What works today may not work tomorrow – branded is the new Exact
With Google’s Algorithm updates there is never a set path or clear instruction on how to get your website ranking on Google, and it’s not like you can pop down to your local university and pick up a degree in SEO is it? So how do we know how to get websites on to that elusive first page? And how do we know that our way is the right best way when we are left in the dark the majority of the time?
Well I guess the answer to that question is trialling, sharing success and failure and most importantly keeping up to date. Over the past 5 years SEO has changed dramatically and with technology ever changing and search engines always trying to improve end customer results, sometimes we can all get it wrong along the way. Hey, what works today will most probably end up being an algorithm update tomorrow.
As many of you may know Matt Cutts tweeted on Friday “minor weather report: small upcoming Google Algo change will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results”.
This has been a present topic on many blogs and tweets; “what works – branded or EMD’s”. Well that question has now been answered with what appears to detrimental effects on EMD’s.
Some people believe EMD’s have always been a little spammy. Some have even cliamed them to be “dangerously close to crossing over to the dark side”. However they have also had, for some time, very positive results in Google SERP’s. This all seems to have changed now though, as the graph above shows.
So what can we take from this? From what I have researched there has been a noticeable drop in EMD’s rankings and Google has definitely not wasted anytime handing out this penalty with almost immediate effects. However, there may be a loop hole for EMD’s if your website is relevant, i.e. organisation or a legitimate website and the exact match domain is more coincidental than spammy, then the EMD may retains its top rankings.
Has anything been missed? Or just want to add/share your opinion?
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October 2nd, 2012
Indeed a much anticipated move by Google. Sites that had been in the top for were not effected as much as the ones ranking 4,5,6,7.. As we all know, EMD’s were always more likely to rank better than others and spammers made good use of it. However, all good things has to come to an end.