It is widely acknowledged that the \u2018holy grail\u2019 of dental marketing is to gain and then maintain very prominent website search results in Google. After word-of-mouth, this is the most sustainable and lowest cost method for gaining new patient enquiries and is a top priority for any dentist who is \u201cweb savvy\u201d and aware of the business benefits available from online website prominence.<\/p>\n
However, Google is a volatile place and it needs a carefully managed SEO campaign to achieve and then maintain good search results. There are a number of factors which contribute to this, the majority within the website owner\u2019s control but a few extremely important ones which aren\u2019t. One of those uncontrollable elements is Google itself and comes in the form of the regular updates they roll out to the ranking algorithms which dictate where websites sit within the search results.<\/p>\n
There are two main categories of Google search engine updates \u2013 the first is when ad-hoc changes are made to tackle specific issues they feel need to be addressed to improve the quality of search results. Previous examples included the \u201cPenguin\u201d and \u201cPanda\u201d updates which were introduced to tackle particular types of web spam e.g. bad links and keyword stuffing etc. These were significant updates which have subsequently been refined and re-used by Google.<\/p>\n
The other main category of update is the \u2018core\u2019 update and if anything these are even more mysterious in that Google says very little about them other than when we should expect to see the effects.<\/p>\n
Core updates occur several times a year and typically only a couple of them get formally announced. This tends to be when Google expects the updates to cause significant changes within the search index i.e. some websites gaining ground whilst others are demoted. Those of us in the SEO community tend to sit nervously whilst these updates roll out as they can be quite unpredictable and sometimes yield questionable results. For example, you can see an excellent website fall several places in the search results where only ethical SEO methodologies have been applied. Whilst this is rare, it can happen and it\u2019s often very difficult to understand why \u2013 and of course Google won\u2019t tell you!<\/p>\n
Conversely you can also see old websites with no SEO and questionable content rise to unexpected heights in the ranking results and this is equally difficult to explain. It\u2019s just these types of anomalies which often cause frustration amongst website owners and their digital marketing partners, but fortunately the occurrences are reasonably rare.<\/p>\n
As I mentioned earlier, Google is understandably highly secretive about their methodologies and so there is no simple way of contacting them to find out what went wrong if you feel that a website has been unfairly disadvantaged by a core update or otherwise.<\/p>\n
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Firstly it makes sense to take a look at what Google itself says about their updates \u2013 as you\u2019ll see, it can be a little bit confusing although the guidance is improving:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/blog\/2019\/08\/core-updates<\/a><\/p>\n As you\u2019ll note, there is a huge emphasis on content and in paragraph 2 a clear indication that web pages that do less well following the changes haven\u2019t necessarily broken any of Google\u2019s rules. However they then go on to say that the algorithm has chosen alternative website pages to rank more prominently<\/a> as they as considered to provide better and\/or more up-to-date information for searchers.<\/p>\n The analogy they use is one whereby they compare a movie website that was very valid in 2015 with similar websites with more recent information about the latest films. A core update would very probably identify that those newer websites are more useful for users and hence promote them. The website with older information hasn\u2019t been penalised as such, just displaced by websites with fresher content. This is very telling.<\/p>\n Indeed Google then goes on to explain in more depth exactly the type of content you need to rank well, for example:<\/p>\n They also go on to discuss more technical issues such as how the content is formatted, does it display correctly on mobile devices etc.<\/p>\n This is an essential concept and explains well why some website fare better than others in search engines. Essentially it is saying that if your site content is better than your competitors, then you can reasonably expect to rank better. There is more to it than this, but the quality of your content does play a huge part.<\/p>\n\n
Comparative quality of website content<\/h3>\n