Take the Google Mindset Test

Ken's Blog

On May 6, Google's Webmaster Central Blog published More guidance on building high-quality sites.

Google's post provides interesting insight into its mindset. It discusses how to audit your content to ensure it's of the highest quality possible. Most of this isn't new to SBIers, who keep it real and add value to the Web.

The results speak for themselves. While tens of thousands of non-SBI! sites (thousands who reported, just at this link at Google) tumbled in Google's rankings, resulting in huge traffic losses, traffic to SBI! sites went up by 8% shortly after their "Panda/Farmer" release.

So why am I writing about Google's post? Because it's an important read for you, SBIer or not, to deepen your understanding of how Google thinks.

Let's annotate Google's post, from an SBI! standpoint...

(Each point begins with a quote from Google, followed by our annotation.)

1) "The 'Panda' algorithm change has improved rankings for a large number of high-quality websites, so most of you reading have nothing to be concerned about."

Traffic to SBI! sites is up 8% after the Panda release, compared to 50-98% drops for "Panda-slapped" large sites. So SBI! sites are some of the beneficiaries of Google's primary wish in the conclusion of their post, "helping webmasters operating high-quality sites get more traffic from search."

2) "Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they [sic] think are Google's current ranking algorithms or signals."

This is pure SBI! advice, circa 2001. We wrote our guidelines before Google wrote theirs. The two are virtually identical. SBI! advice has kept SBIers remarkably free of pain from Google dances since we don't focus on manipulating Google results. We focus on the visitor.

This next one struck me (in the context of how Google does 500 releases in a year)...

3) "Search is a complicated and evolving art and science, so rather than focusing on specific algorithmic tweaks, we encourage you to focus on delivering the best possible experience for users."

As we predicted in The Tao of SBI!, SEO is becoming outmoded, dead. The SEO community jumped all over me, but the future was inevitable.

This next one speaks to something I've never read before. I commented to this effect in the SBI! forums, about how the Farmer/Panda algo seemed to be a "penalizing" one -- i.e., it penalizes bad content rather than "rewarding" good content...

4) "Our site quality algorithms are aimed at helping people find 'high-quality' sites by reducing the rankings of low-quality content."

This is an interesting concept. Are they saying that "penalizing" is the only dial, like a driver's license, where you start with X points and then lose points for infractions. Was just just unclear writing, referring to the Panda being a penalizing change?

Or does Google "find good" by "penalizing bad," in general. Everyone has always assumed that "points" (to over-simplify for a moment) are both added (for good) and removed (for bad).

We've always helped SBIers to do both 1) do it right and 2) avoid making mistakes (i.e., avoid manipulating Google, trying to push bad pages into high rankings).

But can Google high rankings all be translated into the "absence of bad"?

Is Google saying that? I'd like to think that Google rewards good, as well.

In any event, this certainly emphasizes the importance of avoiding mistakes, AND of doing a self-audit to eliminate boo-boos.

(For SBIers, do the self-audit -- log in to SBI! for access to the article -- even if your traffic soared by 30% post-Farmer.)

Google's set of questions is an attempt to give you insight into their mindset, not their exact formula. Folks are, of course, going to take this list of questions too exactly, as usual. That because people prefer having what they think are exact questions and answers, rather than thinking about what makes sense.

So do NOT parse every last comma and dotted i of Google's questions. Get the big picture right.

Still, I know their sample questions will lead to some confusion. For example, this question...

5) "Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?"

I've seen folks lament that they are not experts in their field (since this one has been widely repeated lately). They are, however, "enthusiasts." And if you follow the SBI! Action Guide and write great content that delivers solid value, Google will pick up on that and ultimately consider you to be an authority in your field.

SBI! has always emphasized passion and knowledge. So...

Stretch beyond that (working in areas that "pay well" but that you know less well) at your peril. Success in areas you know less well or have no love for would require a great deal of extensive research and immersing yourself into a niche you don't know. And, of course, remember that you will be competing against others with a real love and deep experience.

Don't worry if you are not a recognized expert in your niche. You will become one if your perform C T P M well.

That said, Google's questions are useful as a kind of self-test and an insight into how Google thinks.

If you follow the Action Guide, you should be "pass the Google mindset test" with flying colors. You should be able to say "check" to every question they ask, and any others that they come up with.

Like I've also said recently... "think like Google." Now they are saying it.

The main takeaway point is to "think like Google" (i.e., "what would I do if I were Google"). That is the primary value of the questions they ask you to ask yourself in their post.

Certain ones are particularly worth reviewing as part of your self-audit. For example...

6) "Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?"

The fix for this part -- "same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations" is clear -- clean up any repetition.

This part of the question -- "duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics" -- is less clear. We can conclude that merging similar Content 2.0 articles (ex., reviews on the same hotel) into one page is a better idea than ever...

Having one primary review by your site (i.e., by you -- a full, well-done article) and one "collective" review by visitors merged onto the same page is likely the strongest combination, holding onto long tail results of multiple submissions about the same hotel (or any other topic).

But don't become paranoid about related articles, etc. Some degree of overlap is normal, as long as it's not copy-and-paste or a paraphrasing type of duplication, just honest overlap that happens in the course of writing about a topic.

These two are critical questions...

7) "Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?"

8) "Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?"

The more you are driven by passion and knowledge of your topic, the more you pass this test. Doing keyword research now is so standard that Google is not going to react negatively to organizing your site according to what people want (i.e., according to keyword demand). It's normal to build any business according to what people want.

Again, the more you are driven by passion and knowledge of your topic, the more you will naturally provide "original content" (or reporting/research/analysis). It is, in fact, why visitors to SBI! sites love them so much.

I like this question...

9) "Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?"

When your page turns up in a search result for a keyword, compare it to its competitors. If it's not as good as those below you, consider yourself lucky to be there and make it better. If it's not as good, quality-wise, as those above you, you have an idea of what you need to do to improve. But...

In the same way that it was not worth "tweaking for SEO," it may not be worth "tweaking quality" to overcome a #1-ranked page for a highly competitive keyword. There are likely too many factors to overcome.

Do measure yourself against those who rank higher and lower than you from time to time (random spot checking is fine). Know where your site stands in your niche, quality-wise.

This question, while important, I would not agonize over...

10) "Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?"

No site is an authority when it first starts. Not unless you are a known large company, a government agency, etc. Google has given those sites a "head start" for years. And that's OK...

There is still lots of room for the average individual to create a site that becomes an "authority site."

You do that by building your site, SBI!-style, being found for progressively more competitive keywords, etc., etc. (more traffic, more links, more traffic snowball) -- all as described in the Action Guide.

11) "Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?"

We've always suggested that SBIers outsource just about everything except content, which is your crown jewel...

If you have been outsourcing content, it's time for a thorough review of the past and the future. Yes, the New York Times outsources. It also pays a lot more than you likely do if you outsource. ;-)

This next question, and several questions around it (in the Google post), speak to the very mission of SBI!...

12) "Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?"

That is what SBI! sites are all about. Obviously, when my daughter started anguilla-beaches.com, no one had heard of it. Now just about every tourist to Anguilla knows it. So again, don't answer "no" and give up if you are just beginning. You'll get there.

Google breaks it down to page by page questioning, too...

13) "Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?"

That "beyond obvious" is similar to what we call "above and beyond" or "OVERdelivering." It's the "magic" that so many sites that are "just in it for the money" miss. It's the little things that folks love about your site that proves to them you know your niche better than anyone else.

This is worth thinking about...

14) "Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?"

Putting two large Google ads up top, side by side, pushing the headline/first paragraph down at or below the fold is overdoing it, although you likely won't get into trouble for doing it on one or two pages. The "Level 10" setting in Content 2.0's AdSense It! should not be your "global setting," for example.

And now I'd like to cover what seems to have become a misconception about the power of a small number of pages to drop your entire site's rankings. Here's what Google says...

15) "One other specific piece of guidance we've offered is that low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site's rankings, and thus removing low quality pages, merging or improving the content of individual shallow pages into more useful pages, or moving low quality pages to a different domain could eventually help the rankings of your higher-quality content."

People have become paranoid about having a single bad page, sure that Google will knock out an entire great site for having one low-value page. It's not going to happen.

What Google is saying here is this...

"Enough low-quality content can start pulling down your overall site's ranking."

Yes, it makes sense that enough poor-quality content (as a percentage of all content) will start to affect the entire site. Why wouldn't it? If you consider sites along a spectrum, a site that is 99% great and 1% crap (i.e., which likely includes even most of the best sites), is likely fine. But... if that 1% grows to 5%, to 10%, etc., well... isn't the site in fact becoming crappier overall?

That does not mean to "keep the 1%" that is low-value -- clean it up.

We've always said that Google gauges entire sites. Folks laughed at that 10 years ago. Now I'll say the contrary of what some of the experts are saying about "site-wide penalties"...

Google will not penalize an entire site for a few bad pages out of a few hundred. But when poor quality starts becoming noticeable, it makes sense that the site itself would start to suffer.

Remember, too, this would be one factor out of hundreds, so it's not like suddenly your site goes from "great to gone."

If 1% could affect an entire site's rankings, eHow would not show up at all now that it's been slapped. They still have many pages ranking, even though they have been impacted by Google's "Panda 2 release." It's a spectrum.

My bottom line recommendation, therefore, remains what it has always been -- clean up all weak content.

Overall, I think these questions are a great insight into how Google thinks. Think of them as "The Google Mindset Test."

But don't stop there -- go above and beyond. Does your site consistently OVERdeliver original, high-value content? That is, as always, the bottom line.

Head over to Google's post, More guidance on building high-quality sites, and add this to your SBI! self-audit.

All the best,