Google Update: Will your Website Pass the Test?

Google introduced a new ranking signal this month, which will affect where your website is ranked on the Google search results.

Previously, there were over 200 known and unknown factors that affected your Google rank, so it is big news that Google has declared this new factor as an actual ranking signal.

What is the new ranking signal?

The new signal for Google is the security level of your website.

On top of the other 200 factors, Google will now assess the security level of your website when deciding on your rank. They will do this by looking to see if your website uses SSL encryption, and if it does, the URL should start off HTTPS, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. The standard website just uses HTTP, so the SSL adds a level of security on top of that.

Basically, they want all websites to use a HTTPS connection as it has an extra level of security than plain old HTTP.

Negative SEO: Your Website is Under Attack!

All of you must be fairly familiar with SEO by now, but have you heard of negative SEO? 

It used to be just a dark rumour online, with many doubting it was even possible… But Google confirmed it’s possibility in 2007, and those who work in the SEO industry today have confirmed it’s easier than ever.

Negative SEO refers to someone carrying out a smear campaign on your website, using SEO against you.  

Just to clarify, your web company will do a million and one things to your website in the name of optimising it for search engines, but negative SEO is something anyone can maliciously do to your website... from anywhere. They don’t need login details, server information or anything else, just the website address. 

There are a series of rules and guidelines that your web company will follow in order to make sure your SEO boosts your site rather than making it look spammy, but negative SEO attacks essentially break all of these rules to make you look like the ultimate Bond villain of the internet...