Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced changes to the way the company's search engine algorithm works. The update, designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites and provide better rankings for high-quality sites, is projected to affect nearly 12 percent of search queries.
With this update, Google is reportedly targeting 'content farms', which publish insipid articles structured around key words that are searched for. Such sites have been working their way to the top of Google search results. High rankings in search results are seen to be crucial as they allow websites to get more traffic and bring in more business, either through sales of goods and services or through advertising.
Google regulates its algorithms several times each year. Most of the adjustments are so minor that users do not notice them. However, according to Google, the latest change will be a little harder to miss. It reportedly took the company one year to come about with a fair way to weed out bad websites. The company is also working on many more updates that it believes will substantially improve the quality of the pages in its results.
The team at Google has said that this update does not rely on the feedback received from the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which it launched last week. However, it did compare the Blocklist data gathered with the sites identified by its algorithm.
The company is launching this change in the US only, to start with. It plans to roll it out elsewhere over time.
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