Are Google's SEO and quality score strategy the same?

Okay, so all of this seems manageable, but is this it? Is there anything else to it? I think there is. As Quality Score evolved over the past two to three years, Google always apprised us of changes. That all ended in a September 18th blog post where they announced that they "will no longer post advance notice of upcoming updates." This means you can't take anything for granted anymore. It has been since this blog post that most people have started having serious problems. What can you do about it? Here's some help.

Here's a real world example:

A search on Google yields many results. Circuit City is doing a good job with their efforts. The company has a relevant ad obviously set up with dynamic keyword insertion.

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And the ad directs to a landing page that covers all of Google's stated must-haves.

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Relevant: This page is definitely all about Digital Cameras. It covers every manufacturer with well-tagged images, and the title says "Digital Cameras at Circuit City." Notice also the great third party sources like ConsumerReports.Org. This really adds credibility to the page.

Original:
The content is original because it has user and editorial reviews -- a must for any popular product website. Without user and editorial reviews it is very hard to generate fresh original content.

Transparent:
This is not much of an issue for a well known e-tailer like Circuit City, but they do have their phone number in bold black text on every page, Contact Us on the bottom, lots of links to FAQs, Help etc.

Navigability:
It's very easy to go in and out of top level categories, like Cameras, Phones etc. Then once inside a top level domain the site makes it very easy to navigate by price, manufacturer or primary feature set.

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Comments

Nagendra Sastry
Nagendra Sastry February 11, 2008 at 12:23 AM

Good article that opens the eyes & ears of advertisers as well as site owners. However, does this mean some of the relevant (not as defined by Google, but appropriate for the user) URLs will get ignored?

Karen McNamara
Karen McNamara February 8, 2008 at 7:07 PM

Excellent advice. It makes a lot of sense honestly and if I put my consumer hat on it's exactly what I'd expect when searching the web. We all want what we want, when we want it. Google is just finding better ways to deliver it.

edgar baudin
edgar baudin February 8, 2008 at 3:51 PM

Very clear and informative. Some strategies SEM/O to be redefined, Google sets the rules...

RIch Ofstun
RIch Ofstun February 8, 2008 at 2:56 PM

Your target efficiency/composition can be greatly effected by which social network you buy into. For example, there are private label communities that are very targeted since they represent a narrowly defined set of users. The problem is that most of them aren't set-up to accept advertising.

Donna Keller
Donna Keller February 8, 2008 at 1:05 PM

Thanks for your article Dave. Very informative. I guess the info was right there in front of us the whole time. We were just hoping it wouldn't come to this! Time for some changes.