Juancho 507 via Flickr
Never underestimate Google’s ability to muck up your business plans. But hey, it’s all for the good of the searcher, right? Probably. But how will that impact you, the business, trying to sell stuff to the searcher?
Last month, Google made a major revision to their algorithm that we’re all calling the “Mayday” update. It’s the exact opposite of a cry for help. And if you think the announcement of a major revision to “the algorithm” is major news; it’s not. Google makes hundreds of changes every year. A few of those cause major quakes in how pages are listed in Google. This is one of those.
Specifically, this change impacts the way Google ranks what I’ll call “product detail pages.” That’s the page at the bottom of the funnel, often several clicks away from an entry page, and has a big fat “BUY IT NOW!” button that begins the shopping cart process. If you’re a good e-tailer, you’ve tested this page heavily so that you stand the highest chance of getting that visitor to become a customer. Well done.
And as a smart e-tailer, you’ve submitted some or all of these pages to the search engines with a well-crafted, XML-based sitemap. And even if you haven’t, the engines are pretty good about spidering all the way down from various entry points, indexing these pages and showing them for “long tail” keywords. What’s a “long tail” keyword? Something like “xr-7 doodiddly dioads with red piping.” Not a lot of queries on that search, as you might imagine.
Sticking with this for a moment, consider that maybe 100 different e-tailers all sell the same XR-7 Doodiddly diode with the red piping. And consider that all of these e-tailers sell thousands — if not millions — of other parts made by Doodiddly and hundreds — if not thousands — of other manufacturers. And finally, consider that since these manufacturers all have already created words and pictures that describe their parts, it’s a whole lot easier for e-tailers to just use that data rather than create customized content. With me so far?
Google is kind of sick of that, IMHO.
Enter “Mayday.” Google is now giving preferential treatment to e-tailers who do something beyond what every other e-tailer is doing. They’ve rewarded smart e-tailers like Moosejaw and Woot for years, since they always create custom content for the things they sell. Now they’re rewarding smart e-tailers who are augmenting their product detail pages with additional relevant information. Think reviews, how-to guides, configuration tools and complimentary product recommendations. And this update impacts more than e-tailers. I’ve used them as the example because it’s the easiest illustration.
So it’s time to take another look at your product detail pages, especially if you were getting good Google traffic from long tail terms that were showing your product detail pages. Creating content is hard. Augmenting content is hard. And figuring out ways to add that without impacting your conversion rates from these critical pages is harder still. Yet it’s the world we find ourselves in today. Don’t expect Google to back this change out. It’s been thoroughly tested. This is the new world order. Get used to it.
And it makes sense. He with the best content will, once again, win.
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Travis Unwin is Sitewire’s Director of Media Services. He has over 10 years of experience in leading digital strategies and development for various online initiatives. Prior to joining Sitewire, he served as the Director of eBusiness for a nationwide automotive aftermarket retailer, Vice President and Managing Director for a Manhattan-based interactive agency, and Vice President of Marketing for an online startup in the financial services industry.
has written 15 posts.
