Well it’s happened – Google has made another update, and SEO companies the world over are either crying in their milk or whooping and hollering for joy. Of course this update has far reaching implications for all and sundry and could either change the web for the good, or have a far more likely outcome of compromising it severely.
Google’s newest freshness update ensures that search’s are provided with the most relevant and recent information. This makes complete sense and sounds ideal – especially if you consider the fact that searching for information on Olympics (for example) will now provide you with information on London 2012 and not just information on random Olympic events. People are probably searching for the most recent event and giving them this information is definitely of benefit.
However when you consider this from a company’s perspective, it is now incumbent upon them to update their site more frequently as their competitors with more recent updates will be showing up higher in search results. Amit Singhal, one of Google’s head honcho’s and resident geniuses provided this information about the update:
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“Search results... are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent...
If I search for [Olympics] I probably want information about next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics ... Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results...
... the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure (it) out”
With this being said, we obviously need consider the question of quantity versus quality. If many organizations post frequent updates does that mean they are better than their competitors or does it just mean that they have a larger marketing and PR budget?! Google’s update focuses primarily on the areas of recent & regularly occurring events, hot topics and frequent updates and as it propagates throughout the web; its impact is bound to be widespread.
I guess the short answer for companies and SEO firms is that the lessons of the past are still paramount – keyword stuffing and meta-tags do not make for good quality SEO content. Google and other search firms will continue to look at links (backlinks etc...) from high value sites and evaluate the links to ensure that they are relevant and appropriate. With that being said, companies are much more likely to link to your content if it makes sense, is well written, and matches their search terms. In the long run, having lots of redundant and irrelevant content will only ensure that your site receives lots of bounces, which is no ones idea of success!