Fighting over optimisation
Google is making a change to its search algorithm to fight “over-optimization” and instead favour websites with high-quality content and less refined search-engine optimisation.
Google plans to punish sites that violate the company’s “existing quality guidelines” and is intended to reward those “making great sites for users, not just algorithms." The changes cut the amount of content that surfaces high in a user’s search results on Google but that is not particularly useful or valuable.
The algorithm would decide if websites “throw too many keywords on the page, or whether they exchange way too many links. The company calls the problem “keyword stuffing” and “link schemes,” that violate its guidelines. The shift to Google’s algorithm is likely to affect, at least initially, some websites that aren’t clearly violating its guidelines.
Google did not provide specifics about how the algorithm will differentiate useful content from Web spam. It says that the changes will affect about three percent of search queries.
Nick Farrell
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