Google algorithm is not cast in concrete. Some of you might have had an anxiety attack in April and May. You might have lost a lot of traffic on some of your websites. Panic-stricken, you may have thought that Google had blacklisted your website… Then you met Google MayDay!

What is Google MayDay?

Google MayDay is the name given to the new important modification of Google algorithm. This modification is not a change in the crawling or indexing system; its aim is to better rank websites with relevant content and penalize abusive practice. The modification is said to concern long tail queries. It affects voluminous websites with lots of pages, having few incoming links. These pages have low traffic and may not have unique content, contrary to e-commerce websites.

According to several webmasters, they have felt the effects of this new algorithm as from April, a few days after Google Dance (Read Article: What is Google Dance ?). Between 10% and 15% of traffic has been lost since then.

What are long tail queries?

They are specific queries using several words. They attract few visitors, but once combined, these queries generate the major part of your traffic.

How to optimize a website after this modification?

Choose a few long tail expressions and run a competitor analysis to know who is positioned first. Check why Google gives more relevance to a competitor’s page rather than yours, check your links and anchor texts aiming these websites. Having the keywords of your query on your website is not enough. Instead, you must have relevant content matching the query. As a consequence, use synonyms, write on similar topics, and change the structure of your keywords. Try not to repeat yourself and be relevant.

Here is a video in English explaining Google MayDay:

Lisez cet article en français