The Facts Matt Cutts Did Not Tell You Behind Google’s Algorithm Changes

Posted on by Vivek Krishnan in Blog Tips

I recently covered a post on the major algorithm change brought in by Google. The new algorithm update is a stringent move from the search engine giant to pull down the rankings of duplicate content websites. This announcement was made by Google Fellow Amit Singhal and principal engineer Matt Cutts. The reason for this change as told by Matt Cutts was :

“This update is designed 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. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites–sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on“

In response to this post one of my readers, Henway (www.vibeshares.com), left the following comment:

“I know Google is a business, and they can change the algorithm however they seem fit, but they’re just too big IMO. Every major algorithm change has a huge effect on the economy. I know some people who are firing people because of this. I know this is how business works, but when you have such a dramatic impact on the economy, something needs to be done. Maybe they need to be split or something”

Okay, agreed. Google is now a force that has also become a source of business to many other enterprises such as SEO companies, internet marketing companies, bloggers etc. Google is now a global industry which is providing jobs for millions of other professionals. So what is the reason behind this update where 11.8% of its queries will be affected. And considering, the volume of daily searches on Google worldwide – 11.8% is a pretty big chunk.

So here are some facts I feel are behind the major algorithm change in Google:

The Web is Exploding!

The web is growing exponentially and it is already very big. Back in 2008, Google revealed that they had indexed 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs, belonging to hundreds  of millions of sites. In 2011 now, the number of indexed pages could be double of that in 2008. This simple statistic is enough for us to understand that the web is becoming very huge and is taking a toll on the resources of search engines.

Now search engines like Google have to find a faster and meaner way to index all the new pages and content posted every minute. A lot of content could still have been tackled well by Google, as it always has been. But the real problem is not a lot of content, instead its the similar content. Duplicate content is a waste of resources for these search engines and Google planned to tackle it head on. This is why we are seeing such a stringent algorithm update where duplicate content websites are being severely hit.

Google vs Bing is heating up

The battle between Google and Bing is starting to heat up. Right since the Bing launch around mid-2009, Google and Bing have been going one up on each other while introducing features. Although, Bing is a very good search engine with many innovative features their market is still way lesser than that of Google’s.

The two instances where these two search engines are involved in skirmishes are:

• Bing introduced the instant preview feature for its search results after Google earned great success. Instant preview is a feature where the mini webpage preview will be displayed when the mouse is hovered over a particular search result.
• Google will introduce a feature similar to Bing’s “Recent Searches”, only called “Recent Pages”, which will list your 5 most recently clicked on search results for easier recollection later on.
• Google and Bing intend to launch “app search” before this year is out. App search is the new frontier for search engines. This is to maintain the grasp on the increasing number of mobile users, search engines will need to be able to point out apps that might be relevant to your search – and even give them a one-click install option.

The battle between Bing and Google has heated up to such an extent that Google has openly accused Bing of “copying” its search results.  Google claims it has conducted experiments that confirm that Microsoft™ search engine Bing is using web search results of Google. Google has even posted about the experiment on their official Google blog, here is the page:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html

This was the post by Microsoft Bing officials in response to Google:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-we-do-not-copy-googles-results/8557

It is a really appalling and open fight between these two search engines, which has forced Google for a big change in its search algorithm.

JCPenny and Overstock Controversy

Overstock (www.overstock.com) is one case where Google was easily manipulated for getting themselves a lot of traffic and customers. Overstock started to buy anchor text links from .edu websites. Many educational institutes use keywords such as bedding, books etc. on their website.  These were quickly anchor linked by Overstock, which is a ecommerce website that sells books, jewellery, bedding, sports equipments etc. Websites with a .edu rather than .com are more highly valued by Google. Since Academic institutions websites rarely link to commercial sites, so when it happens, the rankings of that site soar very very high. It turned into a mainstream issue with the NY Times, and Techcrunch talking about it, something needed to be done to put out the fire.

I feel these are the real reasons for this strict and major update in the Google algorithm rather than the “responsibility to keep the web eco-system healthy” statement that was provided by Matt Cutts. Let me know your views below.