Last week, Google unveiled a massive change to their algorithm, aimed almost explicitly at so-called “content farms.” According to a Google blog post on the 24th, the goal was to “reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.”
On the surface, that sounds fine – Google has always been very public with their goal of providing search users with the most relevant content. However, as David Goldman of CNN Money pointed out, publishers on the Webmaster World forum have been raging over what essentially amounts to Google crushing their business models.
I was quoted in Goldman’s article (shameless self plug), noting the controversy surrounding content farms and the fact that they can and do often produce excellent, authoritative content. Going forward, Google will have to make sure that they don’t devalue excellent content based on the site it’s posted on if they want to live up to giving searchers the best experience possible.
One interesting side note, this change comes just weeks after startup Blekko banned all known content farms from their results. I’ve recently begun rooting pretty hard for Blekko after discovering (kind of late) their excellent SEO tools, and if they’re playing a role in forcing Google to evolve, they’ll be extremely interesting to watch going forward.
So, what have you noticed since the change? Publishers, have you seen an increase or decrease in your traffic? Searchers, do you feel that Google’s results have been better? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page.