A Super Fresh Google Index? Server Errors & Rankings Impacts

Whether it's Caffeine or a separate Google update, server errors can negatively impact rankings more quickly now. Columnist Austin Blais explains.

Any SEO professional will tell you that server errors (defined as status codes in the 5xx range) on one’s website should be minimized. Generally speaking, if a page cannot be accessed by a search engine, it cannot be accessed by a user. Though server downtime is sometimes necessary to implement fixes and update websites, be sure to handle server downtime properly and serve a 503 response — but not for too long.
But how exactly do server errors impact a site’s search engine optimization? What effects, if any, do server errors have on search engine visibility and rankings?
In early 2015, the effects of a fresh index began to emerge. Our team collected data on 5xx errors and evaluated keyword rankings. The impacts were startling, specifically with 500 Internal Server Errors and 503 Service Unavailable Errors.
When a 500 response was encountered, the page could immediately drop from ranking. When a 503 response was encountered, the impacts were not immediate, and the 503 response needed to be consistently returned to drop a page from ranking and potentially be de-indexed (impacts began as soon as one to two weeks). This experience occurred on a page-by page basis.
Following are three case studies showing the impact of server errors on search rankings:

1. 500 Internal Server Errors Occurring Intermittently

By intermittent, it means that that one specific URL would sometimes return a 200 Success or a 500 Internal Server Error. The 500 error occurred due to server instability. Crawl stats such as pages crawled per day declined significantly. This resulted in a negative rankings shift for the pages that had intermittent 500 errors.
These pages would mostly return 200 Success responses when crawled by our SEO team, but the infrequent 500 Internal Server Error would still happen. What is intriguing is that the errors couldn’t be replicated on the same magnitude with crawlers such as Merkle’s proprietary crawler, “Scalpel,” or other crawling tools.
However, Google would report these errors via the Google Search Console (GSC) Crawl Errors report. As much as SEOs try to emulate Google crawlers with crawling tools, these results indicate that it’s very difficult to replicate the exact way Google crawls.
The implementation that began this issue was a Single Page Application (SPA) developed with Angular JavaScript. Google crawls in many crawl threads simultaneously, and if those threads were requesting different files/URLs in the SPA at once (such as many facets within a given category), then the server could have failed intermittently.
Documented Impacts: Server errors increased considerably. Crawl stats were negatively impacted, and rankings subsequently suffered in Google for the pages returning the error. No immediate impacts were recorded in Bing.
Rankings shifts during the intermittent 500 responses:
Google:

• 2,122 keywords dropped from the top 10 in rankings.
• 2,959 keywords that previously ranked 11-20 dropped to lower than 20.

Bing: No change in rankings.

For this particular case study, organic traffic decreased by around 25 percent, which had a direct impact on the bottom line. These server errors continued for a few weeks due to ongoing issues with the Angular JavaScript implementation. Once the server errors subsided (the server instability was addressed by the domain), the rankings and traffic returned.

2. 18-Hour Downtime With 500 Responses

For a certain page type, 500 error responses to Googlebot requests occurred over the course of about 18 hours. Crawl logs convey that these pages were consistently returning a 500 error during this time, but it is unknown exactly how long each page was returning this error.
For tracked keywords, the domain would drop in ranking anywhere from five to 100 positions, depending on whether another relevant page existed on the domain. If there was a similar page, and Google chose to rank it, the drop wouldn’t be as large (~five–20 positions), as Google would consider the domain as still relevant to the query.
It was interesting that Google would rank a page that wasn’t exactly what the user was looking for but it still considered the domain as relevant to the query. As mentioned, the similar page wouldn’t rank as well. It is unknown why Google did this, but this was the behavior that was observed.
Documented Impacts: This scenario showed that for all 239 tracked queries, there was a change in the top ranked page. All of these pages were reported as returning 500 Internal Server Errors during the downtime.
These keywords were tracked using BrightEdge. Because BrightEdge does multiple analyses over the week to produce an average rank, the 18-hour downtime was enough to shift the top ranked page report for the entire week.

• For all 239 queries, there was an average ranking drop of about 10 positions. (This is particularly significant considering that 233 of these queries were ranked 12 or better before the server errors occurred, and total monthly search volume was around 500K.)
• Some ranking shifts were small for certain queries when a similar page was found. “Dyson vacuums,” for example, dropped three positions because the top ranked page shifted from the general Dyson vacuums page to a specific Dyson vacuum model page.
• A particularly large drop occurred when a site sold dryers but didn’t have any dryer type subcategory pages. In this instance, the keyword “dryers” dropped from 7 to 33.

3. 503 Service Unavailable Responses Over Long-Term

Over the course of three months, a domain returned 503 Service Unavailable responses for certain page types on a semi-frequent basis. The domain had developed an SPA framework with AJAX that would begin timing out when the SPA host file couldn’t support multiple requests to the file variations (or in this case, facets) requested of it.
In this case, we were able to replicate the experience with our crawling tools. Our crawlers would experience numerous 503 responses, as well as connection timeouts. While the connection timeouts could conflate the findings, they were not nearly as numerous compared to the 503s.
Additionally, 503 responses were reported by GSC. It is noted that GSC doesn’t have a mechanism for reporting connection timeouts.
Documented Impact: Around 1K keywords dropped from page one during a period where 503 errors spiked from an average of 3K errors to an average of 25–30K errors reported by GSC. During this time, no improvements were made to these pages, and most other factors remained constant on the website. Therefore, the 503 errors over time had a direct, negative impact on rankings.

There’s also a decent chance that these URLs are put in a queue to get crawled a bit sooner than the crawl frequency of a traditional crawl-cache cycle, but this statement has not been confirmed.

Implications For Your Website

Google’s index and rankings are now updated so frequently that a 500 Internal Server Error response can almost immediately impact rankings. The 503 service unavailable responses can affect rankings over time. Both of these 5xx errors will reduce the crawling of your site by Google’s bots.
While there is no label for it, it seems that Google has a very fresh index on a page-by-page basis. The page-by-page concept ties directly to the recent Mobile Algorithm Update and how mobile friendliness is analyzed/updated.
It was commonly held in SEO that server errors over time could hurt a domain’s rankings. That is likely still the case, but now there is a page-by-page element, as well.
Long story short, server downtime (i.e., 503 responses) is bad if it goes on for too long, and having pages respond with a 500 Internal Server Error when they should serve a different header response is not advisable. Pierre Far has a nice breakdown on server downtime.

How Long Has This Caffeine-Type Update Been Observed?

It is unclear how long this “very fresh” index has been around. We do have data from the summer of 2014 conveying similar instances of server errors with no impact on page-specific rankings.
Google did comment in the fall of 2014 on crawl budget and how it will throttle crawls when server errors occur but didn’t mention how it would impact the index or rankings. That may have been an indication of things to come.
On a given week in July 2014, a domain’s 503 Service Unavailable errors spiked from 2K errors to 72K errors.
The impact on the pages crawled per day and SERP rankings? None.
There was absolutely no change in the High, Average or Low pages crawled per day. The average pages crawled per day actually increased by 9 percent the two weeks following the spike in server errors.
Additionally, the rankings did not change for any of the pages reporting server errors. Unlike the experience in February 2015 documented in example 3, this server error issue over a long period of time did not result in throttling by Google or rankings impacts.

It should be noted that Google throttled its crawls at times dating back to at least 2012 when encountering 5xx responses, but it wasn’t as immediate as it is now. Based on evidence, Google now throttles its crawls more rapidly when it experiences server errors.

A Few Ideas To Think About Moving Forward

For large enterprise sites, it is highly recommended that engineering teams consider the amount of load SPAs will need to handle when Google requests numerous sub-files within the host URL. Do server-side rewrites need to occur from the base URL? If they are numerous, it could lead to server errors if load is not anticipated and handled.
As mentioned above, if a 500 Internal Server Error occurs for a page, Google is finding and ranking a similar page from the same domain if it can find it. Note the “similar” page will likely appear at a lower ranking. Why would Google do this? Oftentimes, the page is not what the user intended to find.
How soon does Google return after a 500 or 503? Is it in a separate queue that gets crawled again in a shorter time frame than the traditional crawl-cache cycle?
Is it a Caffeine Update or a different type of Server Error Fresh Index Update? Either way, the impacts are real and can be immediate.
Source : searchengineland

Can You Generate More Leads With SEO In 2016?

Are you new to search engine optimization? Are you frustrated over the technical language, even though you know it’s important? You keep hearing that you should focus on SEO for your online business or blog, but every time you do a search for some tips, you get overwhelmed. You don’t know where to start, because you don’t always understand what it is you are reading. What is a regular keyword vs. a long-tail keyword? What is meta-data? Why do search engines play such a big role in everything? Yes, it is understandable why many people turn their backs on SEO – simply because of the learning curve.


Should You Learn Some SEO Tricks?
The short answer is “yes” – absolutely! SEO is still one of the best ways to get leads. Are you thinking about Facebook ads right now? Some people find tremendous success with Facebook ads, but the reality is that it is a rollercoaster. When you put money in, your exposure goes up. When you stop, your exposure goes down. At least that is the general experience for people who invest in social media ads.

Plus, SEO is free. And if you are already blogging, chances are you are already making some progress. It could be minor tweaks here or there that could make a big difference. And who wouldn’t want an SEO boost?


The Foreseeable Future
Should you do what everyone else is doing? No. Copying others won’t give you their success. Plus, search engine algorithm changes are implemented frequently, so what may work today may not be as helpful in two weeks. Instead, go with the trends. See what users are doing and see how you can capitalize on that.
According to Forbes, video content will play a big role in SEO next year. Written content is still considered a standard, but users always want more. You can see that in the growing desire to explore video apps, such as Vine and even the Instagram video feature. Because of this growing trend, social media content will also be indexed higher. We are already seeing this with indexed tweets in Google.


What Should I Do?
To get more leads using SEO, it’s important you focus on your blogging content and tweak the things you are already doing. Chances are you are already crafting content that your readers, customers or potential leads are digging – they just can’t find it!

There is a webinar taking place on Tuesday, October 6th that’s all about learning some SEO tricks that can help you get more leads in 2016. The webinar is called “5 Ways To Use SEO To Get More Leads” and you walk away with an actionable plan.

How are you planning on using SEO to get more leads in 2016?

Google Confirms The Real Time Penguin Algorithm Is Coming Soon

The next Penguin refresh will be happening pretty soon and should be a real-time algorithm.

Google’s Gary Illyes said today at SMX East that next Penguin update will be in the “foreseeable” future, adding “I hope” by the end of the year, and it will be the real-time version of the algorithm.
Back in July, Gary Illyes told us that Penguin was months away, and we are almost there. Illyes was overly cautious and would not give us a timeline or date, but he did imply it will be happening soon.

Real-time Penguin

This version of the Penguin algorithm will be real-time, at least that is the goal, Gary said. That means that as soon as Google discovers that a link is removed or disavowed, the Penguin algorithm will process it in real time, and you would be able to recover from a Penguin penalty incredibly quickly. However, you could end up with a Penguin penalty just as quickly.
Source : searchengineland

How to Set the Right Social Media Budget in 2016

How to Set the Right Social Media Budget in 2016

One of the questions we’re asked most often from prospects and clients is: How do I determine what to budget for social media marketing? I’ll address this in two ways. The first will lay out how to literally go about calculating a social media budget for 2016. The second will address some general principles for allocating and using whatever budget you determine for your business.

Creating a Budget
The first step in calculating a social media budget is to determine your overall marketing budget. This should be based on your total revenue, industry, and maturity of the current brand. For example, let’s imagine you have a two-year-old technology company that has a fairly competitive landscape. It’s safe to say you’ll want to allocate 15-20% of your revenue for marketing.

If you do not know these numbers and/or you don’t have a set overall marketing budget, STOP HERE and reevaluate your plan. This is the single biggest mistake we see with prospects who contact us for help. They are still thinking month-to-month, which makes it illogical to outsource any type of marketing.

If you have a marketing budget allocated, the next step is to determine if you’re adding budget or stealing it from another marketing source. While this is important to determine for your internal business, the process for allocating a social media budget works the same way. Evaluate your worst performing marketing efforts (based on your ROI metrics) and determine if the objectives and goals for those marketing initiatives can be reasonably accomplished through social media.

Were you sending out direct mail in order to get someone to go to your website and potentially sign up for an email newsletter? That is a good candidate for moving budget to social media. It’s an objective that can be reasonably attained. Determine the revenue generated from those initiatives you’ll be replacing in order to get your target ROI number for social media budget you’ll be using. Again, if you don’t have these metrics (i.e. each email address gained is worth approximately $25 in yearly revenue to my business), you need to start tracking them to determine the effectiveness of any marketing on your business.

Allocating Your Budget
Now we’ll talk about some general rules for allocating whatever social media budget you’ve calculated.

1. Diversify to the extent it makes sense.
You will need to pay for SOMETHING. Whether you’re spending money for ads on social networks, fees to an agency, or maybe just a freelancer writing blogs, you need to choose your battles wisely. The key is to pick the right things and do them well vs. doing everything poorly.

2. Market with a (multi-)purpose.
Maybe you’re writing blogs but not spending budget specifically for search engine optimization. Do a little extra legwork on the most popular keywords and make sure you’re trying to use them in the blogs. If you take on a larger content project like an eBook or whitepaper, make sure there are plenty of “bite size” points that can be pulled out to use multiple times in social posts or micro-blogs. Additionally, make sure you’re using that same content to drive lead generation through ads, posts, and email marketing.

3. Give yourself a buffer.
You’ll invariably want to test a new ad type, a new platform, or even a new content source at some point throughout the year. Additionally, we’ve seen some fairly drastic price increases for media within a given year. Make sure you have some extra dollars ready to cover experimentation. The worst feeling in the world as a marketer is to see something taking off and being unable to jump in on it because of budget. Or to have optimized a marketing initiative, only to be priced out in the middle of the year. CYA with your budget to avoid some of these pitfalls.

If you have a plan, any plan, then you’re ahead of the game. The next steps are refining it to make sure you’re allocating enough resources to make your goals.
Source : business2community

6 Marketing Activities For Small Business And Mid-Market Companies

6 Marketing Activities For Small Business And Mid-Market Companies

It’s almost that time of year when you review your marketing plans and set goals for next year. During that process, you’re probably going to look at what worked and what didn’t, and if you’re like many companies we talk to, you’re looking to spend more money and time on digital marketing.

Companies are wising up to the fact that digital marketing should produce measurable business results, and so you may be setting goals for your online marketing for the first time. Good for you!
 

We’ve talked before about how an overall plan is really important to making sure that the time and money you spend online gets the best possible outcome. But what tactics should be included in your plan?

Whether you’re doing it in-house or outsourcing your digital marketing, developing an online marketing strategy is only the first step toward achieving your business goals. Here are 6 marketing activities that are essential for successful small and mid-market digital marketing.

Social Media

Although there has been an explosion of social media sites in the last few years (anyone using Periscope yet?), there are 3 sites that offer a very real benefit to businesses as they develop their marketing strategy. The Big 3 — Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are powerful platforms from which to launch and spread a message. When you’re considering how to spread the word through social media, consider your audiences, and if you’re paying for social media advertising, targeted audiences and multiple campaigns offer the greatest benefit.

Analytics

Analytics was once an option only available to businesses willing to invest large sums of money in software and people to perform analysis. Today, there’s Google Analytics (a popular, free option). But if you’re really looking for a wealth of insightful data, you’ll need to dig deeper. Look for software that can tie results back to leads and revenue so you know exactly what works.
Pro Tip: Don’t just scratch the surface. Check out this article on 12 marketing metrics your boss probably doesn’t need to know about.

Voice and Brand Messaging

Branding has been around since the early days of advertising, but brand messaging is growing in importance as small and mid-market businesses seek to gain greater recognition in the crowded online community.

Today’s buyer may spend more than 4 hours each day online, but they have become immune to the headline grabbing ads of the past. If you have only a few seconds to capture a potential customer’s attention, your primary objective must be to promote a consistent, effective message and voice.
A voice and brand style guide can be a powerful tool to keep your online marketing strategy consistent, not just for web messaging and content marketing, but also to keep online complimenting your offline efforts.

Pro tip: Don’t get caught up in trying to please everyone in your company. Think of your primary audiences first when writing communications from your website content to blogs and emails.

Content Creation

Closely related to voice and brand messaging is content creation. Content creation is simply the process of actively engaging potential (and existing) clients by providing them with informative, educational and entertaining information.
Buyers of your services and products expect to find information online that’s focused on their needs. In response, marketers are creating more content, which affects quality.
Cheesy, cliche, and obvious sales pitches are no longer enough. Today’s consumers not only want to connect with you for your product or service, but they also want you to provide interesting content.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO helps your company get found online and where your business will appear when someone enters specific search terms. You want to be deliberate in how you publish content on your website, being sure to include words that your prospective customers use as they describe your product or service.
Search engines tweak their ranking algorithms constantly, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. Moz is a great resource for practical, common sense SEO advice, but don’t hesitate to contact a pro that can help attract more people to your website.

Pro tip: It takes much more than simply putting keywords in a page or optimizing meta tags for proper SEO. Here are some SEO myths you should be aware of.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Your company might have been doing search engine optimization and writing content, but the single most underutilized activity when it comes to digital marketing is conversion rate optimization.
Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is simply a fancy way to describe the process of testing different things in order to get more business opportunities from the website visitors you already have.

Pro tip: Did you know that you can make smaller, incremental changes to your website in order to get more leads? Because conversion rate optimization involves writing, design and development, growth driven design is a great solution to scientifically design for better results.

The most successful businesses have learned how to effectively use every tool available in their digital strategy. Regardless of how small or large your business may be, these activities are crucial to the success of your online marketing strategy.

What are you planning on doing differently next year? Next quarter? Next month?

Source : business2community

The Top 7 Online Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2016

The online marketing industry is complex and volatile, but an exciting one for anybody who stays up on modern trends. Each year, new hardware, new software, new companies, and new user preferences dictate a host of sweeping changes that either get adopted or ignored by the businesses of the world. Early adopters get a leg up on the competition, appealing to new markets or cementing their reputations as industry leaders, while those lagging behind miss out on a key opportunity to retain their positions.

2016 looks to be a great year for online marketing, and I anticipate it shaking up the game with these seven trends:

1. Video ads will start dominating. Video ads are certainly nothing new, with social channels like YouTube dedicated to hosting billions of videos and advertising platforms like Facebook and Bing already offering advertisers video options. 2016 is set to be different because Google is finally getting on board with in-SERP video advertising. It’s a sign that users are becoming more accepting of video ads online, and as that trend continues, expect to see more types of video ads popping up in more unexpected places. With Google’s ownership of YouTube, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

2. App indexing will lead to an explosion of apps. Google has offered app indexing for a while, but as the ranking possibilities for apps become more complex, 2016 will be the year more business owners realize the online visibility advantages of a dedicated app. A mobile-optimized site works wonders for appealing to the mobile crowd, but soon, apps will begin to replace them. Apps can do everything that websites can, except in more intuitive, convenient, accessible ways. We’re still several years away from apps completely replacing websites as a medium, but 2016 will be a pivotal year in app adoption from business owner’s perspectives.

3. Mobile will completely dominate desktop. 2015 was a big year for mobile—not only did Google announce that mobile traffic finally overtook desktop traffic in 10 different countries, it was also the year they released the “Mobilegeddon” algorithm update to phase out sites not optimized for mobile. But apparently, you don’t have to have an optimized desktop site in addition to a mobile version—according to Google, a mobile-only site with no desktop counterpart is perfectly acceptable. This alone won’t be enough to drive down desktop traffic, but it’s clear what side of the fence Google’s on; they’re banking on desktop traffic fading away, meaning the smart money rests on mobile-focused online marketing.

4. Digital assistants will lead to a new kind of optimization. Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are two highly popular strategies for getting your site seen by thousands of previously unknown visitors. But the rise of digital assistants is going to lead to a new kind of optimization. Digital assistants like Siri and Cortana do utilize traditional search engines, but only when necessary to find information. The key to optimizing in this new format is to make sure your business information is easily accessible to these assistants, rather than trying to funnel people to your site specifically.

5. Virtual reality will emerge. There are dozens of different virtual reality devices set to release in the next few years, some of which are dedicated for specific applications like video games, and others which are available for general use. Oculus Rift, arguably the most hyped VR device, is set to release in the first quarter of 2016. Oculus Rift and other VR devices will introduce an entire new medium of online advertising, with integration to popular social media platforms, video channels, and even forms of direct messaging. There’s always a chance VR could fizzle as a temporary fad, but there are billions of dollars of funding in limbo, ready to bet otherwise.

6. Wearable technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) will pave new ground. While not quite to the level of virtual reality, wearable “smart” devices should start gaining more traction into 2016. 2015 saw the unveiling of the Apple Watch, a first-generation smart watch, but more smart watches and similar wearable devices should start emerging next year. Such devices will change the landscape of local marketing, and will do more to blur the lines between “online” marketing and “real” marketing.

7. Advertising will become more expensive. Competition in the online marketing world has increased dramatically over the course of the past few years. 2016 will see it increase even more. As the basic laws of economics suggest, an increase in demand is often accompanied by an increase in price, so all those new online marketing competitors will drive the prices for online advertising even higher. Realistically, online ads are pretty cheap, but the increases in price may drive some smaller companies out of the landscape.
These seven trends aren’t the only ones that will emerge over the course of the next year, but they will be some of the most significant. There’s no guarantee exactly when or how these trends will manifest, as much of that is driven by consumer adoption, but it’s worth hedging your bets in at least a few of these tent pole technologies and strategies. The earlier you start, the more time you’ll have to adjust and reap the full benefits of your forward-thinking campaign. If you’re looking for help getting started with your online marketing campaign, grab my eBook, The Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Business Online.
Source : forbes