New Google Algorithm Rewards Content
Google announced an update to their search spam filter, Penguin, in their efforts to reward sites with great content. The algorithm is designed to prevent fraudulent or malicious websites from using keyword spam to improve their standing in search results, but can have a negative impact on the SEO efforts of legitimate websites as well.
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, noted on Twitter on Friday that the new 2.1 version of the algorithm will only impact about 1% of Google’s total search traffic.
Since its introduction in 2012, Penguin has forced web curators to edit their SEO practices and ensure that elements like their page content and URLs correctly match their meta tags and keywords. The Penguin 2.1 update follows Google’s recent Hummingbird search algorithm update, which is designed to better handle natural language queries and voice input.
The significance of this new update remains to be seen. Have you already noticed any positive or negative changes in traffic since Google’s update? What are you doing with SEO to adapt to Google’s frequent algorithm changes?
