The latest changes in Google algorithms that can affect your website’s visibility and SEO strategies.
Google has announced a significant update to its search algorithms and policies to tackle spammy and low-quality content on its search engine.
IMPROVED QUALITY RANKING
“We’re making algorithmic enhancements to our core ranking systems to ensure we surface the most helpful information on the web and reduce unoriginal content in search results,” stated Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product for Search at Google.
Google states:
“We’ll take action on more types of these manipulative behaviors starting today. While our ranking systems keep many types of low-quality content from ranking highly on search, these updates allow us to take more targeted action under our spam policies.”
SCALED CONTENT ABUSE
Google is strengthening its policy against using automation to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale to manipulate search rankings.
The updated policy will focus on the abusive behaviour of producing content at scale to boost search ranking, regardless of whether automation, humans, or a combination of both are involved.
EXPIRED DOMAIN ABUSE
Google’s updated spam policies will target expired domain abuse, where expired domains are purchased and repurposed to boost the search ranking of low-quality content. This practice can mislead users into thinking the new content is part of an older, trusted site.
SITE REPUTATION ABUSE
Google is addressing the issue of site reputation abuse, where trusted websites host low-quality, third-party content to capitalise on the hosting site’s strong reputation.
“For example, a third party might publish payday loan reviews on a trusted educational website to gain ranking benefits from the site. Such content ranking highly in search can confuse or mislead visitors, who may have vastly different expectations for the content on a given website.”
Focus on Helpful Content:
- Reduced Unhelpful Content: Google’s “helpful content” system is now integrated into the core ranking algorithm. This means that content that is genuinely informative and useful will be prioritised.
- Targeting Unoriginal Content: The update targets content created primarily for search engines and lacking real value for users.
- User Experience Matters: Websites with a poor user experience or those that feel spammy are less likely to rank well.
Stay informed, stay on top, and let’s navigate these changes.
