THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM SHAKE UP

THE GOOGLE ALGORITHM SHAKE UP
Around two weeks ago, Google made major changes in its search algorithm. And this made a great impact in the search engine results which also caused an enormous shake up for many websites competing for the top rankings of Google.

Again, since I have been loosely comparing internet traffic to everyday road traffic, let me explain the repercussions of this Google algorithm shake up in layman’s term where many people can relate to.

Following The Rules Of Traffic

The rules of road traffic are governed by street signs and traffic enforcers. You know which street to turn right onto because you can ready the street signs posted by the street corners. You know when to start and stop because of traffic signs and traffic lights at the road intersections. And, in some cases, traffic flow is even moderated by human traffic enforcers whose main responsibilities include assuring the smooth flow of traffic on the roads.

But what happens when the street names are changed? Or worse, the street posts containing the street names which guide motorists disappear from view. Have you ever been caught in a traffic jam only to realize that the reason which caused it was a non-functioning traffic light at the intersection? And to make matters worse, there is no traffic enforcer in sight to regulate the flow of traffic.

Chaos.

In a manner of speaking, this is how website traffic got affected by Google’s algorithm change. Google changed the way it ranks websites in its searches. It decided to change the rules governing search engine results. And it greatly affected the entire SEO industry.

Google Algorithm Changes

If before, it seemed pretty simple on how website owners can optimize their websites so that their pages can rank highly for specific keywords, now, the changes in the algorithm also changed the rules by which these website owners, and SEO practitioners for that matter, abide.

As you may know, SEO is built around optimizing webpages for them to rank highly in search engine rankings, particularly Google rankings. But if Google makes changes in the way they evaluate webpages, SEO experts shall now try to figure out what those changes are so that they can make corresponding modifications with their SEO techniques.

The problem is that Google does not exactly say what those changes are. Well, they release statements which give hints as to what the changes are. But it is not specific enough since they do not want the public to explicitly gain knowledge on how to manipulate search engine results.

Providing High Quality Content

According to the Google’s principal search engine engineer, Matt Cutts, the changes were aimed to, as always, improve the search engine results by giving people the most relevant results and reducing the rankings of low quality websites which offer copied contents, low-value added knowledge, and not-so-useful content to the users.

At the aftermath of this major algorithm shake up, the websites that were negatively affected by these changes included the so-called “content farms”. Content farms are websites which generate tons of content specifically designed to satisfy search engine algorithms so that their pages rank highly in search engine results. While it is arguable that some of these content farms do offer high quality content to its readers, some of these article directories obviously contribute to the rising amount of low-quality garbage content littering the roads of cyberspace.

But it is just a matter of time before SEO experts figure out the changes made by Google in its algorithm. And, as always, website owners and SEO experts are forced to abide by the new rules set by Google. And in the end, the golden guideline still remains to be the most important factor that should be followed by website owners. And that is to provide high-quality content to its readers. That way, everyone comes out as a winner – the website owner, the webpage reader, and almighty Google.