HuffPuff-AOL didn't talk to Google?

HuffPuff-AOL didn't talk to Google?

The Googster is officially tweaking its algorithm to better screen out SEO-driven webpages. And, it went so far as to officially confirm that was the reason:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites — sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other Web sites or sites that are just not very useful,” Amit Singhal, a Google fellow, and Matt Cutts, who leads Google’s spam-fighting team, wrote in a company blog. “At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites — sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

More proof as to the nature of the targets?

Google’s announcement did not mention content farms. But Mr. Cutts has spoken in recent weeks about the problem and said Google was working on algorithm changes to fix it. “In general, there are some content farms that I think it would be fair to call spam, in the sense that the quality is so low-quality that people complain,” he said in a recent interview.

The company said, in that post, this should affect about 12 percent of blog searches. It also said that while this was a U.S.-only change for now, it would get rolled out worldwide, but that was coming soon enough. It also noted that a personal website "blacklist" tool on its Chrome browser, though not used in the algorithm tweaking, said the tweak caught about 85 percent of the most-blocked sites.

It also said that while some content farm shinola might rank high early on, the tweak would cumulatively reward the best sites, and so its effects should become more visible in months ahead.

So, the takeaway for HuffPuff-AOL should be that just because CEO Ted Armstrong used to work at Google Ads, the company will NOT be able to game Google's algorithm. Nor, in light of post-holiday shopping revelations, will a J.C. Penney be able to do that through web parking in the future.

That said, will that actually be the takeaway? I doubt it.

To the investment world public, Armstrong will probably claim that AOL sites (even though eHow) was mentioned in the blog) aren't "content farms." Inside the AOL hive, he'll probably work on a mix of redoubled efforts to game or crack the algorithm, on the one hand, and overwhelm it, and us in general, on the other.

That, in turn, will mean that the poor HuffPuffers, individually, will see their individual posts hidden in an ever-bigger blizzard, thereby denting their vanity. As for the pay-per-piece Demand Media, I'm sure teh Google's tweak will hit you, too.

And, indeed it will. Wired has an excellent in-depth piece on what this likely will, and won't, mean. (It's more pessimistic than the NYT blog about how much or little effect it will have, referencing Google's idea that an algorithm should be "neutral." [Bullshit. If true, you wouldn't tweak it.])

Re Demand:

Demand Media is highly reliant on Google for traffic to its sites and in its filings with the SEC noted that a change in Google’s algorithms could materially affect the company’s prospects.

But on Friday, the company tried to downplay the significance of Google, saying the company was increasingly getting loyal users and traffic via Facebook and Twitter:

“It’s impossible to speculate how these or any changes made by Google impact any online business in the long term – but at this point in time, we haven’t seen a material net impact on our Content & Media business. [O]ur properties are developing into recognizable consumer brands that are delivering real value to an increasingly loyal community.”

And, re Google's "neutral" bullshitting, some day, I may just start using Blekko or something.