Many  webmasters  have seen a huge drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that  are three or more keywords long (so called “long tail keywords”).Some webmasters have  lost 90% of their traffic from Google because they cannot be found  anymore for the long keyword phrases.The ranking drop did  not happen to spammers. Among the affected websites was a 13 year old  site with a Google PageRank of 7 and 400,000 backlinks.

Why did it happen?

It seems that this  is not a penalty but a change in Google’s ranking algorithm. Google   might now be able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately.  There’s a new Google patent that deals with this topic.Identifying phrases  requires a lot of computing power and a lot of memory. A webmaster  explained it in the discussion:“For example, on  the assumption that any five words could constitute a phrase, and that a  large corpus would have at least 200,000 unique terms, there would be  approximately 3.2.times.10.sup.26 possible phrases.Clearly more than  any existing system could store or otherwise programmatically  manipulate.”It seems that Google  guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on  other signals and keywords on the indexed pages.The new Google  patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer  keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

Do you have to  change your web pages now?

If you experienced  a decline in traffic to your website from Google you might have to  change your web pages. For example, if you want to be found for  “personal injury lawyer london” then these words should appear in that  order on your website.If you use other  variations such as “london lawyer personal injury” then you’ll probably  get listings for that variation but not for  other word combinations.

If you want to know  how to get top 10 rankings on Google for the keywords of your choice, analyze the web page that you want to see in Google’s  search results with IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer.IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer  will tell you how to change your web page so that it will get top 10  rankings on Google for the keywords of your choice.

Search numbers for April

“Google  lost ~70 bps of search share in April vs. March, while Yahoo! was the  main beneficiary, up ~80 bps. Excluding the impact of all adjustments,  Google gained ~50 bps of share, Yahoo! was down ~25 bps, and Microsoft  dropped by ~20 bps.”

Google announces new features

“We  introduced a new way to view search results for sites with lots of  images. Each result will now include a strip of images from the website,  so you can get a better preview of what each page has to offer. [...]This  week, we released a new version of Goggles with translation capabilities  built in. To use it, point your phone’s camera at a foreign word or  phrase and use the ‘region of interest button’ to draw a box around  specific words.”

Some Google reviews in Google Maps results are missing  (discussion)

“All  of my google reviews are gone, I had 134 reviews- but only 97 are  showing reviews from citysearch,ratemds, judysbook etc but all my google  reviews are gone. Where did they go what happened to them? [...]In  the past, the reviews became ‘disassociated’ from the ‘cluster’ of  information about a given business but if the business hasn’t changed  critical information in their Google listing like phone number or  business name, they usally are reunited with the business listing over  time (2,4,6, or even 8 weeks).”

Interview with  Google’s Maile Ohye

“Speed  is now a factor in rankings because we’re trying to best serve users,  and studies show that users are happier with faster sites and less  satisfied with slow sites. More satisfied users are shown to spend more  time on the internet. [...]I  think having a solid site: great content, good experience for users  (intuitive navigation, responsive), descriptive page titles,  standardized URL structure, etc., is of primary importance. A strong  site is the foundation where you’ll likely make your online conversions.  Once this foundation is established, the social media approach helps  drive traffic, builds excitement (and inbound links), that you’ll be  able to capitalize on with your solid site.”

Search engine newslets

• Search engine Teoma is back. But will anybody notice, much less care?
• Discussion: my  client’s [Google Maps] listing gets hijacked almost every day.
• Video: why is  Google still taking notice of DMOZ?
• Google results  including KML files and custom map results.
• WPP wants close  probe of Google’s Admob buy.
• Google attorney  slams ACTA copyright treaty.
• Google: just buy Salesforce already.
• Google searches for a use for its cash.
• The Google  design, turned up a notch.

Back to table  of contents – Visit                                                  Axandra.com

“Three  months ago, I created a website for my guitar teachers. I wanted to be  at the  top of Google and other search engines. I heard of IBP and  started to work with the tool to get a good position.Today,  after 3 months, the site of my guitar teaching in Hannover is now at  the first position on Google. Many thanks to IBP and the developers.”