5 Matt Cutts Videos To Help You Think Like Google

Earlier this month Google celebrated it’s 16 birthday this month. Over the last 16 years Google has become an everyday part of most people’s lives, similarly to the television, Facebook and Apple.
Since the launch of Google webmasters, including Ecommerce store owners and SEO’s alike, have attempted to outfox and out-think the webspam team at Google in order to manipulate search results for the benefit of their own sites and clients. In Google’s earlier days it was indeed possible to outsmart them. Although Google lost a few battles in the beginning, they are very much winning the war.
The recent Penguin updates highlight Google’s need to clean up search queries to show only the most relevant and helpful results. It is becoming increasingly impossible to trick google into believing your site is an relevant authority that provides an excellent user experience. The only way to make Google believe you are the “go-to” site is to do just that! Build an authoritive site that provides an excellent user experience. Any form of a “short cut” should play no part in your SEO strategy.

 How can small sites become popular?

 

Key Takeaways:
1. Everybody started small. Google was that small site.
2. Smaller companies often have the ability to rank higher due to being more agile and dynamic.
3. Smaller sites can beat bigger brands by focusing on user experience and creating something that adds value to the expert user.
4. Point 3 must however be consistent and implemented over a prolonged period of time.
 

Does Google use data from social sites in ranking?

 

Key Takeaways:
1.Matt could confirm the relevance of Facebook and Twitter with ranking back in May 2014. This video is now 4 years old and the phenomenon of “Social Media” has only increased and not yet matured.
2. Google are looking to the reputation of the author, as well as the content.
3. Google look for quality followers. Fake followers, bots or software will not help you. (Our prediction is that this could not only not help, but may be detrimental in the future with a penguin/panda type update focusing on social media)
 

What are some myths about SEO?

 

Key Takeaways
1. There is no correlation between paying for Ads and rankings within Organic search.
2. Approach many “fad” SEO tactics and tools with caution. If the owners of many online tactics really made lots of money online they would continue to keep doing this and not tell you about it.
3. Google want to return the best results in order for people to keep coming back to their search engine. If a user has a positive experience they will return. Google thinks about their users firstly, not advertising revenue.
 

Will Backlinks lose their Importance in Ranking?

 

Key takeaways:
1. “Backlinks have many years left in them” and can tell us about the reputation of a page or site, or both, but may not be the best barometer to find out if a particular page matches the users needs.
2. Google is looking to understand natural language more to understand the meaning of a search.
3. In the long term future there will be less emphasis on backlinks.
 

When will Google stop updating its search results?

 

Key takeaways:
1. Google will never stop updating their search results.
2. Google look for new ways to rank better, and the result is flux.
3. SEO is about evolution, change and making results better.
 
We hope these 5 videos give you an insight into the Google web spam team or at least get you thinking about your online strategy. Let us know if you agree or disagree with any of Matt Cutt’s suggestions on how  Google works.