CT Web Marketing Blog

SEO has existed ever since the introduction of the Yahoo search engine back in 1995. It was much different at the time and in the early days getting ranked was much less of a science due to the primitive search algorithms used by Yahoo and other early search engines. As time went on the algorithms became more advanced and getting ranked became more about technique and strategy than luck.

The Golden Age of SEO
With the advancement of search algorithms, came the exploits. Since these early algorithms had parameters that were set in stone it was possible to generate #1 ranking at will if you knew all of the parameters and implemented them on your website and web pages. This was the birth of on-page SEO a golden age for those who enjoyed gaming the system (and had the technical skill to do so) and “bait and switch” type websites were prevalent. Search engines began to catch on to this rampant abuse and modified their algorithms to not only weed out these types of sites but to also make it so that SEO could be implemented by those who weren’t highly skilled at cracking SEO parameters. This began the golden age of SEO for ordinary people looking to rank their site however SEO as a business tool hadn’t quite caught on yet.

Dark Ages of SEO
These golden ages of SEO quickly came to an end however as search engines became littered with spam due to how easy it was to manipulate the rankings. This could be considered the dark ages of SEO as many once powerful search engines such as Hotbot and AltaVista became practically worthless. Search engines frantically searched for a way to combat this problem and once again modified their algorithms. This gave rise to off-page SEO and the importance of backlinks. In addition to this, search algorithms also began to become much more complex to deter crackers from discovering the parameters and gaming the system.

2012: Google Goes Business
Up until this point Google, has always been considered to be on the side of the people of the Internet. Their policy has always been to help ensure that people doing searches get quality content in the search results and those who build websites get rewarded for having a quality site. Some questionable decisions on Google’s part this year has left some business owners and online marketers wondering if Google has “sold out.”
One such change was the fact that Google Analytics will now refrain from showing keyword data of users who are logged into Google. Since this keyword data was invaluable for website owners many are understandably upset, especially since most people are in fact logged in now thanks to the rise of mobile devices.  Another change that has left many site owners bewildered is the fact that the Google search algorithms not only find websites to match search queries now but also search through the info within the website to find useful info.  For example, if you type in “How old is George Clooney” the first thing that comes up in the search results is Google telling you he’s 50 years old. While this may not seem like a big deal, and isn’t rampant yet, the implications are startling. If Google begins giving away a website’s info before people click on the site the loss of traffic (and revenue) could be monumental.

Here is an insight on two of the major changes that transformed the world of SEO in 2012
1.Google panda
First off, you might be wondering where the Panda update came from or better yet why it’s killing so many Internet Marketers and their businesses. You see back in early 2011, Google started a series of updates which were specifically based on internet user’s opinions instead of on numerical data. The things that were not accounted for were the number of backlinks a website had, the quality of them, how many pages had content and how many did not, keyword density of these content pages and Meta data.

Your successes and failures will still depend on these aspects, but if you don’t utilize them correctly, you might end up being tossed aside like so many of the other businesses and websites out there. Panda was not and is not based on numerical data and instead was collected by a bunch of data which was collected by humans who evaluated certain websites. For more detailed information regarding Penguin and Panda there is a great detailed breakdown of all of Google’s updated here http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change#2012

Social networking is one of the most popular online activities done on our computers today. There are currently many social networking websites that are working and people are just addicted to this craze of social networking. The main concept behind the introduction of social media was to provide a platform to users for communicating and staying in touch via improved and convincing manners. But today in addition to serving as a connecting medium social media have emerged as vital and impressive tools for the promotion and establishment of businesses. The power of social media is very strong the best part about it is that it possesses a great access and reaches the depths of every corner of this world. Stats show that 98% of the youngsters aged 18 to 24 are users of various social networking mediums. Not only young people, but people belonging to older age groups also form the regular audience of social networking websites.

For this reason businesses enjoy the enormous potential to progress on social networking websites because of the fact that they provide excellent mediums for the advertisement and promotion of their offered services. There are many social networks that are operational today, but Facebook has no comparison. Presently, the Facebook is regarded as the king of social networking sites with 1.2 billion users registered at this site. This website was launched in the year 2004, but at that time no one knew that it is going to change the meaning of communication and will turn into a strong influential element for all the people of this world. Monthly 700 billion minutes are spent by people using Facebook with 11% of the population of this world uses Facebook. Can you imagine that what kind of influencing power is possessed by this social network? The stats mentioned above that clearly show how many people are addicted to Facebook.

Especially in the business circle Facebook is extremely popular the main reason behind it is that it makes it much more convenient for the manufacturers and the buyers to get in touch with each other. Every company irrespective of the fact that either it is large scale or small scale maintains its presence on Facebook because it provides it with several opportunities of progressing. The best privilege that is provided by Facebook to its users is that it serves as a very cheap promotional medium for different businesses that is at the same time very effective. If you open a business profile on Facebook then this directly means that you are now capable of targeting 1.2 billion people from across the globe and that too at free of any cost. You can promote your services in a more convenient and effective manner using your Facebook account. It also enables you to directly get in touch with clients that belong to any corner of this world. You will able to directly respond to the feedback that is provided and this will help you a lot in improving.