2011 was a year of major innovations in the scenario of SEO. While on European and American markets, Google faced competition, lawsuits and monopoly charges, here in Brazil the scenario continued the same: 90% of the total searches are done on Google.
So talk about SEO in Brazil is basically talking about Google. To tell you the truth, in Brazil the only threat to traffic and the share of advertisers' money for the search giant is the Facebook.
Of the many innovations that took place in 2011, the most prominent were:
- Data integration between Webmaster Tools and Analytics platforms. Integration began in early 2011 and has deepened, so that now it is possible to see the search data grouped within Analytics itself. To learn more, read the post Google now integrates Analytics and Webmaster Tools
- Before launching the Panda, Google already showed signs that 2011 would be a revolution in search results. As the searcher began to weigh less on content from sites that copied content, he signaled that something bigger would still come. Read more on Changes in Google aim duplicate content
- After launching the update that came to become known as Google Panda, the quality team published a series of guidelines on what Google considers quality content: What are quality websites (for Google)
- It was June when Google Instant arrived in Brazil. With this new feature, the user could already see the search results being displayed while typing his search. What at first caused a certain strangeness, then became Internet fever. Google Instant arrives in Brazil in good company
- At the same time, the +1 button was released as a foreshadow of what would become Google+, Google's social network. Using the button, the user can share with his friends the search results he finds most useful.
- In the second semester, data available to Webmasters underwent a major change, when the logged searches became secret, omitting large masses of data on the behavior of individual users, allowing only to be seen in a grouped way in WMT. Read more on: Google searches are safer
- In August, Google Panda arrived in Brazil, at first without doing great damage, but gradually affecting hundreds of sites. The big promise to remove the sites scrappers was not fully fulfilled, but this was undoubtedly the most important innovation of the year in terms of SEO. Read more: Google Panda arrives in Brazil
- Google+ was another great innovation of Google. Still restricted to certain user niches, the network grows fast and can become one of the top three in 2012, as some analysts around the world point out. If this becomes a reality, we will see more and more search results being affected by the social behavior of users.
- Let's keep an eye out for where these changes will take us in 2012.
Source:ITWeb written by: Rafael Rez Oliveira
