02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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1993+ Search

Engines & Metadata

1998+ Google,

backlinks, text links

2005+ Domain

Relevance &

Authority

2009+ Social

Discussion

2013+ Semantic

SEO

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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Gaming the System

• Webmasters discovered that if their website appear in the Google first page as a result of popular keyword search, a lot of traffic will come to your website

• They also understood that search engine results can be easily manipulated. And soon big players joined in this manipulation game

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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Manipulation Tactics back in 2005

• Low Quality Links• Reciprocal Links• Link Farming

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

5

Google Algorithm Updates

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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Google Places replaced the Google Local Business Center, which aligned the search results for place names more closely with local listings. The most important change brought by this algorithm update was the ability of small local businesses to put themselves on Google Maps and gain page ranking. Suddenly it became incredibly important for small businesses to embrace SEO techniques that included their location

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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The Social Signals algorithm change was long expected of Google as the onslaught of social media gripped the world. With this update, Google confirmed that it would be using information from Facebook and Twitter to rank search listings. SEO, therefore, became important not only on individual websites, but on one's social media pages as well.

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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Google Panda is a change to Google's search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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1. Content is original2. Offer Value in your Content3. Remove redundant content4. Don't stuff pages with keywords5. Write compelling content6. Have user friendly navigation7. Professionally written content8. Avoid spelling and grammar mistakes9. Remove pages with little content that has little or no value to the user10. Create a great user experience. Make it easy to find what the user is looking for11. Speed up your sites load time. Optimize all the images and scripts

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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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.

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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The Knowledge Graph is a Google application that attempts to find semantic meaning in a web search. The KG amasses information from many sources. In July, the KG-assisted search results expanded by 50 percent with an unexpected algorithm update from Google. In terms of SEO, the context of a keyword became more vital.

02/05/2023 All Rights Reserved. Copyright (c)MERITAS CORPORATION By Haris Hamsa

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With the Hummingbird update, Google sought to have its search engines work more effectively for mobile — specifically voice — queries. The order of the words took on a more important role, as Google had discovered that people using voice browsers tended to form their query as a question. Hummingbird directly affected mobile-based SEO so that Google could work more effectively on smartphones and tablets.