Credit: https://www.todhost.com/blog/digital-marketing-seo/243-why-seo-keeps-changing-the-way-it-works


Taking people un-aware and leaving many handicapped? Why can't we just rank easily and start driving in lots of traffic + cash to our site? If you have ever wondered about any of these, keep reading.

The reason SEO (google) keeps changing and changing its algorithm is not far-fetched, Google is trying to create an artificial intelligent machine, that feels, reads and think like humans

If you've decided to learn search engine optimization and wonder what really works and what doesn't, then this guide is for you.

Many people including myself has used search engine optimization to grow small businesses, toy stores, large international and local fashion brands, and hotel chains.

One thing never ceases to amaze me - the power of SEO as an Internet marketing tool for growing any business. I have grown small businesses into giant companies in just one or two years - simply from working the client's site up to the top position in Google.

Unfortunately, learning how to use SEO is difficult, if not impossible, for most business owners, Internet marketers and even tech-heads. The reason is this, Browsing through the amount of information flooding the Internet about SEO is overwhelming.

In many cases, most of the advice published is either outdated or misleading. And the constant updates by Google makes it hard for SEO beginners and gurus alike to keep up with what works.

Anyways, I don't want to go in too much into SEO in this article, as the title explains already what this post is all about. SEO TRENDS THAT DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE 2016 AND BEYOND

In the early days of Google (over 15 years ago) Google started a smarter search engine and a better experience for navigating the World Wide Web. Google delivered on this promise by delivering relevant search engine results.

Internet users discovered they could simply type what they were looking for into Google and BINGO! users would find what they needed in the top results, instead of having to dig through hundreds of pages.

Google's user base grew really very fast.

It didn't take long for smart and entrepreneurial minded webmasters to catch on to sneaky little hacks for ranking high in Google.

Webmasters soon discovered that by cramming many keywords into the page, they could get their site ranking high for almost any word or phrase. It quickly spiraled into a competition of who could jam the most keywords into the page.

The page with the most repeated keywords won, and rose quickly to the top of the search results. More and more spammers caught on and Google's promise as the most relevant search engine was thus challenged.

Webmasters and spammers became more sophisticated and found tricky ways of repeating keywords on the page and then completely hiding them from human eyes. (By changing the background color to the same as text the color).

All of a sudden, parent looking for holidays in specific location would be left with the nasty surprise of arriving at a site about Health and Fitness! How could Google keep its status as the most relevant search engine, if people kept on spamming the results with tons of spammy pages, burying the relevant results to the bottom?

A closer look into the updates of google.

Google released a widespread update in November 2003 codenamed "Florida" effectively stopping spammers in their tracks. This update leveled the playing field by rendering keyword stuffing completely useless and effectively restored balance to the force.

And so began the long history of Google updates, making it hard for spammers to game the system and making ranking high a little more complicated for everyone.

Fast-forward 15 years and ranking in Google has become extremely competitive and considerably. more complex. In a simple sentence, everybody wants to be in Google. Google on the other hand is fighting to keep its search engine relevant and must constantly evolve to continue delivering relevant results to users. This hasn't been without its challenges though.

Just like keyword stuffing, webmasters eventually clued onto another way of gaming the system by having the most anchor text pointing to the page. If you are not familiar with this term, An anchor text is the text contained in external links pointing to a page.

This created another loophole exploited by spammers. In many cases, well-meaning marketers and business owners used this tactic to achieve high rankings in the search results.

Along came a new Google update in 2012, this time called Penguin. Google's Penguin update punished sites with suspicious exact match domains and amounts of links with exact-matched anchor text pointing to a page, by completely delisting or de-indexing sites from the search results.

Many businesses that relied on search engine traffic overnight lost all of their sales literally, just because Google believed sites with hundreds of links containing just one phrase didn't acquire those links naturally.

Google believed this was a solid indicator that the site owner could be gaming the system. If you find these changes alarming, don't do it.

Already, if you have read this post up to this point, then definitely, you have understood the point am coming from and already know what doesn't work in SEO anymore.

But for the purpose of making everything simple, i will just highlight the major lessons in this article.

1.) If you are just registering a domain or about hosting/starting a blog, then you should never use an Exact match Domain I.E. Dogtrainingtips[dot]com.. The reason is not far fetch, outside risking the chances of been hit by google, you are losing a huge amount of money.

2.) Do not do, or try to use keyword stuffing or hiding keywords using the background color trick in your post to rank for that particular keyword.

3.) Do not drive traffic to your site by pasting your sites URL just anywhere you see. Once google detects spam, that's all for you. Frustration is next.

4.) When using links or backlinks, do not use a particular anchor text all the time. I.E a post about Dog training can have diverse anchors as Dog breeding, Dog upbringing, Dog training, dog training tips, pet training, pet upbringing, pet training (dog) guide, dog watch.

In the short history of Google's major updates, we can discover two powerful lessons for achieving top rankings in Google and staying there.

1. If you want to stay at the top of Google, never rely on one particular tactic.

2. Always ensure your search engine strategies rely on SEO best practices.

If you have got anything more to add to this, feel free, just use the comment box below. And Don't Forget to share.

Author BIO

Confidence Ezemadu, is a DIY tech kind of guy. I have spent many of my life and resources acquiring and testing what works and what doesn't in the Online Space and currently share more insights about entrepreneurship + tech on a simple blogger platform. (other Money sites on WP though).. You can follow me on Google Plus if you like me.

Hey! SEO can help improve the user experience on your website by making it more likely that visitors will stay on your site and turn into customers or leads. When I needed the help of SEO specialists, I turned to a marketing agency in Latin America. They easily helped me make big sales and increase my earnings.