greg
@SEOGregMontreal
P.S. attend one of our SEO training and certification classes offered worldwide and you will learn a Proven Stress Free White Hat Approach to SEO rather than having to chase needlessly after search engine algorithms.
I don’t think that they’re specifically targeting small businesses here. There are people with websites who have done over optimization, even when they don’t have a business, per se. What this does to them is their names, or whatever keyword they’re using as anchor text, will drop down the rankings. For some businesses, hiring a good team from an SEO reseller company would help in keeping the top pages of the search results. The updates rolled out by Google aren’t supposed to be something that people should be scared of. It’s more of a wake-up call, saying “Hey, we have guidelines. It’s better if you’re going to follow them.”
Good short article but I disagree if you say that the Penguin update is an improvement. Google’s search results aren’t as good anymore as I’ve written on best-inexpensive-web-hosting.com/penguin-algorithm-update-bad-search-results-in-google
One of the best small business seo information. Totally agree with the discussion written here on this blog.