Thursday 2 June 2016

WHAT IS DOMAIN AUTHORITY?

Domain Authority is a measure of the power of a domain name and is one of many search engine ranking factors. Domain authority is based on three factors: Age, Popularity, and Size.

The search engines want to provide users with website results that can be trusted. New websites are popping up every day and many don’t last for various reasons. Domain age is an indicator of trust because it proves to the search engines that the website has longevity. If the website owner has maintained registration of a website consistently and has generated an increase in traffic to that domain over time, the search engines conclude that it must serve a purpose and be a trusted source.



Domain popularity is measured in part by the number of inbound links from quality sites that a domain has. Inbound links to a domain are a signal that that website has useful information that is worth sharing. This is why a white hat SEO link building campaign is so important. Tactics such as blogging and blog commenting, press release distribution, directory and profile submission, article marketing, and social media help to build inbound links to a domain and generate traffic over time.

The size of a website on a domain contributes towards its authority because the number of pages that exists on a domain correlate with the amount of content that can generate inbound links. A larger website with quality content on each page will have more inbound links than a smaller website.

Domain authority, or domain trust, is important because it will help new pages of content (including blog posts) get indexed more quickly and have a better chance of ranking prominently in the search results.

Friday 4 March 2016

Google Penguin Algorithm Update

What Is The Google Penguin Update?

Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings. When a new Penguin Update is released, sites that have taken action to remove bad links (such as through the Google disavow links tool or to remove spam may regain rankings. New sites not previously caught might get trapped by Penguin. “False positives,” sites that were caught by mistake, may escape.



Penguin Releases Over Time

This is the sixth release of Penguin. Google itself hasn’t given it a number, but we’re calling it Penguin 3.0 because it’s been so long since the last release of Penguin that it’s worth counting as a major release.

Here are dates of all Penguin releases:
  • Penguin 1.0 on April 24, 2012 (impacting ~3.1% of queries)
  • Penguin 1.1 on May 26, 2012 (impacting less than 0.1%)
  • Penguin 1.2 on October 5, 2012 (impacting ~0.3% of queries)
  • Penguin 2.0 on May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries)
  • Penguin 2.1 on Oct. 4, 2013 (impacting around 1% of queries)
  • Penguin 3.0 on October 17, 2014 (impacting around 1% of queries)
Note that Penguin 1.1 and Penguin 1.2 were previously reported by us as Penguin 2 and Penguin 3, because Google itself hadn’t given them numbers, so we did. But when the fourth release happened, Google declared that to be Penguin 2.0. We’ve renumbered to fit in with Google’s belated numbering sequence.

The latest Penguin release is one of the most anticipated algorithm updates in Google’s history. Some publishers have been desperately waiting for the refresh that arrives just over a year since the last.

Google Panda Algorithm Update

What Is The Google Panda Update?

Google’s Panda Update is a search filter introduced in February 2011 meant to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Panda is updated from time-to-time. When this happens, sites previously hit may escape, if they’ve made the right changes. Panda may also catch sites that escaped before. A refresh also means “false positives” might get released.



For the record, here’s the list of confirmed Panda Updates, with some of the major changes called out with their AKA (also known as) names:

  • Panda Update 1, AKA Panda 1.0, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
  • Panda Update 2, AKA Panda 2.0, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
  • Panda Update 3, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 4, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 5, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 6, Aug. 12, 2011 (6–9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
  • Panda Update 7, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 8, AKA Panda 3.0, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
  • Panda Update 9, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
  • Panda Update 10, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 11, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
  • Panda Update 12, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
  • Panda Update 13, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
  • Panda Update 14, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
  • Panda Update 15, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
  • Panda Update 16, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
  • Panda Update 17, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
  • Panda Update 18, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
  • Panda Update 19, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
  • Panda Update 20, Sept. 27, 2012 (2.4% English queries, impacted, belatedly announced
  • Panda Update 21, Nov. 5, 2012 (1.1% of English-language queries in US; 0.4% worldwide; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 22, Nov. 21, 2012 (0.8% of English queries were affected; confirmed, not announced)
  • Panda Update 23, Dec. 21, 2012 (1.3% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
  • Panda Update 24, Jan. 22, 2013 (1.2% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
  • Panda Update 25, March 15, 2013 (confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened)
  • Panda Update 26, July 18, 2013 (confirmed, announced)
  • Panda Update 27, AKA Panda 4.0, May 20, 2014 (7.5% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
  • Panda Update 28, AKA Panda 4.1, Sept. 25, 2014 (3–5% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
  • Panda Update 30, AKA Panda 4.2, July 18, 2015 (2–3% of queries were affected; confirmed, announced)

Black Hat vs White Hat SEO

White Hat

People in the party believe the search engines are their friends.  They choose to abide by the rules that the search engines set forth in order to build a long lasting high rank for their clients.  Hard work and time is what they rely on to be the right and durable ways to increase rank.

Black Hat

People in the party believe that the search engines are the enemy.  They choose to break the search engines' rules in an attempt to trick them and gain rank quickly.  Living on the edge is a thrill for them and beating the search engines is escaping their notice.

Gray Hat

People in the party seem to base their search engine optimization beliefs on the situation at hand.  They choose to abide by the search engines' rules but also take tricks from the black hats.  Although the black hat tactics they employ are used differently and are more acceptable to the search engines.




Tactics performed by the parties:

White Hat Tactics

These search engine optimization experts optimize their websites by creating a good quality site.  Almost everything they do is as much for the end users as for the search engines, except the techniques they use to make a site easy for the spiders to crawl.  They strictly adhere to best practices in line with the SEO Code of Ethics.  They organize their website content well for both the search engines and the site's users.  They spend time creating good content and link magnets to build inbound links.

Black Hat Tactics

These search engine optimization experts optimize their websites by tricking the search engines.  They employ many different methods and some of the most common techniques are:


  • Cloaking - showing the search engines different information than human visitors.
  • Keyword Spamming - over using targeted keyword phrases to the point that the text no longer reads correctly.
  • Doorway Pages -  added to a website to target specific keywords but provide no value to a human visitor.
  • Deceptive Redirects - used primarily with doorway pages that redirect the user to the home page, which has nothing to do with what the user searched on.
  • Duplicate Sites - stealing copyrighted content and publishing it.
  • Interlinking - building multiple sites that link together to build links.
  • Automated link spamming robots.
  • Anything Hidden (links or text) - making text or links the same color as the background of the site or very close to it.  Creating an image file the same color as the text and setting the image file as the background.



These tactics can easily get your site banned from search engine SERPs.  The search engines are not afraid to ban anyone.  They have done it to the most popular of sites.  Examples are: The Standford Daily (caught selling links) and the German BMW (caught using doorway pages) sites.  One day they are there, the next they are gone.

Gray Hat Tactics

These search engine optimization experts utilize the tactics of white hat SEOs.  Depending on what shade of gray they believe themselves to be determines how close they stay to white hat or black hat methods.  In general, they tend to use black hat tactics in more tame ways than their darker friends.


  • Cloaking - can be used in more legitimate ways, such as on a mainly image-based site.  As long as the text truthfully defines the page and images you are fairly safe.  Although, this tactic could be taken wrong and your site could be penalized.
  • Paid Links or link exchanges - When links are purchased for advertising it is considered legitimate.  If links are purchased to increase link-popularity only then your site could be penalized if discovered.
  • Duplicate Content.
  • Mild Keyword Stuffing.



These tactics are frowned upon by the search engines and may cause your site to be penalized.  The penalties are generally not as harsh as those for black hat tactics.

Which Hat do you Choose?

There are many other hat colors not mentioned above, including:  off-white, dark gray and even blue. No matter how many keep getting thrown into the ring, the only 100% safe hat is pure white.

White hat philosophy will always prevail because at the core is the desire to create long-term credibility and quality content for their visitors.  White hats are fundamentally opposed to the short-term gains of black hat tactics because of the great loss that is experienced over time.

At Smart Solutions, we employ white hat tactics only.  If you are interested in learning more about Smart Solutions' search engine optimization techniques and philosophy, please Contact Us.