By Derek Ashauer
Google recently updated their search result algorithm which they do frequently. However, this update was a bit bigger than normal and has seemed to affect quite a few websites (11.8% according to Google).
What changed?
This update was intended to make corrections for sites that put extremely poor quality content on their websites. For sites that simply copy/paste content from another site and write content that is plain bad and not useful for internet users, your site will be negatively affected. If you have high-quality content like original information, useful articles, thoughtful analysis, etc. then your site will benefit from the update.
Most of the sites that got hit the hardest are ones that grab articles from various other websites and re-publish them into one website. Also hit are people who don’t write their own original content and have grabbed it from various sources to put on their own site (something that our clients are most likely to have done). Even if you change the content a little bit, that may not be enough to avoid being penalized by this algorithm update.
How are we responding?
As we state over and over, our search engine optimization strategy is to write unique articles that internet users will find useful. Then, we use those articles to try to get other websites to link to yours. This is why Search Engine Optimization is expensive – it takes a lot of time to create original, useful content for your website and then get others to link to it. So we aren’t really changing anything because our strategy is right in line with what Google is doing with their algorithm.