As 2012 draws to a close, it's increasingly obvious that Google is upping their game in targeting spam websites by tweaking their algorithm to ensure only the most relevant and helpful results are displayed to their users.
Over the past year, we've seen Google make key updates in the name of their quest against webspam:
- Search + your world (January 10, 2012)
Google+ social data and user profiles are pushed onto SERPs (search engine results pages). - Ads above the fold (January 19, 2012)
Google devalues sites with too much ad-space above the "fold", an area of prime real estate for web pages. - Venice (February 27, 2012)
This update prioritises local organic search results and more tightly integrates local search data. - Penguin (April 24, 2012)
This update specifically targets webspam, including factors like keyword stuffing, which impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries. - DMCA Penalty (August 10, 2012)
Sites with repeat copyright violations will be penalised. - Exact Match Domain (EMD) Update (September 27, 2012)
A common SEO tip is to put your keywords in the page URL, but this Google update seeks to put less weight on it. - ...not to mention all their tweaks to Panda which was first released February 2011. If you haven't been keeping up, this aims to lower the rank of low-quality or thin content websites.
Here's a simple infographic to outline how you must seduce their spiders:
Embed How to seduce a spider: Five SEO rules of seduction in 2012 on Your Site: Copy and Paste the Code Below
Embed code generated by SEOgadget
I will say that I disagree with the infographic a bit. "Don't buy crappy backlinks"-- I think I'd say don't buy any backlinks. There is a good chance that all purchased links will be crappy and Google is getting wise to the sites that sell.
Every step Google take to reward site owners for creating genuinely valuable content is a step in the right direction!