What changed exactly cannot be told. Google are very clingy to their secrets.

Maybe that’s why, they are the most widely used search engine. The big G.

What really happened is, that sites rich in ADs above the fold, got penalized in SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and sites that were once with enormous Page Rank as 8 and 9 got kicked to pages 2 and 3 of SERP. Stolen content sites (Scrappers and Autoblogs) almost disappeared. Article zines suffered.

Above the fold. (image source THEO @ Flickr)

What means “above the fold” ?

Imagine a newspaper folded in two (as it usually sells). The visible part, that is not folded is “above the fold”. Where the big Header titles are.

What it means “Above the fold” for a web site? The visible part when you load the page in the browser. (before you start to scroll down)

In present days, the casual Internet surfer has attention span of ~10 seconds per web page. To be sure he will notice the ADs and Affiliate sales on your site, you need to place it where all the users will look first.

Above the fold.

This makes sure the user will sometimes click ADs and your advertisers will be happy.

Unfortunately, human greed is endless. There were dozens of high Page Rank sites that started exploiting the limits. There was NOTHING else but ADs above the fold. The big G put a limit of 3 AD units per web page.

Then the Scrapers and Auto-bloggers came. They had nothing but ADs and stolen content, scrapped from everywhere. That’s why, Google had to make sure spammers get below their fold and original content gets up.

The Farmer update.

This update, also called “Google Panda update” penalized the sites that have so much ADs above the fold, that are so abundant on affiliate links and banners, that barely or no real useful information is visible.

How they did it? 80% of all ADs served worldwide are Google AdSense. It’s quite easy. They already have the data.

And then came social buttons, that say “Tweeet“, “I like this” and “I plus’d this“, which told even more about user experience. Frequently shared sites get better results in SERP. Never appreciated sites get penalized.

It’s all about user experience. AD Spamming useless sites get down, Unique content-rich sites get up. As simple as this.

Content farms, that have thousands of SEO optimized articles rich on keywords but poor on actual meaning, answering NO question, giving nothing but general talk – got penalized. Why? Because articles spanning on 2000 words take time to read and if they don’t help you at all – it is simply time loss. (zero user experience).

Article resellers, that have articles for sale got penalized too. Why? Because they sell (non-exclusively) the same article to 100 people for $20 per sale. What really happens is – 100 personal blogs with equal articles. Who the hell needs to read the same article in all his friends blogs? (again – bad user experience)

So, how to avoid penalty?

• Never. Literally. Never copy and paste content, that is not yours. Even bought content, needs to be unique. Make sure, when buying articles from Article *zines and *How-to’s – that you are the sole owner and rights holder of the article. (Also – If you have 2 or more sites – do not duplicate content between them.)
• Do not overdo SEO optimization. It’s pointless. Repeating “structural settlements” in article, because some BlackHat site in the internet claims it is top-10 paying keyword is pointless and you WILL get penalized. Spamming keywords in articles = penalty.
• Put only one AD unit above the fold. Even AdSense help pages revised the “hot” areas, where the user is probably going to look first. They are less now. Stick with their suggestion. They know better than you – where their money come from. If your ADs push the real content below the fold, you will never reach page 1 of SERP. Ever. (Yesterday a commenter in Darren Rowse’s blog said his visits tripled when he removed AdSense from his blog.)
• Avoid high paying keywords if you are not able to make really useful article for them.
• Avoid key words with gazillions monthly searches and stick with long tail key words (sentences) that have ~ 10k local searches per month with lower competition. It is the golden area. You can’t survive El dorado, because there are one million cowboys trying their luck. But if you are good – you can be a small town mayor.

And if you pass by a blog article you like, share it and like it. 😉

Ever wondered why some bloggers make easy passive income, while others need to write TONS of articles every month to receive the same result but fall behind when they get lazy? It has actually nothing to do with writing quality article or the ability to express yourself. It is only about the type of the article, that you are writing. Here are the basic types:

News

This is the type of articles that have sometimes very heavy traffic, when properly advertised in social networks. In the same time, they are very short lived. Examples:

• 10 Cyber Monday deals 2011 (hot today in Google Trends)
• Google acquires Motorola (hot few months ago)
• Skype has been bought by Microsoft (too)
• etc.

Old news article stats

What is mutual by all of them? They will be forgotten few weeks after they are hot. Even if they are very good written, soon the articles morph into a chronicle of the past year and no one reads them anymore.

See the stats of my worst news article (right–>). Total waste of time. Badly advertised and even worse – so much better covered by other NEWS sites, that it barely made any traffic at all, and few months later – nobody is interested in reading it.

When writing news-article, ask yourself, would you read this articles, even if they are top-results in search engine:

• 2007 census in USA.
• Michael Jackson accused of children abusing
• 2008 Veteran’s day in Washington DC.

No. They are old or controversial. They were accurate and interesting years ago. At present, they are just a chronicle.

Opinion

• You watched a movie and want to share it with us.
• You made review of your new Camera and want to express your opinion.
• You are angered by the world economy crisis and want to shout so everyone knows.
• You support something or
• You hate something.

It is your blog. It is your world. It is your opinion.

Opinion Article

This kind of articles are often as short lived as the news-articles. It’s just your opinion on something that’s going on currently, or you being amazed of the quality of your new toy. But there is one main difference:

Your opinion is not always SHARED by everyone.

This article type is very successful if you manage to write something controversial and start a good argument in social networks. You suddenly see more people coming. Friend’s friends, that do not share your view are starting a dialog with you and soon you have the avalanche effect. Few of them tweet about you and even more crows come to pluck your eyes in a matter of 30 minutes. Then, after some time – everything settles back to normal and the article goes where it belongs. History. Your opinion matters for the ones that share It, but actually the ones that DO NOT – will come to your site to knock on your forehead. They may even invite some more crows to comment on your article. And this is not bad.

Just don’t over do it. There are some areas, that don’t create arguments and controversy but hatred and aggression instead. Be sure to avoid them:

• Religion
• Sexual orientation
• Racism
• Nationalism
• etc.

… are all dangerous. And even big G can get you banned from search results if you manage to create article with too sensitive content.

Evergreen

• Answered question, that has very high demand in search engines through all the year.
• How-to [something].
• Step-by-step walk through.
• Online resource.
• Recipe.
• Results from a research you did.

Evergreen article stats

can all be a good evergreen. Why? Because they are immortal. You can never outlive something, that has been done before you were born, and will be done after you leave the world of Arda and head to the eternal Valinor. Useful stuff is always in demand:

• How to peel a tomato 😀
• How to setup VLAN in Linux?
• Game walkthrough.
• 10 ways to optimize your site for Search engines.

Have a look at the stats for my VLAN article. They are not breath-taking or steady, but they are persistent. And 100 such articles in your blog can make decent constant traffic flow.

My advice?

Stick with evergreens!

• Make research and share it with the public.
• Create a good list of resources you found and share it.
• Make a How-to for something you are really good at.
• Create a step-by-step guide for something you are experienced with.
• Play a game and share some secrets.
• Explain something.
• Answer some questions for something you were unable to find easy answers.

You can’t create news.

You don’t know your opinion will not trigger jihad against your blog.

You can’t fail with evergreen article.