Well possibly the worse thing, that could have happened has happened, Google updated. Unlike most updates where Google's results show development and improvement, the current update has filtered out of existence many excellent resources. The main filtering seems to happen on terms, which are commercial or where many would pay for Adwords. These are called money terms. If you a search on Google for example for "Winnipeg real estate" (without quotes), you get a long list of sites not in any way related to Winnipeg real estate. Now if you want to see the real results, as they should be, do the following search "Winnipeg real estate -ghghghgh -ffffff" (without quotes). The minus sign tells the search engine to look for pages that contain the search phrase but do not include what appears after the minus sign. Well, if you use random characters as I have, it is very unlikely that any site would have this term on its pages, so there should be no effect. However, you'll notice very different results, and actually the number of results is greater. The first search produces 26,200 results and the second search with the double minus shows 89,400 results. Approximately 50,000 pages were filtered out. This double minus works because it fools the search engine into not using its filters.
There are a lot of theories as to why Google has updated this way. There are the conspiracy theories that suggest that the timing near Christmas will force eMerchants to spend on Adwords. Others suggest that they are trying to make on page factors less relevant, therefore, page rank would become more important. It would force site owners to make a choice between marketing for Google based on page rank factors (links and anchor text) or to market using on page factors (text, title, font sizes) which other search engines like Inktomi, Fast, and AltaVista use. Google suggests that they are trying to make the search results more relevant to users. They suggest when people search they are not looking to purchase they are only looking for information on that product. With the current results, even finding information on a product is difficult.
The new Google algorithm seems to determine if a page is over-optimized for a particular keyword phrase then removes the site, if this is the case. This would happen if the exact phrase is used too many times on the same page. Also, I believe it employs Google's newest technology of local rank. Local rank is used to determine where a site's links are coming from. Using local rank sites on the same server or IP would not be counted towards the ranking of a site. The local rank factor would make it difficult for those who attempt to use multiple site ownerships to artificially boost a site's ranking. Another theory suggests Google has developed a dictionary look-up, which is used to filter results. This last theory is very likely. Dictionary look-ups are fairly trivial to set up, and Google has shown in the past that it uses a dictionary look-up, when searchers use an incorrect spelling.
Now SEO's and users alike are playing the waiting game to see the impact the last Google dance will have. If history is any indication, then users will quickly switch their search behavior, if the search engine does not produce relevant results.
Some food for thought.
There are a lot of theories as to why Google has updated this way. There are the conspiracy theories that suggest that the timing near Christmas will force eMerchants to spend on Adwords. Others suggest that they are trying to make on page factors less relevant, therefore, page rank would become more important. It would force site owners to make a choice between marketing for Google based on page rank factors (links and anchor text) or to market using on page factors (text, title, font sizes) which other search engines like Inktomi, Fast, and AltaVista use. Google suggests that they are trying to make the search results more relevant to users. They suggest when people search they are not looking to purchase they are only looking for information on that product. With the current results, even finding information on a product is difficult.
The new Google algorithm seems to determine if a page is over-optimized for a particular keyword phrase then removes the site, if this is the case. This would happen if the exact phrase is used too many times on the same page. Also, I believe it employs Google's newest technology of local rank. Local rank is used to determine where a site's links are coming from. Using local rank sites on the same server or IP would not be counted towards the ranking of a site. The local rank factor would make it difficult for those who attempt to use multiple site ownerships to artificially boost a site's ranking. Another theory suggests Google has developed a dictionary look-up, which is used to filter results. This last theory is very likely. Dictionary look-ups are fairly trivial to set up, and Google has shown in the past that it uses a dictionary look-up, when searchers use an incorrect spelling.
Now SEO's and users alike are playing the waiting game to see the impact the last Google dance will have. If history is any indication, then users will quickly switch their search behavior, if the search engine does not produce relevant results.
Some food for thought.
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