Google Improves Content Through Search With “Big Algorithmic Improvement”
Google does not take a stance on what content it displays through search results. Content curation is something the search engine company staunchly opposes as it would dramatically alter the quality of its search results.
However, recent news reports of black hat SEO techniques have forced the company to rethink its search engine algorithm.
Google has been making preparations to improves its search engines results which would punish content farms and those that deliver poor quality content while capitalizing black hat SEO techniques.
There has been recent reports that Google’s lack of bias in search results led to one online retailer – Decor My Eyes run by Vitaly Borker – to exploit black hat SEO techniques. Despite the high amount of negative reviews, Decor My Eyes’ site ranking did not take a hit. It took an expose in the NYTimes for Google to re-examine the situation. JC Penny was caught soon after for purchasing links and pulling every SEO trick Google not only frowned upon but also heavily combatted.
Google announced the new search engine changes on its blog. The update will impact about 12% of all US search results which has some content creators worried – if you’re pumping out poor quality content and using SEO to inflate its value, Google will act.
Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
DemandMedia which has been frequently labeled a content farm is suspected to be the target of Google’s new algorithm. EVP Larry thinks differently:
How our content reaches the consumer – whether it’s through direct visits, social media referrals, apps or search – has always been important to and monitored closely by us. We also recognize that major search engines like Google have and will continue to make frequent changes. We have built our business by focusing on creating the useful and original content that meets the specific needs of today’s consumer. So naturally we applaud changes search engines make to improve the consumer experience – it’s both the right thing to do and our focus as well.
Google makes frequent changes to its algorithm all the time but many of them are so minor that the end user doesn’t immediately notice the impact. This recent update has been months in the making and Google’s every intention is promoting great content over scraped content and spam.