Will the Google changes affect your site ?

Google is well known for constantly, and secretly, making tweaks to the algorithm that returns the page of search engine results. This algorithm analyses the text you have entered, looks at the keywords, and returns a page of content (and paid advertisements from Google AdWords).  They make these changes to return the best quality search results to you – the user – so that you continue to use Google to search the web.

Last week, Google made a massive change that algorithm (in the USA for now), so massive that they published the details on the official Google blog.  In their own words, this change will “noticeably impact 11.8% of our queries”.

This change has been designed to reduce the number of low quality search results and return a better quality result to Google users.  The change has dramatically affected sites that rely on content farms (like ezinearticles.com, findarticles.com etc) for links back to their pages. Google has done that by discounting the links from these sites, sometimes by 75% to 95% according to some analysts.

Interestingly, it appears that these changes also rank links from YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Wikipedia and other social media sites higher than previously.

Australia Next

While this change has not yet been rolled out at google.com.au, expect that it will very soon. We believe this is a good thing for our clients, where we recommend a solid, “timeless” strategy that will not be easily affected by changes to the search engine algorithms, or even between one search engine or the other.  This strategy includes:

• Knowing your “trophy” keywords, that describe your business and your USP,
• Correct site structure and on-page basics,
• Adding content regularly and consistently on your site (ideally with an integrated Blog),
• Building links from reputable sources,
• Using your own social media channels for links

Using an integrated strategy across your website, email newsletters, social media, Google Adwords – will ensure a balance of traffic sources and will build a solid, approach to maximising your ranking in the search engines for your site.