How Your Website’s Database Impacts Google Rankings
The database of your website holds all the information about your website. It contains the web content, images, information on links, and so much more. This means that if the database is poorly developed, chances are your website will end up lagging behind its competitors and more so when it comes to ranking on Google.
The ranking of a website is impacted by many things and one of those things is its database. It doesn’t matter how optimized your content is and how well you have followed the SEO rules. If your database is not created properly, chances are, you won’t be doing well when it comes to search engine rankings.
Hee are 5 things you need to optimize in order to improve your Google search rankings.
Load speed
The first thing you need to note is that when it comes to ranking, Google gives priority to websites that load fast. This is because they are more user-friendly and are easier to crawl through and easier to index. What most people don’t take the time to consider is the fact that load speed is determined by the database.
More often than not, especially when using WordPress, most webmasters never take the time to rework their database to make sure that it doesn’t contain any irrelevant content and plugins. With time, this failure to keep the database clean ends up affecting their website’s performance.
If you have been keen on web development, you may have learnt that the number of plugins on your website will impact its load speed. This is because each plugin has to be called up by the browser of the visitor. If there are old and unused plugins on your website, the browser will still have to call them up thereby slowing the load speed. Removing all your unused plugins and widgets is one of the fastest ways of boosting the load speed of your website.
You should also note that load speed will also be affected by how well indexed the database is. If the search engine crawlers are having trouble sniffing through your website, you can expect a poor ranking.
Broken links
Another very important thing you need to do to boost your search engine rankings is to make sure that you take a look at the links on your website. It is very common for webmasters to forget about their old linking programs and just move the old database content into a new one. Although everything may seem to be working properly, doing this may increase the risk of having broken links.
The worst thing about having broken links is that they will mislead both your visitors and the search engines. This increases your chances of being penalized by Google. Whether you are setting up a new database or just updating the old one, it is imperative that you take note of the links. There are times when the websites you are linking to change their links or close business. Having links that point to them will only be a waste of time and Google may perceive this as black-hat SEO.
Links are very important. It is always good to review your website every once in a while and check for broken links. Making sure that there are no broken links is the key to maintaining a high ranking on Google.
Irrelevant links
Still on link building, some webmasters still think that it is the number of links on a page that counts. This is untrue. Search engine algorithms are smarter now. What really counts in ranking is the quality of the links on your website and not the number of links. This means that if you have irrelevant links, the chances of them helping you boost your ranking will be very small.
In search engine optimization, it is imperative that you take the time to review the website you want to link to. Start by making sure that it is relevant to what you offer, then ensure that they have a good reputation. This is the key to creating high quality links. A remote database expert can help validate the relevancy of the websites you wish to link to.
See Also: The Future of SEO – Predictions and Premonitions That Will Dominate 2017
Outdated plugins
How often do you review your database? Most webmasters simply focus on optimizing their content and never take the time to review how sound the database is. This often leads to their websites having outdated plugins. Needless to say, this will impact your ranking in a bad way.
When it comes to search engine optimization, you have to make sure that your website only has updated plugins and ones that you use. This is because the plugins that are not updated are a security risk. Hackers often target old plugins to exploit the known security loopholes. In no time at all, this can cause your entire website to be compromised.
Google is not only in the business of getting websites and information found by users but it also ensures that Internet users are safe. If you use outdated plugins, your website will be considered to be risky. This may cause it to be dropped lower in search engine results.
Inaccurate sitemap
Another thing you need to understand about search engine optimization is that your sitemap will impact your ranking. The sitemap is what enables the search engines to index all the pages on your website. This is definitely the simplest and the most efficient way of telling Google which pages your website includes.
The downside is that if you don’t take the time to update your sitemap after updating your website, Google and other search engines will not be able to notice the new changes. This may result in the poor ranking of certain pages. Taking the time to ensure that all the elements on your website are updated is the key to ranking well in search engine results.
The article discusses some of the key ways in which the database of your website can impact your website’s ranking. It is always good to make sure that you keep up with the trends and keep your database updated.
See Also: The 5 Internet Marketing Trends That Will Dominate in 2017
