Google refines search algorithm to reward originality
Image: Kimberly Vardeman (cc)
In February this year Google announced a significant change to the algorithm it uses to rank search results. What’s most notable about the change is that it’s designed to reward websites that feature quality, original content.
It seems obvious – after all, what else would we be searching for other than information that matches our Google query? Unfortunately, many websites have been able to exploit the way that search engines such as Google rank pages, by replicating content from other sources or stuffing the pages full of keywords that lack relevance or meaning.
‘Content farm’ sites are designed specifically to achieve a high search engine ranking (and thereby generate advertising revenue) by incorporating vast amounts of textual content. As these sites are targeted to search engines rather than web users, this content is inevitably of low quality, often produced by poorly paid freelancers with little knowledge of the subject matter.
Similarly, Web 2.0 has led to a proliferation of user-generated content through various social media such as blogs and online forums, however much of this information is of little value or interest to the wider community.
As Google says in its blog post announcing the change, the purpose is to reward ‘high-quality sites’ – that is, websites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports and thoughtful analysis.
Just how they will achieve this I have no idea, as the exact nature of their algorithms is a closely guarded secret. However, according to some analysts at least, it appears to be working already.
The lesson is that when you are writing content for the web, make sure your main focus is always the users who will be reading the page, rather than the search engines that will be ranking it.
Write it and they will come.
