Changes to Google’s algorithm have been in the news a lot over the past month – and for good reason. This is big business and should be bigger news. When the world’s largest pathway to the Internet’s boundless info and profit possibilities changes what it displays people best take note.
Google’s Search Tweak Puts A Company At Risk
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/03/135809341/googles-search-tweak-puts-a-company-at-risk
Google Tweaks Algorithm To Spot ‘Content Farms’
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/22/135625124/google-tweak-s-algorithm-to-spot-content-farms
For those of you not watching the mighty search engine’s every move, over the last month Google made a big change to how it finds sites, rates them, and displays results. Remember Google can tweak and edit their search and display patterns however they like. Google is in the search engine business – it’s not a public service – so it makes sense that changes within their search algorithm would be most beneficial to their own products.
A lot of the news surrounded the big content management farms, like about.com, whose search and find numbers dropped dramatically. This is supposedly due to Google now deducting points for unoriginal, cut and paste syndication type content. Whatever the case, many of the large info aggregators on the Internet lost dramatic search engine visibility and their profits will likewise feel the crunch.
The big winners are those with lots of original content. Blogs, especially those hosted at Google’s blogspot.com are sure to be winners, as are massive media outlets that are already continuous content production centers. Those with content that can be found word for word elsewhere are sure to take a hit. And that may be exactly what Google was hoping for, reward sites with current content while weeding out some of those annoying about.com results written by a less-then-reliable source.
For small business websites this means fresh content has never been more important. Because now that the Google is peering even deeper into the subtleties of each and every page, those with lots of quality, original, and informative content may just come out on top.
