On the fateful day of March 11th , Google released an article about the up and coming access update to Google Analytics. This means that now you can grant access based on property level, as well as the previous situation of profile and account level. Also there are now three different three different levels of account access: view, edit and manage users.
This update is definitely one that will be welcomed with open arms. From an agency point of view, Analytics is about to become a lot more convenient. Previously it was often the case where a client would grant access to the whole account and sometimes clients will have multiple domains which are irrelevant to the services you are providing. This means that your profile list in GA becomes colossal; hopefully this update will help to tidy things up. With regards to the access levels, it looks like some of the inspiration for this has been taken from AdWords. This is a useful feature because now agencies can replicate account access structure into their Analytics.
Businesses will also find benefit from these updates. Data can be a very important thing and a lot of people are not so enthusiastic about simply handing over this information. Now businesses have more control over their data and who can access it.
Google has said that the update will be rolled out over the next few weeks, so some people will be getting this sooner rather than later. However, there is no need to panic about account access levels as if you are currently an admin, you will be upgraded to have full rights.
Believe or not there is a positive for Googles’ freshness update, although you as an SEO may not see it straight away due to the tedious content update. It is actually a good thing that it has been released.
Keeping the Numbers Up
We all know Google receives the most searches globally, and that is because it provides the best search results, and it does that by having one of the toughest algorithms a search engine could have. Websites are optimised for Google to help put them up in the SERP’s, but if no one used Google as a search engine, then no one would optimise their site for the big G! The freshness update is just another element that keeps Google on top as the boss of search.
Searching Far and Wide
With search engines that are not as developed as Google, users must check a lot more pages to find the desired information, but with Google searches are resolved quicker and position 1 gets roughly 50% of total traffic. With the freshness update, the most recent and therefore most likely relevant results will appear higher. Freshness is yet another update that helps to make Google SERP’s the most accurate.
Quality, Not Quantity
Google has always loved good quality content, but now the pressure to provide content of such a high standard is on. Before the fresh new update from Google, some sites had a blog and some didn’t, but now it is more important and beneficial than ever. Not only to have a blog, but regularly update it too! This is contributing to better quality of not only content but the web design and the whole website as a whole.
Conclusion
If Google did not update their search engine with updates like this then they wouldn’t be on top, we all know Google is possibly one of the most demanding things for an SEO, but it has its benefits for its’ users and the websites that appear in the SERP’s, whether we can notice it or not.
Google announced yesterday that there have been some more changes in their annoying algorithm. A total of 10 changes have been made public but that does not necessarily mean there isn’t any more.
For the full list, visit their inside search blog for the full details. The most important update is most likely the freshness update. It was announced on the 3rd but has been added to this list, this somewhat emphasises how important the freshness factor is.
The freshness update is looking for the most recent content in a nutshell. Google believes that it is more likely for someone to be searching for information that is more up to date, instead of historical information. However some may be using Google to research past events, the majority use Google for recent updates. That is what the update is telling us anyway.
SEOh NO!
No need to panic in terms of SEO, we all know that Google loves content and it always will. This freshness update may have become somewhat of a surprise but this update can be used to an advantage. The majority of people do have a blog which naturally relates to their business, so if you are not already, just make sure your blog is regularly updated.
