Does Google play fair? Is 'relevant content' and 'usability' enough?
-
It seems there are 2 opposing views, and as a newbie this is very confusing.
One view is that as long as your site pages have relevant content and are easy for the user, Google will rank you fairly.
The other view is that Google has 'rules' you must follow and even if the site is relevant and user-friendly if you don't play by the rules your site may never rank well.
Which is closer to the truth? No one wants to have a great website that won't rank because Google wasn't sophisticated enough to see that they weren't being unfair.
Here's an example to illustrate one related concern I have:
I've read that Google doesn't like duplicated content. But, here are 2 cases in which is it more 'relevant' and 'usable' to the user to have duplicate content:
Say a website helps you find restaurants in a city. Restaurants may be listed by city region, and by type of restaurant. The home page may have links to 30 city regions. It may also have links for 20 types of restaurants. The user has a choice. Say the user chooses a region. The resulting new page may still be relevant and usable by listing ALL 30 regions because the user may want to choose a different region. Altenatively say the user chooses a restaurant type for the whole city. The resulting page may still be relevant and usable by giving the user the ability to choose another type OR another city region. IOW there may be a 'mega-menu' at the top of the page which duplicates on every page in the site, but is very helpful. Instead of requiring the user to go back to the home page to click a new region or a new type the user can do it on any page. That's duplicate content in the form of a mega menu, but is very relevant and usable. YET, my sense is that Google MAY penalize the site even though arguably it is the most relevant and usable approach for someone that may or may not have a specific region or restaurant type in mind..
Thoughts?
-
Hi David,
Sorry for such a delayed response but I keep wondering about your point on the meganav. Its known that Google is able to figure out menus and wont count those toward duplicate content? I just would like to be sure since my menus are fairly substantial when dropdowns are included.
-
You are giving me SOME hope for a site I've been working on for about 5 years and am getting ready to launch. Thanks very much.
-
Your comment in #4 about time on page and bookmarking is something I think should be taken into account by Google for search page ranking, but I've never heard before that they do. [...] Are those significant factors used by Google?
In my opinion, google has every ability to measure visitor actions. They own the Chrome browser and could measure the engagement of visitors with a page, they have access to what gets bookmarked in Chrome, they know when a visitor clicks in the SERPs and when that same visitor reappears in the SERPs, they don't have to have links because they can read when people mention your site in a forum, they know if people navigate to your site by typeing the name of your site into search... I believe that all of these things are important for rankings but how important I can't say.
I have lots of really good content that when I published it the page ranked at #150 or deeper in the SERPs. Then, I built zero links and did zero promotion and slowly that page rises in the SERPs and is now in the top three - over a year later. I have hundreds of pages that have done that. You gotta have a LOT of patience to do things that way but you spend zero effort on promotion and 100% effort producing assets for your website. That is what I have done since about 2006. Virtually zero linkbuilding. My visitors are my linkbuilders.
-
EGOL, Thanks very much. I, being a one person biz, am very interested in the idea of ranking by popularity, as my goal is to have the best site out there but I have limited funds to promote it. Your comment in #4 about time on page and bookmarking is something I think should be taken into account by Google for search page ranking, but I've never heard before that they do. After all, usage and return usage is what it is all about! Are those significant factors used by Google? If so maybe there is hope..:)
-
Egol has this summed up perfectly!
-Andy
-
One view is that as long as your site pages have relevant content and are easy for the user, Google will rank you fairly.
The other view is that Google has 'rules' you must follow and even if the site is relevant and user-friendly if you don't play by the rules your site may never rank well.
Which is closer to the truth?
They are both a small piece of the truth. To rank on google your PAGE must be:
-
relevant to the search term and presented to google with proper title, crawability, and text visibility
-
have substantive content about the search term
-
be validated by other websites by being linked from them or mentioned by them (these are just a few validations)
-
be validated by visitors because they have queried it by name, stayed on it, bookmarked it, mentioned it by name in web readable content (these are just a few validations)
Any idiot can do #1. A good author can do #2. But, #3 and #4 are really difficult to accomplish by people who are not related to you or paid by you.
In low competion #1 and #2 can be enough to get your ranked. The higher the competition for a query the more you need #3 and #4 to rank. For some queries it can be almost impossible for a newcomer to rank on the first page of google without investing $xxx,xxx or more in website assets and promotion.... AND... having a plan in place to present the site in a way that google will be able to read it and interpret it in a way that will maximize the #3 and #4 assets.
-
-
A meganav is not considered duplicate content. Duplicate content means product description pages that are identical, having the same articles multiple places on your site, etc.
To the main parts of your question - Google does not want it to be easy for people in the SEO world. They give guidelines, but following them means nothing. What Google considers an ok tactic one years becomes an unacceptable tactic the next (see guest blogging). There are many ways to succeed in ranking. Some follow Google's rules and wait for rankings to come, others use tons of spammy tactics and rank instantly (though they always risk losing it overnight if Google catches on).
The idea that an easy to use site and relevant content will make Google rank you fairly is a joke. And though only 1 has said it publicly, there are many top minds in the SEO world who will tell you that in private.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I cant rank well on google or bing
hi guys, I hope I can make some sense to you guys with what is occuring with my website. I am an absolute novice here. I used a drag and drop website 3 or 4 years ago, not sure exactly at the moment when i purchased the domain. however I did pretty well using paid search on both google and bing for quite some time and fairly descent in my area long beach, ca for organic for some of my keywords ( tv install, tv wall mount installation , and tv mounting service). At some point I noticed a drop last year and so this year I decided to try and do a better job on my website by making it mobile friendly and the whole https thing. I basically had to redo it and then after I was finished, the company I use for my website then transferred my website over to original domain. www.coastlinetvinstalls.com Now, If i do a search for some of the keywords im trying to rank for on google , I show up on the first page in my area on some days, and on the google maps for my local business in my area. On bing, however, Im nowhere to be found for any keywords I used to rank for. It use to be the opposite before I did this whole website fix up or whatever you want to call it. I would be on the first page for anything related to my keywords. Wat happened with bing ? any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Local Website Optimization | | Matt160 -
International subdirectory without localized content - best practice / need advice
Hi there, Our site uses a subdirectory for regional and multilingual sites as show below for 200+ countries.
Local Website Optimization | | erinfalwell
EX: /en_US/ All sites have ~the same content & are in English. We have hreflang tags but still have crawl issues. Is there another URL structure you would recommend? Are there any other ways to avoid the duplicate page & crawl budget issues outside of the hreflang tag? Appreciate it!0 -
Matching page for keyword doesn't show in search
Hello! I'm having an issue with my website Rooms Index, the website is in Hebrew so I'll provide examples in English for better understandings. When I'm searching Rooms by Hour in Haifa, google doesn't show the intended category page which is this, instead it shows my homepage in the results, this happens only for certain areas, while other areas are working well such as Tel aviv. For example if I searched day use in Las Vegas it'd show me the Las Vegas page dayuse.com/las-vegas, but searching for Brooklyn I'd only see dayuse.com. the pages are indexed and I can find them if I search site:roomsindex.co.il what could cause such problem?
Local Website Optimization | | AviramAdar0 -
Duplicate Content - Local SEO - 250 Locations
Hey everyone, I'm currently working with a client that has 250 locations across the United States. Each location has its own website and each website has the same 10 service pages. All with identical content (the same 500-750 words) with the exception of unique meta-data and NAP which has each respective location's name, city, state, etc. I'm unsure how duplicate content works at the local level. I understand that there is no penalty for duplicate content, rather, any negative side-effects are because search engines don't know which page to serve, if there are duplicates. So here's my question: If someone searches for my client's services in Miami, and my client only as one location in that city, does duplicate content matter? Because that location isn't competing against any of my client's other locations locally, so search engines shouldn't be confused by which page to serve, correct? Of course, in other cities, like Phoenix, where they have 5 locations, then I'm sure the duplicate content is negatively affecting all 5 locations. I really appreciate any insight! Thank you,
Local Website Optimization | | SEOJedi510 -
How does duplicate content work when creating location specific pages?
In a bid to improve the visibility of my site on the Google SERP's, I am creating landing pages that were initially going to be used in some online advertising. I then thought it might be a good idea to improve the content on the pages so that they would perform better in localised searches. So I have a landing page designed specifically to promote what my business can do, and funnel the user in to requesting a quote from us. The main keyword phrase I am using is "website design london", and I will be creating a few more such as "website design birmingham", "website design leeds". The only thing that I've changed at the moment across all these pages is the location name, I haven't touched any of the USP's or the testimonial that I use. However, in both cases "website design XXX" doesn't show up in any of the USP's or testimonial. So my question is that when I have these pages built, and they're indexed, will I be penalised for this tactic?
Local Website Optimization | | mickburkesnr0 -
Massive duplicate content should it all be rewritten?
Ok I am asking this question to hopefully confirm my conclusion. I am auditing a domain who's owner is frustrated that they are coming in #2 for their regionally tagged search result and think its their Marketer/SEOs fault. After briefly auditing their site, the marketing company they have doing their work has really done a great job. There are little things that I have suggested they could do better but nothing substantial. They are doing good SEO for the most part. Their competitor site is ugly, has a terrible user experience, looks very unprofessional, and has some technical SEO issues from what I have seen so far. Yet it is beating them every time on the serps. I have not compared backlinks yet. I will in the next day or so. I was halted when I found, what seems to me to be, the culprit. I was looking for duplicate content internally, and they are doing fine there, then my search turned externally...... I copied and pasted a large chunk of one page into Google and got an exact match return.....rutro shaggy. I then found that there is another site from a company across the country that has identical content for possibly as much as half of their entire domain. Something like 50-75 pages of exact copy. I thought at first they must have taken it from the site I was auditing. I was shocked to find out that the company I am auditing actually has an agreement to use the content from this other site. The marketing company has asked the owners to allow them to rewrite the content but the owners have declined because "they like the content." So they don't even have authority on the content for approximately 1/2 of their site. Also this content is one of three main topics directed to from home page. My point to them here is that I don't think you can optimize this domain enough to overcome the fact that you have a massive portion of your site that is not original. I just don't think perfect optimization of duplicate content beats mediocre optimization of original content. I now have to convince the owners they are wrong, never an easy task. Am I right or am I over estimating the value of original content? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | RossM0 -
Can I use a state's slang term for local search?
Have a business located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The business name will be BusinessName Indy. The URL will be BusinessName-Indy.com Since I am using Indy instead of Indianapolis or Indiana, is Google's algorithm smart enough to match up local results to my site?
Local Website Optimization | | StevenPeavey1 -
Website and eshop with the same product descrition is duplicate content
Hi there! I'm building a website that is divided in a "marketing" and "shop" sections. The 2 sites are being authored by two companies (my company is doing the marketing one). The marketing site has all the company products while the shop will sell just some of those. I'm facing the problem of duplicated content and want to ask you guys if it will be a problem/mistake to use the same product description (and similar url) for the same product in both sites, and the right way to do it (without rewriting product descriptions). the main site will be : www.companyname.com
Local Website Optimization | | svitol
the shop will be: shop.companyname.com thanks
Francesco0