This document discusses 6 themes that have driven major Google updates over 16 years: content, markup, reputation, user experience, freshness, and revenue. It provides examples of how Bazaarvoice's SEO product addresses these themes by increasing content volume and freshness through user-generated content, and reducing duplicate content issues. Case studies show traffic and ranking gains for clients who implemented the Bazaarvoice SEO integration.

1. Michael DeHaven
Senior Manager of SEO Product
@stormseo
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2014 Bazaarvoice, Inc.0

2. Confidential and Proprietary. © 2014 Bazaarvoice, Inc.1
Google Themes
Over the course of Google’s 16 year
history, 6 pervasive themes have
been at the root of all major
updates. Understanding these
themes is the basis for SEO wisdom.

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Google Themes
Content
Markup
Reputation
User Experience
Freshness
– Panda (4x)
– Penguin (3x), PageRank (12x)
– Page layout (3x), Hummingbird
– Rich snippets, Schema.org
– Caffeine, Schema.org, Freshness
– Panda (shh, don’t tell)
Motivation behind major Google updates since 2010:
Google Revenue

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Freshness
After nearly 10 years of work,
Google universally addressed
content freshness in 2010-11.
Caffeine provided the infrastructure,
Freshness was the algorithm
update, and schema.org defined
dates in web page data.

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Freshness http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor
All other factors being equal,
fresh content degrades over
time and is less successful
for certain queries.

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Freshness http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor
The percentage of content
within a page that remains
fresh will affect the page’s
overall freshness score.

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Freshness http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor
The frequency of changes to
a specific page will affect it’s
performance, while the
frequency of changes across
an entire domain will affect
the domain’s freshness
score.

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Freshness http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor
The number of new pages
created over period of time
affects the domain’s
freshness score.
BV SEO pagination leverages
UGC to create new pages.

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Duplicate Content
The principle of duplicate content is
one of the most misunderstood
concepts in all of SEO.

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Duplicate Content
Product Details
(~150 words)
Header (~100 words)
Footer (~100 words)
Header
Footer
Product Details
Total Words
Duplicate Template Content
Static Product Content
100
100
150
350
57%
43%
Without BV SEO Integration:
Recommendations
(nominal)
Ads
(nominal)

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Duplicate Content
Product Details
(~150 words)
Header (~100 words)
Footer (~100 words)
Header
Footer
Product Details
UGC
Total Words
Duplicate Template Content
Static Product Content
Unique UGC
100
100
150
800
1150
17%
13%
70%
With BV SEO Integration:
Recommendations
(nominal)
Ads
(nominal)
Product Details
(~150 words)
Reviews
(~800 words)

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Duplicate Content Header (~100 words)
Footer (~100 words)
Header
Footer
Product Details
UGC
Total Words
Duplicate Template Content
Static Product Content
Unique UGC
100
100
150
3000
3150
6%
4%
90%
With BV SEO Integration:
Recommendations
(nominal)
Ads
(nominal)
Product Details (~150 words)
Reviews
(~3,000 words)

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Case: Friskies
Neo@Ogilvy, an independent
agency, documented a 28%
increase in natural search traffic to
pages where BV SEO was properly
deployed on Friskies.com. Purina is
now deploying BV SEO on all
domains in pursuit of similar gains.

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Case:Waggin’Train
By deploying BV SEO, Waggin Train
increased the number of Google-
indexed product-related pages
from 3 to 45.
Deep Focus, their dev agency,
documented the complete
integration taking only 75 minutes
of developer time.

15. Testing the BV SEO Integration
Pre-Pagination URLs
site:waggintrainbrand.com intext:cps -inurl:bvrrp
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:waggintrainbrand.com+intext:cps
+-inurl:bvrrp&num=100&filter=0
1
2
Pagination URLs
site:waggintrainbrand.com intext:cps inurl:bvrrp
https://www.google.com/search?q=site:waggintrainbrand.com+intext:cps
+inurl:bvrrp&num=100&filter=0

16. Measuring BV SEO
Linear Methodology
Compare 2 months before and after
the integration, allowing for a 1
month gap to account for the
adjustment period while search
engines are adapting to the change.
Measure traffic from natural search
and referring keywords. Adjust for
seasonality as needed.
Concurrent Methodology
Split the product catalog into two
comparable groups – a control and
a test group. Tag the products in
each group in your analytics
system, and deploy BV SEO for
products in the test group.
Correlate these groups with traffic
from natural search and referring
keywords.
Note: this must occur server-side.

17. Measuring BV SEO
1
2
3
Increases in traffic from search
to pages where BV SEO was deployed.
Percent growth in long-tail words
in referring keywords reports.
Coverage of rich snippet stars
in Google search results.

18. Framework for SEO Prioritization
Address Blockers
Fix issues that prevent search engines from
indexing relevant content.
Bias Toward Google Themes
Long-term strategies should reflect
historical, repeating patterns.
A
B

19. Framework for SEO Prioritization
1
2
3
Content
more content and
more pages
Markup
less bloat and
more schema.org
Reputation
quality links and
social triggers
4
5
6
User Experience
prioritize relevant and social
content over ads
Freshness
% of fresh content per page
and % of new pages
Revenue
for the company
sending you traffic

20. Michael DeHaven
Senior Manager of SEO Product
@stormseo
Confidential and Proprietary. © 2014 Bazaarvoice, Inc.19