On February 24th 2011, Google, made a drastic change to its search algorithm. This change, possibly the biggest change Google has made, has sent shock waves among SEO circles since it drastically changed search page rankings and visibility.
What exactly is the change?
Google’s search engine algorithm change was made in order to yield search results with higher quality in the more highly ranked positions. In simpler terms Google is just cleaning up what they call “Content Farm” sites. These sites post large quantities of content which very often don’t match up to what Google deems as “high-quality”.
Here is what the official Google blog says. “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.”
Will this big change affect your business?
The answer is both Yes and No, depending upon your online marketing practices .While content farms surely might get hit, you will not be a victim if you have always posted original high-quality content. On the contrary, the new algorithm could help your site receive higher rankings for searches that are more directly relevant to your business.
Google’s new algorithm changes have been made to encourage website building that is honest and which provides genuine value based content to their target audience.
How do businesses survive the change?
While the algorithm poses no new threats to genuine website builders, many people running small and medium sized businesses are understandably worried about their search engine rankings. Here’s how to survive the challenge:
- Understand your customer’s need and provide useful and relevant information that is of use to them
- If blogs are part of your SEO strategy, make sure that all posts are original, meaningful, topical and applicable to your business
- Ensure that all content posted is fresh, original and thoughtfully written
- Refrain from structuring your content around the most frequently searched keyword phrases in your industry
• Finally, if hiring out web content make sure that the content is not copied or plagiarized
