Google`s Content Farm Algorithm Update

On an regular basis Google updates it search engine algorithm to improve its search results. The majority of these changes are so small that we don't really notice them. However two recent updates have just been released that are getting a lot of press and Google themselves indicate that these changes are likely to impact up to 12% of US results.

On January 21st Google announced on their blog that they had tweaked their algorithm in an update that is coming to be known as the "Scraper Update". Matt Cutts elaborated on his own blog that this update implemented changes that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content. This change only affected slightly over 2% of queries.

A more agressive update just announced on February 24th in a blog post called Finding more high-quality sites in search is expected to change up to 12% of US results. This update which Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land has taken upon himself to name the Farmer Update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which offer low added value for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.

At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

Are Content Farms the target?

So what does that all mean? Officially the update is not aimed at any market sector in particular but the general consensus is that this update was targeted at so called "content farms" like Demand Media and who publish highly targeted pieces of content that have been designed to target very specific search queries.

What frustrates people who then complain about the state of Google's search results is that most of this stuff is just pure crap. No one seems to have a problem with content being created to match a search phrase; it's the lack of time and money that has been put into creating this content that is causing the ruckus and the current moaning about Google's search results quality in the blogosphere and the press.

What does this mean for you?

The primary way to look at the changes Google implements is to think about where they are moving in the mid to long term. Changes like this are often designed to fix aspects of the search algorithm that are being exploited by spammers or more publicly, businesses like Demand Media who are exploiting the way their algorithm works for public profit.

If you really want to ensure your business acquires solid search rankings for now and into the future then the best strategy is to give Google what it wants and promote the living heck out of it.

Here's my (not so) secret sauce.

Create quality content that meets the information needs of prospective customers; that is designed to get found by people using very targeted search phrases that relate to their business pain and needs and your business proposition or products and services.

Make it viral, unique and sharable; make it something people want to tweet about and post to facebook and show to their boss, partner, peers. Make the process of sharing make the sharer look cool.

Promote it using all available social media channels. Identify relevant social media influencers and start an outreach campaign. Show those influencers how cool, interesting and important your stuff is to their audience and how good it will make them look to share it with them.

Track the results, watch the tweets in your social media monitoring tool of choice, track the inbound links and then tweak and do it all again. The reality is that Google is getting ranking signals from all over the place and it is getting easier to invest the time and money to do this properly than to look for loopholes that Google is simply going to close down soon.