Google has made the next move in its game of cat and mouse against web spammers. With the release of the newest algorithm update, which went live on April 24th, Google seeks to further target black hat SEO and webspam practices to make a better browsing experience for everyone.
Black hat SEO is the practice of exploiting loopholes in Google’s search algorithms to gain false favorability in search indexing. This includes techniques such as keyword stuffing, unrelated hyperlinking, and link trading.
Google does currently look for these exploitations but their newest algorithm, entitled the ‘webspam algorithm update’, will further identify and penalize websites participating in these practices. The goal of this is not for Google to become some kind of internet content police, but to filter out irrelevant spam and reveal the best and most original content-centered websites.
With so much information being recirculated from website to website these days, truly original content is becoming harder to find. Shouldn’t the originators of the internet’s content be given the most credit for their work?
With this new update, websites with high quality content will be given the best rankings. This is content that is original, frequent, and relevant to the page. SEO is still encouraged by Google, including keyword analysis and hyperlinking, but the focus on relevancy has been greatly increased. No more keyword stuffing to catch every search term possible, and no more misdirected links.
Honest business in the only acceptable business practice now that information is free and accountability among companies is higher than ever. Since SEO is somewhat of a hidden process, businesses have previously been able to get away with some shady practices. Google is now holding everyone accountable for the same level of online quality, and just like in the real market, inferior quality will eventually sink down into oblivion.
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