10 Things Google Wants per Liz

In March 2005, Google’s patent document for their search engine was made public. This is the abridged Liz version.

10 Things Google Wants

Think of Google as a kindly caretaker who only wants the best for the blogging community. Google wants your blog to

1. Put down roots.

2. Be a valuable citizen. Add value to the community by developing quality content. Content is what Google users go searching for and that leads to Google selling more ads. Google likes that.

3. Grow like an oak, not like a weed. Authentic relationships take time to form naturally. Young blogs gather links over time like trees branching out, and grow with them. Fewer, slowly-acquired linking relationships impress Google. Too many links coming too quickly make Google wonder whether something hokey is going on.

4. Know beauty is nice, but brains always win. Quality, relevant fresh content is king, queen, prince, princess, and all of the Google information kingdom. There is no substitution and in the end nothing can beat it.

5. Ignore hangers-on. Cultivate quality friends. Google knows you can’t control who links up to you–that you’ll find backlinks of the most dubious sort. Care about who you link to so the community becomes stronger because of your links. Not every link needs to be reciprocated. Reciprocate those that serve your blog, your readers, and your niche community.

6. Keep your address and your name. Everyone knows that spam blogs make name changes suspicious. Name changes also make re-indexing issues. Keep your name and domain. Then Google won’t have to worry about losing track of you, and you won’t have to wait while Google finds you again.

7. Be popular among readers and among your peers. Google watches clicks–clicks on searchs and clicks from referrals–to see what draws visitors to your blog.

8. Show up with fresh, new content–often and consistently. Posting fresh, new content often is important. Even more important is posting consistently. Google likes a nice steady pattern to your posting. It’s better to post only Tuesdays and Thursdays, than to push out ten posts all on one Saturday.

9. Keep your visitors interested and know which doors they use. Google is interested in how long your visitors stay, where they came from and where they go when they leave you.

10. Keep clean and tidy–and that includes spelling. Google is a bit anal about design, code, and spelling–things that make spiders trip. No dusty corners, broken tags, no misspelled words please.

Are these all of the things that Google cares about?
Of course not. That would be like listing all of the things that your mother wants you to be.

Which of these does Google care most about and in which order do they rank?
If Google told us that, then we’d know, wouldn’t we?

ME “Liz” Strauss