Google is constantly updating its algorithm, and the newest update is causing quite the storm. Google brought out ‘Fred’ a few months ago, and many websites have suffered penalties and losses in traffic.
We want to help you avoid suffering penalties by giving a brief overview of Fred and some of the main things to look out for if you want to stay safe.
What Is Google’s Fred Update?
Originally, there was some confusion as to what Fred was actually targeting. However, after a few months, it’s now clear exactly what Google is trying to do with this update.
If you take a look at those worst affected by Google Fred, you’ll notice most of the sites produce very low-value content, while many others are too dependent on adverts. Fred has been rolled out to prevent sites from simply producing low-value content that doesn’t provide users with any useful information or value of any kind.
Similarly, it’s trying to stop the spread of low-quality backlinks between websites. If your site keeps linking to low-quality sites with low-value content, it will reflect badly on your ranking position. Likewise, if you’re only looking for backlinks from these sites, you’ll get penalized again.
Finally, while Google is generally very coy over their updates, they have stated that this one is also targeted at people not following webmaster protocols.
How Do You Avoid New Fred Penalties?
Avoiding the new penalties is easy in theory, but may take some time in practice. What you should do is think about what Fred is penalizing. The first thing is low-value content. So, the easy way to avoid getting penalized for poor content is to create high-quality stuff. Ensure you’re making content that’s valuable to users and provides them with something they’re looking for.
As well as producing new, high-quality content, you should also go back to your site and update old content to make it more valuable. While doing this, make it your mission to only use high-quality backlinks too. Don’t link to sites with poor content that are essentially flooded with ads. Only link to quality, high-authority sites.
Following on from this, Google will penalize you if your site is too ad-focused. There are many sites that seem like they’re set up purely to generate traffic and reap the ad revenue rewards. If you have too many adverts flooded on your site, you need to remove them and focus more on content.
Finally, it’s well worth reading the current webmaster guidelines laid out by Google. This tells you all the things you should and shouldn’t be doing, with regards to SEO. You may see that you’re using out of date techniques, which will lead to a Fred penalty.
Once you understand Google’s Fred update, it becomes a lot easier to work around and manage. Focus on great content, with high-quality links, and make sure you follow webmaster protocols. This will help you avoid Fred penalties and ensure your site still ranks highly and generates traffic with this update.
