Hey everyone,
I'm sure most of you have heard by now about the most recent Google algorithm change. For those that haven't, here is a section of their post on the subject:
"Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. 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."
Already we have seen some major changes in the rankings of some sites because of this. For most of us, this is good news!
For the content farms, the auto blogs and those that practice in stealing content, not such good news.
Personally, I am thrilled at the changes. I think a number of people very well versed in SEO forget one of the most important parts of SEO - and that is providing value to your visitors. Mix SEO with value and being a needed and sought after resource for people, you have one powerful cocktail.
Of course, I'm not trying to bad mouth the auto bloggers and content farmers out there. These things can be good if done correctly. But too often people steal content without giving proper credit, or spin content that produces unintelligible material.
For those people, Google says too bad, back to the bottom you go!
What are your thoughts on the changes? Are you happy or sad about it?
Vincent Parker