With our SEO research to understand more about what Google is doing with algorithm changes we follow specific websites and monitor the changes of websites to understand the effects things are having.

Understanding what Google is doing and what Google needs is vital to Search Engine Optimisation and as one of leading providers of SEO in the UK we monitor and track many high profile websites in varied sectors.

West Midlands Police Website SEO Inspection

The website URL for the West Midlands Police is www.west-midlands.police.uk and this has a backlinking profile that attracts links on a regular basis hitting peaks of 3000 per day at times and this profile has been growing since March 2011.

The overall result of the backlink profile is giving a trust flow of 50 and a citation flow of 42. The trust flow is a score based on quality, on a scale between 0 and 100. Sites closely linked to a trusted seed website achieve higher scores and websites that may have some questionable links have a lower score.

The Citation Flow is a also a score between 0 and 100 and this is a measure of link equity or “power” the website or link carries. Citation flow is used in conjunction with “Trust Flow” to understand the cleanliness, quality and power of a websites profile.

This score for the West Midlands Police Website is generated from 54,359 backlinks in the last 90 days and in the last 5 years the website has attracted 202,270 backlinks.

It is important to look at what domains are linking to the website and these are referenced as referring domains, which in Google’s view are passing votes to the content on the website. The higher the profile of websites linking to content the better the content must be and also it must be important so Google take this content vary seriously. A website with no backlink’s has no authority on the subject matter.

The Police are always attracting links from websites and as an example the company Handlestore Ltd with the domain URL http://www.handlestore.com/ links to the police on their Google Plus page when they discuss security improvements. This is used in an attempt to show they are helping visitors by linking to authority websites. This is not so important to Google due to the fact it will actually tell Google to check out other websites for better content.

This Google plus profile is the same as blog post and the company is promoting their website products and then linking to their own website and also trusted URL’s such as the West Midlands Police in order to grow the SEO backlink profile. Google will not really care much about this however and unless this is adding value to visitors the Google plus page itself adds no real value at all to the ranking of the main website URL.

To take a look at the Handle Store website it is clear that this company spends money / time creating backlinks that are not adding value:-

To show an example of a backlink that adds no value, if anything a negative impact on the SEO profile:-

Google’s guidelines explain that they do not want to find paid for links and link farms. The reason for this is that it adds zero value to Internet users and makes Google’s job much larger. Websites that provide links in this manner are adding pollution to the Internet and add no value to a business owner or visitor.

This website has a TRUST problem and anyone with links on this website is more likely to have a decreased overall ranking position due to this for any keywords used.

The problem for this website is that the website itself has lots of poor quality linking to it.

This information here which has led us from the West Midlands Police Website to a furniture linking website shows how random the Internet is and what Google finds is often completely odd and random. It is for this reason that we have added this information in this article.

Looking back at the West Midlands Police backlinking profile there are 202 BBC backlinks:-

The West Midlands Police website also has links from Government websites and as an example:-

All these links are picked up by Google and used to create a power profile which in return will provide an idea of trust. Due to the BBC and Government websites not selling links and being quality content with high profile websites linking to them also, these are some of the best links available on the Internet and this adds huge value to the West Midlands Police Website.

All these links are collated in Google’s database and the text used to link known as anchor text is then compiled to create a keyword profile:-

Looking at the profile there is a strange number link – 430539. west-midlands.police.uk so this stands out to be odd and on investigation we found:-

This is an un-trusted site and this is an example of a negative link pointing at the West Midlands Police website.

It is also important for Google to look at where the links are coming from in relation to location. The country the links are generated from pay an important part of SEO.

The website content is inspected by the Google robots and all the data from the website is retrieved and then added to the Google database for the domain URL

http://seo-website-checker.chameleonwebservices.co.uk/web/west-midlands.police.uk

http://www.chameleonwebservices.co.uk/seo-tools/keyword-density-analysis/

• There are 618 words on this page
• Of those 618 words 511 words are linked ones
• Of 618 words 110 are not linked
• Of 110 non linked words 43 words are either stop words or have less than 3 characters

Google’s Robots grabs:-

West Midlands Police Top of Page Skip to main content Police appeal following fatal collision Read full story Appeal launched after discovering a shotgun was fired into a bus Read full story Police appeal after fatal road collision Read full story CCTV released of men suspected of being involved in football disorder Read full story Trio convicted of terrorism offences Read full story Accessibility options West Midlands Police Preventing crime protecting the public and helping those in need Menu Contact us Menu Home Your local police Back Home Birmingham East Birmingham West Coventry Dudley Sandwell Solihull Walsall Wolverhampton Latest news Back Home View news Our videos Birmingham No Deal Wanted Caught on Camera Media queries Keeping you safe Back About us Back Home Executive team Our structure Diamond awards Getting involved History of the force Police and Crime Commissioner Police auctions Funeral items Behind the badge Back Behind The Crime blog Buses Cannabis disposal team Dogs Firearms licensing Football policing Forensic Investigators Guns Helicopter Motorways Offender management Operational Support Unit Organised Crime Preparing for emergencies Property seizures Summer album Tackling terrorism Traffic blog Vehicles WMPeople Misconduct outcomes Misconduct hearings WMP2020 Advice centre Back Accessing information Back Home Accessing Your Personal Information Civil Disclosure Unit Data Protection Freedom of information Chief Officer entitlements Campaigns Back Home Pickpockets Sentinel Forced marriage Domestic abuse Crime reduction Back Alcohol and violence Business crime Gun crime Home security Knife crime Pickpockets Robbery Scams Shop Theft Students Vehicle security Help and advice Back Academic research Advice for victims Anti social behaviour ANPR Bikesafe course Child sexual abuse Children and young people Domestic abuse Fines and fixed penalty notices Hate crime Honour abuse Mental Health Modern slavery Organising an Event Overseas visitor registration Radicalisation Rape and sexual violence Reporting road traffic collisions Stalking and harassment Stop and search Vehicle recovery scheme Advice leaflets Website Information Join the force Back Home Current vacancies PC recruitment Transferees WMP Associates Contact us Search Latest news Police appeal following fatal collision Monday 26 December 2016 Appeal launched after discovering a shotgun was fired into a bus Saturday 24 December 2016 Police appeal after fatal road collision Saturday 24 December 2016 CCTV released of men suspected of being involved in football disorder Saturday 24 December 2016 Trio convicted of terrorism offences Friday 23 December 2016 Elderly woman robbed in her home after hour long ordeal Saturday 24 December 2016 Life savings stolen in distraction burglary Friday 23 December 2016 No festive joy for football louts after WMP secures banning orders Friday 23 December 2016 Family of murdered man Surjit Takhar re appeal for information eight years after his death Friday 23 December 2016 Family pay tribute to man killed in Coventry collision Thursday 22 December 2016 View all our latest news stories Don t mask the abuse control isn t love Click for more on our Christmas domestic abuse campaign Ask Arita Click here for our latest campaign Darker Nights Click here for our latest campaign Community Project Funding now available Click here for more information Got a ticket Get advice on fines payment and speed awareness courses here Been involved in a crash Get help and advice here Ask The Police Answers to questions we are often asked If it s not an emergency call us 101 If life is in danger or a crime is in progress 999 More ways to contact us Contact your local team by entering your postcode Caught on Camera Recognise anyone in these CCTV images Most Wanted Spot anyone you know View the latest tweets across all our twitter accounts Tweets from WMPolice west midlands police all accounts Follow WMPolice westmidlandspolice Go to our YouTube channel to see our videos West Midlands Police Home Your local police Keeping you safe Advice Centre Latest news Contact us RSS feeds Information FAQs Search Copyright West Midlands Police 2016

The Overall SEO Result

The result of the content and the backlinking profile Google finds will then allow content to be shown in the search results.

http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/ keyword ranking data spreadsheet.

The West Midlands Police Website ranks for keywords that Google decide are relevant and this is as an example:-

In this example Google ranks the West Midlands Police Website number one in the search results. The content on the website is the most relevant to this search terms but due to the content structure the WM Jobs website is actually providing Google extra information in snippets and this is shown in today’s algorithm above the number one search result which is known as Google’s Quick Answer box.

This example shows how important SEO services are to a website. Even thou the West Midlands Police website is most relevant due to the content not being fully optimised and setup for the latest Google algorithm they actually loose traffic to the WM Jobs site.

To understand more about these pages we need to look at the data Google needs to find such as the title and meta description so that Google understands what the pages are about.

It is important to look at how How does Google Search works to understand more about what we need to provide Google in-order to rank well.

SEO Titles, Meta Description and Meta Keywords

West Midlands Police title = <title>Join the force &#8211; Latest jobs</title>
WM Jobs title = <title>Jobs with West Midlands Police</title>

Google uses however:-
West Midlands Police = Join the force – Latest jobs – West Midlands Police
WM Jobs = Jobs with West Midlands Police – WMJobs

You can see that Google is adding the site name to the title automatically.

Also in the top 3 of the Google search results is Indeed.

Coded = <title>Police Jobs, vacancies in West Midlands Indeed.co.uk</title>
Google uses = Police Jobs, vacancies in West Midlands | Indeed.co.uk

It is clear that Google uses data and is manipulating the data it finds.

Looking at the Descriptions & Keywords:-

West Midlands Police does not have any description or keywords. Instead the website includes data known as Open Graph Tags which are used by Facebook. OG data promotes integration between Facebook and websites by creating objects with the same functionality as other Facebook objects.

<!– Jetpack Open Graph Tags –>
<meta property=”og:type” content=”website” />
<meta property=”og:title” content=”Join the force” />
<meta property=”og:description” content=”Latest jobs” />
<meta property=”og:url” content=”https://jobs.west-midlands.police.uk/” />
<meta property=”og:site_name” content=”Join the force” />
<meta property=”og:image” content=”https://s0.wp.com/i/blank.jpg” />
<meta property=”og:locale” content=”en_US” />
<meta name=”twitter:card” content=”summary” />

WM Jobs:-

<meta name=”description” content=”8 jobs with West Midlands Police to view and apply for now with WM Jobs”>

WM Jobs does not use meta keywords.

Indeed:-

<meta name=”description” content=”396 Police Job vacancies available in West Midlands on Indeed.co.uk. one search. all jobs.”>
<meta name=”keywords” content=”Police Jobs, vacancies in West Midlands, West Midlands careers, West Midlands employment, West Midlands job listings, West Midlands job search, West Midlands search engine, work in West Midlands”>

It is important to note that Google doesn’t use Meta Keywords since around 2009 but these are still used by other search engines such as Bing.

USe of H1, H2 and H3 Headings

West Midlands Police:-

No H1 Headings

<h2>Current vacancies</h2>

<h3>Leave a Reply </h3>

<h3>Rewards &#038; Benefits</h3>

<h3>Latest Tweets</h3>

WM Jobs:-

<h1>West Midlands Police</h1>

<h2>About West Midlands Police</h2>

<h2>8 jobs with West Midlands Police</h2>

<h3>Business Analyst</h3>

Indeed:-

<h1>Police jobs in West Midlands</h1>

<h2></h2> – Various used for Job titles

No H3 Headings

Using H1, H2 and H3 headings are so important for on page SEO as this tells Google what the content is about on the pages. The ordering of H1 should follow a natural path. The H1 heading is at the top of the page and then H2 to break up content and then H3 inside the H2 content where needed.

Google uses this data and the algorithm is clever enough to work out the content on the page with the use of H1, H2, H3, etc heading tags. The algorithm has also worked out that some websites mess up the ordering or try to manipulate the content and this should be avoided.

On page content

The content on the page is then grabbed and this should be reflected in the above Titles, Meta data and headings. If Google finds unique content it doesn’t really care how pretty the page looks it will now want to use this content within search results and the ranking positions within search results is now down to the quality of the content and the information that has been provided + whether or not Google trusts the content.

A highly skilled SEO consultant can look at differences between websites and understand what is required to be competitive on page one of Google search results looking at the current websites already there.