Are you a business owner trying to get your website to rank on Google? Or are you an SEO/ SEM executive drowning in KWs, CTRs and god knows what? If yes then you would agree that, “In a match against Google, the cards are stacked against you!”.
Google sounds like the big bad villain from an old bollywood flick but in all honesty that has become the case in today’s competitive market! With ranking becoming all the more difficult and optimisations getting tedious, we live in a digital era where things are ever changing and machines are smart enough to predict any trick that you may have up your sleeve.
It is common knowledge that Google keeps updating its algorithm on a regular basis. This is done to continually optimise services for the masses and weed out anybody trying to hijack SERP rankings. The downside however is that one always needs to be on their toes and keep a close eye on one’s website metrics as well as on the SEO/SEM community for any reports of foreshock.
It has almost become a common occurrence for websites to drastically lose rankings, see a dip in traffic, experience low CTR or see sudden changes in ad performance. An algorithm change, no matter how minor, carries with it the potential to disrupt tried and tested methods of success.
If you think that you only resort to white hat techniques and would be safe or that only black hat SEOs face losses, you are partially right! Practising safe SEO carries lower risk but can still be upset by an algorithm change. There are countless instances where algorithm changes have caused severe damage to websites that have employed best SEO practices.
Google is not out to get you, neither does it want to purposely throw you off your game and waste months of effort. However, due to certain loopholes and people who continue to find and exploit them, Google is getting smarter and harsher with its changes and penalties.
Google wants you to lose, here’s 3 reasons to back up our argument:
- Unpleasant Surprises:
- Google doesn’t always announce an algorithm update.
- Minor updates are rolled out and found out through community forums/ confirmed by Google at later stages.
- Secrecy:
- Google has become very private with its metrics
- For example, some ranking factors (such as social signalling) that Google says don’t count, show correlation with ranking.
- A lot of data such as PageRank, exact search volumes, etc that was easily available has become harder to access.
- Vagueness:
- Over time, to safeguard itself and make loopholes harder to spot, Google has gotten vague with its words.
- Be it algorithmic change announcements or community guidelines, the specifics are hard to pinpoint.
In this game with high losing odds, the only way to endure is to be vigilant! If you’re still in the game, stay up to date and stay safe!
