Google favours Fresh Content

Shock, Horror! Really?

If I've mentioned it before then I'll have to mention it again, Google's job is to provide their users with the most relevant results for their search query. The fact that they've updated their algorithm to push up the results that are more recent should really come as no shock to anyone: it makes completely logical sense and I guess the only surprise is that they haven’t already made such an update (that said they needed to do Panda first so that this update didn’t just bombard users with the latest Spam and spun articles).

I think the way it’s been announced might have a lot to do with the slightly worried tone of many of the blogs on the subject, this new change is set to alter the results of about 35% of searches. At least 2 industry blogs have aimed to quell fears of a mass change in everybody’s ranking.

The truth is that what Google have changed (and they haven’t said how severe the changes will be, just how far reaching they will be) will not affect the SEO of most company websites ranking in their industries at all. 

Why? Because most websites do not deal in time dependent content.

The change has been made to prioritize recent and timely results, basically if your query could be time related then Google will aim to show the latest results for that. In many ways this is merely an extension of what they already do for certain queries but having cleaned out the time released dross with Panda, it looks as though Google are confident that by posting the latest genuine results they will increase their relevancy. In this I think they have a point.

Many simple searches, generic searches if you will the user often has an intention that they feel should blatant. i.e. Football Scores. Why would I search the generic term “Football Scores” if I wasn’t looking for the latest scores? In the same way a search for “Olympic Tickets” should get me information about the 2012 Olympics, not the 2008 games.

This goes further now than it did as previously, after the first couple of results from what we can term, “Vital” websites the impact of freshness of the results was questionable and at times it was downright impossible to find breaking news in the pile of old queries. Now we should see far more up to date results, and that’s a good thing!

Not only will it mean that its now easier to find out about the latest news stories but also for SEO for Google it will throw the spotlight further on QUALITY rather than speed. So now it may not matter so much being the first company on the web to blog about new news, as your response to such news might come a little later its actually your post that most likely to rank as it is more recent to the query from Google’s user. Because you’re not ruching your response to get ‘first mover advantage’ you can now make sure that you bang the ‘quality’ nail on the head and write a piece about the news that has some real meaning and impact – a blog or article that not only ranks well on Google, but also one that you are sure will help drive your business forward and engage customers better. In effect Google is pushing the SEO industry to work smarter rather than faster, and that’s ok by us!