Search giant Google has undertaken various changes in its search algorithm during this year’s first quarter, including updates that will help small businesses and harm websites that feature too many ads.
Google’s Panda to Care for [Business] Cubs
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, revealed during the Search Marketing Expo in March that the company’s search team will update algorithms for the “next generation” Panda system. The update, which the website Search Engine Land described as “softer and gentler,” will feature an algorithm tweak that aims to help small web sites and businesses do better in the Google search results.
However, Cutts has yet to give further details on when these changes to Panda will be rolled out. While Google is incorporating updates to its algorithm every month or so, the company is unlikely to confirm future updates.
Overdue Credit for Panda
Knowing Google, the rollout for the update that aims to help small businesses might take a couple of months or a bit more, which is preferable to the length of time between Panda’s release to the world and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s granting of a patent on ranking search results for Panda’s creator.
SEO by the Sea reported recently that a patent on ranking search results which was assigned to Google credited Navneet Panda and Vladimir Ofitserov as inventors. Panda was released February 2011, which means it took the U.S. patent office more than three years before an operating search technology was given patent credits. Fortunately, Google acts fast, for its planned Panda update was revealed only a month after the company penalized ad spamming websites in search results.
Google Punishes Ad-heavy Sites
In February, Cutts said that Google refreshed its page layout algorithm to insert a filter that aims to downgrade search ranking of websites deemed “top heavy” with ads. As a result, websites featuring too many ads at the top or promos that are too distracting are penalized in Google’s search results.
Google had said that a website that dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads is deemed to result in poor user experience and will not rank as highly in future search rankings.
The updated page layout algorithm, referred to as the “Top Heavy” algorithm was the first one released for this year and the third since the first update was released in January 2012. That first update affected less than 1% of English searches, while the second update, released October 2012, affected about 0.7% of searches.
Members of SME Network Australia: web design services
google adwords management
Authored by: Kristy Smith
