The latest on update Austin, p.2

January 30, 2004

Google’s new “weapons of mass destruction”
What is really clear at this point is Google’s unique way to find sites that attempt to use spam techniques or certain methods that are forbidden by most major search engines, such as cloaking. In fact, to rectify this situation, on January 25, Google has changed the IP addresses of most of its data centers all over the world, in an effort to combat such abused techniques.

What is really peculiar about this update is that the majority of the sites we have been optimizing for the past 12 months have actually gone up in their rankings. Still, we are hearing and reading of reports in the industry that some websites (in no particular industry) have seen their PR (Page Rank™) drop one point for no apparent reason. Sites that for the past two years had a PR of 6 dropped to 5, with no real changes in the number of outbound links pointing to them.

This is indicative that Google has changed the formula to calculate the number of outbound links used in computing the resulting PR value a site should have, in relation to its competing sites. It is also believed that Google now looks at the ‘theme’ of a site and looks at the relevancy of links to better calculate PR. Sites in the same industry will benefit more than before, while others which get the majority of their links from sites that have nothing to do with them could see their Page Rank™ value go down, as some did on January 23rd. (For good tips on the best way to increase your link popularity, click here).

It is clear by now that Google is making some significant improvements and some major changes to its search algorithm. Get used to this, as my feeling is that it will continue for the next several months. It is my belief that, from the month of November to this date, sites that haven’t gone through any significant loss in their rankings could very well fall in the “victims category” if they happen to use any forbidden techniques or unethical SEO practices described earlier.

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Article written by Serge Thibodeau,
President & CEO,
Rank for $ales
Copyright (c) Serge Thibodeau 2003

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