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Date published
December 5, 2011
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Google has announced 10 search changes – a mix of algorithmic, crawling, and user interface updates. Better long-tail indexing and parked domain detection are among the announced changes. Additionally, Google has committed to writing a new post with algorithm updates each month.
The 10 Changes
Here’s a quick breakdown of the 10 changes and what they mean for you:
- “Related query results refinements.” More results will be excluded when synonyms and related terms conflict with other words or phrases in the search query.
- “More comprehensive indexing.” Google is getting better at finding long-tail documents, making long-tail optimization even more important.
- “New ‘parked domain’ classifier.” Google now detects parked domains more easily, making them less likely to show up in the SERP.
- “More autocomplete predictions.” Does what it says.
- “Fresher and more complete blog search results.” Blog content now has a faster and deeper indexing system, making your blog even more valuable and likely to surface on the SERP.
- “Original content.” Google has “added new signals to help us make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.” In other words, Google has added some scraper counter-measures.
- “Live results for Major League Soccer and the Canadian Football League.” Does what it says.
- “Image result freshness.” Google is now better at finding fresh images for news queries.
- “Layout on tablets.” Tablet users will see some changes in the color and layout that make Google more usable.
- “Top result selection code rewrite.” The code that “ensures that we don’t show too many results from one site” has been rewritten. While it will behave the same as before, it is now “easier to understand, simpler to maintain, and more flexible for future extensions.”
These search changes were showcased on the Inside Search blog. Google announced they will deliver a series of similar posts that discuss smaller algorithm changes once per month, just as they did in November. These posts will supplement any independent blog posts highlighting major algorithm changes.
Do you think this series is giving enough transparency? Do you want more? Is Google playing a risky game by telling competitors so much? Give us your thoughts in the comments.