Google is Playing Musical Chairs with Ranking and it will Cost Us Billions

Courtesy of  www.flickr.com

By Hector E Cisneros

Yes - Google Gone Ga Ga - Again! Every year Google, spins their secrete algorithm roulette wheel to see what they want to emphasize. This year is no different. Now Google is changing the game in a big way. Google is making core changes to how they search page looks, feels and list SERP's (search engine results pages). They have changed how many paid ads are listed and, where they are listed. On top of that they have also changed how many organic listings show up. Plus, there are many backend changes that are not visible to the naked eye that directly affect ranking. So, if you want to know what these Google Algorithm changes have in stored for you, read on and learn what Googles game of, Algorithm Musical Chairs means to you.

In my opinion, Google doesn’t just make these changes to its search engine, only to make it better. Many of their changes are designed to increase the use of their paid search advertising product. This article will lay out evidence how these changes are costing US business (and the world) billions, as business owners attempt to chase Googles musical chair strategy for web page ranking.

Courtesy of wikipedia.org

Google has been releasing updates to it search engine algorithms on a regular basis since early 2000. This is not news, however, since Google’s search engine has grown to dominate (some would say a monopoly), they have stepped up the process significantly. Most can remember several of the big updates. With cuddly animal names like - Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird and Pigeon, or the more recent scarier named update called Mobilgeddon. Many of the updates have been named after cute animals, but their results have been anything but cute. In fact, they have been deadly to many websites ranking positions.

Most webmasters work hard to optimize their websites to rank well. Most of them focus on making Google happy since it controls over 70 percent of all search traffic. They provide the website updates needed to give Google what it’s looking for.

Obviously Google can do whatever it wants with its search engine. It’s a private company. But since it receives the vast majority of all traffic, any changes to its results algorithm can cause ranking changes. Any radical departure from their previous algorithms causes mayhem for most webmasters and owners alike.  More importantly, this cost billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars every time it happens.

Courtesy of  www.youtube.com

Over the years, many of Google algorithm changes have been designed to thwart black hat techniques meant to trick Google, while at the same time improve the search experience for its users. I have read many reliable reports that Google makes hundreds of algorithms changes during each year. Some are tests, others are tweaks and others are major changes to their search listing.  Google has admitted to making many changes annually in their press conferences and on YouTube announcements.

Now let’s talk about the sheer number of these updates and the effect they have on the business community. Google made dozens of major updates over the past five years. They have included Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird, Pigeon, Knowledge Graph, Rank-Brain, in-depth Article ranking, Authorship Shake-up, Mobilgeddon, Https/SSL ranking, In The News ranking and dozens of other named and un-named major updates. On top of that they have been actively tweaking many of the major changes over that same time period. Check out Google Algorithm Change History on Moz,  for a timeline and more details.  

New 4 Line Adwords Ad's - PPC 

Major changes to Paid Ad Listings - Another new twist to the search engine advertising game is Google latest decision to change the number of paid listings at the top and bottom of search pages. For highly competitive keywords (only Google determines what that means) only four ads will be shown at the top of the page and three more will be listed at the bottom. On top of that, these same criteria will lower the number of organic listings from around eleven to seven. And just to make this scheme even more complicated, Google has added, “Featured Snipped boxes” and “Google My Businesses Map Boxes”. Both of which take up large parts of the top of page one, moving non paid links even further down below the fold. Every business wants to be on page one above the fold. However, these constant changes are making it nearly impossible to reach these goals.

All of these updates have shifted the ranking landscape, causing many businesses to become winners and losers over the years. Yet I can’t help but think about the hundreds of billions of dollars that businesses have had to spend chasing these massive changes.

Google decides what You’re Looking For - My partner, Carl and I, have written many articles discussing these changes over the last five years. We have always contended that businesses need to concentrate on giving Google what it says it wants.  Primarily, Google has stated or leaked information, that indicates that their primary desire is to provide the user the fasted and most appropriate answer to the questions they are asking, when entering a search term. In essence, Google wants to provide not only the best content (best meaning high quality, timely, relevant and authoritatively safe content) but also finding what the search participant was “actually/really” looking for.

Google my Business Map in search.

This is a very tall order! I know that many times, when I enter a search term, I’m not sure of what I am looking for, so how will Google know what you’re looking for? The fact is, Google’s Rank Brain is filtering the results for us. It is making the decisions of what we want or don’t want and that my friends are where the dangers lie.

Today, every business has to take into account hundreds of ranking factors if they want to be on page one of Google Search. Google’s Rank Brain is actively changing the game every day without exception. It learns from what traffic occurs on a daily basis and adjust the results as it deems fit. Getting on page one organically is becoming an almost impossible task, because Google keeps changing the rules. Let’s look at some of the recent updates, for example:

• Pigeon - affected local business rankings. It rewarded those in directory and penalizing those who were not!
• Mobilgeddon - rewards those websites that are mobile friendly by serving them up for mobile search and penalizing the ones that were designed for desktop usage.  
• Featured Snipped - rewards websites with in-depth high quality, relevant, timely and authoritative content. These “Featured Snipped” (aka Answer Boxes) get major SERP real state. They take up a large portion at the top of the search listing.
• Structured Data update further rewards websites with in-depth content along with ones that also have the content laid out to make it easier for the search spiders to understand it.
• The Secure Website update favors websites that employ Https/SSL security because it is safer that those without it.
• Penguin - The original and recent Penguin update affect site with bad or irrelevant links, solely determine by Google. 
• Google My Business - Google had favored sites listed in Google Local, and now they have shifted that to the latest version of this ranking factor, Google My Business. This means if you haven’t gone in and set up your Google My Business you get penalized!

Courtesy of pixabay.com

Now let’s talk about Rank Brain. Rank Brain is Google’s Artificial Intelligence Search Ranking Factor program. According to Google’s Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai. “Machine learning is a core transformative way by which we are rethinking everything we are doing,” He further defines its use as - “Rank Brain is Google’s new machine-learning algorithm with artificial intelligence at its core, which better interprets search queries and learns from each action taken by searchers. Last year (2015), “a very large fraction of the millions of queries a second that people type into the Google’s search engine were interpreted by Rank Brain.” According to Google, the results – “were better than expected.” Meaning that they like what they saw and are now utilizing it even more that before. Some say as much as 50% of Google search results are now controlled by Rank Brain.

Which brings me to the main point of the article. There have been lots of studies showing that many pay per click transaction are really Bot clicks, not people. I know Google is actively trying to thwart these bots, but the fact remains that bot clicks are not going away time soon, and these bots are stealing money from businesses running pay per click.

Courtesy of  www.youtube.com

In December of 2015, I wrote about the widespread emergence of AI programs on the web and on smart devices. I also discussed the widespread implications of Programmatic (another type of advertising, buying and selling AI). My story included the benefits and dangers that the widespread implementation has on the business community and society in general. My conclusion was that although these new AI applications bring many benefits to our society as a whole, they also bring a huge potential for fraud, abuse and in the worst case scenario, apocalyptic results.

We as a society cannot depend on a single business entity to control such a large aspect of the World Wide Web. It diminishes safety, reduces competition, increases cost to business and all consumers. We must not become over depended on the use of Artificial Intelligence. That will lead to a weak society as a whole and it increases the danger professor Stephen Hawking spoke about when he stated that, "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." 

Courtesy of  en.wikipedia.org

 It is imperative that people and businesses alike, make decisions, not just based on convenience, but on what is the most effective long term strategy for their benefit. We are currently at Google’s mercy as long as they are in charge of 70 percent of search! If you add up the minimal cost (say $500 time a million of the 500 million websites) to update a website for any one of Googles algorithm changes, you would quickly conclude that it cost the US many billions of dollars each year. I urge everyone to diversify their use of the search engines and pay per click platform. This increase in competition will lower the cost of these advertising elements for businesses and it will insure competition and more freedom for the World Wide Web.

I suggest that we ask our representatives to put in place, safeguards to protect us from the potential of fraud and abuse that can come from one company controlling a majority of the search traffic on the web. Google has been sued in the past for miss use of it search rankings. Just last year, its pigeon update corrected the fact that Google was serving up Google+ sites over more appropriate sites when someone asked for a specific restaurant.

Courtesy of  en.wikipedia.org

I further suggest that we demand that safeguards be put in place to include hard and fast controls for all Artificial Intelligence programs being developed today. We need safeguards that will keep AI applications from totally making decisions on their own. It not only possible, but likely that they will make decisions not in our favor. Either way, these safe guards are in our best interest. We need to be able to unplug them at will, no if ands or buts!

That's my opinion, I look forward to hearing yours.

In this article I have discussed many of the recent major changes that Google has implemented as part of their search algorithm strategy and how these changes have and will affect business search advertising. I have included information on Rank Brain, Mobilgeddon, Answer boxes, paid listing changes and much more. I also make recommendations to businesses on what they need to do to be effective and to have a long term effective strategy for success.

You can find more articles about Google’s algorithm changes by entering that phrases in the search box, at the top of this blog. I also recommend reading these articles: 

·         Why do Giant Companies Step on Consumers Toes? Part 2: Real Examples

·         Do Smartphones Dream About Facebook

·         Hector the Connector Predictions for 2016 and Beyond!

·         Team Tech! The Next Wave in Internet Marketing

·         How to Make Google your Best Friend

·         Google’s Secret Ranking system - Harder for you, more profits for them.

·         Your Website - Lost in Cyberspace

·         The Care and Feeding of the 800 Lb. Gorilla in the Room Named Google

Get your FREE Copy.

·         The Evolution of Internet Advertising

·         Holy Algorithm, Batman, the Penguin Strikes Back!

·         Hummingbird is Nothing to Hum About!

Don’t forget to Plus us on Google+.

If you feel your business could use some help with its marketing, contact us at 904-410-2091. We will provide a free marketing analysis to help you get better results. If you'd like a free copy of our eBook, "Internet Marketing Tips for the 21st Century," please fill in the form below and we'll give you instant access to it. Your information is always kept private and is never sold. You will also receive our weekly newsletter filled with useful current changes and event happening on the web.

Hector Cisneros is COO and director of Social Media Marketing at Working the Web to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville, Florida.  He is also co-host of the weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success.”

Related articles

• SearchCap: Google local ads, Google searches podcasts & more
• Analysis of Google Ranking for 1 Million Search Results
• Google brings back in-depth articles to search results after 17-day outage
• 3 Ways to Improve Google SERPS with Content Marketing and SEO
• How Often Does Google Change Algorithms?
• Artificial Intelligence and the Rise of Google RankBrain in Search
• Tips to Improve Your SEO in 2016 [Infographic]
• Search Buzz Video Recap: Google PageRank, Penguin, Link Spam & Map Ads
• The convergence of SEO and UI goals for mobile users
• How to Optimize Your Small Business Website for Mobile