Rankings Archives - Farhan Fawzer

Farhan Fawzer

May 30, 2024

Google Confirms Leak of Search Ranking Document

Google has confirmed the leakage of a confidential document detailing its search ranking systems, sparking hot discussion topic within the SEO community. The document, reportedly used internally, sheds light on the intricacies of Google’s ranking factors, which are critical for website visibility on the search engine.

The leak has unveiled several key components of Google’s ranking algorithm, including the weight given to various factors such as page speed, mobile-friendliness, and backlink quality. This revelation has prompted SEO professionals to reassess their strategies, ensuring alignment with the uncovered guidelines to maintain or improve their website rankings.

Google’s response to the leak emphasizes their commitment to transparency and user experience. The search giant has reiterated that while the document provides insights, the actual algorithms used in real-time are dynamic and continuously evolving. This complexity ensures that no single factor can guarantee top rankings, as the search engine prioritizes delivering the most relevant and high-quality content to users.

Industry experts suggest that the leak will lead to a more informed and strategic approach among webmasters and SEO practitioners. However, they also caution against over-reliance on the document, advising a balanced focus on content quality, user engagement, and technical SEO.

For more detailed information, you can read the full article on CXOToday.

Farhan Fawzer

June 13, 2021

Quality Links Help Your Search Results

One of the key factors that search engines use to determine rankings is the number of other sites that believe your site is important enough to create a link to it. A link is essential a vote for the page that’s being linked to. However it is not simply the site with the most votes win. Not all sites are created equal and carry the same link value.

Quality links

Many factors are used to determine the value of a link. The analysis of link quality is complex and not an exact science. What gets analyzed as part of the link has changed over the years to provide better search results.

Search engines started using links to determine rankings by simply looking at sheer link volume. Sites with the most links won. People did everything they could to create a huge volume of links and watering down their value.

The search engines realized that the relevance of the linking page to the linked content had great value. While sheer link quantity continues to play a role, it is no longer the only factor in link analysis.

Search engines started analyzing link text. The words in the link started to matter. The words spoke about the page it was linking to and therefore when the words match up with the text on the page the more relevant your page became for those keywords.

Next, search engines started looking at the quality of each link. The higher the authority of the site linking out carries more link value than a lower authority site.

Link age became a factor as it was assumed that higher quality links seem to stay in place longer. Links that come and go might say something about the quality of the site being linked to, or if the link was perhaps just an ad purchased. It’s impossible for the search engines to determine with 100% accuracy whether a link was purchased or not.

There is more to a link that meets the eye. As the progression of link analysis has changed, that means we need to pay attention to our links in order to make sure that we are getting the most value out of each.

Anchor Text: Search engines and searchers get their clue about the content of the page linked on the external site. These words weigh heavily in determining the value of the link and deciding if it worth linking. Links should be keyword rich.

Where it Appears: Where the link appears on the page tells the search engines a great deal about the link itself. Search engines try to determine the value of the link by its placement on the page. Links in the midst of the page’s primary content, referred to as Editorial links, are deemed most valuable. These links are relevant to the searchers topic. Links in ad spaces are generally ignored.

We help businesses review their website’s quality links by our technical SEO team.

Farhan Fawzer

January 15, 2020

Google January 2020 Core Update

14th January 2020 was just an ordinary day for most of us as we went about with our regular work, but not so for Google.

On the 13th Google tweeted about releasing a broad core algorithm update called January 2020 Core Update.

Google explained their Algorithm updates in the best possible way as referenced below.

“One way to think of how a core update operates is to imagine you made a list of the top 100 movies in 2015. A few years later in 2019, you refresh the list. It’s going to naturally change. Some new and wonderful movies that never existed before will now be candidates for inclusion. You might also reassess some films and realize they deserved a higher place on the list than they had before.”
Google Webmaster Central Blog

An Algorithm changes tracking tool Cognitive SEO also was able to track the fluctuations on keywords ranking changes.

Our Client’s keywords ranking change after the 2020 core Algorithm update

We were able to notice massive improvements on our clients keyword rankings after the algorithm update. We have always deployed the best practice when it comes to providing SEO services to our valuable clients.

Some chatter about the Algorithm update from the SEO community

Two hours After the update went live, we began dropping for dozens of keywords one after the other. The effects from our end/datacenters were visible quite fast. We are also losing rich snippets stars for every phrase, after years of having them being visible in the SERPs. We are religiously dropping for everything across the board, including for fresh and expert written content. But I guess if a site has issues that would drag it down, it’s a site wide effect during an update. We’re definitely experiencing that right now. I guess we didn’t do enough work to improve our site and user experience. If I’m being honest and objective with respect to our site, in theory, I can see why it’s dropping. Unpleasant but it’s the reality. Need to work harder.

For us, it’s been horrible since the second week of November. I don’t ever recall Google’s traffic being this bad. The quantity is there, but the quality went right down the toilet. Let’s hope what is apparently rolling out now will dramatically improve traffic quality. Here’s what I’m looking at for this month:

Users: +9.8%
Revenue: -40.6%
Conversion Rate: -38.2%

Almost a 10% increase in traffic and conversions fall off the cliff? Really?Keep in mind this is on top of what turned out to be a terrible November and December. Google’s traffic has gotten really, really bad. And just when you think the quality of traffic coming from Google can’t get any worse, it does!

Have you been affected by the recent algorithm update? Has your website seen significant changes in the keywords rankings, drop in organic traffic, not many inquiries etc. Get in touch me and I’m happy to analyse your website along with you in identifying and fixing the issue.

Farhan Fawzer

December 30, 2017

SEO in 2018 Trends & Challenges

SEO in 2018… Are you prepared for the new challenges in SEO? Below are a some of the crucial factors that you should be mindful when it comes to optimizing your website in 2018.

Search Snippets

Are you supposing a #1 organic and natural ranking is the best way to get just as much traffic as you possibly can? Think again. Significantly, SERP features (local packages, Knowledge panels, highlighted snippets and so forth) are stealing searchers’ attention and clicks from organic and natural listings.

Keywords Optimization

We have to know how to find the keywords and phrases that searchers are in reality using to resolve or even to get answers to the queries they are having. Those should be issues that your company, your website is in fact attempting to solve, that your website’s content including blog posts, articles can help them to resolve.

What you should have is a main keyword and ideally a couple of related supplementary keywords that show the searcher’s purpose. So the intention behind of most of these queries and phrases ought to be the same so the same content can provide it. After you do that, we will have a main and a secondary group of keywords that we can target with our keywords optimization efforts.

Link Building

Link building is not likely to fade away in 2018, but it’ll be more important than ever before to make a strategy that looks for out quality links. There is no need to shoot for new links if indeed they don’t add value and help you build an power in your concentrate on niche.

This won’t always imply that the best backlinks result from typically the most popular sites, but it’s still essential to seek coverage from sites that are highly relevant to your industry. Recommendation traffic can still donate to your site’s organic and natural search rankings, although it is also useful to get started on thinking of link constructing as a long-term process.

An effective SEO strategy in 2018 will move towards relevance building, helping a brand name develop powerful connections and links which will be beneficial in the longer term.

Meta Titles and Descriptions

Indeed, Google still uses the meta depiction every now and again. I know it appears like now and then they don’t. In any case, truth be told, there’s a high percent of the time when the actual meta data from the page is utilized. There’s a considerably higher rate where the title is used. The URL, while Google some of the time truncates those, utilized as a part of the snippets and different components. How Google shows your page on the SERPs decides if individuals want to click on your page or somebody else’s. It’s very important to have descriptive and clean meta titles & descriptions that create that urge to a user to click.

User Experience

User experience for SEO will become even more vital in 2018. Google has made it very clear that the main focus is on the user and this could create many websites deliver a desired user experience for all website visitors.

Mobile-first index

Google is rolled out another mobile-first index. This implies Google will make and rank its search results based on the mobile version of content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users.

Farhan Fawzer

June 7, 2016

Developing Long Lasting SEO Takes Time

Good things come to those who wait

Patience is a virtue in search engine optimization. Placing paid sponsored ads in the Pay per Click (PPC) area via Google AdWords can achieve almost immediate results but SEO does not produce immediate results. You won’t get your return on investment a week after SEO starts. However the long term benefits of SEO often out weight the almost instantaneous results of PPC. This is one reason that the two often work well together in a campaign.

Optimizing your site for your targeted key phrases won’t get you to Page 1 overnight. You won’t find all your keywords rankings in the top 10 on Google in 19 days (despite some claims you read), nor will you get significant traffic improvement after an hour of SEO consultations. SEO is like boiling water: you don’t get a hard boil the moment you turn on the burner… you have to wait for it.

Boiling water on the burner

The process of optimizing a site can take months or even over a year, depending on how competitive your area of practice and your geographic target. SEO is an ongoing process with growing measures of return. The return in SEO is good, but you’ve got to be willing to invest the time to let it happen.

Developing a Proper Base Takes Time

Hours of research, developing the proper site architecture, and making the site user friendly must all be completed prior to the actual optimization of specific pages. Keyword research, research on your specific product or service and your specific targeted geography, competition research, and more, must be completed before any optimization can begin.

Every website has different construction, design, layout, history, and speaks differently. No two sites are the same; therefore no research is the same. Some elements of the research can be applied, but you can’t just take what works for someone else and apply it to your site. You don’t get ahead by cloning a competitor; you get ahead by outsmarting a competitor.

There Are No Magic Bullets in SEO

Many businesses have quality websites. To get the search engines to rank you higher than other businesses competing in your same product or services, it is important to do all the little things right. There is no one thing you can do that will send you to the top of the rankings. You must do a series of small things right over time. Overall website construction including “Site maps”, help both search engines and visitors quickly and easily get to the information that is important on your site.

Up against a similar site, these things can help you keep visitors engaged with your content and prevent them from jumping off to a competitor. It’s often the small things that can make the biggest difference. Providing unique content offers value to visitors, videos give people an understanding of you, your personality and FAQ that address real issues are some of the examples that separate you from the rest.

Even the design and navigation of the site play a major role. The easier it is for visitors to find their way around your site the easier it is for the search engines to crawl and index all your web pages.