Matt Cutts, Googles most famous employee representative, put out a video a couple of months ago that said, essentially, that proper spelling and grammar isn't taken into account when ranking pages in Google.
Here's the video (it's less than 3 minutes long):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoFf6Kn4K98Now, for people who distribute badly spun content for the sake of building back links, this might be a bit of information they are thrilled to learn. "Awesome!" they say, "I can distribute garbage and get my sites ranked that way without fear!" I've read comments to this effect here on the forum. "Its just for back links, so who cares?"
While that may seem to be true on the surface, you need to think a little deeper and realize that making sure your content is high quality--even just for getting back links--is very important.
First, pay attention to the fact that Cutts said spelling and grammar isn't used when ranking pages. That does not mean it isn't used in judging how much link value is passed from a page. Is it? Maybe, maybe not, but it's certainly possible.
Even if it's not used at all in the algorithm, however, there's still a couple of very compelling reasons to keep the quality high in back linking content. Remember that Google employs a large number of human reviewers in addition to using their algorithm.
If a human reviewer takes a look at your back links pattern and sees a lot of garbage content, your site is only a few clicks away from a ban or demotion. The better your site starts to rank, the higher the odds are that it will get a human review. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen with customers who were finally making some good headway in the search results, only to have it ripped away for "no apparent reason." A human reviewer was the likely reason.
Another thing to remember when creating content for back links is that every page that links to your site is an advertisement for your site. It's true that few people will see the trashy, badly spun content being used to link to your site, since those pages don't usually rank well themselves. But a few will, and those individuals will likely never buy from you. Why should they trust a site willing to put out trash like that? If you're in this for the long haul, don't risk your business's reputation with trashy back link content.
Finally, remember that once you start to rank well in the search results, your competition will start to analyze how you got there, looking for anything they can to legitimately get you axed by Google. If they see that you've flooded Google with trashy, spammy back link content they will smile gleefully as they submit spam reports to Google about your site. If enough reports get made, uh-oh, here comes that human reviewer...
Yes, creating quality content for your back links is more time consuming than generating trash. If you use a spinner, taking the time to properly choose good synonyms or rewrite full sentences or paragraphs is challenging (though it still saves you massive amounts of time in the long run). But it's an investment in the future of your business. If you would be concerned about a Google reviewer seeing the content, it's best not to use it.
Besides, who knows if Google will figure out how to address the challenges of including spelling and grammar in their algorithm? The next "Panda"-like update could include changes that sink the trash-based ship!
Be proud of what you do and the content you create. In the long run you'll be much better off.
Please post your thoughts, comments and questions to this thread.
Jon
Topic: Google doesn't care about spelling and grammar. Why should I? (Read 6354 times)