^#296

Bigdaddy Has Arrived

Just in time for Father’s Day….the term Bigdaddy refers to the last Google Update that has been going on for the past few months. Even if you don't normally follow information about search engines, you need to be sure to read this!  Chances are you do have something on your website that can impact your placement, which would likely impact your leads...and that affects your bottom line.

Before we give all the details on this new update, let's summarize some of the main points...

What is Bigdaddy?

If you have been chatting in our Advanced Access Forums or in any other search engine-related chat rooms you recognize the name that has been the focus of so much gossip lately.  Bigdaddy is the new Google infrastructure put in place to enhance the general quality of search results by using an algorithm to throw out sites that are of poor quality or obvious spam.  (An excellent article just written about Bigdaddy from Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, gives a synopsis about the effects of Google’s latest upgrades.)

The major change for you?

Research shows that Google, Yahoo, and MSN find linking with fellow real estate professionals is not a smart idea if done in the context of attempting to rank higher in those search engines.  This means 'State pages' and 'Link to Me' forms are no longer the advisable way to build your reputation with search engines.

What is an inlink or inbound link? (Also known as a 'backlink')

This means there is a link on another website on the Internet linking to your website.

What is an outlink or outbound link?

This means there is a link on your website that links to another website on the Internet.

One of the most important changes is the way your inbound and outbound links affect your reputation in Google.  The past few years have seen many link schemes created in an attempt to fool Google into thinking a particular site is an authority with many valuable incoming links.  Those days are now over.  If your website has one or many pages that consist of nothing but a long list of links to other websites, then it is time to pay attention.  Please note that those links are not helping you.  

How can you tell if a specific page is indexed in Google?  First, go to the page in question (maybe a brilliant content page about a local city you created) and right click with your mouse on some empty space on the page. Go to ‘Properties’ and using your mouse, highlight the ‘Address (URL)’ and copy it.  Then, go to www.Google.com and paste the full address into the search bar and click on ‘Search’.  If the page is indexed, it will show up in the search results.  If it is not indexed, Google will tell you that they have no information available for you.   

Coming from an inbound link standpoint, if you have a link on a page that is indexed then Google knows about that link (even if they do not report it in a backlink check) and may be counting that link in your favor if the page is a quality page.  If the page is not indexed in Google, then a link on that page would be no benefit for you.  (For more specific advice on these technical items, please visit our Search Engines category in the Advanced Access Forums, located in the Support Center of your Virtual Office!)  It has always been important to know if a page is indexed but lately, many people will trust that if a page has a high PageRank on Google’s toolbar (also known as the ‘Foolbar’) the page is a good one. This is not true.  With the latest Bigdaddy update, many pages will still display PageRank on the toolbar as Google does not update this in a timely manner, yet the page is not indexed and therefore has no value according to Google.  

If you have pages of outbound links on your site, added in a quest for reciprocal links to try and get ahead in rankings for Google or other search engines, you may wish to check the pages on which your reciprocal links reside to see if they are indexed in Google. They may not be indexed because a page of links is simply not valuable enough anymore, and most importantly, it is not valuable to real people browsing through your website.  

Matt Cutts, a Google employee, has a personal blog that gives insight into index updates and search engine optimization issues.  His most recent post about Bigdaddy provides an insider’s view of the changes and a timeline of when to expect to get your individual pages indexed into the Google search engine.  If you have seen some of your pages fall out of the index, Matt has posted a few explanations.   

One of the reasons that some of your pages might not be indexed is that Google’s algorithms have ‘very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site’, as Matt explained in one of the comments of his blog post.  Inlinks, or inbound links, are links that are coming into your site from other websites on the Internet.  Outlinks, or outbound links, are the links that you are linking to from your website.  Trust is key, in how specific pages are evaluated by Google.  If pages are linked to bad neighborhoods then they would not have a high trust factor.  

Quality inbound links have never been more important.  Getting quality inbound links from sites that contain excellent content is still essential.  Notice how we keep emphasizing ‘Quality’?  Find out how to acquire quality inbound links from local resources, on a past Marketing Tip.  It may be time for you to rethink what ‘Quality’ means.  Do you like the site from which you are attempting to get an inbound link? Would you want your family to visit the site?  Does it have good information, is it designed well, and are there any links to ‘bad neighborhoods’? If you are attempting to link with sites purely for any search engine worth, stop now! The better inbound links you have, the more Google will explore your site, index your pages, and rank you accordingly.  It’s not enough to simply have links pointing to your homepage. If you have other interior pages within your website that are very important, you may want to make sure people are linking to them as well to make sure Google, and other search engines, will explore your website to the fullest potential.  

Outbound links are also important to monitor as well.  Once you create links on your site to other sites on the Internet, do you check them out to see if they still work?  Have you ever checked them?  It is common for websites to be created on domain names, only to have a domain name expire and be snatched up by unsavory individuals who put sites up because of current links pointing to it to obtain traffic for AdSense or other commissionable links to make money.  Yes, sometimes these sites may be extremely unsavory and you are still linking to them. Google will hold you responsible for linking to these ‘bad neighborhoods’ by associating your website pages as bad neighborhoods and not index them in their search engine or simply not value them according to their worth.  Also, any users visiting your website might click upon them and be offended that they were drawn to them from your website.  

Analyzing the inbound and outbound links is now what Google does best.  Google can tell what percentage of your links are reciprocal, as well as how many one-way links you have coming from authoritative (quality) websites, or what links might be from bad neighborhood sites (Casino or Viagra sites, for example).  Google has been analyzing this behavior for years and they are only getting better at it.   

Returning to Matt Cutt’s latest indexing timeline, he gives a few examples why pages in websites might fall out of the index such as, ‘include excessive reciprocal links, linking to spammy neighborhoods on the web, or link buying/selling’.  Excessive reciprocal links such as the agent-to-agent links many real estate professionals have created in overload will be frowned upon by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others.  Matt continues on to in other comments to say, ‘to the degree that search engines reflect reputation on the web, the best way to gather links is to offer services or information that attract visitors and links on your own.’  We have talked about creating quality content in past Marketing Tips and we continue to encourage you to go back refresh yourself on what to do for your website. Matt also says ‘I’d recommend people spend less time on trying to gather links that way or via some automated network, and more on making a great site with a creative angle or two that makes the site stand out from the crowd.’ 

In Matt’s post, he referenced two particular real estate sites with examples of specific problems. In both cases their outbound links were the problem, said Cutts, for having less pages included within Google’s network. The quality of those outbound links, and how you are linking to them, is crucial to having a great presence in Google and other search engines.  In one example, Matt even said linking to a mortgage site was a problem although in the context he used the example; we don’t think that the specific link was the problem but more of where the link was located.  The link seemed to be located at the bottom of the site in a type of footer instead of being included in a quality content page that would benefit the user, and not just linked up for any possible search engine benefits.  

Using all of this information above, we have come to the conclusion that Google, Yahoo, and MSN find linking with fellow real estate professionals is not a smart idea if done in the context of attempting to rank higher in those search engines. As Matt Cutts said, ‘it’s not that reciprocal links are automatically bad. It’s more that many reciprocal links exist for the wrong reasons.’  Those ‘list of links’ that many of you created exist for the wrong reasons.  They are also incredibly easy for Google, and others, to spot and include in their algorithm to remove from their index.  In fact, many of those pages have already been removed from Google’s index.

Next week, we will give you some tips and info on how to continue with your website marketing strategies in a productive manner.  This week, focus on evaluating your website in these areas, and discontinuing any of these practices.

Be sure to stop by the Advanced Access Forums and catch our newest member, Search Engine Optimization "guru", Greg Boser of http://www.webguerrilla.com/

To read the continuation of this article now instead of waiting for next week's Marketing Tip, click here.

Printer-friendly version of this Marketing Tip (article only)

---

Advanced Access
8101 East Kaiser Blvd, Suite 300 Anaheim, CA 92808
Toll Free: (866) 518-1571
Monday - Friday, 7:00 am - 6:00 pm (Pacific)
Saturday & Sunday, 7:00 am - 4:00 pm (Pacific)
Email: Support@AdvancedAccess.com
Website: http://www.AdvancedAccess.com


Back to Main Page