If you want to know what Google is attempting to do with their algorithm changes, think of an hour-long TV show, For most commercial TV shows, you have about 40 minutes of programming and about 20 minutes of commercials. How much would you enjoy your favorite show if you had 40 minutes of commercials and your show was reduced to 20 minutes? What if it was worse than that? What if you only got about 10 minutes of programming?
That is the direction the Internet has been taking. The content that has real meaning and value and relevance has been slowly replaced by content that only has an ulterior motive. It has removed the usefulness and the value of what is found on the Internet. The quest to get to the top in search engine rankings, has left in its wake, millions of pages of junk, trash, meaningless jibber and wasted real estate.
It’s time to shut down the tricks and manipulations and unintelligible nonsense that has polluted the Internet and return it to the users who want to derive some benefit from its existence.
Google to the rescue
Enter Google, the search engine that accounts for about 70 percent of Internet searches. Google has said that the content that has polluted the Internet has to go. The way they are approaching this task is to cast the junk to the end of the line, or more accurately, the end of the search result rankings. That means that the junk will never be found in organic search. And, in effect, the useful, relevant content will end up on the first page of search results where people will actually find it and use it.
All of the keyword stuffing, article directory links, meaningless, unreadable content, link back schemes such as link farming, variations in what spiders and humans see on a site, invisible text, cloaking, article spinning and even malware are all ruining the Internet experience. These black hat strategies are designed to fool the search engine spiders and have no regard for the Internet user. They are often used to turn a quick buck and to artificially propel a site to the top of the search engine results.
In the snippets of information that Google has released about their algorithm and it’s updates, we have learned that the search engine giant is out to reclaim the Internet for the user who wants to derive some benefits from its use. The digital pollution has got to go. It’s time the Internet is cleaned up and given back to the human users.
There is a message in all this for content providers, such as writers. Make certain to provide something of benefit to the users of the Internet. Make certain that every site has some kind of take-away for the visitor, regardless of the level of value of that information. Whether simply entertaining or utilitarian, content that provides a benefit to the site visitor has value.
That makes for a better Internet.
© 2014 K Richard Douglas
