Website articles: food for thought

Lost on Google:
Small Businesses Seek Answers After Penguin Update

06/01/12
Courtesy of Search Engine Watch

Many small businesses have lost search rankings, traffic and income in the weeks since Google's latest algorithmic update, known as Penguin, was launched. A Wall Street Journal article on Google's Penguin update highlighted some of the damage, as well as a couple beneficiaries of the update.

Unfortunately, it seems the small business owners featured in the piece don't truly understand why their search rankings fell. It's sad to these hard-working folks hurting, but unfortunately simply existing on the web doesn't guarantee your site will appear in a prominent position in Google's organic search results.

The solution isn't removing bad links, as the small business owners featured in the WSJ think. Removing links isn’t a long-term solution and won't necessarily restore search rankings.

Even if these small businesses remove any or all of these unwanted links, they still need to add quality links from other authority sites or sites within the same niche, rather than relying on links from completely unrelated sites, comments, or low-value links.

But the bigger issue: if you want to rank well on Google, you need to create a better website experience than your competitors. Read entire article...