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On around November 17th 2003 Google introduced a new algorithm which caused many
sites to lose rankings on Google indexes for keywords that they previously
performed well on. Most of the sites affected in this way were commercial
sites, that is .org, .edu and .gov sites seem to have been unaffected. For
some time, many Google watchers assumed that this had been a massive blunder on
the part of Google and patiently waited for Google to roll-back the change, or at
least implement a fix that went some way to restoring the index to its former
state. However, this never happened. There was a slight adjustment in January
2004, but nothing significant. The changes (which involve the use of a
filter), appear to be here to stay.
Many of the sites to lose rankings
are highly relevant to the search terms entered and much debate and research
has taken place since then in an attempt to come up with an explanation for a
seemingly detrimental change.
The most plausible explanation that I have
seen proposes that Google is attempting to separate commercial from
non-commercial sites, akin to the categorizations in white and yellow
telephone directories: white pages give you listings by company, yellow pages
give you access to the same information using keywords. Apply this to Google and
you get generic commercial keywords producing directory listings on the left,
and keyword specific paid listings on the right. This, in my mind, is an
explanation for why directory pages listing commercial sites appear to be
growing in number in Google results, and increasingly I am forced to use the ads
on the right to find what I want.
This also explains why many
non-commercial sites remain unaffected by the filter. This move to separate
commercial from non-commercial sites appears to keep Google ahead of the
competition, and by driving commercial sites down the Google Ads route, it will
be highly beneficial to Google's revenue stream.
Another theory is that Google is trying to make it less easy to achieve a
high rank on its search engines by link manipulation. By this means
search engine optimizers were able to achieve top 10 rankings by link
exchange. Analysis of inbound and outbound links was originally designed to
give an accurate guide as to the importance of each site. Sites linked to by
high ranking sites were given a ranking boost.
If this is the case,
penalizing the unscrupulous is also heavily penalizing the genuine,
informative, content-rich but well-connected site.
Graphically,
the diagram below shows the major search engines' relevant
market share:
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More search engine information...
Yahoo : Strictly speaking this is not a search engine, but a
directory and presents its search results by alphabetical category. Yahoo charge a fee for commercial
submission (currently £199 plus VAT).
Google : In our opinion the most important search engine in
which to be listed. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford
University, and is now very popular and highly rated for its ease of use,
additional facilities and the relevance of its results. Site submission to Google is free.
LookSmart : Inclusion on LookSmart means your site will
also be listed on AltaVista ,
MSN , Tiscali ,
BTOpenworld , ntl:home and
UKPlus . However, listing is not free, currently incurring a fee of
£149 plus VAT.
Overture : Provides a range of results to other major search engines
such as AltaVista ,
MSN , Lycos , AOL and Freeserve . However,
the cost depends on the popularity of the keywords used. Overture charges a
listing fee of £49 (full service) or £100 (full service plus) for
inclusion.
AltaVista : Still used by a significant number of users,
but diminishing in popularity. AltaVista has a basic submission (free), Express
and Trusted Feed (corporate sites) submissions.
Inktomi : Provides results to over 300 different search engines
throughout the world. Inktomi has a paid submission process for individual site
pages.
dmoz : (Open Directory Project) dmoz is a directory similar in
principle to Yahoo. It differs in that the contents of dmoz are compiled by a
vast global community of unpaid volunteers who manually assess each submission.
dmoz powers the core directory services for the web's largest and most popular
search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others. |
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