Why is Google so mean to SEOs?

I’ve been working with SEO since 1997, and have seen more change over the last two years than the 14 years prior to that.

Even if you don’t know the specifics, you’ve probably heard about Penguin and Panda.

And in this case, the specifics don’t matter. The majority of Google’s updates have one single purpose: cleaning-up the garbage from the search results.

If you’re not sure what I mean by garbage, think about the last time you went looking for a review of a product. For example the review of a new digital SLR or a TV you were thinking of buying.

More often than not, most of the links that you clicked were for websites selling the camera. Often displaying a link saying something like Reviews (o).

Familiar?

So the person carrying out the search is interested in seeing how people rate a particular product. Their opinions, their likes and their dislikes.

Yet instead of a review, they see the same text and images used by all of the other websites, invariably supplied by the manufacturer.

These pages break the two cardinal rules of SEO. Not only do these pages fail to provide the user with what they’re looking for, but they fail to add any sort of value.

There’s no original content, and nothing to distinguish them from any of the other websites selling the same products with the same overused text.

Now imagine a scenario where this pattern becomes the norm. A scenario in which every single search on Google produces many variations of the same identical content. The same text, the same images.

And the same lack of reviews.

If this became the standard Google experience, how long would it actually take before you considered the unthinkable?

An alternative to Google. Perhaps Yahoo, or perhaps even (gasp) Bing.

Google have a lot to lose, which is why they’re stamping down hard on garbage. Whether this is duplicate content, over-optimisation or whatever the SEO-devious may be doing to artificially boost their rankings.

Yet Google have no problem with SEO. They offer a large number of SEO resources including a Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide and much more.

The reason they actively encourage SEO is that it serves their own interests, at least when it comes to helping them identify and understand high-quality original content.

That last sentence contained the key point: high-quality original content.

Imagine if, for example, instead of optimising a page on your website for reviews that weren’t there, you actually included one of your own.

Imagine if, for example, instead of using the manufacturer’s tired and overused descriptions of your products, you actually wrote your own. With your own opinion backed-up by your own experience.

The person looking for a review would be interested in that unique content, and when visitors are interested, Google are interested.

This approach would take more time, but it’s more about the mindset.

The person selling cameras shouldn’t read promotional literature to the person interested in buying it.

They shouldn’t show over-marketised (it should be a word) photographs of the camera sitting on top of absurdly-colourful images.