Yesterday Google turned the Search Engine Optimization world on its head. I had been all ready to write about Axl Rose today, as the erstwhile Guns N’ Roses front-man is the subject of a great article on Business Change in the latest issue of a major business magazine. But Google has changed those plans for me. I’ll be talking about the former Bill Rose … umm … Bill Bailey next week.
Instead, today’s business change is all about Search Engine Optimization. Google has changed the way they process information in their index yet again, and the results are great for users . . . and could spell the end of content farms like Tim Armstrong’s AOL.
As Google’s Matt Cutts outlines in the official Google Blog Post on the matter, unscrupulous SEO Consultants turning out or re-purposing content for no reason other than to drive search engine traffic need to be stopped. Last week’s JC Penney debacle was just the latest and most egregious example of a problem that Google’s been trying to deal with for years.
The question, as I’ve asked before, is whether Google can possibly solve the SEO problem.
Danny Sullivan, one of the world’s most respected Search Engine Optimization pundits and an SEO Consultant himself, wrote about Google’s SEO Changes yesterday. And what remains unclear is whether Google is putting band-aids on the problem of unscrupulous Search Engine Optimization practices or building a real solution.
As I pointed out in my comment at Search Engine Land, there’s no “right” way to judge all of the ramifications in up or down valuation on a particular post. Downgrading a good post because it’s part of a bad collective is a problem. Leaving an overall bad post in place because it makes one or two good points is an issue, too.
Ultimately, we can only hope that the final outcome is that obvious content farms (and good luck defining “obvious content farms”) get gigged, and everything else is left to stand on its own merit.
Then, again, of course that’s my position. We do SEO Consulting and Search Engine Optimization, and we do it in a way that matches what I just said should be Google’s goal.
Google tweaks their SEO algorithm almost on a daily basis, so ultimately yesterday’s announcement may not really mean much beyond sounding an alarm from the people at Google. But Content Farms have already started dropping in Google’s Search Engine results, and if you’re doing SEO you need now more than ever to hire a Search Engine Optimization expert.
Stay tuned . . .
