Google – Trying to Make the Web a Better Place
Google is the number one search engine in use today; in fact it has so much of the market share that the brand name has become synonymous with searching on the web. Optimizing a web page to get to the top of Google’s search pages is a difficult and much discussed topic. There are two main things web pages are ranked on, the page itself and links to the page, as explained in the “Search Engine Optimization In-depth” post. This article also provides an outline of how effective a number of website elements and search engine optimization techniques are for how a website is ranked.
Google provides an outline of the factors that its algorithm uses to rank web pages in their Webmaster Guidelines. These guidelines are boiled down into the three broad topics of having a good layout, good quality content, and other sites link to you, by the post “Search Marketing 101”. Google is trying to provide the most relevant results to make searching the web easier for everyone and will delete any websites from its database if they are trying to manipulate the system. The techniques to avoid, as they are commonly used to manipulate search engine results, are also provided in the Webmaster Guidelines.
Creating content for a site is something that is in your control to do, however the other main component of search rankings are in the amount and quality of links to your web page. The entry “Google Reveals More Linking Secrets To Webmasters” looks at what links are considered quality. Google expects linking to other sites to be done with the user in mind; links that are quality are ones that offer value to a visitor’s experience. So for example, a directory of unrelated links is not a quality link but a reference in a blog entry is.
By changing their algorithm and not providing an exact formula for how they rank sites Google is trying to reward websites that are providing content for their users with higher search rankings instead of those that aim to be perfectly optimized to achieve the best search engine results.
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Why Should I Believe You? The Credibility of Blogging
A blog is considered a credible source of information because the review or recommendation has been posted by someone who is just like everyone else, not a marketer trying to sell something. However it is obvious that there are blogs that we cannot consider to be a credible resource. So what factors make us consider a blog credible?
The Slideshare presentation “What Makes a Website Credible?” suggests that web credibility is based on the formula, perceived trustworthiness + perceived expertise = perceived credibility. Without either the belief of trustworthiness or expertise the website is not thought of as credible by visitors.
Perceived expertise can be attributed to how narrow the focus of the blog the post topics are, as suggested by the entry “SMB4: Bloggers – Credibility VS Popularity”. A blogger who posts about a certain niche topic, depending on the content of the posts, comes across as knowledgeable in that topic. In contrast someone who posts on whatever is on their mind and might not have two posts on the same topic likely will come across as less knowledgeable on the subject. Expertise is essential to gaining credibility whether it is gained through education, experience, or through a connection with the reader, such as a shared interest.
Being discovered as being paid to post about certain products or services can take away from the perceived trustworthiness of your blog. By taking money for endorsements a blogger can be thought of as promoting things they know nothing about or even dislike in order to get paid. However a paid blogger who has the other factor in the equation, expertise, and has a history of saying what they feel, as described in the post “How Much Do Top Tier Bloggers and Social Media Consultants Get Paid? We Asked Them!” would be perceived as being more trustworthy than a blog that promotes anything and everything.
So as the Businessweek blog, Blogspotting, mentioned in the post “The blogosphere is not ‘credible’” blogs cannot be generalized as credible however individual blogs can be assessed for credibility.
