Masters Of The Google Universe: How To Achieve Top Google Rankings

Masters Of The Google Universe: How To Achieve Top Google Rankings
Copyright (c) 2009 Bill Platt
Links And Traffic
http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com

For years, it has been well known that Google’s search algorithm
is driven by the number and quality of links pointing to a
particular URL. And as a result, it was all the rage for some
time to buy links on web pages that had a high Google PageRank
(PR).

But in March of 2007, Google’s mouthpiece Matt Cutts declared
that Google was going to fight back against Paid Links. Google
put a shot across the bow of many online marketers, letting them
know that the days of easily buying links from high PageRank
pages in order to influence a website’s ranking in Google were
over.

The Shot Heard Around The World

With Matt Cutts declaration, a world full of online marketers
began to cry foul. It was said that “They can’t do that!”

But the truth was and is that the Google Search Algorithm is
Google’s intellectual property, and therefore, Google can do
anything they want within their algorithms – no matter who those
changes might hurt or help.

By the end of the Summer of 2007, the people crying foul had
quieted down a bit and got back to the business of trying to find
new ways to manipulate their website’s rankings inside of the
Google search results. That is the way it has always been and
always will be.

The summer of 2007 was just such an oddity… For me, it has
always been exciting to challenge the brains at Google to get my
websites to rank well within Google’s search algorithms. But for
some reason, at that moment in time, many of those who held the
top rankings in Google felt as if it was their God-given right to
be at the top of Google’s search results, and how dare Google
oppose God’s decree in this matter.

Yep, I know I am going to catch flak for that statement -
comparing a few webmasters to religious zealots – but that
is how I roll sometimes.

For me, Matt Cutts was telling people to work harder to actually
“earn” what they have been given. For me, it was a chance to
rededicate myself to the goal of ranking well in Google for
competitive keywords. For me, I did not have to change anything I
was already doing, because I have never gained a single ranking
in Google by paying for a link from any web page. (wink)

Google’s Search Engineers Are Not Foolish

Matt Cutts has said time and again that Google does not want to
attack any problem in their search algorithms by manually
deleting any participant in the Google search ranking game.

Instead, Google in every case wants to program a solution to
address a particular bad practice.

I guess it might be easier for me to understand since I am also a
computer programmer. It is a hobby I really enjoy, and I exercise
my mind with computer programming anytime I want to improve my
own websites or to build a new website. I keep my brain sharp by
solving problems in computer code.

So, whenever I see Google making moves in one direction or
another, I try to visualize how I would solve their algorithm
problems in computer code.

In my mind, solving the paid links issue was a super-easy
solution. Just look at the pages linking to a particular website,
and then do a cross-comparison of the PageRank of all of those
linking pages. If all of the pages linking to a particular URL
have a PageRank of Four or higher, then chances are that those
links were artificially created, through some kind of paid
linking system.

Let me explain this in an example, where all of the sample web
pages have 100 inbound links each:

If Site A has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank
of 4 or higher, then that is unnatural and therefore suspect.

If Site B has all of its 100 links on pages that have a PageRank
of 0, then those links offer no value to the Internet community
as a whole, and therefore Site B should not measured as a quality
search result.

If Site C has a mix of PageRank 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 links, then
that is more natural in its structure and it also shows that some
of the links are considered to have value in the Internet
community as a whole. Therefore, Site C has proven itself worthy
above Site A and Site B in Google’s search results.

This example should show in no uncertain terms how easy it was
for Google to properly address the issue of paid links and to put
a stop to people using paid links to manipulate their websites’
ranking in Google’s search algorithms.

Publication Standards

A couple years back, I wrote another article discussing this
concept in relationship to article marketing. You can read that
article with third-party commentary from Chris McElroy, aka
NameCritic, on the Article Content Provider Blog:
(http://karmaseo.com/linking-portfolio).

In a nutshell, I was discussing the role of article directories
in the article marketing industry. Again, this solution came to
me from my programming mind. The simple way for Google to have
dealt with all of the junk articles that have been written for
the purpose of building links to a website is to look at the
article in the context of where that article is published.

The article marketing carpet bombers send their articles to
hundreds of article directories to get hundreds of links pointing
to their website. But the role of the article directory has
always been to be a repository where newsletter publishers and
webmasters could go to find articles that they would like to
reprint in their own newsletters and on their own websites.

Some article directory managers bring a commitment to providing
publishers with only quality articles. Other article directory
managers approve anything and everything sent to them.

Through computer programming, it is relatively easy to identify
which websites are article directories and which ones are not.

If an article is of good quality, then niche website publishers
will find the article and put it on their own website. If the
article is a crap article, then the only websites that will
accept it are those article directories that publish anything and
everything given to them.

As a result, it is easy for Google to look at the Linking
Portfolio (list of publishing websites) of a single article and
to see which articles were considered worthy of reprint by human
reviewers. If the article only exists on article directory
websites, then the article must not provide any real value to
other people. But if the article is of good quality, the article
will be able to be located on article directories AND on niche
websites.

This concept very elegantly feeds into Google’s overall strategy
of determining which web pages people recommend to others. After
all, if you look at Google’s PageRank, it is very simply a
system which measures how many people have voted on the quality
or value of a particular web page.

Expanding On Google’s PageRank Formula

Google loves any system that they can conceive to measure how
much value the overall Internet community gives to a particular
web page.

Google naturally treats links found in the Yahoo! Business
Directory and the Open Directory as higher value links, because
the search engineers at Google understand that links in these
directories are all approved by a human being.

Google also gives extra value to social bookmarking websites,
because the concept behind social bookmarking is that individuals
“bookmark” a web page when they find that web page to offer
good value to its readers.

Google openly dislikes paid links and can easily identify those
paid links, without having to jump through too many hoops. (This
should not be confused with paying for a service that will help
you increase your rankings in Google. Paying a service provider
to provide services to you is very different than just paying for
links on high PageRank web pages.)

Google also appreciates reprint articles that have a Linking
Portfolio beyond the article directories. Once again, Google
appreciates reprint articles that are shown to provide real value
to individuals in the greater Internet community.

When you take a close look at the original premise of Google’s
PageRank, it has always been about creating systems that measure
the value of a web pages to find which web pages will best answer
a searcher’s question. Rightfully so, Google believes that the
best way to ensure that they are able to give their users good
quality search results is to look at what web pages others have
already deemed useful.

Herein rests the secret to ranking well in Google’s search
results. If you can create content that people will find useful,
interesting, and valuable to others, then Google’s seach
algorithms will look favorably upon your website.

Author’s Note – This article was originally published at:
http://karmaseo.com/blog/2009/04/top-google-rankings/

———————————————————-
Bill Platt has written about SEO and article marketing for a
number of years. As the owner of http://www.linksandtraffic.com/
Bill has also been providing search engine optimization services
to his clients for a number of years. If you are currently
spending at least $1000 per month on pay-per-click search
advertising, you owe it to yourself to review and consider
Bill’s Performance Based SEO Service at:
http://linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html