Google is constantly adding and changing and restricting and denying and redefining things all the time. It’s hard to keep up, let alone, get ahead. Google says that everything it does is for their ecosystem designed to benefit users, advertisers, and publishers. Well, one can only assume that the well designed ecosystem is also good for their wallet, because they forgot to mention that one. Anyway, who made Google the new Sheriff? What legal body christened them to set the rules for how finding information on the internet should work? I think I’m starting to get the picture.

Google started out as a school project by to two PhD students in 1996. Google was registered as a domain name in September 1997, and the company was ultimately officially incorporated in September 1998. By May 2011, they had surpassed one billion in unique visitors. In January of this year, 2013, Google revealed that it had earned annual revenue in excess earned $50 billion in 2012. This was almost a 31.6% increase over 2011. Google almost permanently commands between 66% - 67% of the search traffic and as of July 2013 had a 67% share. Bing was the next closest with a 17.9% share. It looks like the answer to the question is, “Size DOES matter!”

Google makes updates to its algorithm all the time. It is in a constant state of change. In February 2011 they rolled out an update called Panda. Panda hunts for sites that it determines lacks quality, or are not stocked with enough content or has duplicate content. Google insists this helps users have a better experience while surfing the web. Panda can influence the page rank of an entire website or just a single page of it.

Not to be outdone in the animal kingdom, Google launched Penguin in April 2012. The Penguin algorithm looks for what’s known as webspam or other “Black Hat” techniques that work to influence Google’s overall PageRank system. Penguin searches for unnatural links, links that just don’t fit or number too many for a site. It also sniffs out what it assumes to be paid links, and it doesn’t like links from adult sites.

There are other ways Google polices or helps to protect the integrity of its information. For instance, someone could see something on your site and determine that its suspicious and report it to Google. Google will then use a human and take a manual look at the site to determine if it violates their policies.

Well, the short answer is that you can’t. But, you can win the search game by following their rules. Of course, you don’t have to. You could rely on Bing or Yahoo or some other search engine. But, they have rules, too. You can win the game, or at least stay in it by staying away from marketers who sell inferior services from vendors and unnatural link building, etc. Whatever you do, don’t use duplicate content on your site or in your blogs. The Panda will get you. Or, is it the Penguin?

Personally, I think learning what you need to do to be successful and adhering to Google’s and other search engines’ rules only serve to produce better internet marketers and content. Isn’t that what we all want?