With its sights squarely set on the eradication of “low-quality” websites, Google’s new search engine algorithm update is on a quest to improve the quality of search results.
This may mean your website!
“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.“, the Google announcement said.
Targeting Content Farms & Duplicate Content
Google are always trying to improve the quality of their search results by releasing small tweaks to its algorithms but this update is a big one, impacting 11.8% of Google’s queries.
The update is not simply devaluing sites serving duplicated content, it also seems to be aimed at specifically targeting content farms (companies that employ large numbers of freelance writers to generate large amounts of search engine algorithm friendly textual content) and self-servicing back-linking sites.
Small Websites May Have Their Rankings Lowered
Of course there are going to be innocent website victims who will be hit hard by the changes. Some SEO experts are already reporting seeing a 40% traffic drop to their sites after the algorithm was rolled out in the US.
The popular BackLinkForum.com has already dedicated a thread to the update with many unhappy SEOs making their feelings clearly known.
Judging what is and what is not good quality content is difficult and many smaller websites may just not have the capacity to compete with larger sites as regards to quantity but does that mean their content is more valuable?
You may have already noticed that your website has changed its position in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for your top keywords.
Our question to you is simple.
Does your website now rank lower after Google’s latest search engine update?
