SOPA is basically a legislation designed very simply to stop online piracy. Essentially it allows police, authorities, and copyright holders to be able to get court orders that will essentially force service providers (Comcast, AOL, etc.), hosting providers (GoDaddy, BlueGator, etc.), payment services (Paypal, 2Checkout, etc.) and search engines (really?) to literally shut off or stop doing business with websites that they allege are stealing or even enabling potential copyright infringement.

Just in case SOPA gets passed, we got this image from http://endoftheamericandream.com

While it seems good in theory in order to curb online pirating of music, movies, files, and the like, there’s something much more sinister in the background.  The biggest target would be torrent sites that facilitate illegal distribution of files such as PirateBay, ISOHunt, and similar sites.  But other sites that have user generated content like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook could be shut down if SOPA gets enacted.

A site could be removed from the search engines, have their advertising revenue yanked, payment processing blocked, website shut off and even up to 5 years of prison time if someone alleges that a site is in violation and gets a court order against them. It also gives the government a LOT of power over what can and can’t be posted online. An example that may hit closer to home would be if you posted a photo on your blog that you acquired somewhere online and that you believed to be “free to use”.  If the person that owns the rights to that photo (even indirectly) decides that you’ve violated their copyright, they can get a court order to put all of those aforementioned detrimental factors into play on your very own website.  If you’re in a competitive industry, one of your competitors could reasonably shut you down over a photo buried on your site thousands of pages deep.

While it may seem far fetched, SOPA makes that completely possible. SOPA has a laundry list of big name opponents including Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Youtube, Mozilla and many others. Google is exceptionally concerned because of the fact that there are many anti-Google folks just itching to tie them to something potentially copyrighted that could cause a lot of problems for the search giant. Hosting and domain megamart GoDaddy initially supported the SOPA project, but customers pulled over 72,000 domains from the registrar and moved them elsewhere as a result. GoDaddy got the point quickly and immediately pulled support once it truly understood the ramifications of the SOPA bill.

So tomorrow, Google will officially weigh in on SOPA, Wikipedia will go black (among others as well) and we’ll potentially get more details on where they stand. Actually, we know where they stand. It’s where you should stand. Even if you think SOPA won’t affect you, you’d be shocked how much it would impact your online experience. It’s a bad, bad idea.

As of today, however, Google Plus has taken it even further by now including your personal photos, friends photos, etc into the SERP’s. It initially shows personal image results that are relevant to your search, but when you click on “Show Personal Results”, whoa Nelly.  It shows you the image results you had seen previously, along with all relevant content posted from friends and family that contain that keyword term that you searched for.

Now while this is all neat ans fancy, what implications does this have for SEO? Let’s ask some questions and assume answers.

Will sites that relied on image results take a hit on that first SERP?

If you look at what’s happening now, the end result is Yes.  Stock photo communities stand to lose quite a bit when that first page real estate they once had is now replaced by a person’s personal images. While it’s understood that there would have to be a relevant term that matched a personal photo for their images to be pushed out, the possibility still exists and will be worth watching.

Even in our example below, you can see that the image results show three rows of our personal images before displaying images on other sites even without clicking for personal results. A cause for alarm for photographers and stock photo companies.

How will it affect the first page results?

A lot. A Google search for the term “SEO Experts” gave us two results on the first page because we were logged into our Google account.  The other notable thing is that the SERP’s were then increased from 10 spots to 11 when you’re logged in, which doesn’t count shopping or image results.  Log out and perform the same search and not only is it less real estate, but the results are back down to 10. The increase to 11 slots was most definitely to account for the personalized entries, but if you notice, THREE of the entries on the “logged in” page are not present on the “logged out” version.  Which begs to question, was adding 1 slot enough?

It’s designed to make it personal right out of the gate without even clicking on personal results, but people not involved with SEO or how Google makes those decisions may make incorrect assumptions based on those results. And we can’t think of many people that don’t have a Google account in some form or fashion for Gmail, Google+, Reader or something else.  And if they are, they’ll get a whole new SERP and not even know why. We’re waiting for the uninitiated to start bragging about how they’re on the first page of Google. While it’s an anomaly that’s nothing new, it’s even more prevalent now.

Will it be harder to get on the first page of Google now?

The short answer is No, but as time progresses and more people sign on to Google’s various services, the answer inevitably becomes Yes.  Especially since in our random tests, 30% to as much as 50% of the results on the “logged in” version aren’t present when compared to the “logged out” version.

That means at minimum, there’s a 30% less chance that your business won’t be on that first page if a person is logged into their Google account.  Or if you’re a “glass half full” type of person, a 30% chance that you will be on that page when the person logs out. But just how many folks do you think that will be at the rate Google is pushing their services?

And we’re sure there are tons more questions that need to be answered, but for now, this opens the doors for all types of questions for SEO professionals. While the changes are positive for the user, it makes the front page real estate even more difficult to master and as more people begin to utilize the Google+ service, the less probability that a new site will be able to crack that top 11.

Needless to say there’s a lot of positive things that will come of it, not to mention that Google will most certainly utilize your personal information even more to push relevant ads to you, steer you first to content residing on Google, or very simply making mad money off of you and all under the guise of “a personal experience”. You read that fine print when you signed up for Google services, right?

But the real question is figuring out how you, as a small business owner, can capitalize on these changes. That’s not an electrical fire you’re smelling. That’s your brain on Google+.

If you’ve used Google, you’ve already seen Google Instant at work. You start typing and Google is already displaying results based on what you’ve typed so far even if you pause for a split second (hence the “Instant” moniker). Not only is it presenting you with options that are the most popularly searched for the moment based on other searches, but it’s also changing the results page for each variation that you complete. In this example below, we started typing the word “printer” and it gave us keyword options that are the most popular at the moment, all the while showing us SERP results for “printer“, just in case we’re already done typing.

There is a lot of significance here for you as a website owner and one that’s not lost on any serious SEO professional worth their salt.  The first being that Google is offering up the most popular keywords based on the root keyword of “printer”.  Not since the now defunct Google Wonder Wheel has Google laid it out so nicely for you. If your website carries a wide variety of printers, maybe you would consider creating a page dedicated to reviewing those printers since it’s a heavily searched keyword. While you would never expect to rank for “printer reviews” because of the competitive landscape like CNET, Amazon and the like), it may help to round out your site’s relevance to Google and also make your site more useful and comprehensive to your visitors in search of printer information.

However, if you’re a business card printer, you’re already going down the wrong path since these variations don’t lend any relevance to what you do.  Just think about the variations of the “printer” keyword;

printer – could mean an inkjet printer, magazine printer, or business card printer.
printers – same as above, but now plural.
printer reviews – a review of inkjet printers? Or maybe customer reviews of local business card printers?

If you’re a business card printer, you should focus on that branch of keywords such as “card printer”, “business card printer” and don’t forget that adjectives are your friends. Words such as “free“, “best“, and “cheap” often rule the roost in search volume.  The same goes for localities such as “Dallas business card printer”. While “business cards” may sit on top of the most searched keyword related to your industry, you can almost guarantee that the person’s search didn’t end there simply because the results presented to them were probably way too broad to make any good decisions.  And once that happens, the searcher then begins to add those adjectives and begins refining the search term to narrow in on what they’re looking for.

This is exactly why Google implemented Google Instant. To not only guide a potential customer down the right path to find the most relevant information, but to also show you how to properly focus your site content to be useful to that person. We’ll talk more about that next.

This conversation is a good example of how humans might process information.

A friend comes to you and says, “I saw a bear.”
“Wow.”, you say. “Where?”
“Across the street!”
“Across the street from here?”
“No. Up in the mountains.”
“What mountains?”
“In Helen, Georgia.”
“Was it a big bear?”
“Huge!”
“What kind of bear was it?”
“No idea.”
“Well, what color was it?”
“It was a black bear.”

While this conversation may seem silly, it could have been avoided if the person simply started the conversation by saying, “I saw a huge black bear across the street when I was up in the mountains of Helen, Georgia.”  At that point, you have all of the information that you need.  However, this is the exact same thing that happens when a person puts broad keywords into a search engine.  They may have a vision of the results they expect to see, but they simply put “bear” in the search window without giving the search engine the data it needs to know the whole story.  Depending on the broadness of the keyword will determine how much interpretation the search engine has to do.

This is why website siloing is so important is because it allows you to start broad, but still lead the visitor down certain paths depending on more specific data. It’s also why keyword research is so very important. You may think you want to rank for “bear”, but if your website focuses only on Georgia black bears, you’ll kill yourself trying to rank for “bear”.  Then you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why “Build a Bear”, the “Chicago Bears”, “Bear Bryant” and tons of other sites outrank you. And unless you expand your content to include all things “bear”, they always will. This also goes back to building out the respective areas for specific terms and then optimizing those areas for those longer tail keywords such as “Helen Georgia black bears”.

Customer Intent (But what did you really mean?)

This brings us to customer intent. What did the searcher really want to find? But more importantly, does your website capitalize on that intent? And if it does, can it capitalize on it even more than it already does?

For instance, if a person searches for “windows”, are they trying to find a glass window or are they looking for something to do with the Windows software? You would definitely know if the person used the keyword in “plate glass windows”, but now you don’t know what they want with plate glass windows. Do they want to find more info on types of plate glass windows? Do they want someone to install them? Are they looking for pricing? How can you know for sure? The answer is in your Analytics.

Your best bet is to look at the keyword area under “Traffic Sources” in Google Analytics (assuming that you’ve installed it). You’ll see that people arrived to your site using a variety of keywords and your telltale sign is in the column called “bounce rate”. When a person “bounces”, they are leaving your site within a pre-defined time frame (typically under 5 seconds).  The higher the bounce rate, the less relevant that page probably is to the term they searched for.

However, it doesn’t always mean that it’s not relevant. If the person has searched specifically for “toddler girl dresses” and your page is all about “toddler girl dresses”, then maybe there could be something else on that page is turning them off.   The page could be taking too long to load (check Google Webmaster Tools). Maybe your pricing is too high (try doing some A/B split testing using Google Website Optimizer). Maybe your designs or selection sucks (more A/B split testing). Either way, you should always pay attention to how the person arrived at your page in the first place and pay close attention to keywords that have high bounce rates.

Alternately, if you see a high bounce rate for “blue toddler girl dresses“, and you have 4 blue toddler girl dresses, it’s once again time to analyze why.  Are those blue dresses mixed in with dozens of dresses of another color? If there’s a substantial amount of traffic bouncing for blue toddler girl dresses, maybe it’s time to move your blue dresses onto their own page. That way you can optimize that specific page for various blue dresses keyword terms and start landing those sales.

“Well, I did that and now they’re not bouncing, but they’re still not buying.”  If that’s the case, then you should start looking at your sales funnel. You have that set up, right?  If not, you should head to the Goals area of Google Analytics and get cracking.  Once you have that set up, you can see where they’re leaving the sales process. If they leave before anything even goes in the cart, then maybe it’s your pricing. If they leave on the shipping page, then maybe your shipping cost is too high.  If you end up in that conundrum, than it’s time to fire up Google Website Optimizer and do some A/B split testing and start analyzing different shipping or pricing.

The beauty of all of this is that it’s readily available to you for free via Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer.  So if your sales have slowed down, or you simply can’t even get found on the web, it’s time to research your site structure first, then your page structure, and then the content of those pages. In that order. If you don’t analyze and test, you’re leaving major money on the table.

1. DON’T sell advertising on your website. Google frowns on websites that sell ad space on their sites because they think that you’re trying to manipulate the rankings by allowing other websites to benefit from the popularity on your site.   Google will devalue your site if it sees that you’re selling banners or links by searching your site for terms like “Advertise here” or “Advertise with us”.  However, Google is allowed to sell ad space on their website though, because of supply and demand. Google is the most popular search engine online today and that’s one of the primary ways they generate revenue.  Yes, I know that’s what you’re trying to do now that your site is generating good traffic and people actually want to buy advertising on your site which is exactly what Google is doing, but Google is the Tony Soprano of the web and it’s just wise not to do what they do.

   
   Don’t offer products or services in exchange for a link. Google does not like it when you make offers such as “Get a free listing on our site if you link to us from yours!”.  Forget that something like this is referred to as reciprocal linking and really doesn’t have much value in the first place, but it will be even worse if Google sees it (which they will….maybe).  If the practice runs rampant on your site, you run the risk of getting your site penalized.  Google looks at this practice as a means of you swaying a person into linking to your website which will cause their algorithms to award you improperly.  Forget the fact that each and every year, Google gives away thousands of free phones, tablets, etc. so that people can help to expand their hold on the industry.

2. Do not buy paid links. Google does not want you to purchase links on website because that may possibly give you an unfair advantage. Getting a link on a site with high PageRank (even if you have to purchase it) could possibly give you a boost (but most likely not).  Google would prefer that you only buy links from them.  Yes, that is okay.

Exactly how this new +1 feature will possibly skew results, if any, is unknown.  One would assume that if a site is neck and neck with a competitor, but one has more +1 votes, it just may be an algorithm attribute taken into consideration to push a site into the higher slot.  If it’s not going to be used that way, then what’s the point?  This was Google’s answer to the Facebook Like button, but there is also an upcoming feature that will allow webmasters to incorporate the +1 button onto their website as well.  Will that functionality pull the +1 data from the SERP’s and input them there and vice versa? Will a click on the website +1 button add a “vote” to the SERP listing?

The ad part is the most disconcerting and especially for new advertisers that don’t have any established votes.  You can see what a site that has received multiple votes looks like on this new report from Search Engine Land that covers this new feature in somewhat good detail, but it raises more questions than it answers. While it’s understood what it’s supposed to do and why it’s there when looked at in comparison to the Facebook Like button, what it doesn’t explain is exactly how Google plans to use the +1 feature. Will it be used as part of their algorithm, even if very minutely?  Will it have an effect on Adwords or factored in as part of the Google Quality Score?  How much of a frenzy will it create when CTR’s start taking a dramatic upward spike due to “accidental” click-throughs?

Regardless of how you feel, it’s coming and is being pushed out in waves.  If you don’t see it in your results, but want to take part of this experiment, head over to http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html and opt in.  SEO experts should probably consider clicking on their client websites sooner rather than later to get the jump on competition.  How skewed can this data get and how will they monitor these “votes” for legitimacy?  Or will it be yet one more back alley tactic that black hats will start using somehow to their advantage.  Since we don’t yet know the full implication, all we can do is start clicking as much as possible because it will be used.  We just don’t know for what or even why.

While this may concern some people, this is yet further proof that Google is doing everything possible to keep people connected and with the incorporation of Twitter connections into the SERP’s, it’s now easier than ever. Upon clicking the “Learn more” link, we are shown that this action will further skew the results pages to what my friends are searching for, what they’re linking to, and even their tweets.  Some of this is not in place as of yet, but the tweet section already is.  One might see this as a great personal experience that is coming to a fruition, while others will not.

From an SEO standpoint, however, this creates another quandary.  If a user is signed into Google, these new additions provide even more “custom” listings on the SERP’s and the loss of even more real estate on that sought after front page of results.  While there still is (and probably always will be) the top 10 listings on the page, that front page now also houses Twitter feeds, news results, videos, paid ads (top and side), social bookmarking, images, etc.  Long story is that the front page is even more convoluted than ever.

The positive side is that this means that true SEO strategists need to get very serious about their social media activity and offering true value to their customers because getting on the front page of Google is not only coding and site structure, it’s now video, bookmarking, networking, tweeting, images, and more.  Anyone searching for SEO services need to make sure that these efforts are included, because it’s yet another avenue onto that coveted Google front page.

If you’re not looking for an SEO expert to provide that assistance, you need to know that your involvement in the social arena is officially imperative.  It has been for the last few years, but now it’s on your doorstep with a tidy red bow.

Google launched an algorithm update called Panda and it affected more websites than they probably expected.  The update was in response to the overwhelming presence of spammy scraper websites that “scraped” their content from other sites.  It affected the sites where the content is primarily duplicate content and who get their popularity from worthless spam links.  These types of sites dominated the search engine results while sites that spent quality time creating unique content struggled to get on page one while they watched these other spam sites flourish.  It seems like a well needed update, but there was tiny problem that Google probably didn’t foresee or maybe they did.

Some of the sites that were caught in this cleansing probably didn’t deserve to be and they were “work from home” resellers.  Those overnight pop-up websites like the Tom Bosley pushed SMC sites were a prime example.  But it’s not the sellers fault.  They just want to make money online and are romanced by the get rich quick mermaid songs.  And there are many companies that operate just like them on a smaller scale. A very large portion of resellers get their content from the manufacturer of their products via CD’s or downloads that they in turn upload to their websites.  That means that multiple websites will have the same exact content since all of the product descriptions and photos are the same.  Since the Panda update was designed to clear out websites that duplicated content, many online retailers got slapped and literally disappeared off of the rankings into the land of double and triple digits.  Whether or not Google foresaw this problem is unknown and whether they plan to fix it is even more of a mystery.

If you’ve been hit due to spam links, it will be a vicious uphill battle to undo the problem and especially if you have an external linking company buying or submitting link requests on your behalf. Your best bet is to cut them off and ask them to stop the black hat tactics or you’re going to get buried in Google penalties. Acquire your links naturally through hard work and social media and you’ll reap the benefits sooner than you think. The Panda update has less to do with this and more to do with the content issues, so let’s talk about that for now.

If you’re a retailer that has experienced the problem of your site being penalized for duplicate content, tell us about it.  Meanwhile, you should dedicate some time to manually change your product descriptions as soon as possible and swapping out your images with alternate photos (if you have the capability to do so).  It may be time to dig into your analytics and see what pages took the hit, because most likely the slap are page specific and don’t typically apply to the entire site. Unless your entire site sucks.  Start with your best selling products first and work your way down from there.   If you have the means, you should also consider adding content like in-depth reviews or blog posts to the product pages.  The goal here is to differentiate yourself from the original content you received from your manufacturer and especially if it constitutes the majority of your website.  And the next time you get a CD or downloadable update from them, be sure to copy your changes over or risk overwriting your changes.

Google will always side on the mantra that content is king.  Gone are the days of plopping down a website, uploading content and raking in the money.  Google is apparently insisting that you work for it.

The topic came up again over the weekend as covered by the lovely Vanessa Fox about how major retailer JCPenney broke those rules and had enjoyed top rankings on Google for pretty much everything they sold and in turn had a very prosperous holiday shopping season.  JCPenney is not a small company and were certainly not prospering “in the shadows”.   They were caught because of a New York Times article where the writer hired an SEO company to find out just how JCPenney performed its SEO magic. The writer found that JCPenney had been buying links, supposedly inadvertently through their SEO firm, on literally thousands of websites and most of which weren’t even relevant to JCPenney.  When the Times questioned Google’s Matt Cutts about the issue, he released a very short, “Google’s algorithms had started to work.  Manual action also taken.”   The result was JCPenney’s rankings taking a major plummet, but Twitter came alive with questions about why it took a New York Times investigation and a tap on Google’s shoulder for them to notice this had been going on.  Vanessa’s article covers it in more detail here and it’s a great read, but it raises important concerns to all legitimate SEO experts.

SEO professionals have had enough.  We all have had those clients that are in competitive fields and experience this first hand.  We see a clients’ competitor sit at the top of Google rankings that are only there from beating the system. We see them buy links, appear on hundreds of irrelevant sites (some even pornographic) and they win the battle.  Meanwhile, we have to tell our clients, “I can’t do that.  You need to consider the penalties. If you get caught, you could be removed from Google’s index.  They’ll eventually get caught. You’ll see….“  and then months later, even years later, they’re never caught.  They just continue to prosper and our clients go elsewhere. Most of the time to black hat SEO hobbyists that give them what they want.  Top rankings via whatever means necessary.  If clients are smart, they will steer clear away from this type of activity, but the question truly is, when will Google figure out how to spot this?

Someone explain why Google ignores legitimate SEO professionals pleas?  The graphic below is from the aforementioned post that showed how many links JCPenney had from month to month.  Why can’t Google see this activity and why don’t they act on it?  As mentioned before, JCPenney is not a small company, and they still don’t get caught unless something like this occurs.  Maybe Google can explain to us how they don’t see this activity below?  Google’s algorithm brags that it analyzes 10,000 ranking factors to determine positioning. Is this not one of them?  There’s not one SEO professional that hasn’t struggled getting a client to rank following the rules while we watched their competitors flourish by breaking them.  All we had to do is use SEO Elite to see the origin of their links. Does Google not have something similar?  Do we have to tattle-tale on sites for them to get caught?  It’s time for this hole to be patched and thankfully it takes an embarrassing slip like this to bring it back to light.

But in case you missed it, he said, “the impending retirement of the Google Base API“.  For those not familiar with Google Base, thousands of businesses use this to upload their product databases of what could be thousands of products into Google’s databases.  Those products then would show up in Google Base searches, Froogle and even in some cases product listings in normal Google searches when a search was product related, i.e. someone searching for Tickle me Elmo or Shammy 12 packs (or any search that is obviously a searcher looking for a product).

Many speculated over a year ago that Google Base would die anyway with the fast approaching “Google Merchant Center”, but until now it has been just that.  Speculation.  If your business does truly rely on Google Base as part of its online strategy, make sure that you read up on the new changes.  And definitely make sure you check your messages area when you log in. Some users are already reporting messages from Google informing them of changes that directly affect them such as attribute alterations to their datafeeds. You have been warned.  Again…