There have been some interesting posts of late providing SEO advice for unfamiliar websites. Malcolm Coles offered some suggestions for church blogs and Danny Sullivan gave Bill Gates some tips, but what about Google; the search engine giant? Google provides a starter guide to search engine optimisation, but it appears they don’t actually follow some of their own advice.
Here is a light hearted look at why Google.co.uk needs SEO.
Rankings
Let’s start with some baseline figures. Here is some exact match keyword research and rankings carried out on Google’s own keyword tool for Google.co.uk… on Google.co.uk. Confused yet?
| Keyword | Search Volume | Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| search | 165,000 | 14 |
| search engines | 90,500 | 5 |
| search engine | 27,100 | 2 |
| best search engine | 27,100 | 6 |
| web search engines | 1,600 | 27 |
As you can see from the search figures, there’s some big traffic Google is potentially missing out on, especially from the word ‘search’ (kudos to Dogpile by the way, practically 1st for the lot).
Search Engine Optimisation
Page Title
Right then, down to the nuts and bolts. In the starter guide provided by Google you are told to “create unique, accurate page titles” and says:
A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is.
That’s all well and good – so what’s the title on Google.co.uk?
“Google” – what is that? A chocolate bar? Some kind of foreign currency?
Obviously everybody knows what Google is, but they are hardly practicing what they preach.
Description
Moving further down the starter guide, you are told to “make use of the “description” meta tag”. Great suggestion again, as a relevant page description could encourage a user to click on your website. What is the META description on Google.co.uk you ask?
iGoogle | Search settings | Sign in. Google. Advanced Search · Language Tools. Search: the web pages from the UK …
That’s right, there isn’t one. When Google doesn’t find a description tag on a web page it will often use text from the page to generate one. In this case it has generated one for itself, which is neither helpful or relevant (again). Let’s delve further into the recommendations…
URLs
According to Google, good practices for URL structure include avoiding “using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs”. Clicking on the ‘Videos’ link on the Google.co.uk homepage takes you to a page with the following URL:
http://video.google.co.uk/?hl=en&tab=iv
Not the most ‘search engine friendly’ example I’ve ever seen. To cover their bases you may presume Google Videos may be accessed from an easier (and more accessible) URL – well here’s what happens when you try visiting google.co.uk/videos:
Not only have they not catered for users entering a seemingly obvious URL, they have also got a custom 404 page that is straight out of 1998… which leads me nicely onto my next point.
404 Page
Having a useful 404 page can greatly improve a user’s experience according to Google, and the SEO starter guide tells you to avoid “providing only a vague message like “Not found”, “404″, or no 404 page at all”. They don’t seem in a very good position to provide people with advice – and they aren’t even using their own 404 search widget.
Google.co.uk Needs SEO
Obviously Google.co.uk doesn’t need SEO. They are the most popular search engine in the world, had the term ‘Google’ added as a verb in the Oxford dictionary, and have nearly 6 million inbound links. That’s not to say they can’t improve…
Recommendations
With some simple recommendations, even Google could get better.
Title: Google Search Engine
Description: The most popular search engine in the world, Google processes millions of search per day. Search the web for information, images, video and more.
Search Engine Friendly URLs
Setup redirects on speculative URLs to active locations:
www.google.co.uk/videos
www.google.co.uk/pictures
www.google.co.uk/email
To name a few.
User Friendly 404 Page
Follow some simple SEO guidelines for 404 pages, including:
- Relevant links
- Suggested alternatives
- Search facility
And the rest…
Who’s stepping forward to pitch SEO to Google then? :-)
