Digital Agency, Digital Agency Perth & Melbourne, Online Marketing Agency Australia, Digital Media Marketing - Digital Dialogue

Google have recently updated their algorithm with a number of important implications. Known as the "Farmer", this algorithm is designed to weed out shallow and low-quality content from its top search results.

The new algorithm change helps sites which have:
- Original non-copied content
- Research
- In-depth analysis
- Reports

The Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) have been getting more and more cluttered with lower quality websites. Google's primary existence is based on delivering the best, most relevant content to the user in the shortest amount of time for a given search term. If Google cannot do this, it will lose its competitive advantage – fast!

Therefore, Google have made the following changes:

• Increase emphasis on UNIQUE content
• Increase weight for backlinks coming from Social or Web2.0 sites as these links are a real indicator of content usefulness or interest
• Decrease weight of backlinks in general
• Specifically target backlinks that are non-relevant to the site's material/category/market
• Penalise sites that have used "blackhat" backlinking methods

Now what do we mean "penalise blackhat backlinking methods"?

• Google is adding up the non-relavant links, such as those from profile, blog comments, directories, etc.
• If it isn't relevant or "natural", you are going to lose the amount of weight for that link
• If you have many links of this nature, your site is going to be penalised
• They want to see a diversity of anchor text on backlinks also

Google has already penalised some high profile websites such as:

• J.C Penny website penalized for paying used paid links to advertize their website
• Forebs.com penalized for selling their links

Google is advising Webmasters to "Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings".

If you would like assistance with your SEO performance, contact us today for an analysis of your search engine optimistation.