Ever since Google stopped announcing Penguin, Panda and other major algorithm updates, keeping abreast of shifting SEO sands has been a lot tougher for web publishers.
For starters, simply narrowing down the reasons for a big Page Rank drop requires the kind of investigative skills that might land you a job with a CSI unit.
Fortunately, plenty of SEO websites like Searchengineland.com and Searchenginejournal.com have been able to stay on top of SEO best practices and pit falls.
Here are a few recent postings that should be helpful for anyone who’s trying to figure out whether they’ve been hit by a Google Penguin update, or just aren’t very good at SEO.
What If You’re Hit By a Panda Update – Matt Cutts himself shared some advice for SEOs who have been hit by a Google Panda update (though he won’t announce when those updates take place). In his eyes, it’s all about quality content, “You know, the sort thing that they’ll love to read…” So just do that and you’ll be fine.
Post-Penguin No Follow Rules – Post Penguin SEO is all about link management, but figuring out how the Google Penguin algorithm is going to deal with tricky issues like no-follows is another matter entirely. In a recent video, Cutts says that no-follows, “cannot hurt your site.” (Though excessive comments with accompanying links can hurt your rankings.)
Post Penguin Link Strategies – We know that no-follows won’t hurt you, but excessive comment posting will, so now what? The author of this post on Searchenginewatch.com says that easy answers are tough to come by. What he does recommend is targeting your links towards the most specialized, tightly focused (and relevant) sites you can find.
Top Search Engine Optimization strategies are tough to come by these days, but if you can parse out some useful tips that that work on your site, you’ll be a step ahead of the pack.