Google Shows SEO Failure and Success

Even Large Companies Fail at SEO
One of the more interesting videos I have run across is of Matt Cutts discussing  a Google SEO self audit. This video is from an April 16, 2010 blog post. Matt is honest about specific mistakes they found - parts of it are humorous (finding 404 errors and Google Patent Search looking like Google Book Search). It is worth watching the 5 minute video and seeing if your company does any of this.

Poorly Thought Out Meta Description

At time marker 1:50 he talks about Google pages that don't have any Meta Tag descriptions. At 2:24 he talks about Google Patent Search. They copied the code from Book search - Google has fixed the page. Even their Image Alt attribute was incorrect.

SEO TIP:
Remember - When you are creating pages using cut and paste to make sure and change the meta description tag (and Page Title).

Inconsistent Internal Links

At time marker 2:38 Matt talks about using the same internal links for content. They linked to Google products three ways:

1. products.google.com
2. www.google.com/product
3. www.google.com/product/

SEO TIP
Remember - Refer to you pages with consistent URLS when linking. Another important SEO tip to keep in mind is the text used as the link. In the past this blog has talked about picking better link text than "Click Here".

Title Tags Missing SEO Terms

At time marker 3:10 Matt talks about several page titles just having the product name, example "Google News" without having the few extra terms that could boost their SEO rank.

SEO TIP
Remember - Title tags have a lot of weight with search engines. If HTML Title Tags are used correctly they are one of the largest factors you can control which can help your page rank.

Missing Pages

Believe it or not Google has linked to pages that do not exist on their own site. See time marker 3:37

SEO TIP
Remember - I don't think I need to say this but don't link to pages that don't exist. Use Google's webmaster tool. It will tell you what pages that you link to don't exist.

If you want to read the entire Google SEO audit they posted it on their webmaster blog.