Content is King? Google is the best SE? Not anymore.

[iiisark]

I'm in the SEO business since 2006 and loved Google until now. But not anymore.
For the first time I can say that big G is on the wrong track.

What i found with my latest studies is that Google ranks partnership sites in most of the competitive niches.

First example is Yell.com. If you search for long tail business keywords (e.g. some services in some area) in 99% of the cases you will find results from Yell (not only 1 but at least 3- 4 results). There are so many high quality, niche related websites..where are they?. For some business searches Google return results from job sites ...where the word "job" is not even mentioned.

Second example is with forums. Until last year was very easy to search for discussions on Google but not anymore. In most of the cases Google return results from its own Product Forums ( which are useless for staff not related to Google). Is it coincidence that Google completely disabled Discussion Search Feature? I don't think so.

These examples were for competitive niches, but i can give you another on small business niche. I have a client ( a local accounting company) which website has awesome content and good on-page SEO, but not many links. Around 200 useful, well written pages ( mostly guides and how to's). To be more clear will mention that its competitors are 5 pages websites...

By that being said, do you think my client's website is on 1st page for the targeted local keywords? Not in 2015! Thats why he hired me. The first thing i found when started analyzing the project is why the websites on top 3 of Google SERP's are there. Here are my studies (in short) :

1. Two of the websites have not many social links
2. Two of the websites have not over 10 pages.
2. Two of the websites have mostly backlinks from PBN's ( one have over 300 pbn links)

Conclusion: Content is King in 2015? Maybe, but not for Google!

 

[stevebrownlie]

It's disappointing that blog networks (PBNs etc) are still as effective as they are in Google. It's telling that most of the big 'busts' that Matt Cutts exposed prior to stepping down from the webspam role seemed to have been manually found and detected rather than algorithmically filtered out which hints at them having issues identifying them automatically and removing the ranking benefits from sites propped up by them.

It seems your client, luckily, has an easy solution - they already have plenty of content and I'm assuming decent enough guides so reaching out to interested parties and getting some links and shares shouldn't be too tough. In the long run they'll out perform the spammers - it's just a shame that in this game the 'long run' has been far too long and, as you rightly point out, Google's results have suffered in the mean time.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

What is the internal linking of your client like? Content is king doesn't just mean writing lots of content does it?

 

[iiisark]

:

What is the internal linking of your client like? Content is king doesn't just mean writing lots of content does it?

As i already said in my post ,his site has very good on-page SEO (internal link structure is part of that).

 

[Codefixer]

1. I'd love to see the search result that returns 3-4 yell results? Never seen this.
2. Social Media as a ranking factor is over hyped, I don't see it.
3. Links are still the major ranking factor (those that tell you links don't matter clearly don't look at the results I look at or test links)
4. I'd also agree with you that the SERPs return too many gumtree, yell, ebay listing.
5. I seem to be landing on Google's product forums all the time now, maybe it's the nature of the searches I do.

So what is this name of the other search engine that has replaced Google as the number 1 search engine?

 

[iiisark]

Hi,
Let me show you some live examples:

1. First exmaple: for the local business search: "bricklayers in enfield" , on top 10 of the SERP's you can see 2 jobsites (Reed and Indeed). The word "job" is not typed at all. Here is the search results url:
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=bricklayers+in+enfield&spell=1

2. Second exmaple: for the search: "florists in barnet" you can see 3 results from Yell ( and Yell is not even ranked number 1 for that query ), so why Google shows 3 results from the same site?

P.S: i made only 3-4 search queries and got these results. If you try some similar searches you will find the same results. Yell and Yelp are on 1st page in 99% for the local searches and you can see 3-4 results from thoose sites. Also in most of the cases you will see results from job sites as well ( which are completely irrelevant). I assume these job sites are also Google partners.

About the best search engine question: IMO Google is still the best SE, but for the first time is on the wrong track. When analyzing the traffic stats of some clients websites i found an increased traffic from Yahoo and Bing. It seems more and more users are using them as alternative.

 

[MASSEY]

When i google florists in barnet on yahoo, the results are similar to google only there are 5 adverts at the top that you need to scroll past instead of 3.

Directories seem to be ranking strongly again, there was a time when they were pushed down by google but now they have pushed them back up, possibly even made them stronger.

I guess it makes them more money in the long run because it forces more people to use ppc and google make from the adsense slapped all over the directories.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Firstly, good SEO doesn't mean filling a massive website with loads of content, even if it is well written.

What Google is trying to do with every search is deliver websites that match what the person is looking for as closely as possible. If someone searches for 'accountant in #####', it's because someone wants an accountant. They haven't searched for information about accountancy, have they?

Now when someone searches for that keyphrase, indicating that someone wants an accountant, do you think Google would rather send the visitor to an incredibly busy website with 200 pages, or would they rather send the visitor to a succinct accountant's website which gets straight to the point and delivers exactly what the visitor is looking for?

Google likes relevancy, but it also likes a good user experience. In attempting to chase relevancy by packing content into the site, you could easily ruin the user experience in the eyes of Google and ultimately do more harm than good.

"Content is king" is a lot more complicated than having as much well-written content as possible. It needs to be the right sort of content and it needs to be suited to what the visitor is searching for.

 

[iiisark]

Firstly, good SEO doesn't mean filling a massive website with loads of content, even if it is well written.
If someone searches for 'accountant in #####', it's because someone wants an accountant.
for.

Hi Scott ,

I'm doing SEO for a living since 2006 and believe me - i know what "good SEO" means but that is not the point here.

Let me show you another example - please see the Google results for: "domestic cleaners albany park, chicago"
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=domestic cleaners albany park, chicago

I see 8 -9 results from Yelp on 1st page!!! Do you think that there are NO domestic cleaners near albany park, chicago?
In this case: " If someone searches for 'accountant in #####', it's because someone wants Yelp"

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Hi Scott ,

I'm doing SEO for a living since 2006 and believe me - i know what "good SEO" means but that is not the point here.

Let me show you another example - please see the Google results for: "domestic cleaners albany park, chicago"
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=domestic cleaners albany park, chicago

I see 8 -9 results from Yelp on 1st page!!! Do you think that there are NO domestic cleaners near albany park, chicago?
In this case: " If someone searches for 'accountant in #####', it's because someone wants Yelp"

There are a few plausible reasons for this:

1). Yelp is supplying a directory of those businesses in that specific area, so by Google showing this site, it is actually helping the searcher to find what they're looking for. If someone wants cleaning in Albany Park, they're given a site with a full list of actual businesses as opposed to just websites. This is a very important distinction to make. Google is primarily a list of websites, whereas sites like Yelp are lists of businesses offering that specific service.

2). Sites like Yelp are popular and offer the opportunity to leave reviews, so it's quite possible that Google ranks them high because searchers are more likely to find good, reliable businesses which provide the service they're looking for. Google can rank the quality of websites in its SERPs, but it can't rank the quality of actual businesses.

3). I'm sure I read somewhere that Google is moving more towards its map and shopping features to have more control over the quality of the businesses instead of just the quality of the sites. Those result pages you linked to also show the map with all the local businesses on it, and they're prioritised at the top of the page. Listing on Google is now much more than just the search result pages. Google wants businesses to integrate into all these features for a better user experience for the searcher.

4). When it comes to ranking power, sites like Yelp and Yell are very well established and will therefore have high authority.

5). Yelp is a multi-million pound business. They probably spend more on SEO in a month than some of these small businesses make in a year. Google does try its best to make it a level playing ground, but it's not perfect. Businesses and websites with such huge resources to put into SEO will always have an advantage.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Hi,
Let me show you some live examples:

1. First exmaple: for the local business search: "bricklayers in enfield" , on top 10 of the SERP's you can see 2 jobsites (Reed and Indeed). The word "job" is not typed at all. Here is the search results url:

How many bricklayers are there in Enfield? How many have half-decent websites? How many of those have done even the basic on-page theming of their homepage?

(i.e. Done the things that would enable Google to understand what the site is about.)

Google is going to return 10 results for any search. If there aren't 10 good relevant results, Google will have return some fairly irrelevant results, just to make up the numbers.

Steve

PS If you think Google is off-base, take a look at Bing's results for this search query.

 

[NickGrogan]

I'm doing SEO for a living since 2006 and believe me - i know what "good SEO" means but that is not the point here.

Let me show you another example - please see the Google results for: "domestic cleaners albany park, chicago"
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=domestic cleaners albany park, chicago

I see 8 -9 results from Yelp on 1st page!!! Do you think that there are NO domestic cleaners near albany park, chicago?
In this case: " If someone searches for 'accountant in #####', it's because someone wants Yelp"

You might know what good SEO means, but you seem to have forgotten what good search results are.

Google doesn't exist to list websites, it's there to help me find things.

So if I search for "domestic cleaners albany park, chicago", what I'd really like to see is a nice list of domestic cleaners in albany park, chicago. Not articles, news, infographics and other lovely bits of "content" but cleaners. Happily this is what google gives me.

If I search "bricklayers in Enfield", what am I looking for? 2 possibilities, either I am a bricklayer looking for a job, or I want a wall built. So Google gives both results in the top 10. If I just wanted a bricklayer, I'd be more likely to search for "builders in Enfield", which as you'd expect produces no job results in the top 10.

Same applies to accountants and so on. If I want an accountant in Edinburgh, what I want is google to give me a list of accountants in Edinburgh. Not a site that has a bunch of articles about completing VAT returns, or R & D tax credits. If I wanted that I'd search for it, and google would deliver.

Content isn't king, it never was.

Relevance is, always has been and always will be king.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Sadly people often lose sight of the fact quality will beat quantity any day of the week

lots of content is great for long tail, but not needed if you are chasing a small number of terms

 

[Codefixer]

How many bricklayers are there in Enfield? How many have half-decent websites? How many of those have done even the basic on-page theming of their homepage?

(i.e. Done the things that would enable Google to understand what the site is about.)

Google is going to return 10 results for any search. If there aren't 10 good relevant results, Google will have return some fairly irrelevant results, just to make up the numbers.

Steve

PS If you think Google is off-base, take a look at Bing's results for this search query.

Hi IISark, I'd have to agree with what Steve has posted, those SERPS aren't a great indicator of Google as a search engine as Google has very little optimised results to return.

If you can provide examples of slightly more competitive terms with poor results then I'd be all ears.

I'd agree with you 100% on some of the bigger sites such as Ebay, Gumtree, Yelp, Yell becoming more and more prominent. I seem to see these sites everywhere, even for fairly competitive terms.

Back in October I mentioned that I'd started to see Gumtree showing on the first page of Google for a web design term that I'd never seen before.

 

[fisicx]

Conclusion: Content is King in 2015? Maybe, but not for Google!

It depends on what you are searching for. If you want information all the top sites tend to be those with lots of relevant content. So content can still be king in the right places