Google wants to give users a better surfing experience with relevant and high quality sites displayed on search results. With the Panda Algorithm changes, Google went on a cleaning spree to weed out low quality sites with poor content and of no use to the users. Then the search engine came up with a page layout algorithm earlier this year that pulls down the sites where there is not much content available “above the fold.”
Now Google is planning to launch an important algorithm change that will target webspam. So sites with poor quality/keyword stuffed content/link schemes, and generally not living up to Google’s existing quality guidelines will be hit. As Google says, “We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can't divulge specific signals because we don't want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.”
Google’s Target-Webspam
Google has defined Webspam as the ‘black hat’ tactics used to get higher rankings with activities like: keyword stuffing, link schemes, “doorway” pages, cloaking and duplicate content (knowingly copied). So, if you have a site with keyword stuffed content you are most likely to be taken down by Google. Google’s new algorithm change will also weed out sites with unusual linking patterns, and unrelated content.
Google has said that this algorithm tweak will go live for all languages at the same time. And the sites Google believes that are “engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate search engine rankings” will be hit.
Impact of the algorithm change
Google has said that this algorithm will impact:
- 3.1% of English queries
- 3% of German, Chinese and Arabic
- 5% of Polish queries
White Hat SEO encouraged by Google
Google has again cautioned webmasters to stay away from spamming and indulge in white hat search engine optimization, to create high quality web sites. As Google has said, “Google has said before that search engine optimization, or SEO, can be positive and constructive – and we're not the only ones. Effective search engine optimization can make a site more crawlable and make individual pages more accessible and easier to find.“White hat” search engine optimizers often improve the usability of a site, help create great content, or make sites faster, which is good for both users and search engines.”
How do you plan to deal with this new algorithmic change? Do you think you are safe? Do share your views.
