Warning: Google targets “low quality” websites.

Posted by: Andrew Barber

1 March 2011

In the past week Google, the world’s favourite search engine, has made some “pretty big” changes to its search algorithm in a move targeting “low quality” websites and punishing them by reducing their search engine rankings.

A blog posted by Google’s Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts provides more detail about the update, saying that it is “designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful”.

Singhal and Cutts also explain that the changes to Google 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”.

The changes have been seen by many commentators as move against what have become known as “content farms” - websites that are specifically built and populated with content aimed at gaining high search rankings in order to generate adverting revenues through page visits.  To achieve this, such sites employ writers to generate content which is often of poor quality and, in numerous cases, simply copied from other sites.

But Google has not openly said it is targeting content farms – simply those that are “low value” and “not very useful”.

The question is – how “useful” will Google consider the average website in the property industry?  Has it got “research”, “in-depth reports” and “thoughtful analysis”? Or will its content be considered poor and of low value?

Does the information it contain regarding properties constitute “original content”? Or will it be punished because of the use of estate agent clichés, which have been repeated a thousand times around the web?  Does the fact that it contains identical content (about this business park or that shopping centre) to that found on the developer’s website or those of the joint agents mean that its ranking on Google fall?

Singhal and Cutts’ blog concludes: “We can’t make a major improvement without affecting rankings for many sites. It has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down. Google depends on the high-quality content created by wonderful websites around the world, and we do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does”.

It is estimated that there are around 200 factors that can impact on a web site’s ranking with search engines – some more important than others.  This move by Google places more importance than ever on “high-quality content”.  Something worth thinking about next time you copy and paste some joint agent’s particulars onto your website.