Page 43 - Preview-copy-Online-Marketing-English

Preview copy
10

Technically speaking, the search engines use an algorithm for this with about 200 factors. This
technique is now widely used, but is still far from perfect. Many of the 500 algorithm changes
that Google makes every year are related to improvements of these techniques.

The Panda algoritme
The question that arises is how a machine can judge what a
quality site is. It is of course conceivable that all kinds of sig-
nals from the site give an indication of the content. Think of the
number of keywords, internal links, the number of pages, etc.
Google has meanwhile moved on. At the beginning of 2011,
a ranking algorithm was launched that judges sites on quali-
ty in a radically new way. This algorithm was given the name
Panda. For the Panda algorithm, Google first manually asses-
sed 1000 sites for "low quality" content.
The methods used by the reviewers were then mimicked by a computer. After computers
could accurately predict how human reviewers would evaluate a site, the new algorithm
was applied, and launched on the US market on 24 February 2011. The consequences were
great. The launch affected 12% of all searches. To put it another way: the ranking of hund-
reds of thousands of sites plummeted because the machine had judged that the quality
was insufficient. Panda has now been rolled out in Europe. Here, the consequences were
less spectacular, but still considerable.

Visitors also rate
We have seen that the techniques Google has developed for evaluating sites are not perfect.
There will always be a difference between what software can measure and what real visitors
experience on a site. As a website owner, you have to take this into account. One of the tools
owners use when setting up or improving their site is the AIDA model.

10.1.1 The AIDA model
The AIDA model takes into account typical human behavior (how do people behave when
they visit a web page) and can be used well when setting up web pages. You can also use AIDA
as a tool for the design and layout of a web shop as a whole.

Attention

Interest

Desire

Action

AIDA model.

79