• Are You Surprised That Google Doesn’t Like Paid Blog Networks?
• Paid blog networks fall afoul of Google algorithm

True: A handful of blog network owners have lost a lot of money.

This was confirmed by BuildMyRank.com and they have shut shop completely. They are now working through refunds to clients and payments to affiliates. Folks at BuildMyRank.com said, “in our wildest dreams, theres no way we could have imagined this happening.” But their downfall has been accepted by the search industry as another spam center being nuked by Google. Matt Cutts responded on Twitter. – source

False: Websites that received links from these Blog Networks have been penalized.

• Have You Been Penalized By Google?

More to come in the next for days…

What you need to know

This new algorithm update analyzes your websites layout and design. Penalizing your website if it’s mostly made up of ad blocks and distractions. Google stated on the webmaster central blog

we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

What’s “Above the Fold”?

According to the browser display statistics. The most common screen resolution is 1024 x 768, making “the fold” line exist at between 570px – 610px (depending on web browser used and number of tool bar etc.)

Google has also released a browser size tool that allows anyone to plugin their url and see how their website compares. I plugged in seoblackandwhite.com and noticed that having my sidebar on the left was not optimal for most people viewing my website.

As you can see in the image below. My sidebar with optin form was setting on the most important real estate of my site according to Google browser size tool.

Seeing this, I’ve decided to move my sidebar to the right side. As you can see below.. the post title now appears in the 99% section.

Take Away

Focus on designing your website to have the majority of your content to fall in the 99% – 98% zones. Especially if you’re competing for very competitive keywords. Google said this algo update is only effecting 1% of websites so I wouldn’t go out and spend a ton of money in redesigning your website. Just keep it in mind for next time..