Last week Google announced an update to its algorithm.
Please do not panic people. This is something that I am sure those in search would have seen coming. Google introduces the update by telling us that they want to give us – the people the most relevant search results and that this algorithm update has done just that. I myself wonder if it is because there was a lot of press that Blekko was delivering more relevant search results than Google which forced them into doing a bit more R&D (research and development) and pushing this update.
(source: http://www.gadgetcage.com/)
This update is pretty major in that Google say it is “a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on.” They say the update will reduce the rankings for low quality sites which are low value for users. What Google didn’t say were the sites that would be affected. Another post I read, showed that the article sites would be the main losers. So for those that just focus on article writing as your link building strategy, it is time to get moving on to other things. Of course if you are a good seo person, you know you cannot focus on just one link building area, but sometimes are left with little choice if the client does not want to sign off alternative link building activities.
Google close off the announcement in the blog, by defending themselves against the amount of complaints they will get from site owners who see their rankings decrease (even if it is a good quality site). They say “we can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.”
Of course, as most updates, it is just in the US for now but will be coming across the pond sooner than we know it.
Read from the horses mouth: ie Google here