00:00Because of all the abuse we talked about in the last video,
00:09Google had to change and adapt to maintain its spot as the number one search provider.
00:14And to do that, it had to clamp down hard on those who were gaming the system
00:19and penalize sites that were cheating to get to the top spot.
00:22It did this by looking for obviously spammy strategies and de-indexing or downgrading the sites.
00:30So, sites with keywords in their URL no longer enjoyed the same advantage.
00:36Sites with huge numbers of inbound links from low-quality websites were de-indexed.
00:42Sites caught buying links were de-indexed.
00:46Sites that stuffed keywords were severely punished.
00:49Sites that had lots of backlinks with the same anchor text were treated as highly suspect.
00:54And the list goes on and on.
00:57Meanwhile, Google started to show preference towards sites that were longer,
01:01that linked out to other quality resources, which previously would have hurt your SEO, and more.
01:08These changes came in the form of algorithm updates,
01:11which had recognizable animal names and which got a lot of press from the internet marketing community at the time.
01:17These were Penguin, which was designed to reduce the effectiveness of unnatural backlinks,
01:24and Panda, which was designed to favor sites that looked high quality.
01:30Google doesn't want a website owner to be able to artificially climb its SERPs.
01:34Rather, Google wants websites to climb the ranks only when they're genuinely valuable and popular with the audience.
01:41It wants to see natural, organic links that you haven't paid for,
01:45and it wants to see deep, relevant, and interesting content.
01:48The old techniques that were once used to spam Google became known as black hat SEO,
01:55and the industry entered a dark period.
02:00It's hard to overstate just what the impact of these algorithms changes had on the SEO industry at the time,
02:06and on countless other industries as well.
02:08These changes ended up completely de-indexing massive websites overnight.
02:15Sites that had followed conventional wisdom to get to the top spot on popular SERPs were now completely de-indexed,
02:21cutting off the vast majority of their traffic and sales.
02:25This led many to proclaim that SEO was dead,
02:28that it was no longer possible to game the system because you would be penalized for buying links or for stuffing keywords.
02:34And even if someone could break Google's new algorithm and work out a new way to game the system,
02:41it would only be a matter of time until Google changed its algorithms again.
02:46The industry as a whole was in trouble, and SEO became a dirty word.
02:51Many people felt that SEO and black hat SEO were synonymous,
02:56and more and more people began to turn to social media for marketing,
02:59with the likes of Facebook and Twitter massively on the rise.
03:04But was SEO really dead?
03:07Not at all. It was just going through a metamorphosis.
03:12SEO is not the techniques we use to get our sites to the top of Google.
03:16SEO is simply the objective of getting to the top of Google.
03:21Any technique you use to try to get more attention from Google could be considered SEO.
03:26So if Google wants us to create a high-quality website, then creating a high-quality website becomes SEO.
03:35The hard part is just unravelling what Google's idea of a high-quality website should look like.
03:41Keyword research is still useful, for example, but we now know that Google doesn't want us to overly stuff our websites with those search terms.
03:51Instead, the recommendation hovers at around 1-2% keyword density.
03:56So if you write a long article and include the search term a few times, that should be enough,
04:02as long as it's also in your code a little, or in your file name.
04:06It's also worth noting that Google looks for keywords in specific places in your content and gives those extra value.
04:13Google will consider it a strong sign if your keywords are used in your headers or in the first paragraph of your content.
04:20Google also looks for synonyms, though, and related language, which is something that we'll discuss more later on.
04:27And it no longer cares about how many links you can get.
04:30It cares far more about how high-quality those links are.
04:34So if your links are from lots of highly trusted websites, then you'll find it does great things for your ranking.
04:41Google is also now looking at things like bounce rates, how long someone spends on your website.
04:47And it's looking at how your site renders on mobile and how quickly it loads.
04:52You can now get penalized for typos and mistakes.
04:56And Google is also looking at social sharing signs.
04:59If you have lots of plus ones from Google+, for example, then this can have a large positive impact.
05:07In short, Google is looking for signs of quality, relevance, and great design.
05:12At the end of the day, Google does not care about you as a content creator.
05:18You're not Google's customer.
05:20Google's customer is the end user who searches for a key phrase because they want to get relevant information or find the answer to a question.
05:28So if you forget the specifics and instead make your aim to deliver high-quality content consistently targeted towards a specific subject matter, then your goals will be aligned with Google.
05:41That means Google will want to share your content with its users.
05:44And it means that each update and change Google makes should actually benefit you as a creator.
05:51This is what good SEO is about today.
05:55Forget trying to trick Google and instead think about your users and think about working with Google.
06:00that means Google.
06:06To know what the, where other workers will likely do not lose their.
06:14The public is in.
06:19The public is a part of and it makes it work better.
06:24You have a huge value.
06:25You have a very lovely place.
06:27announcements.
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