SEO Philippines: Google Freshness Algorithm Experiment

SEO Hacker Labs

Okay so I posted an entry last night (14 hours ago) about SEO Philippines. The post was entitled ‘SEO Philippines‘ and had a good number of ‘SEO Philippines’ keyphrase inside the body of the content. I did this mainly for three reasons:

  1. I was experimenting on how high I can rank for the term SEO Philippines
  2. I wanted to contribute to the Philippine SEO Community
  3. I wanted to let my readers know about great Filipino SEO specialists out there


Of course, I wasn’t targeting to rank for the term SEO Philippines in Google.ph – I was targeting to rank on Google.com as a playing field. I wanted to see how far I was gonna get with the keyphrase SEO Philippines – knowing that there was quite a competition for the term. It’s not really a keyphrase that attracts a lot of searches, but I was trying to experiment on it due to the fact that some of the websites that are ranking on first page have already been there for a while – and I wanted to check out how big of a factor the new ‘Freshness Algorithm’ is.

Turns out the new Freshness Algorithm is a winner. I got to first page (9th place) within 14 hours of publishing my entry. And I’m hoping it goes up some more before 24 hours has elapsed.

SEO Philippines SERP

Freshness Algorithm

I was playing with the Freshness Algorithm since Yahoo Site Explorer shut down. I immediately tried to compile a resource article that provides all the good, mediocre, and ‘bad’ alternatives to Yahoo Site Explorer in hopes of being one of the firsts to publish it with the keywords ‘Yahoo Site Explorer Alternatives‘. I was sure this keyphrase is going to get a lot of hits.

Unfortunately, I was already 5 days too late!

A lot of better-known SEO news sites beat me to it. I wasn’t hoping to get to first page no more.

The moment I hit the publish button, Google put me in 6th page on the SERPs. Minutes, I was in 4th page. An hour or two later, I got to second page. By this rate I was already satisfied – 2nd page wasn’t so bad considering I was 5 days late on the news. Around 8 hours later, I was surprised to know that I was in first page – first place! Sad I didn’t take a screenshot – you’d have to take my word for it.

A couple of days later, another SEO news site put up his own version of Yahoo Site Explorer alternatives. And up til now, he owns top spot.

Yahoo Site Explorer Alternative SERP

Just goes to show that the updated Freshness Algorithm might be more powerful than we think.

I also did this for the keyphrase ‘Yahoo Site Explorer Replacement‘ and again, I got to top spot – proving that the Freshness Algorithm can be a very powerful factor. The model behind the new Freshness algorithm is based on Google’s Query Deserves Freshness and it is claimed to be triggered by factors such as Tweets and Retweets, query volume / search volume, and query hotness / trending to name a few.

The most important thing about Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) is to get the timing right – and hope that the next site who publishes after you doesn’t have too much authority in that niche.

Tips for Keeps: I think a great tactic you can employ for the effectivity of the Freshness Algorithm is to build links after you get top spot so that you retain it. Perhaps you can include an infograph in the next entry which you’re rooting for to ‘make it to the top’.

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Sean Si

About Sean

is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines. He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines.