Sometimes, everything about today’s online landscape can seem so very complicated. As well as rather mysterious.
Of course, fierce competition exists too. That’s just business, after all. Same as it ever was.
In a recent blog post over at Search Engine Watch, blog author Jessica Lee took a look at a U.K.-based “SEO Insight” company called MathSight‘s deconstruction of Google’s Penguin 2.0 algorithmic update, even interviewing MathSight managing director Andreas Voniatis in the process.
In this story, there is a good breakdown of the MathSight study and its findings, particularly in regards to “why sites won or lost traffic” in the wake of the Penguin 2.0 release back in May, 2013.
In the words of blog post author Lee:
“What MathSight claimed to find was that Penguin 2.0 was really about “low readability” levels of content on a site, and stated that its research was able to uncover with a 95 percent statistical confidence that Penguin targeted factors that include:
- Main body text
- Hyperlinks
- Anchor text
- Meta information”
There is also mention of Google and its renowned, resident Genius/Webspam Czar/Top Cop Matt Cutts not revealing much about Penguin 2.0 at the time of its debut nearly half a year ago now.
However, in reality – and if you’ve really been paying close attention – Cutts and Google have really been telling us how to stay in their good graces all along.
And in the end, that answer is really no great mystery. It mostly involves a lot of common sense. Along with what we here at Amplitude Digital have always described as The Three Pillars of SEO:
Content. Site Architecture. And Inbound Links.
The main areas the MathSight study points to when looking at which sites “won” or “lost” since Penguin 2.0 rolled out are also essentially this “Holy Trinity” of SEO.
Of course, if you’ve been in the SEO Game as long as we have here at Amplitude Digital, you’ll know that these Three Pillars have pretty much ALWAYS served as Your Best Bet – along with Your Best Practices – when it comes to SEO. Even before SEO was called SEO.
Yes, that’s correct, Dear Readers. Regardless of what many Marketing Mavens and SEO Specialists may try to tell and/or sell you, SEO and its functions aren’t really as “fresh” or “unique” or “complicated” as it’s all often made out to be. In fact, they’re really just a collection of best practices that website owners, internet marketers and smart companies all should be doing – regardless of whether or not Google was out there policing the online landscape.
So next time, when in doubt, just look to The Three Pillars of SEO to guide your way. Of course, you’re always welcome to contact us here too. We’d love to help steer you and your brand in the right direction.
