In a recent post on the Official Google Blog, Principal Engineer, Matt Cutts, wrote about Google's recent efforts to reduce webspam. Cutts starts out by calling attention to the fact that, "Google's search quality is better than it has ever been in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness" but he goes on to say that Google is still "not perfect", hence this change in Google's algorithm.
What kind of changes did Google make to its algorithm, you ask?
Outline of the changes made to Google's algorithm:
• Google launched an on-page spam detection feature. This revamped document-level classifier aims to ensure that spammy on page content will have difficulty ranking high.
• Google improved the ability to detect sites that have been hacked, which was a major issue in 2010.
• Google is still exploring a variety of other tactics that will help deter spam.
As mentioned above, Matt Cutts also points out that Google, in fact, is not perfect. "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."
Who will this affect?
Content farms and low quality websites will be most affected by these changes, as well as any other sites that produce a high amount of spam. Regardless of whether you buy Google ads or not, Google made it clear that ads will not help the site rank higher on Google or in the SERPs. Websites that violate Google's quality guidelines will face repercussions, according to Cutts.
How can YOU help Google search become better? Submit your feedback!
Matt Cutts urges people to tell Google how they can be doing a better job. "Combined with our own scientific evaluations, user feedback allows us to explore every opportunity for possible improvements." So if you want Google to become a better search engine, you're going to have to help them out a bit.
For more articles about search engine giant, Google, check out Hudson Horizons' Google Articles section.