Google puts even higher emphasis on original content
Google's 2.2 update to its 'Panda' search algorithm will put an even higher emphasis on originality of website content and penalise low quality websites that simply republish other people's articles, posts and information.
Speaking at the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, Google's Matt Cutts explained that the company has approved the next update for Panda and plans to release it in the near future. The changes to the algorithm will tackle the issue of websites that republish content being ranked in higher positions than the websites that the content was originally from.
This is great news for website owners who strive to write fresh content for their website on a regular basis and should go some way towards diminishing the dominance of 'content farming' websites such as eHow and Answers.com.
Google expects the update to affect 11.8 percent of all queries and we will be keeping a close eye on our customer websites to make sure that they are not affected. However, we fully expect these changes to boost the performance of our customer's websites in Google.
On top of this the Panda changes will also drop search engine results for websites that use what it sees as 'underhand tactics' to achieve a better ranking. For example, Google is constantly scanning for pages that might use hidden text. If it spots them, then it may issue a penalty. Matt Cutts and Google have emphasised that the algorithm is run manually to spot bad websites, it isn't meant to penalise quality websites.
If you have any questions about Search Engine Marketing or would like to discuss how your business website can be changed to one that can be easily updated regularly then drop us a line here at Yoto Creative and we'll be happy to chat through it with you.
Toby - Yoto Creative