Category: Marketing

Why Local Search Matters (And Why You Need a Google Business Profile Now)

Posted on by Simon

If your business relies on local customers, optimising your website and business for Local Search is your golden ticket to success. Whether you run a brick-and-mortar store, provide local services, or operate a regional business, showing up in local search results can be the difference between thriving and struggling.

Why Local Search Is a Game-Changer

Think about how you search for businesses. When you need a plumber, a coffee shop, or a reliable electrician, what do you do? You Google it.

Generally these searches include some form of ‘local intent’: that’s search speak for using a place name in the search query, or using the phrase ‘near me’

When you do that, a different search algorithm comes into play. One that weighs up the search engine results quite differently to other kinds of searches.

In particular, right at the top of the results, what pops up first? A “Local Pack” that handy map with three business listings at the top of the search results:

Local search results for ‘Solicitor in Carmarthen’

These local search results drive massive visibility – especially when you realise that nearly 50% of all Google searches have a local intent.

Backlinko.com also recently found that 42% of searchers click on the Local Pack results when seeing local services.

If you business is focussed on doing business with customers near to you, and isn’t optimised for local search, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of potential customers who are actively looking for what you offer.

The Power of your Business Profile

Your business profile is one the biggest factors that make up your local search presence. There are three main platforms where you can create a business profile for search:

  • Google: Determines how your results are shown in Google search results
  • Bing: Determines how your results are shown in Bing search results
  • Apple: Shows your business in Apple Maps

Although it’s worth making sure all three are completed, with its domination of the search market, your Google Business Profile is by far the most important. Without it, you’re practically invisible in Google Maps and local searches.

Here’s why setting up and optimising your Google Business Profile (GBP) is so critical:

1. Appear in Google’s Local Pack

A properly set-up Google Business Profile increases your chances of appearing in that Local Pack, which dominates those local search results. If you’re not there, your competition is – and they’re getting the clicks and calls instead of you.

Appearing in that Google’s Local Pack (that prime map and business listing shown at the top of the search results) can dramatically increase your business’s exposure – especially as we’ve seen that 42% of users click on these results. Securing a spot in there is invaluable.

2. Boost Visibility in Google Maps

When customers search for businesses “near me,” Google Maps is their go-to tool. Your GBP ensures your business appears accurately on the map, making it easy for customers to find you and get directions.

3. Accurate and Accessible Information

Not being able to find out the right information about a business is frustrating – and users rely on accurate information to make purchasing decisions. According to the Local Business Discovery and Trust Report, 2023, a  huge 62% of consumers said they would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online, so it’s worth getting those details right.

By regularly updating your GBP with current contact information, operating hours, and services, you ensure potential customers receive reliable data, buidling trust and encouraging engagement.

4. Drive More Traffic & Sales

A complete and active GBP includes essential information like your website, phone number, address, and services. The easier you make it for potential customers to reach you, the more conversions you’ll see.

5. Increase Trust with Reviews

Customer reviews are massive for credibility. Your Google Business Profile allows happy customers to leave you great reviews, which you can respond to – showing that you value the feedback.

Businesses with high ratings are more likely to get chosen over competitors with few or poor reviews and the Local Consumer Review Survey, 2025 found that 83% of consumers use Google to find local business reviews.

Even better, reviews (and responses to them) are one of the factors that search engines take into account when they’re calculating local search results – so you get a double whammy: credibility and a boost in search ranking. Google even gives you a link to send to your favourite customers so you can ask them to leave some lovely feedback.

6. Gain Insights & Analytics

When your profile is all up and running, Google provides detailed insights into how people find your business, what they search for, and what actions they take. This data helps you refine your marketing strategies and understand what’s working (and what’s not).

7. Showcase Your Business with Photos & Updates

People trust visuals. Adding high-quality photos of your products, team, or location can increase engagement and make your business more appealing. Google also allows you to post regular updates, including news of your latest promotions, events and offers to keep your profile active and fresh.

How to Set Up & Optimise Your Google Business Profile

Getting started with GBP is simple, but optimising it for success takes effort. Here’s a quick overview but, if you want to know more, we’ve put together a full guide on how to set up your Google Business Profile:

  1. Claim & Verify Your Business – Go to Google Business Profile and claim your listing. Google will verify it through a postcard, phone call, or email.
  2. Complete Every Section – Fill in all details, including your business name, category, address, phone number, website, hours, and services – and take time to do it properly: the more information, the better.
  3. Add High-Quality Photos – Upload professional photos of your storefront, products, team, and anything that showcases your business.
  4. Encourage & Respond to Reviews – Ask happy customers to leave reviews and always respond to them (both positive and negative) to build trust.
  5. Use Google Posts & Updates – Keep your profile active by posting updates, promotions, and events.
  6. Monitor Insights & Adjust – Regularly check your analytics to see how customers are finding you and make adjustments accordingly.
Go to business.google.com and start by typing in your business name

The Bottom Line

Ignoring Google Local Search is like leaving money on the table. If you’re not showing up when potential customers are searching, your competitors are getting the business instead. A Google Business Profile is the most effective way to boost your local visibility, attract more customers, and grow your revenue.

If you haven’t set up your Google Business Profile yet, do it today and take control of your local search presence.

Need help? Check out our Google Business Profile Set Up Guide, or our experts can help you set up your profile for you.

Why are 65% of marketeers plan to get help from agencies for their digital ads

Posted on by Simon

Managing digital advertising campaigns on your own can be a bit like trying to fix a leaky pipe without a wrench.

Doable? Maybe. Stressful? Absolutely.

Add in the other pressures of running a business, and it’s no wonder that when it comes to promoting your products or services online things can feel overwhelming.

A recent survey showed that whopping 65% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) plan to invest in agency support for their online ads in 2025 – and these are the guys that know what they’re doing.

We thought we’d try and explain why even experience marketeers are saying goodbye to DIY ads and hello to expert help.

1. Better Bang for Your Buck

Digital advertising is all about ROI (Return on Investment), but getting it right takes more than just picking a few keywords and setting a budget. A good agency is expert at making your money work harder for you.

We know the ins and outs of ad targeting, bidding strategies, and optimisation tricks that can make your campaigns more efficient. Instead of burning through your budget with trial and error, an agency helps ensure you’re getting the maximum return on every pound spent.

We’re also experts at analytics and tracking – and by correctly setting up the reporting we can see how the money you spend leads to actual results.

2. Saving Time (and Sanity)

Let’s be honest: as a small business owner, you’ve already got a huge number of subjects that you’re required to master.

On top of that, learning how to REALLY use Google Ads or Meta isn’t just time-consuming; it’s downright exhausting.

Agencies take that workload off your plate so you can focus on what you do best – running your business. Plus, with experts monitoring and tweaking your campaigns, you can rest easy knowing your ads are always running smoothly.

3. Expertise You Can Count On

Google Ads isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

An agency brings a wealth of experience to the table, crafting strategies tailored specifically to your business and industry. They’ll know how to identify the right placements and keywords, create compelling ads and analyse performance data to refine your campaigns.

In short, we’ll do all the heavy lifting while you reap the rewards.

4. Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Running your own ads might seem straightforward at first, but there’s a lot that can go wrong.

Missed opportunities with ad extensions, poor-quality scores, or overpaying for clicks are just a few of the challenges DIY advertisers face.

Agencies have seen it all before and know how to dodge these common mistakes, ensuring your campaigns are set up for success from day one.

5. Keeping Up with the Trends

Digital advertising is constantly evolving.

What worked last year might not work today, and keeping up with the latest trends, tools, and updates can feel like a full-time job.

Agencies live and breathe this stuff, so they’re always on top of what’s new and what works best.

Our partnerships with platforms like Google and Bing also give us access to their experts – who care able to give us insights and advice on new changes and how to optimise campaigns for more success (as well as some useful discounts!).

Is It Worth It?

We get it – hiring an agency for your marketing is a scary investment.

But when you weigh that against the time, money, and headaches you’ll save, it’s a no-brainer for many small business owners. Plus, with 65% of CMOs planning to lean on agencies in 2025, it’s clear that even the professionals think it’s worthwhile.

So, if you’re ready to take your advertising game to the next level (without losing sleep over CTRs and CPCs), teaming up with an agency might just be the smartest move you’ll make this year. Get in touch and talk to us about how it could help drive your business forward this year.

Why you should Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Posted on by Simon

We’ve written in the past about the carousels that exist on the top of a LOT of websites and why we think they’re bad. I thought though that it was worth expanding on a related concept when it comes to web design: that of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Simply put, I’m advocating less is more.

Wait a minute, how is this related to carousels I hear you ask? Well, because generally they are used when a business doesn’t want to focus on one clear unequivocal message. They’re a hedge: “Lets show users 5 different messages and maybe one will hit home” (it won’t).

Equally, here I’m suggesting focussing on what the majority of your users actually need to see and do, rather than a ‘throw the kitchen sink at it’ approach to your website. Follow the Pareto Principle…

The Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle, is a simple yet powerful concept, more commonly known as the 80:20 rule.

The 80-20 rule suggests that 80% of outcomes are driven by 20% of causes. Business management expert Joseph M. Juran introduced this principle, naming it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. In 1906, Pareto discovered that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of the population.

Juran further developed this principle after noticing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden produced 80% of the peas.

The 80-20 rule is frequently applied in business as well…

  • 80% of the work is done in 20% of your time
  • 80% of sales come from 20% of clients
  • 80% of sales come from 20% of sales staff
  • 80% of attention is spent on 20% of the web page

The numbers might vary a little in the real world, but arguing that it might actually be 70:30 in your case isn’t really the point. The key thing is that focusing on the key cause and effect relationships helps you prioritise your time and resources on what really matters

Why is this important for Web Design?

Orienting your website to the key tasks that users are looking to carry out can deliver a massive impact to your business.

Benefits for Your Website Visitors

First, here’s how it benefits your website visitors: 

  • Streamlined User Experience: Your visitors get to enjoy a clean, simple site with minimal distraction – helping them stay focused on the main goal or call-to-action.
  • Improved Engagement: With fewer distractions, users are less likely to click away, keeping them engaged with your content.
  • Faster Load Times: A simpler site means faster page response times, enhancing the overall user experience.
  • Higher Quality Content: By focusing on essential elements, you’ve got more time to refine and perfect them – providing visitors with higher-quality content.

Benefits for You

Even better, implementing this onto your website is a win:win. Here’s why it makes sense for you:

  • Increased Conversion Rates: With a more focused design, you’ll see higher rates of subscribers, opt-ins, members, and customers.
  • More Calls-to-Action: A larger percentage of users will engage with your primary call-to-action, boosting your site’s effectiveness.
  • Lighter Workload: By concentrating on the crucial 20%, you’ll reduce your workload and free up time for other important tasks.
  • Simplified Design and Maintenance: Fewer elements on your site make the design and management process easier.

The impact of this can be significant for both usability and for business success:

Quick Case Study – Liverpool City Council

When Liverpool City Council redesigned their website, they relentlessly focussed on the top tasks its users carried out – reducing the site from 4,000 pages to 700.

The results were incredible – with an increase of 400% in people transacting online and substantially fewer support phone calls. A fantastic outcome for a local council needing to save money by making better use of its website. 

Five Simple Steps to 80:20 Your Website

Identify Your Main Goals: Determine your website’s 20% – the main goals or call-to-action that matter most, and will have the greatest impact on the users’ experience. Make sure you’re focussed on what matters to the customer, rather than management!

Refine Your Design: Streamline your site’s design and interface to make sure the vital 20% of elements are prominent and emphasised. Eliminate unnecessary components that could clutter the design or distract users. The goal is to create a clean, focused interface that directs attention to what matters most.

Prioritise User Experience: Ensure that the key elements you’ve identified are optimised to deliver the best possible user experience. This might mean improving navigation, enhancing accessibility, or just making sure the design is intuitive and user-focused.

Balance Aesthetics with Functionality: While a visually appealing design is important, the 80/20 rule suggests prioritising functionality. Focus on ensuring that the key elements are not only attractive but also highly functional and easy to use – creating a website that is both appealing and effective.

Evaluate Effectiveness: After making changes, you need to determine if they’ve been successful. Measure the results – ideally using split testing to assess whether your updates are successful.

Need some help? Getting an outside perspective is great for helping focus your business.

Talk to us about the techniques we use to uncover the key tasks that your website should be focussed on.

p.s. We weren’t talking about YOU at the top of this, obviously you’re not stupid – that’s why you’ve read this post all the way to the end!

Google API Leak – What does it mean for Search Engine Optimisation?

Posted on by Simon

What Google API Leak?

Earlier this month, documentation from Google’s Search Content Warehouse API was published on GitHub by an automated bot. This documentation included over 2,500 pages detailing:

  • Search Ranking Factors: Detailed information on over 14,000 metrics that Google uses to rank search results
  • Quality Rating Data: Information about how Google’s quality raters assess the relevance and quality of search results
  • Clickstream Data: Data from Chrome browsers that helps Google understand user behaviour
  • Algorithm Adjustments: How search results are tweaked based on user navigation and click data

It’s safe to say that all it has caused a bit of an upset in the search engine community. Mainly because although everyone claims to understand how to do well in search engines, the way that Google’s search algorithm actually works is a closely guarded secret, and this leak provides never-seen-before access to the algorithm’s inner workings.

As a result, since it was discovered, a whole range of Search Engine Optimisation experts have been poring over the documents and trying to work out what it can tell us.

Was it really an accident?

Yep, it appears so. The data was exposed quite a while back (since 2023, it’s just taken until this month for someone to find it!), and since it’s been found it’s been corroborated by a few pretty knowledgeable sources – this information wasn’t meant to be out in the wild [Update: 30th May – Google has now verified the documents are real].

Does the Google API leak actually tell us anything?

Again, yep, it appears so.

The leak tell us about all sorts of metrics that Google collects and uses to create its search results. Whilst it doesn’t tell us how these are weighted, or to what degree these metrics are ‘ranking factors’ in the algorithm, it does help us better understand what might important.

It also suggests that Google hasn’t been ENTIRELY accurate in some of the statements it’s made in the past about it’s algorithm.

Whilst we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater and solely focus our SEO on what the leak contains going forward, we are definitely going to adjust our strategy and use the insights to focus on some new areas – as well as to run some tests around some of the things we’ve learned to see whether there are any new opportunities.

What are the BIG lessons that might affect your SEO?

There’s a LOT of detail in the documents so it’s tricky to work out what’s important and what’s not. Here are 7 key takeaways that we’ve spotted:

1. Clicks & Engagement are key

The quantity and quality of clicks from organic rankings matter.

Recent information from the Google antitrust trial revealed that Google’s Navboost system is an important ranking signal. This uses Chrome click data and quality raters to work out what are ‘good’ web pages.

The leak though shares some of the metrics it uses to calculate this. For example, it measures data like the search result a user spent the longest time on, or the last time somewhere came to your site and hung around – and it tracks clicks over 13 months.

Creating demand for your website among targeted searchers is key. The best approach for that is focussing on high intent search queries, and making sure your content is useful and sticky.

BTW, this also suggests that there could be a SEO effect from paid advertising. Possibly not the paid clicks, as Google could discount those fairly easily, but the secondary clicks you get from paid marketing (when people come back to your website after finding you in ads) might give you a natural search boost – so this could be a great approach to drive long term organic performance.

2. Know your niche

Despite Google suggesting otherwise in the past, there are a lot of metrics mentioned that reference ‘site wide’ scores, including “siteAuthority” to “siteFocusScore”.

It’s not clear how these are calculated, but given they exist, and taking them together with Google’s focus on quality content (EEAT as they put it –  Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust), it’s likely that having your site engaging useful content, focused on your core subject matter is going to result in higher scores.

EATT Diagram showing intersecting circles, with Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness and Trust
Google’s focus is on content the reflects the concepts of EATT

3. Be original 

Continuing the EATT theme, it’s clear based on the documents that Google is looking for quality original content.

Pages that only include small amounts of content receive an “OriginalContentScore”, which reinforces the need for unique, authentic, quality content. There also appears to be an AI rating for Content Effort – though how exactly this is being measured it’s not clear.

This does though mean that it’s worth focussing on pages with shorter content to make sure they’re original. It also suggests that relying heavily on AI tools like ChatGPT to generate content is likely to cause issues for you down the line. Instead, take the human approach, focus on adding value for your readers, and try to differentiate your content from your competitors.

4. Fresh is best

Google measures content recency and freshness, with metrics to track both the publication and update dates. It clearly wants to prioritise content that is curated and kept up to date.

With that in mind, it’s important to review all the content on your site to keep it fresh and relevant. For instance, if you’re in accountancy, make sure your site is updated to reflect the latest tax advice.

If a page isn’t relevant any more, its better to take it down – even if it does still get the occasional visitor!

5. Google likes to mix it up

The API documents suggest that Google takes steps to make sure there’s a range of different content sources in the results – limiting the number of videos, small site blogs etc. to give users a range of different sources in response to their query.

To get broader coverage in search results, it’s then a good idea to create a diverse range of content types on your site to improve overall visibility.

This is particularly important for sites trying to enter really competitive areas. For example, if you’re trying to gain traffic in markets where there are already lots of ecommerce sites at the top of the results, maybe consider video content as a way to more effectively compete.

6. Spammy links will hurt you

Links from established sites, using proper anchor text, are great, but a load of links from dodgy websites with over optimised anchor text seems to trigger a spam penalty.

Skip the link building services and instead use an organic approach – or focus on quality PR and build relationships with high quality websites that are relevant to your audience.

7. The experts get things wrong

There are a couple of things that we all thought were important that don’t appear to be – in particular, it appears that character limits on page titles and descriptions don’t need to rigidly stick to the character counts – especially if it improves readability

Also, internal linking doesn’t seem to have the benefit most experts thought – so just link to other pages when you want to signpost them to users, rather than worrying about search engines.

Keeping Ahead of Google’s Algorithm

This leak isn’t a silver bullet! We don’t have the whole algorithm, we don’t know to what extent each metric is used as a ranking factor, and we don’t know how up to date this is (although it’s certainly less than 12 months old, based on timestamps).

Whilst there’s clearly some great information in there that helps inform how we can get better at search engine optimisation, it does broadly align with the core message that Google’s been sending out for years now – we should be focussed on creating high quality, useful content that is interesting to our users. This means that, no matter what else, we’ll be well placed to react to new shifts in Google’s algorithm.

In the meantime, we should be testing out the key ideas the leak has suggested, to see the impact they have on search results – and what can give us the edge. We’ll share what we find along the way!

Need help?

Want to know more about how your site can more traffic from search engines? Get in touch and we can talk you through how you can improve.

Google To Start Using Page Speed for Mobile Rankings

Posted on by Simon

Is your website on the slow side? From July 2018, load speed will start affecting a page’s ranking on Google’s mobile search results.

Only the slowest loading pages will be initially targeted, but Google says there is no way to determine whether a page is affected by this change.

Their webmasters’ blog did say: ‘We encourage developers to think broadly about how performance affects a user’s experience of their page and to consider a variety of user experience metrics’.

If you think your website could be affected, we can benchmark your site and, if there are problems, suggest different ways it can be sped up. Give us a call if you’d like our help

To start off, you can get an idea of how fast your website performs using Google’s Page Speed Insight tool.

Google confirms site quality matters

Posted on by Simon

So on a Google Webmaster hangout that took place yesterday, John Mueller (a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google) talked about site quality and architecture, specifically whether the Panda algorithm took these into account when evaluating pages.

When asked if Google takes site architecture into account and if improving the site categories would make a difference to search engine performance, John said:

“We see (Panda) as something that is more like a general quality evaluation of the website that takes into account everything around the site…That is something where, if we find issues across the site where we think this essentially affects the quality of the web site overall, then that is something that might be taken into account there”

You can watch the hangout here:

Whilst, as far as statements go, this is a little woolly, it does go some way to confirming that Google’s looking at a far broader set of factors than most companies typically focus on – and that investing time getting your site architecture and categorisation right upfront will pay dividends in the long term.

Google moves to mobile-first: What it means to you

Posted on by Simon

Toward the end of 2014, Google caused chaos by announcing that, from 21st April 2015, it would introduce a change to its search algorithm that would penalise website that weren’t mobile friendly when showing mobile search results.

The change was swiftly named ‘Mobilegeddon’ and led to many companies rushing to change their websites to meet Googles new rules.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Google let slip another announcement.

This time, they’ve said that Google will soon prioritise mobile websites as the primary source of information for their search index.

What does that mean?

Google works out who to show in search results by ‘spidering’ the Internet – following each link within a website and seeing where it leads and, as a result, building up a picture of the whole web.

Until now, Google has always done this by browsing around at the full version of websites. What Google is now saying is it will now also browse using a smartphone – and treat those results completely separately – using them as its primary source of information for decision making for the Google search index.

This is significant because some mobile versions of websites don’t include some of the pages on the main site, or they hide some sections of the page to make them easier to read on a phone.

Why ANOTHER algorithm change?

There’s a really good reason for this change. The percentage of people browsing the Internet on their mobiles has exploded over the last few years – to the point where most people now are browsing the Internet on their phones.

% of people using mobiles to use the Internet

As it stands at the moment, it’s possible that users might see a snippet of content on a Google search results page, that might not be there when they actually click through to the mobile site.

By updating it’s index to look at and evaluate the quality of the mobile versions of websites, Google is basically looking to make sure that it’s search results reflect the needs of the majority of it’s users.

When is this going to happen?

Basically, this change has already started happening.

Google are testing the effects now and as they become more confident in things working as they want, they’ll start to roll it out more widely. They expect the whole process to take a few months.

What’s does this mean for me?

If you’ve got a responsive mobile friendly website where the markup is the same across the desktop and mobile versions (& if you’re a Curious client, this will be the case for you), you won’t need to change anything.

Google will likely see your site in exactly the same way, as it does now.

However, if you have a separate mobile site, that is different than your desktop site, then you should start to think about making changes to your website.

Very often, a separate mobile site will contain a subset of pages of the main site; it might hide certain bits of content – in particular sidebars that include additional links; or it could exclude some of the metadata – the technical information about the website that sits within the HTML.

An example of schema metadata within a website
An example of schema metadata within a website

In this case, you’re likely to find that over the next few months, the effectiveness of your website in attracting traffic from search engines, starts to reduce – particularly for those searching on mobiles.

If you do have a separate mobile site, the key things to focus on are making sure all content is available when browsing with a smartphone and that any structured markup is present on both the desktop and mobile versions.

If you find you need to make changes though, the most important thing is DON’T RUSH.

Google will continue to index desktop sites and it’s better to have a working desktop site than a broken or incomplete mobile version!

Is your website ready for a separate mobile index?

For advice on how to prepare your site for the change to Google’s index, or how we can help you better optimise your site for mobile, get in touch. Call us on 0330 010 9000, or just fill in this form.

Are you ready for Penguin 4?

Posted on by Simon
UPDATE: Google announced that the Penguin update went live on Friday 23rd Sept, and that Penguin is now real time and has been incorporated into its main algorithm.

In October last year Gary Illyes, a trends analyst that works at Google, let slip that a new Penguin update would appear in 2015. It never arrived – but all the evidence points that it’s still on its way.

Photo of 4 Penguins

This is good news for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) companies and marketeers that are optimising their websites for search engines the ‘right way’ (basically, following Google’s Webmaster Guidelines). For those that have been taking a more unethical approach to SEO though, the news might not be so welcome!

What Is Google Penguin 4?

Back in April 2012 Google made an update to it’s algorithm that it named ‘Penguin’. It was designed to identify websites that were spamming it’s search results by buying links (or getting links through link networks created to boost search engine rankings). 

It had an immediate and significant effect. Sites that weren’t playing by the rules suddenly disappeared from search results, and many websites were notified of manual penalties that had been applied to their search engine rankings –  either demoting them many pages down, or removing them entirely.

Inter flora Search Performance
Interflora were one of the larger names hit by the first Penguin update: their search traffic fell to pretty much nothing overnight.

Since then, there have been a number of further ‘Penguin’ updates made. Each time the there are significant changes to the  search results – with generally, the sites that are approaching their marketing fairly seeing positive results and those trying to game the system being negatively impacted.

Penguin 4 is the name that’s been given to the next big update that’s will focus on combatting ‘spammy’ linking.

With Penguin 4 changes become real time

Each time a new Penguin Update  gets released, websites previously penalised that have worked to remove bad links (for instance through the Google disavow links tool) can regain rankings and, equally, sites that have not previously caught might get trapped.

The downside of this, is that it takes a fairly long time for the effect of changes to a website (whether positive or negative) to reflect in search results. Sites that have been penalised (whether fairly or unfairly) have to wait a long time before they can recover, and some companies are still finding quick wins by using spammy techniques in the gaps between updates.

Penguin 4  is rumoured to look to address these problems by introducing a real-time element to the algorithm – effectively meaning that the Penguin portion of the algorithm will always be “on” and updating, processing information about new links in real time and  making adjustments accordingly.

This should mean that Google will catch spam link profiles more quickly and allow companies that have identified and resolved issues to recover faster.

When’s Penguin 4 coming?

Well, we’re still waiting right now, but the signs are its imminent.

After the news broke last year that Penguin 4 was coming, the SEO community, have been watching carefully for the effect of it hitting. After being questioned when Penguin 4 didn’t appear in 2015,  Gary Illyes reported in January that we were “weeks away” from seeing the next iteration. 

However as of today, there’s still no sign and Google have confirmed it’s not live yet. Gary’s said he’s now not giving out any more dates for fear of being wrong should it be missed again because it’s not quite ready.

Why the delay? Well, we’re not sure, but the general consensus is it looks like Google’s taking it’s time to get it right – which, given the wide ranging effect these updates have, is a good thing!

What does this mean for me?

If you run a website, you might be wondering what a real-time Penguin algorithm means for you, or what you should be doing to prepare for the update.

Firstly, if you’re not already doing it, rather than trying to game search engines, focus on creating quality content. Earn links and don’t buy them. Focus on providing the best user experience you can and, rather than fixating on your rankings, allow them to improve naturally.

Secondly, it’s worth making sure that there aren’t any problems with the links that you’ve already got pointed towards your website (and if you’ve ever purchased links on Fiverr or have engaged the services of someone who emailed offering cheap SEO services – this is ‘must do’).

Checking and cleaning backlinks

Making sure that the links to your website from other sites across the Internet aren’t going to cause you a problem is fairly straightforward:

1. Create a comprehensive list of backlinks

There are lots of tools available on the web to help with this, but it’s worth using as many sources as possible to get a comprehensive list and then de-duping. Google Search Console is a great place to start, but Majestic.com, Open Site Explorer and Ahrefs.com are pretty good too.

2. Look for patterns

Once you’ve got your list of links look for indicators that unnatural practices have been used.  This could be the same Anchor Text repeatedly used, similar dates that backlinks were created, or the same IP address being used.

3. Remove or Disavow suspect links

If there are websites that  are suspect, its time to remove them. It might sound painful, but it’s better to remove low quality links before anything happens, rather than after you’re penalised.

Start off by asking site owners to remove or ‘nofollow’ the links, sending messages via the sites’ contact forms or their registered owner (you can find this out through Whois).

After you’ve done this, you can use Google Search Console to disavow those that remain.

 

If you’re concerned about your site being impacted and want some expert help, get in touch. We’ve got tons of experience with helping companies that have run into trouble and can give you clear advice and assistance to get things fixed quickly.