As a relatively seasoned internet marketer, keeping on top of search engine algorithm changes — especially Google — is tantamount to implementing effective and meaningful SEO for both my clients and myself. It would be a bad investment of resources and time to neglect the most recent and up-to-date internet marketing technology, and even more foolish to think a business can operate in such a manner.
For the average person these algorithm updates mean very little because they have little, if no affect on their day-to-day living, especially if they have no website or business. In contrast, however, for internet marketers and many businesses changes of this nature can either be rewarding or catastrophic! For the most part these updates will have no negative consequences for internet marketers who are playing by the rules, and the same principle applies to businesses. There is a catch, however. Some times mistakes happen and these mistakes can affect legitimate people and places. Is it possible that the recent Google algorithm update backfired?
In its most recent algorithm update Google is weeding out websites that simply publish and republish content and effectively have poor value to the average internet surfer. Internet marketers refer to these sites as “link farms”. Essentially link farms serve no valuable purpose other than helping to promote a product, service, or website, and the internet is peppered with these manure lagoons. While not all of these publishing resources can be referred to as manure lagoons, others are merely plagued with website content that is copied from another site and used for several reasons that include manipulating certain words or phrases in the search engines, and earning passive income from advertisers. I wish to focus on the former.
As I stated Google is attempting to make search results better, and their latest algorithm update is primarily focused on eliminating link farms which help manipulate less legitimate website to appear higher in the search engine rankings where people are more likely to visit. If you market websites primarily to earn revenue on ads or affiliate products, having your website on the first page of search results is essential. But for the average user these sites are not as beneficial as the genuine business that sell the service or product being sought from the merchant. Nevertheless, the 3rd party proxy sites seem to dominate a majority of the time, and apparently Google thought they might fix that? Eviscerate the link farms that help rank the 3rd party proxy sites, and the search results would be more beneficial, or so Google thought.
What appears to have happened is that Google implemented some tweak in their algorithm to identify and demote sites that have duplicate and/or copied content — such content that typically appears in these link farms. Unfortunately this latest change is actually having negative consequences for legitimate websites that have unknowingly had their content plagiarized and published elsewhere. And what makes it even worse is that the owners of these sites are alleging that despite their sites being demoted, the sites that actually plagiarized the original content from their [the owners’] sites are ranking better than the sites where the content originated. This really is tragic and unfortunate for many legitimate and trusted businesses and internet marketers alike.
My prediction is that the recent Google algorithm update backfired and they will soon be re-tweaking it to straighten things out. Will this undo the harm already done? Probably not. Will the “wrongly convicted” websites eventually make their way back to the place they belong? Perhaps. But what really begs the question is, what affirmative and preventative steps can be made to ensure that your website is not wrongly sent out into cyberspace oblivion? The answer is Copyscape! With this awesome resource you can quickly see if any of your website content has been plagiarized, and thereby making YOU a potential candidate for catastrophe! I would promptly check all of your websites!
As one can quickly deduce, anyone can go and copy content from a reputable and trusted source and simply publish it on their own website in the hopes of earning some advertising revenue. Fortunately recourse is available under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by filing a DMCA complaint with Google.