NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – Building links to and from your site is a large part of search engine optimization. Googlebots, the computer programs that crawl and index websites, know what to crawl partly because of links.

There are two kinds of links – outbound and inbound. Outbound links are easy to control, as they go from your site to other sites on the Web. Inbound links, those that point from other sites to your site, are harder to achieve. Inbound links are also more important in Google’s ranking algorithm; more inbound links from respected sources means more trust built for your website.

A successful link building campaign is one of the most important search engine optimization services that SEO firms offer. Your SEO expert can help you design a link building campaign that meets your needs and your budget.

Creating Quality Content
The most organic way to gain quality inbound links is to create content worthy of sharing. Well-researched, well-written content will take you a long way. Google Webmaster Tools reveals the most effective way to gain inbound links, and in theory, it’s not difficult.

“The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community,” according to Webmaster Tools. “The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”

Having good information to link to will make your link building campaign easy and natural. We’ve discussed ideas for quality content generation as well as guest blogging ventures, so check those out if you’re feeling the perils of writer’s block. Also remember that content isn’t restricted to typed text. You can generate relevant content in the form of video tutorials, photos or podcasts, but be diligent in tagging these forms of content correctly so Google can find and index them.

Action: Create a content creation schedule. Think outside the box, and post regularly. Commit to something you can handle; new content posted once a month might be good for the beginning, and then you could graduate to every-other-week, and then weekly.

Gaining Links
There are many ways to gain links that point to your website. First, you can submit your site to directories. Some are free and others charge a fee, but adding your site to directories is the first step to gaining inbound links. Other ways to gain links include sponsoring an event, guest blogging, holding contests or giveaways and sharing content across social networks. Reach out to other bloggers in your industry, comment on their posts thoughtfully and become part of a conversation. Let your content work for you by writing about timely subjects in your industry. You can also write about major news topics as long as you relate them to your business; you don’t want to get too far off topic and lose your customers’ trust.

We’ve discussed how to get links from .edu and .gov websites, though that isn’t an easy feat. It’s been debated as to whether Google gives higher credibility in their ranking algorithm for this type of link, but it’s certain that users find these sites more credible than a .net or a .com in many instances. Sites ending in .edu and .gov are educational, scientific or governmental websites.

But there are other sites outside of these that are deemed credible. A site with high traffic, such as a major news organization or a widely read blog, will help your link gain more credibility.

Action: Submit to directories. Make a list of relevant websites and blogs in your industry. Brainstorm ways to get a link from these trusted sites.

The Importance of Anchor Text
We’ve dedicated an entire article to anchor text before. Anchor text is the displayed text that is hyperlinked to another website. Sometimes you can’t control your anchor text, but other times you can. Make sure the word or phrase linked to your site is meaningful. This could be a keyword relevant to your business, such as “Nashville copywriter”, or it could be the name of your business. Anchor text that uses the phrase “click here” isn’t helping Google rank your website much. Anchor text that includes specific, keyword-oriented phrases will help Google understand what your website is about. But be aware that repeating your keywords could also hurt your rankings.

Action: Create a list of keywords relevant to your business. Brainstorm ways to create a link to your website using those keywords as anchor text.

Measuring Your Success
All of this link building and content creation work is to get you to the first page of Google. Now that you’ve implemented a link building campaign, it’s time to measure your success. You can use Google Analytics to track your traffic.

Master Google’s CEO Ali Husayni uses Open Site Explorer to determine which sites are linking to certain URLs and how they’re linking to them. Open Site Explorer even lets you see what anchor text is used to link to your site. Alexa and Bing also have tools for users to count and analyze backlinks. If you noticed an increase in traffic since you’ve implemented your campaign, it’s fair to say the work is paying off.

Action: Find a link-analysis site you like and learn its ins and outs. Measure your traffic sources with Google Analytics, or another analytics website. Revisit your link building campaign every month to see where you can make improvements.

Have you created a link building campaign for your company? How have your efforts paid off, and how did you measure your successes?

TAMPA, FLORIDA – This is a post where we’re going to brag on ourselves a bit because we recently achieved a new level of success for one of our clients in a highly competitive market.

Our client, Miami orthodontist Dr. Pedro Alquizar, recently began appearing on Page 1 in the first position for his primary keyword: Miami orthodontist. This happened within six months of Dr. Alquizar starting his SEO campaign with us.

Getting clients to the top of Google is the goal of every good SEO firm. But as our fellow Web and SEO marketing experts I’m sure will agree, achieving that goal can be a difficult task.

Dr. Alquizar is in the greater Miami market where there are about 70 other orthodontists, so getting to the top of the heap is no small feat. It also should be noted that Dr. Alquizar has more than 50 keywords that we work to optimize at any given time. You can view his keyword report here.

As a result of our SEO campaign, Dr. Alquizar’s website has experienced a traffic increase, which you can see in the graph. The graph shows Dr. Alquizar’s website traffic changes from May 2012 to Oct. 31, 2012.

“I’m extremely proud of our team,” says Sinai Marketing CEO Ali Husayni. “This is a huge feather in our cap. It shows potential clients that we mean business. We set high goals for ourselves, and this shows Sinai Marketing is capable of achieving difficult goals in a timely manner.”

How did we do it?

“When this client signed up with us, we registered a whole new domain for him, which means we started our SEO work using a clean domain,” says Saeed Khosravi, Sinai Marketing’s operations manager.

Most of the time, the clients who come to us have a previous profile of aggressive and/or unnatural link building work that makes our job much more difficult, compared to when a client has a newly registered domain that doesn’t have any backlinks, Khosravi says.

Another factor that played to our favor was the exact-match domain we chose for Dr. Alquizar- www.miamiorthodontistgroup.com- and our proper on-page optimization.

This is worth bragging about because Dr. Alquizar wasn’t our first foray into the Miami market. We had another Miami orthodontist as a client a couple of years ago, and it took us a year to get that client ranked as well on Google organic search results.

“Today we have a stronger link building capacity, a better link building team and a better approach to link building and it shows,” Khosravi says.

We also set up Dr. Alquizar’s Google authorship image and Google Plus profile, and we claimed, verified and optimized all of his offices on Google Plus Local- also known as Google Maps or Google Places- Khosravi says, adding, “We see every client as our partner, and our success is tied to our clients’ success.”

By taking a multifaceted approach that also included directory submissions and copywriting, SEO success was achieved. We thank Dr. Alquizar for entrusting us with his campaign.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence as to whether you should invest in SEO for your website, give us a call to learn how we can get you to the top.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA—It’s pretty common that at least a couple of the comments left on a blog post on our site say, “Hey, can you give me some tips for my site?”

Our entire blog is dedicated to helping people learn about SEO, giving tips for better websites, and keeping them updated on the latest industry news, so their comments are a bit puzzling to me. Did they actually read the post? Are those comments just spam?

But I understand some readers may not have the time or tenacity to wade through the archive to find what they need, so I decided put together a post that people can use as a resource (or something I can link to when they ask) to learn about SEO. I’ve combed through the archives for you and linked to a few—ok, a whole bunch—of great articles that will get you on your way to better rankings and more traffic to your site.
Not all our subscribers have an SEO background, so I separated the links into different levels of expertise. Check it out to see if there are gaps in your SEO campaign.

Someone said I should do SEO for my website, but I don’t know what SEO is.
If that sounds like where you’re starting from, welcome to the SEO world. You might be interested in investing in SEO coaching to get your business a jump-start.  With coaching, one of our experts helps you improve your site while teaching you how to do SEO yourself. There are full service SEO packages if you prefer to completely outsource it.  If you’re just interested in reading up on it, I’d recommend you start with the basics like what SEO is, common mistakes and how to steer clear of shady SEO companies.

1. You might be skeptical of search engine marketing altogether, which is pretty common, but you need it and our seo article explain why.
2. Search engine optimization, or SEO, can sound like a different language when you’re just getting started. This article describes how Google gets information from your website and how they know where to rank it in search engine results.
3. There is no “secret formula” to search engine optimizing a website, but our CEO Ali Husayni has written about the method he uses to get clients results: content, relevancy and popularity.
4. If you’re going to outsource for SEO services, know that there are scummy companies that will try to rip you off. Follow the guidelines in this post to find a reputable firm that will make your investment worthwhile.

I know a little bit about SEO. Maybe.
Chances are you are probably looking for the first few steps toward making your website more search engine friendly but aren’t sure where to start. Our SEO experts recommend starting with on-page optimization techniques like fixing any problems with your website’s code and making it easy for search engine spiders to index your site. We offer free SEO that covers many of these on-page optimization techniques and SEO coaching if you’d rather learn to do it yourself.

1. Take steps toward better rankings by fixing header tags, sitemap, navigation, 404 errors, alt image info and metadata.
2. Learn what trackbacks and pingbacks are and why they,re valuable for your site.
3. Read up on how to optimize anchor text for your website.
4. Find out how fast your site loads and how to fix slow times so you aren’t losing traffic.
5. Rid your site of all duplicate content.
6. Here is article that tells you how you should not under any circumstance acquire links.
7. Heed the advice in this article and avoid the mistakes other people have made when optimizing their sites.

My site has been optimized, but I’m not ranking well.
It sounds like you may be thinking of SEO as a one-time deal.  According to Husayni, on-page optimization is only five to 10 percent of what SEO is today.  Google has changed the game and your website has no chance of ranking well for competitive keywords if you’re not working on getting credible links to your site, developing high-quality content and building your brand on social networks. If you need help doing those things, sign up for a consultation with an expert from the Sinai Marketing team.

1. You have to have an embedded WordPress blog.
2. Don’t assume your business doesn’t have a lot to write about. This post is guaranteed to help you come up with plenty of topics for your blog.
3. Don’t post junky content though. You have expertise to share and this is how to write great content and get people to read it.
4. Getting listed on directory submission sites and started on Google+ is a must.
5. Make sure you’ve marked your territory, established authorship and started working on your brand.
6. Organic SEO will get you traffic eventually, but you’ll have to help the process along by getting your content out there. There are traditional methods like press release  and article distribution sites, but don’t forget about the less conventional ones.
7. Links matter. A lot. But they’re not all created equal. Focus on getting good links and stay away from this kind.

My rankings tanked or are erratic, and I’m looking for an explanation.
Fluctuations are bound to happen because Google is always updating the search engine algorithm.  Unlike the cute zoo animals their names may bring to mind, Panda and Penguin were major updates that shook up the SEO world and were designed to improve the quality of search results. You might have a problem due to that.  Another reason your website might have a problem due to poorly written code, black-hat techniques, or duplicate content.

When you need troubleshooting help, SEO consulting can be exactly what you need.  A consultant gives you short-term help to analyze the problem and make recommendations for how to fix it.

1. See the trends and bigger picture of your website traffic by setting up Google Analytics.
2. Learn more about Panda, which has 21 updates so far and continues to be updated almost every month.
3. As the algorithm evolves, some SEO techniques become no-no’s that Google will penalize you for using when you’re caught. Find out white hat seo and black hat seo.
4. Keep up with the latest updates to the algorithm by following SEO blogs like the ones this article talks about.

I’m ready for more advanced techniques.
If you’re sure you’ve taken care of all the other stuff, forge ahead into even more ways to improve your site, build your brand, increase traffic and boost your conversion rates.

1. Interviews of prominent SEO figures can help you track trends and adopt new techniques early.
2. Interacting online using social media can be a new frontier for some business owners, but it’s definitely essential for SEO success.
3. Learn how to improve keyword research and copywriting.
4. With the explosion of mobile search, invest some time and effort to do mobile SEO well.
5. Online merchants can take on ecommerce SEO with this open-source, search engine friendly, e -commerce product.

Like its title, this is only an SEO primer not a comprehensive list, but hopefully it helps some people make their websites better and add to their client base. What other topics would you like to hear more about? I’ll do the heavy-lifting for you and find an article that addresses it.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-Google has been including more and more social signals into how they rank websites in search results. They’ve been pushing their social network Google+ extensively too, but it looks like all this could be leading up to a bigger shift in their algorithm that makes these social markers even more important.

Many of the bloggers in the SEO community have been talking about authorship, suggesting that it is building up to something major, and warning that people who fail to get on board will be at a disadvantage when it happens.

I recently did a post about Google authorship and why you’re already behind if you don’t have it.  The gist is that Google authorship is a way to connect the content you create to your Google+ profile no matter where it lives. Claiming your content provides the searcher with additional information right from the search results, and it has a few other perks too.

What could this be leading up to?
If you listen to what others who watch the industry trends are saying, this is building up to AuthorRank, a way to inform PageRank and enable Google to rank high-quality content more appropriately. According to AJ Kohn, who runs an online marketing firm specializing in search engine optimization marketing, it could be more disruptive than all of the Panda updates combined.

“If what he says is true, companies that wait to act until it happens will be too late,” says Ali Husayni, our resident expert SEO consultant and CEO. “The impact could be so big that people who haven’t done anything to prepare might as well have been penalized. Companies need to be proactive starting now and build AuthorRank for the people who contribute content to their websites.”

How will AuthorRank work?
At this point, mostly everything is speculation, but this is how some Google SEO experts are analyzing the clues. Kohn, who made the bold statement about AuthorRank versus Panda, says that combined with the web of people and the web of links, this change can create a more savvy view of trust and authority that will be used to rank search results.

This is my best translation of all that.

The idea behind AuthorRank has been in the works for a while now. Just one of the patents Google applied for related to this is from May 2011, but that was actually a continuation of a string of applications dating back to 2005.  Learn more about it.

Their mission as a search engine has been to provide people with the most timely, most relevant search results possible by using an algorithm that is constantly being tweaked to think and act like a real person would. Obviously, an algorithm isn’t a person though and that makes it difficult for it to determine the quality of content since that can be quite subjective. Every time Google changes the algorithm to fix a search quality problem, spammers find a way to manipulate it or work around it, hence Matt Cutts’ job security.

It would make sense that Google wants a more concrete way to help the algorithm figure out what sites deserve to be ranked well in their search results. Read through the patent, and you see that they’ve had the framework for it. Last summer, they rolled out Google+, which is a platform that establishes people and companies identities. And now there is authorship, which is a way to verify who is creating what.

Add it all together, and it appears to be a way to identity what site or which person is responsible for content, assign the content or person a score or AuthorRank and combine that with all the other factors they use when ordering results of a search. Better score? Better rank.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google working AuthorRank into their algorithm soon,” says Husayni. “Adding it makes sense. Plus, all the clues are there-the push for more social interaction, authorship, and the ongoing efforts to measure site trust and authority.”

What have you heard about authorship and AuthorRank? Do you think this is the next big change for the search engine algorithm? Share your thoughts.

TAMPA, FLORIDA—This is a post for all the newbies to the search engine optimization world.

I recently sought out other respected SEO firms and industry leaders in addition to Master Google to gain a clearer understanding of it. My most recent enlightening experience came from an October Q-and-A webinar with Rand Fishkin and Darmesh Shah. Now I’m sharing answers to the questions I found most helpful:

1. What are the top three things businesses are doing wrong regarding SEO?

For one, they aren’t using Master Google. Of course, they didn’t say this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it!

At the top of the list is trying to discover the perfect algorithmic fit and focusing on it, as opposed to focusing on the customer’s wants and needs. This method may also be harmful since the past 30 to 40 Google updates have sought to fight it.

Your time would be better spent creating quality content that caters to your customers, Shah says.

Another mistake is targeting the most searched topics and keywords instead of focusing on a specific niche. Focused keywords have less competition and provide greater return.

Building links instead of earning them is number three on the list. Instead of paying sites for links or linking to useless domains, put great and insightful content on your site that people will share.

In SEO, content is king. Quality content must be created and that takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts.

2. What is the best way to measure the success of your SEO campaign?

If you’re a B2B company, your ranking means close to nothing if clicks aren’t translating to customers. It’s helpful to know which words you rank for and how those ranks hold up, but a better method is to determine business value. For example: search traffic led to this amount of customers who ended up spending this amount of money. It’s likely you’ll find that your investment has paid off like Dr. Jennifer Eisenhuth, a Master Google client.

Peter Eisenhuth, who handles marketing for Dr. Eisenhuth’s practice, says they saw a 500 percent increase in new patient exams that were results of search traffic. He was so pleased with his results that he started a new practice and again hired Master Google to do the SEO.

This method is less accurate if you have a small business where word of mouth is a substantial contributor to customer flow. Randkin suggests using your contact or hours of operation page as a conversion, since typically only people who plan to visit a business care about its hours. This method isn’t perfect, but it gives you something to go on.

3. How important are blogs and their use of keywords?

Using keywords in blogs is still important. Randkin suggests writing a blog with good content and a catchy title, then searching for a relevant keyword that can be inserted with minor alterations.

Another thing he suggests is every other week, take a highly searched keyword or phrase and write a fabulous article that covers the topic “to a T.”

At Master Google, we use blog posts as a means for providing new, quality content for our customers on a regular basis. That’s why I found it odd that the amount of new blogs being developed on the Internet has dropped drastically. And with social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all sharing or linking to blogs, more people than ever are reading them.

This translates to less competition and more eyeballs. If you don’t have a blog, you are missing out on a great opportunity to build quality links.

If after this, you still feel like you’re drowning in a sea of misunderstanding, Master Google is always there to toss out a lifeline. When it comes to SEO, at Master Google, one man’s burden is another’s passion.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-Authorship has been out there for more than a year, but it’s just recently started to catch on as people see the benefits it offers in SEO marketing techniques.

If this is something you haven’t done for yourself and your website, you should make it a top priority. It is a service that Master Google offers to help businesses establish themselves as an authority in their industry and their website rank better for the topics they cover. One client who we are helping claim authorship for his content is Dr. Andrew Miller, a plastic surgeon in New York.

Some people may not be familiar with authorship, so I’ll give a brief summary of what it is before I explain how it benefits you and how to claim it.

What Authorship Is All About
Google authorship is a way to connect the content you create to your Google+ profile and provide the searcher with additional information right from the search results. Besides the page title, URL and date published, it has a thumbnail of the profile photo from your Google+ page, your byline if you’ve made that available in the copy, and a snippet of the content. The person will also see how many people have you in their Google+ circles-if it’s over a certain number-and see a link to more articles by you.

“Claiming authorship gives you a nice author-rich snippet in the search results,” says Ali Husayni, our CEO who helps businesses get to the top of Google search results. “But it also sets up exactly what Google needs to tie your online identity together with the content you’re creating, which might be leading up to something even bigger in the future.”

Hidden Benefit Of Authorship Confirmed By Google
Even if authorship isn’t leading up to a significant factor in the search engine algorithm like some suggest, it does have a “hidden” benefit that Google confirmed in early October.
Essentially, when you claim authorship, you get extra love from Google in the search results when a reader clicks on your link. Here is an example of how it works.

I did a Google search for “questions to ask your SEO company” and an article by Husayni, one of our best SEO consultants, was listed on the first page. I clicked on the link, stayed on the site for about two minutes, and used my browser’s back button. There under the original article link, Google had added three links to other articles by Husayni.

The caveat is that if the user clicks back too soon, the links aren’t added. Google didn’t specify how much time has to be spent on the site to get the extras, but when I tested it, close to two minutes seemed to be the magic number.

Four Steps To Claiming Your Content
Here are the suggestions Google gives if you want to link content you publish on a specific domain directly to your Google+ profile.

1. Choose a recognizable headshot for your profile photo.
2. Include a byline that contains your name on each page of your content.
3. Match the byline name on your content to the name listed on your Google+ profile.
4. Check that you have an email address on the same domain as your content. If you don’t have an email address on the same domain and can’t make one, try using this method recommended in the Google Webmaster support forum to link your content to your Google+ profile.

To get the most out of the authorship, be sure you claim it for all your content. Google made a tool that allows you to preview the rich snippet information to get it looking just right. Here is another help article from Google’s Webmaster Tools if the rich snippet information is not showing up.

If you haven’t done so already, get over to your Google+ profile and start staking claim to your content. It certainly won’t hurt, and it will put you one step ahead of other businesses. We can also help establish your authorship with Google if the above is confusing to you. Just ask us.

Stay tuned for my next post where I’ll discuss what authorship could be leading up to and a change that some SEO experts are predicting will be bigger than all the Panda updates combined.

Share what you know about Google authorship and if you had success establishing yours in the comments.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-It can get pretty discouraging when you’re not getting anywhere in Google rankings in spite of following all the best practice guidelines and good copywriting suggestions. If you feel like your content is still being ignored, make sure one of these problems isn’t tanking your number of page views.

The term page view is pretty self-explanatory. You get one each time a visitor clicks to view a single file or page of a website. Essentially, the more page views you get the greater the potential there is to convert readers to new customers.

Here are four things to keep in mind when trying to boost your page views:

1. To view your site, they have to be able to find it.
   You should already know what our SEO expertand President Ali Husayni says: you must have a WordPress blog on your site to do well in Google rankings. However, Google gives a higher priority to sites with fresh content, so without regular updates your site will get buried in the results  even though the content may still be relevant. If you haven’t already done this, here are some ways to get started on a blog.
   • Make a list of topics to write about and set up a posting schedule. Some websites function primarily to provide basic information about the company or service provided, but you can still come up with relevant and interesting topics with a little more creativity to do it. This is a post that has 10 types of posts to help get the ideas flowing.
   • Set up a Google+ profile or business page and establish authorship of content. Your picture or company logo and a type of rich snippet in search results shows up, increasing the visibility and click-through rate on your content.
   • Build backlinks to improve page rank, which will help establish you as an authority, causing your content to show up more frequently in search results and your website to generate more leads and more paying customers. Google hasn’t confirmed that .edu and .gov sites effect how they rank sites, but in our experience links from those sites are helpful.
   • Promote your content, business and services through social media sites like Google+, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube-even Pinterest can be a good fit for certain kinds of companies. If you’re out of ideas about how to do that, our Editor-in-Chief Lorrie Walker recently did a two part series that shared 10 ways of marketing content that are often overlooked.
2. To read your content, they have to be able to see it.
   Websites can be a place to express artistic style, but too often companies fall prey to exuberant website designs with eyeball searing results. Keep the basics basic. For example, use an easy-to-read font like Times New Roman or Arial and the text aligned to the left. Black text on a white background is the easiest for eyes of all ages to focus on. Follow the advice of our search engine optimization specialist by structuring the site logically and formatting the text using appropriate heading tags, paragraph breaks, subheadings and lists. A giant block of words takes more effort to slog through than most readers are willing to give and if the code is a jumbled mess search engine spiders can’t crawl the site as effectively.
3. To care about what you’re saying, they have to see why or how it benefits them.
   Whether your target audience is other professionals in your field or the general community, you have valuable information and experience about your business and industry that can benefit others. If you frame it in a way so they can see that, you’ll be on the way to building a community and increasing your client base.”Don’t put your focus exclusively on getting better rankings or more page views though,” says Husayni. “The best SEO is done by writing not for the search engine but for your audience-or the audience you’re targeting if you don’t have much of one yet.”Come up with catchy but accurate titles and succinct summaries of the articles to pique interest and allude to how your content could benefit them. Many readers will only scan an article, so make it easy to glean the main ideas.
4. To interact with you, they have to be able to do it easily.
   The most successful blogs are ones that have created a space for readers to join the dialogue and made it easy for them to do it. Social signals have become more important in how Google ranks websites, so you need to get involved or risk missing out. Make your blog as easy to follow as possible by installing a subscription button and RSS feed in a prominent location that will notify subscribers when you post new content on your blog. There is a much higher chance for returning visitors when a link to your blog post pops up in their reader or inbox.

The bottom line of any campaign designed to increase visibility and ranking on Google is that it’s going to take time, so be patient and don’t give up. What have you found that helps boost page views and get your content out there?

ORLANDO, FLORIDA- Google recently pushed out a new change to its algorithm that SEO experts on major SEO blogs are calling Panda 20, so if you’ve seen a major dip in your rankings over the last couple of weeks, this may be why.

Barry Schwartz, the news editor for Search Engine Land, posted that Google confirmed with them on Sep. 27 that the 20th Panda algorithm update was in the process of being rolled out. The latest reports indicate that it is a fairly major one.

The head of Google’s webspam fighting team Matt Cutts warned a change was coming in a Tweet on Sept. 28: “Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality ‘exact-match’ domains in search results.”

Turns out that minor weather report may have referred to Panda 20, an update that actually impacted 2.4 percent of English search queries in a way that normal search engine users might notice. Cutts may have been talking about another update that was pushed out over the same weekend with Panda 20, which makes it difficult at this point to determine which update caused what until Google shares more details, or more data is in from SEO services experts.

The official announcement from Google came late Friday afternoon that an exact match domain update would eliminate the chance of a low-quality exact match domain from ranking well in Google. In a statement that Cutts sent to Search Engine Land, he emphasized that this was an algorithm update; not just a data update like previous changes to Panda.

“I haven’t seen many exact-match domain sites drop from that number one spot,” emphasizes Ali Husayni, Master Google’s CEO. “Maybe Panda 20 hasn’t rolled out completely yet.”

The original Panda update was back in February 2011. There have been periodic adjustments and it is updated almost monthly, so changes are subtle and mostly go unnoticed, according to Cutts. For a summary of previous 19 Panda updates, including dates and what they did, check out this list compiled by one of our guest writers.

What Are EMDs & Why Are They In The Crosshairs?
Exact-match domain names, which also go by EMDs, are websites that use a domain name that contains the exact keyword or phrase they are targeting with their search engine optimization.

For instance, if you’re looking for the best shoe deals, you may search for “best shoe deals.” In this case, www.bestshoedeals.com would be an exact match.

EMDs have been considered a catalyst in improving the SEO ranking of a website, although many websites rely heavily on EMDs without producing any high-quality or relevant content. That is precisely why Google’s webspam fighting team has targeted them.

Low-quality websites usually have lots of duplicated content and what original content there is typically has little value to the reader or is loaded with a lot of advertisements. They often have a poor, unnatural link profile, including links from unrelated or suspicious websites. The number of incoming links that use anchor text can also be an indicator of a low-quality site.

Why Did My Site Get Hit?
If you have an exact-match domain website, you don’t need to panic. Panda 20 doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail. Unfortunately, legitimate businesses that have worked diligently can become unwitting casualties of these types of updates. But more often than not, there is something wrong or missing with their search engine optimization techniques. If you’re not sure what you need to do to recover from the update, consider investing in a few hours of SEO consulting services with one of our SEO experts, who can give you the information you need to get back in business.

What impact have you seen on search results since this latest Panda update? Share your experience.