We would discuss some of the most useful information that Matt Cutts, Google engineer and SEO expert, gives. It is quite a known thing that he goes to the source for anything that concerns optimization of site and web-spam. We would answer here some of the questions on the subject.
- How is a hidden content treated by Google? The reference is to such contents that reveal themselves only when they are clicked by the visitor. Are they spam?
Cutts opines that contents of this kind can be found on the web very commonly. The SEO expert mentions the case of a store site where the visitor, while viewing a product, needs to click on a button on the “specifications” or “more information”. Cutts views this as normal and does not consider this to have a negative impact in any way on SEO. He says that such things are completely safe when they are directed only toward serving the visitors. One need not worry about this. Google will say that the information is significant.
However, there is one thing where gives out a warning: if there exists a very small button that is either not visible to the visitor or is barely visible and which can reveal content, which is worth a good number of pages, it may be held suspicious by Google. It is liable to be penalized by Google. Such activities may be said to be harmful for SEO and would consequently bring down the ranking of the site on the Google search results. It is better not to go for such ways.
- How important is it to maintain freshness of website content? Would a blog that is maintained and updated on a regular basis have a more favorable ranking by Google than blog or business site which is not updated on a regular basis?
The answer that Cutts has for this is related to query deserving freshness or QDF. If a person wants to find a term, which for instance we take to be “earthquake”, it is much likely that the person would like to learn about something or some event that has just taken place. In such situations, sites that have the newest of contents would go higher in page ranking. If the person, however, is looking for something that is evergreen, the content freshness will not be much of a concern in the search results.