SEO's need Google, but Google needs SEO's too
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Digital PR agency Search Intelligence. See their case study at the end of the newsletter.
Many people think of Google as the ‘enemy of SEO’s’ out to get them and banish them from search results. This is a big mistake.
I used to believe the same, but then a Google penalty changed my whole perspective on SEO.
In 2011, the startup I worked for lost 60%+ of our search traffic in a single morning when Google launched its Panda update.
Prior to the update, we had hundreds of high-value search terms where we ranked in the top 3 of search results, and instantly they disappeared as the algorithm update rolled out.
We hadn't done anything supremely malicious, we just operated within the parameters of how everyone else took advantage of nuances in the Google algorithm.
We duplicated content across many of our own sites, bought links on high-authority domains, and obsessively filled content with keywords. Much of this was standard practice at the time (and for some still is) but was (and of course still is) against Google's terms of service.
In a nutshell, Google’s terms forbid anything that is intended to manipulate search results with underhanded tactics and that is precisely what we did.
When Google updated the algorithm it rid the index of sites that shouldn't have been there leaving the sites that did deserve their visibility with less competition.
Lemonade out of lemons
That Google penalty opened my eyes to Google's real priorities. It is not some malicious cabal that seeks to dominate the Internet for its own purposes; rather, it wants to provide the best experience for its users.
Google’s modus operandi has always been to provide the best user experience because this leads to the most long-term value from their users. In the early days of search, while other engines squeezed every cent out of their impressions, Google invested in the cleanest most useful service.
To achieve this goal, it needs to make sure that the results are free of spam and users find what they are looking for. Penalties are not meant to "punish" sites, they are intended to clear the results of poor sites that don't benefit a user's query.
On this, SEO and Google should be aligned. Websites and the SEO's that help them achieve search visibility also want a great experience for users because that's how conversions happen.
Additionally, if the results are full of spam, then users don't use Google and it becomes harder for the deserving websites to acquire users.
(Read my other newsletter for what will happen if the world does move to a pure generative AI search model.)
SEO's need Google to be effective at its mission, but Google also needs SEO.
Google needs a layer of search engine optimization to help translate search best practices to engineers and product managers, so Google can surface the best websites. Google also needs websites to follow best practices so sites that should be respected don't inadvertently spam the index.
Imagine a world where an authoritative site like IRS.gov is given bad SEO advice to create a piece of content for every word in the tax code. Google would want to communicate to the IRS that this might not be ideal for Google’s ranking and crawling efforts of their pages.
Similarly, there have been past instances where major brands like BMW, Genius, and JC Penney ran afoul of Google’s terms and Google needed to communicate how to effectively comply with those terms without punishing the Google users who would be seeking these brands. Most users who would search for a brand like BMW would not assume that the brand was at fault if they weren’t visible, rather they would just assume Google is broken.
Google of 2023
Now that search is even more complex and more engineering/product driven, Google needs to communicate even more to ensure that websites and apps are built in a Google-compliant model.
In years past, technology was less complex, and content and keywords were the largest drivers of search results. Now, there are a myriad of ways sites, pages, and even content (video, image, text, scripts) can be structured so Google has to communicate not just for the good of the site, but also to make sure their index remains current.
Resources
Google didn't always acknowledge its need to communicate with the SEO community, but now that they do, I am grateful for all the channels they use.
These are the people and sources you should follow:
1/Search advocate: Daniel Waisberg
2/Search off the Record podcast
3/Search hangouts: Office hours
4/ Search events (sign up here for the upcoming one in SF by the 21st where I will be speaking on SEO strategy)
5/Twitter/Reddit where the search advocates like John Mueller weigh in
Let me know any other resources I missed!
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