Google Search Essentials
Google is carrying out a refresh of its Webmaster Guidelines, slimming it down and rebranding it ‘Google Search essentials’. The search giant is moving away from the use of the word ‘webmaster’ (some will remember that some time ago, Webmaster Tools became Google Search Console, with Webmaster Central subsequently becoming Google Search Central) and has made the guidance easier to understand, condensing it into just three sections.
How is Google Search Essentials organised?
Many former guidelines are being moved to specific sections of the Google Search Central website, with the Search Essentials consisting now of only three categories:
- Technical requirements
- Key best practices
- Spam policies
Let’s look at these in a little more detail.
Technical requirements
As many marketers will already know, there are several things you need to do to a web page in order for it to be listed in Google search results. Most sites feature the key requirements as a matter of course, which are:
- Googlebot isn’t blocked
- The page works (no error occurs when accessing it)
- The page has indexable content
This is a bare minimum requirement for any web page that a content creator wishes to be indexed by Google. However, more effort is required for the page to rank – which is where the best practices section comes in.
Key best practices
If you want your content to be easily accessible in the search results, you’ll need to be aware of Google’s key best practices, and implement them wherever possible. The best practices include:
- Creating content that’s helpful to those searching for it
- Use keywords that people would search for and place them in prominent areas, such as titles, headings, and alt text
- Ensure links can be crawled by Googlebots
- Tell people about your site – in other words, promote it through marketing channels
- Ensure that best practices for images and video are followed (such as using compressed images to ensure load times aren’t compromised)
- Follow specific best practices for structured data and JavaScript
- Enhance how your site appears in search with rich snippets
- If there is content on your site that you want to keep out of the search results, block it from Google’s crawlers
Spam policies
Google is hot on preventing spam content from entering its search results. Certain behaviours and tactics can therefore result in a web page or website ranking lower or being de-indexed altogether. The long list of spammy practices includes:
- Cloaking
- Doorways
- Hacked content
- Hidden text and links
- Keyword stuffing
- Link spam
- Machine-generated traffic
- Malware and malicious behaviours
- Misleading functionality
- Scraped content
- Sneaky redirects
- Spammy, automatically generated content
- Thin affiliate pages
- User-generated spam
- Copyright-removal requests
- Online harassment removals
- Scam and fraud
A full description of each of these spam practices can be found in Google’s comprehensive overview of spam policies.
Help with online content creation and marketing
If you want to give your content the best possible chance of ranking in the search engines, get in touch with Whitefish Marketing today. We provide content and SEO services in Kent, adhering strictly to Google’s best practices to ensure your site stands out. Contact us today for details.
