Leading up to Webmaster World in Vegas, I geared up the members of SEO Revolution to prepare for the annual algorithm (or filter) update from Google. I was seeing the same type of movements in the datacenters that showed an update was coming … however, an update never came.

I have been wrong before …

Here is a summary of what Matt said:

Algorithm update: Typically yields changes in the search results on the larger end of the spectrum. Algorithms can change at any time, but noticeable changes tend to be less frequent.

Data refresh: When data is refreshed within an existing algorithm. Changes are typically toward the less-impactful end of the spectrum, and are often so small that people don’t even notice. One of the smallest types of data refreshes is an:

Index update: When new indexing data is pushed out to data centers. From the summer of 2000 to the summer of 2003, index updates tended to happen about once a month. The resulting changes were called the “Google Dance”. The Google Dance occurred over the course of 6-8 days because each data center in turn had to be taken out of rotation and loaded with an entirely new web index, and that took time. In the summer of 2003 (the Google Dance called “Update Fritz”), Google switched to an index that was incrementally updated every day (or faster). Instead of a monolithic monthly event, the Google would refresh some of its index pretty much every day, which generated much smaller day-to-day changes that some people called “everflux”.

Over the years, Google’s indexing has been streamlined, to the point where most regular people don’t even notice the index updating. As a result, the terms “everflux,” “Google Dance,” and “index update” are hardly ever used anymore (or they’re used incorrectly ). Instead, most SEOs talk about algorithm updates or data updates/refreshes. Most data refreshes are index updates, although occasionally a data refresh will happen outside of the day-to-day index updates. For example, updated backlinks and PageRanks are made visible every 3-4 months.

What you need to take away from this is that an index update is a type of data refresh. Don’t get hung up on “update” vs. “refresh” since they’re basically the same thing. There’s algorithms, and the data that the algorithms work on. A large part of changing data is the index being updated.

Read Matt Cutts’ statements on the “algorithm update that never happened.”

Adam Lasnik discussed a few days ago to “not worry too much about duplicate content.” Essentially that Google has ways of identifying similar pages and will, in most cases, index only one of them.

I think this statement is exactly why webmasters worry “a lot” about duplicate content, because of all the scapers and content hijackers, they don’t want the thief’s version getting indexed and their version getting left out in the dark.

Some common issues are:

• You can have two identical pages on your site, which is common in blogs where pages representing a particular date is more or less identical to a regular post page.
• You can have content that is grabbed from another site (with our without the original author’s knowledge).
• You can have “printer friendly” or “mobile friendly” pages with the same content as your web based content.
• Different URLs may point to the same page (www.seorevolution.com, www.seorevolution.com/index.html, seorevolution.com, etc.)

Statements were also made that if you use duplicate content in hopes to influence the rankings to your benefit, Google will make adjustments. “In the rare cases in which we perceive that duplicate content … we’ll also make adjustment in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved.”

No where does it state what that “perception” may be or what the pending “adjustment” would be.

Let’s go over the main points of the article that you need to know:

What is duplicate content? “It generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.”

A good tip is that Google will NOT count the same article written in English and Spanish to be duplicate content. Also, “snippets” of text or “quotes” aren’t seen as duplicate content either.

Here is the issue: When Google serves results, they want to serve unique results. Results that have distinct information. “This filtering mean, for instance, that if your site has articles in “regular” and “printer” versions and neither set is blocked in robots.txt or via noindex meta tag, we’ll chose one version to list.” Believe me, you don’t want to rely on a bot to make the right choice. Adam does state that they prefer to filter rather than do ranking adjustments.

What can you do?

• Block Appropriately: Instead of relying on Google to make the best choice, you should make that choice. If you have two versions of a document, including a printer version, place them in their own folder and disallow that folder from being indexed in the robots.txt file.
• Use 301s: If you have “dead ends” in your site, use 301 Redirects in your .htaccess file to smartly reroute users and bots. You might also consider using a custom 404 page with the main categories listed in a “site map” format.
• Show Consistentcy in Linking: Keep things consistent so you aren’t linking to /page/, /page, and page.htm.
• Use TLDs: If you use TLDs (Top Level Domains) to handle country-specific content, Google will know that .de indicates Germany-focused content easier than it would if it was de.domain.com.
• Syndicate Carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, make sure it contains a link back to the original article on each syndicated article. This will help Google realize which one is the original for them to index.
• Minimize “Repetition”: If you have lengthy (emphasis on lengthy) copyright text at the bottom of every page, include a brief summary and then a link for more details. The lengthy text could trigger duplicate filters.
• Avoid Publishing “Stubs”: No one likes seeing “empty” pages and that includes GoogleBot. So, avoid having “placeholders” whenever possible. So, if you have a review site, block pages that have zero reviews. If you have a real estate site, block pages that have zero listings. Nothing is more annoying that a page that states, “Below you’ll find a superb list of all the great rental opportunities in [insert city name]” – but the page contains no listings.
• Understand Your CMS: Make sure you are familiar, or you hire someone who is familiar, with how the content of your site is displayed. This includes your blog, your forums, or related systems that often shows the same content in multiple formats.
• Understand the “Big Picture”: Don’t fret too much about sites that scrape your content. Though annoying, it’s highly unlikely that such sites can negatively impact your presence in Google. If there is a major issue, let Google know through a DMCA request.

Now that you understand better about Duplicate Content, you can fix the current problems on your site and spend more time focusing on revenue generation.

Matt Cutts, the Spam Czar over at Google, had a blog post about what happens when a site gets hacked.

In summary, a site owner had his site hacked and a bunch of animal porn (note: that is animal porn, not midget porn, for those of you scoring at home … er, I mean …) was placed on his site. It took Google about ten days to detect the spam and then delist the site. Of course, the site owner, publicly whined about the deindexing, claiming he never received the warning email from Google and is basically passing blame.

Matt has gone above and beyond with this – which on one hand is commendable, but on the other, the site owner has to bear some responsibility.

1) The site is hosted on a Windows server. Now, I used to have a Windows server to do testing on, but junked it because of all of the hacking attempts. It got to the point where I was spending more time defending the server than doing testing. Cancelling that server was one of the best stress relievers of my life.

2) The server did not have a full-time admin. Why it is people want to have a successful business online, but are unwilling to protect the asset they are building? Geez. I mean, we aren’t talking about spending $10,000 here. Just give $100 over to the server admins that we use and you won’t have to worry about your server again. It is a no brainer.

3) Have your email setup so you can actually receive email when people are trying to contact you.

4) If your site gets hacked, that is your fault. If your site is deindexed by Google because it was hacked and you had a bunch of porn spam posted on your site. That’s your fault too.

Take some responsibility. Get a good server, a great admin and something like this won’t happen again.

Nice job Matt. Not only was it a classy move – but it was good PR for Google too.