In December, Google announced that it was targeting copied sites and domain name parking services as part of its ongoing effort to clear out low quality content across the web. Although this may seem like an endless task, Google announced yet another change to its algorithm in order to carry out the mission more effectively.
The Google blog revealed, “Today we’re publishing another list of search improvements, beginning a monthly series where we’ll be sharing even more details about the algorithm and feature enhancements we make on a near-daily basis.” As part of the effort, a new “parked domain classifier” will be used to identify domain names that are live, but not currently in use – in other words, parked domains that exist only to create clicks and profits for their owners by serving up ads to visitors (ads that are rarely clicked on because savvy users don’t often find them valuable).
It’s been about three years since Google embarked on its first endeavors to “clean up” the Internet. In 2008, then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt told magazine executives that the Internet was a “cesspool” where false information thrives – and indicated that eventually, Google would aim to do something about it. Of course, the most significant portion of the effort thus far has been the implementation of Google Panda, launched this past February, which penalizes websites that duplicate their content throughout the web, use “bad” links and commit other search travesties.
Now, its most recent move will also target copied sites (sometimes called “scraper sites”) which were built with content stolen from other sites, often because an SEO company stole the content from one of its client’s national competitors. Regarding this, the Google stated, “We added new signals to help us make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.” This will help ensure that the offending site will be the one that is penalized in search results, rather than the site that produced the content originally and is the innocent party.
These are good developments for our Los Angeles SEO clients, and California SEO clients as a whole. Anytime Google rewards producers of quality, original content, it can only benefit the businesses that populate the web community.
Learn more: Top Google Algorithm Changes of 2011, courtesy of HigherVisibility.com.
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