It’s Thursday, April 25, 2024 and 72°F in Austin, Texas

New Google Update - What it Means

"Google Fresh" - what you need to know.

A few days ago I received an email from a group I subscribe to called "Web Pro News". They provide great information on what's happening in the SEO world and what impact various changes have for web design companies and website mangers who are concerned about search engine placement (isn't this everyone?).

For most people Search Engine Optimization is a mystery, even experts find it hard to keep on top of changes Google makes to its algorithm.

They are calling this newest, subtle algorithm update "Google Fresh".

Anyway, this newest change means that blogs, knowledge centers and articles on sites are even more important than ever. Google is now going to give even more value to timely (think daily or even several times daily) postings.

I really recommend this online video by SEOMoz's Rand Fishkin - watch it and learn more about the importance of articles and frequent postings on key words that are 'in the news'. As an example, a tree care site could write articles on the Texas drought or picking the right Christmas tree. These articles could be discovered by Google could bring in huge numbers of web visitors the very day they were published.

According to Lisa Buyer of Search Engine Watch (here's a link to her article):

Last week the search engine giant announced the freshest news possible would show up in search results thanks to its new and improved algorithm. The so-called freshness update will impact somewhere between 6 and 35 percent of web searches and deliver more up-to-date and relevant search results. This includes searches for recent events, hot topics, current reviews and news items....

What does SEO expert Bruce Clay think of all this Google freshness?

“Over time websites accumulate a lot of older and out-of-date content that is seldom refreshed. In those cases it is best to refresh the content, or to replace the content with a new replacement page and 301 the old content URL to that new content,” Clay said.

Great content generates links and likes, and mediocre content will draw nothing but Panda penalties and no rankings. Having content for the sake of content is sometimes a good thing, but most often it will not generate traffic unless it is quality content.

“In the freshness race this seems to be forgotten. The freshness race appears to give credibility to the site with the most writers,” said Clay who offers a full-day Search Engine Optimization Training Workshop at SES Chicago on Friday, November 18. “The one-person company generating perfect content will find it difficult to compete against the company with a team of writers generating good, but not as good of content… the freshness race seems biased by quantity of fresh content instead of the quality of the content.”

Bottom line: companies need to focus on delivering quality news types of content that searchers will “Like” and Google will “Link.”

Bob Atchison

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