Google Changes Search Algorithm
Google recently made some big changes to its search algorithm. An article from CNN talks about the effects it has on businesses, positive and negative. In the past, Google’s changes have been slight and barely noticeable, but this adjustment as an attempt to push higher quality sites to the top of the lists has made a major changes to search results, and some businesses that have been pushed down are complaining. Google is such an important search engine these days that dropping even just to the second page can mean major losses in revenue.
As we discussed in class, search engines use the page-rank system to rank which websites are displayed first based on how many sites link to it and the quality of the sites that link to it (these make up the Authority and Hub Scores which are used in the page-rank algorithm to decide which sites to rank highest). However, this system is not perfect and search engines are always looking to improve their algorithms to give its users better results. This article addresses some of these imperfections and how Google’s new change attempts to fix them. Many sites try to “fool” this system by using what is called “content farms”, or websites that amass content based on the most-searched terms of the day in order to be at the top of search results. Another tactic Google is “cracking down on” is companies creating fake websites to link to their own so that Google’s algorithm will rank them higher. Companies such as JCPenny and Overstock.com have been accused of doing this. As we’ve seen in class, this method would indeed improve their ranking because the page-rank algorithm is based partially on the number of links to a site. While many who have gone down in the rankings are upset with these changes, the websites that have gone up are happy. Google is ever-changing to get the best quality sites to the top of results, and these changes were an attempt to prevent people from “cheating the system”. However, whenever Google changes and adjusts, websites and companies will counter-adjust and think of new ways to boost their ranking until Google again adjusts their algorithm.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/25/technology/gaming_google/index.htm
-sah267