Google's Recent Algorithmic Change

Background

In recent months, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content.
In a blog post, Google’s Matt Cutts said that the search giant has made great strides in the spam game:

As ‘pure webspam’ has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to ‘content farms,’ which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content. We take pride in Google search and strive to make each and every search perfect. The fact is that we’re not perfect, and combined with users’ skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception. However, we can and should do better.

Last Friday, Google announced a change to its ranking algorithm that is designed to disregard such material:
Google says this update is meant to reduce rankings for low quality sites and to provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

Industry Talk

Some people argue that Google should use personalized search to decide how to return "content farm" search results. For example, if you have a history of ignoring or backing out of pages on SiteXYZ.com, Google can simply stop showing you results from SiteXYZ.com. In other words, Google can let you make the editorial decision about SiteXYZ.com instead of having to "kill that site."

But, most end users will be happy with Google’s method, which will save them a lot of time clicking on junk sites and this is what matters to Google.

Implications

We have seen many content farm sites taking a hit, and sites that were at the edge of that line have also been affected.

This is one reason DBE always sticks with the white hat guidelines recommended by the search engines, and as such, we are glad to see only positive changes with our client results.