Recap of the Top SEO Trends in 2012

Happy New Year! 2012 saw a number of changes in digital marketing, especially in relation to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Here is a quick recap of some of the most prominent updates made in 2012:

Google Penguin
This update was released in April 2012.  The goal of Penguin was to fight spam and punish those engaging in what we call "black hat" SEO techniques that try to fool the search engines such as:

• Keyword stuffing content and meta information (remember, you want your content to make sense to a human, if it makes sense to a human, it makes sense to the search engines!)
• Cloaking, also known as tricking search spiders into seeing content that is not on the actual page (we want you writing good content that you want both the user and search engines to see, no tricking Google!)
• Participating in link building schemes via paid links and “link farms” (you want inbound links to come organically via relevant directories, blogs, social networks, etc.)
• Creation of duplicate content (write your own content, no taking from others!)

Semantic Search
This update started to take effect in May 2012. The purpose of this update is to start predicting what users are searching on and provide options for users doing a search. The search engines are becoming further interested in context and meaning around your searches.

For example, you do a search on “kings”. Are you talking about the basketball team? Playing cards? A TV show? British royals? Google’s new algorithm seeks to further understand the meaning behind the phrase, similar to how a person would do so in a conversation. This adds context to the searches that users are doing.

We at Getfused are looking forward to a great 2013 and can only imagine the next black and white animal Google will use for their next big update.....a zebra perhaps?