Google’s “Mayday” Update: What It Means For Your Search Rankings

Welcome back!

Earlier this year, Wired Magazine ran a piece on Google’s algorithm. That piece focused on the manner in which the algorithm has evolved since the late 1990s. In the early years, major algo changes were deployed once a month (roughly). These days, changes occur much more frequently. According to Matt Cutts, one of the most prolific Google engineers, hundreds of changes happened in 2009 alone.

Recently, Google unleashed their Mayday update. This is a big one. Cutts has publicly stated it’s going to stick for the long run. Today, I’ll explain exactly what the Mayday update means for your search positions (and traffic!), and three things you should start doing as soon as possible.

Driving Search Traffic Through The Long Tail

If you’re doing SEO, there’s a good chance you’re pulling organic search traffic by ranking for long tails. For example, rather than building a page for “dog food,” you may be optimizing it for “dog food for active puppies.” The individual long-tail keywords attract small trickles of targeted traffic. Together, the trickles add up to a stream. Convert the stream and you can make thousands of dollars each month with affiliate sales, Adsense sites, or your own information products.

The Mayday update affects the long tail of search. For this reason, it’s bound to hit a lot of internet marketers where it hurts the most: their organic traffic.

First, a quick clarification. Mayday is a change to Google’s ranking algorithm, not the algorithms used for crawling and indexing your pages. In Cutts’s own words, Mayday is “an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries.”

So, what does “higher quality” mean? Google has always been upfront in showing their preference for content-heavy sites (e.g. About.com). But it’s worth noting the thematic portion of their ranking algorithm is not the main lever they use to determine quality. They use inbound links from authoritative – or credible – sites.

This has been the case for years, but the Mayday update has thrust this to the forefront of ranking your long-tail pages. If you have recently noticed your long-tail traffic dropping, it’s time to make some changes.

3 Actions You Should Take Today

Typically, whenever Google deploys a major update (for example, Caffeine), it’s a good idea to watch the results before making a move. This is because they test, tweak, and make changes before rolling out to all of their datacenters. Occasionally, they even back out large pieces of the update. Mayday is different. The changes we’re seeing in the results today are likely to stick or become more pronounced. With that in mind, here are the three steps to take today…

#1 – Expand Your Content

If you have 200 words on a page, you’re going to need much more if you hope to rank in the future. If you’re building database sites or product-focused ecommerce sites (e.g. Amazon.com), make sure your individual pages are loaded with plenty of thematic, high-quality content.

Here’s the litmus test: ask yourself whether a visitor is better off for visiting and reading your page. If not, consider adding heft to your content.

#2 – Build Links To Your Internal Pages

Inbound links to your site’s internal pages have been important as a ranking factor for years. However, the Mayday update increases the priority. Whether you’re using social media sites, article directories, blogs, or press releases to build links, make sure you include “deep links” to your site’s pages. This is a major facet in how Google determines quality.

You should read Here my post on Getting Backlinks to your site.

#3 – Watch The Top Search Positions

Assuming you’re watching your traffic numbers (and if you’re not, you should be), you may have noticed some of your long-tail pages’ positions dropping due to Mayday. Take a look at the pages in the search results that have overtaken your rankings. Chances are, they have more inbound links from sites that Google considers credible. If you intend to reclaim your positions, this is the place to start.

The Mayday update is opening the door for a lot of internet marketers. For every page that plummets in the rankings, another climbs to take its spot. Focus on high-quality content; build deep links to internal pages; and watch the search results for your targeted long tails. Months from now, you’ll look at your organic traffic stats and be glad you took these steps.

P.S.  If  you are looking for a a great starter source into Search Engine Marketing then you should Read My Seo Skills Manual. A great starter guide into Seo.  Click Here For my Seo Book!

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