Usually, when Google tweaks their algorithm, the changes are so subtle that most don’t notice them. But last week, however, Google made its biggest tweaks in quite some time. The changes are expected to affect 12% of their search results.
“Our goal is simple: to give users the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible,” said Gabriel Stricker, Google spokesman. “This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content — both good and bad — comes online all the time. Recently we’ve heard from our users that they want to see fewer low quality sites in our results.”
This is supposed to affect “content farms” the most, so we personally don’t care too much. However, some are outraged. Check out some of these comments from people on the WebmasterWorld forum.
“Why is it that every single time the search engine result page starts to stabilize and sales return, Google has to throw a monkey wrench in the system again?” asked commenter backdraft7. “Hey Google, this is not fun anymore – YOU’RE KILLING OUR BUSINESSES!”
“My God. I just lost 40% of my traffic from Google today,” said commenter DickBaker. “Referrals from Yahoo, Bing, direct sources, and other sources are the same, but Google dropped like a rock.”
Let’s be honest, the reason Google has to tweak their algorithm every so often is because there are hacks out there who are trying to beat the search engine giant at their own game. But, Google always seems to catch up.
“Content originators make money, and Google makes money,” said Whit Andrews, analyst for Gartner. “Their interests will always be in conflict, and as long as there is greed, people will try to game system.”
