Google’s menagerie continues to grow

Matt Jones

Last week saw another significant algorithm adjustment from Google, which has delivered another beast to its growing virtual zoo.

The Penguin update is one which many SEO marketers will likely welcome. Much more fundamentally however, it could also be one which worries those marketers who thought they were adhering to white hat practices.

The latest search update will specifically target those websites deemed to be abusing SEO to increase their results on the SERPs. Once again, it is essentially all about relevancy.

According to Google, there are too many websites that are rich in SEO but, when drilling into the related content, the final text delivered to the user falls short of what was promised. As such, those sites where the content informs and engages well will be promoted up the rankings.

In a blog post about the launch, Google’s Matt Cutts alluded to one site where the content hosted was overloaded with keywords linking to other pages. Said to offer very little in service delivery to customers, it presently has crawlers tricked into escalating rankings.

In essence, it is not an update that those who create content well should be concerned with. However, it may require the use of better writers, better researchers and those that can write both creatively but not too creatively to miss the point. In essence, it should promote skills.

This is of course just the opening salvo from the Penguin incarnation and monitoring its progress will increasingly be important. Those SEO companies managing to respond to its demands will have completed a happy feat indeed.