Every once in a while, Google throws a curve ball into the SEO and SEM game, and their latest update in February 2011 was no exception. In fact, it’s looking to be a game changer for a lot of people – writers, small, self-managed website owners and online media companies that largely rely on revenue from advertisements placed alongside articles on a vast array of topics. Because the speculation and rumors about this algorithmic update are flying high along with the digital dust that this change stirred up, it’s a bit difficult to try and assess the real-world changes that took place just a few days back. However, here’s our assessment on the latest Google update and how it can affect the online marketplace.
As per Google, they want to return high-quality, relevant results for terms that people search for. As a search engine, that should be their goal. Over time, though, certain types of websites have dominated Google’s top results for a barrage of highly-focused queries, or long-tail keywords. These sites, which have been coined ‘content mills’ by the public, are essentially repositories of content, or high-end article directories.
Google’s recent update, which affects nearly 12% of the search giant’s queries, essentially lowers the ranking of pages for these low-value, high duplicate content websites. Those are Google’s thoughts on the affected websites – not necessarily everyones. While Google didn’t name websites affected by their recent algorithmic update, some sites affected are reported to be AssociatedContent.com, EzineArticles.com and various Demand Studios properties.
Real-world changes to the online marketplace
This update affects more than just a small handful of websites, however. While adjusting the results of 12% of their search queries is no small change to begin with, these content mills, as they’re called, provide direct and indirect revenue for a lot of people.
Online media companies
Online media companies that predominantly deal with written content will be hit the hardest and will feel the effects immediately. The majority of these websites, if not all of them, earn money through advertisements shown alongside the articles on their websites. Because they are either paid by their advertisers based on page views or ad clickthroughs, the lowered traffic from Google can have a devastating effect on their financial bottom line.
Online marketers and small online business owners
Many website owners use ‘content mills’, otherwise known as article directories, to build links to their websites, to brand their websites and to increase their website’s visibility in search engines. EzineArticles is a popular resource for website owners, and by Google lowering the ranking of EzineArticle’s pages, this cuts the amount of exposure to these website owners’ websites significantly. Being that in the past, I have advocated article marketing, this concerns me because there are people out there that use this method solely to bring in commissions. (Not exactly smart on their part, but ignorance is a pain in the pocket sometimes.)
Freelance writers
Freelance writers produce content not only for online media companies, such as Demand Studios and Associated Content, but also for website owners who want to publish articles on article directories. If online media companies have a sudden loss in revenue, that will quickly affect the writers’ revenue. Likewise, if marketing through article directories suddenly becomes less effective, the demand for freelance writing services will likely decrease as well.
However, Google’s latest update, though affecting 12% of their search queries, potentially affects tens-of-thousands of individuals who develop and publish the content targeting those queries through articles on directories. While this change may, in fact, improve Google’s search results, that fact doesn’t provide much solace to those who’ve just been dealt a painful blow from the ‘Do No Evil’ search giant.
Continue to create quality content people.
