In a video message SEO godfather at Google Matt Cutts anounced some new updates in the Google algorithm that will especially effect the way in which Google processes content (and the kind of content they’ll decide to show).
The algorithm changes will start to take effect during the summer, but the exact date is still te be announced. The basic rule remains the same: if your site contains quality content, you can rest assured. But you use black hat SEO, you will surely be busy this summer to reestablish a significant loss in traffic.
Cutts gives seven guidelines webmasters can work with. As always with Google, nothing is certain and you should take everything with a grain of salt. But these are useful tips anyways for people like us who are SEO addicts:
1. Penguin 2.0
With this update, Google plans to ban black hat spam. The successor of Penguin 1.0 works in a more profound way and will therefore have a greater impact.
2. Advertorials
Many advertorials do not meet Google’s quality guidelines. They’re misleading and don’t appeal to Google’s PageRank. Matt Cutts emphasized that in itself there is nothing wrong with advertorials as such as long as they’re announced and it is clear that it is paid advertising.
3. Upstream Linking
Buying links is further addressed and it will become even less effective than it already is.
4. Hacked sites
Google wants to release a new generation of ‘hacked detection’. Webmasters will also receive more information about malware and hacked sites.
5. Authority
If the Google algorithms detects that your site is an authority in a particular domain, you will gain more authority and rank higher than other sites. This goes hand in hand with the importance of constructing your online image and brand awareness.
6. Panda
In order to check quality content, Google will add additional criteria for sites that are in the ‘gray zone’. This is an additional control mechanism, so you’d better make sure users actually want to read your content instead of just blabbering away.
7. More info for webmasters
Webmasters will receive more specific and detailed information through webmaster tools. It will be easier to detect problems. This way more sites will be optimized, which will have an impact on the quality of the search results. Furthermore, Google plans to show even less spammy results.
For more information on Google’s algorithm change history, we recommend you to take a look at this page, where Moz listed all of the Google algorithm changes over the years in a very comprehensive way.
Below you can watch the video with Matt Cutts: