Google makes a big change in search rankings: Content is king!
Help is on the way for people irritated that some firms do much better than you might expect in search rankings
The change to Google's algorithms, which help users find what they want when they initiate a search, came after complaints that results were being "gamed" as some websites manipulated the powerful search engine. The change affects about 12% of queries, Google said. Websites with in-depth reports or "thoughtful" analysis will benefit.
"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," said Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, and Matt Cutts, head of the company's so called spam-fighting team, in a blog post.
"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."
The crackdown is specifically geared to tackling so called ‘content farms’ which can appear higher in search ranks than the sites they harvest content from. Media owners, say the content farms are undermining their businesses.
Making the change in such a public way "marks a rare admission of fallibility by Google," said the Los Angeles Times . Google gets about two-thirds of the world's search queries and most of its sales come from search advertising.
Recently Google has been criticised for allowing sites to rise in search results that deliver "questionable or little value to Websearchers". At UC Berkeley, one blogger described Google as a "tropical paradise for spammers and marketers."
For years it has been assumed that Google search results are "better than anyone else's," Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of technology blog Search Engine Land, told the Times.
"There is no doubt that Google's relevancy has come under attack in an unprecedented way in recent months and it has been snowballing. This is an effort to slow down that snowballing."
A new extension on the Google Chrome Web browser lets users manually block sites from appearing in their results.
Google did not reveal which websites would drop in its rankings, but many search professionals think Google may be targeting Demand Media's eHow .
California-based Demand Media said in a blog post that it had not seen a "material net impact," but its shares were lower on Friday . Andrew Shotland, who runs Local SEO Guide, a consulting firm advising large websites, said some clients were "definitely seeing a negative impact."
Shotland told the Times,"Today is not different than any other day: I am telling clients they need more original and better content on their pages, it's just now it's more important than it was a few weeks ago."
Even a slight dip in traffic can slash revenue for sites that rely on Web traffic from Google. One search-optimisation professional said some sites could see drops of as much as 30%.