Google have once again released a list of changes they have made to their search algorithm. As usual it is a little vague in places so there is an element of reading between the lines. I have gone through these changes and bullet-pointed the major ones which could affect search engine optimisation. If you would like to read the original post from Google it is here.
- Freshness – Google have ‘improved’ the algorithm (Panda update) to favour sites that are updated more recently. Our tip is to add a social media feed to the site or keep updating the content (only if relevant) to ensure it is fresh.
- Changes to image searches – Changes have been made to searching images to find relevant images (not site) for your search. If your site is ranked on page 3 for the keyword it doesn’t mean an image on your site is also. If it is relevant to the keyword it could be on the first page. If you are not optimising images you should be, get in touch we can help, either on Twitter, Facebook or Email.
- Tweaking of Anchor text – Google have made changes to the value of the anchor text. They obviously haven’t said what the changes are but we advise to vary your anchor text and also use similar words; ie: if your keyword is ‘garden furniture’ a similar anchor text could be ‘turf for lawn’.
- Updates to UI for mobiles – Changes have been made for mobile devices searching for Apps, they have basically made the results easier to read on smaller screens incorporating app icons, star ratings, prices and download buttons. It’s not just sites selling Apps that need to optimise their sites for mobile devices, ALL sites should be. We have more information on search engine optimisation for mobile devices here.
- Improvement to detect the quality of a site – They have made changes to how they decide if the site is of quality. This is very very vague, this could mean the quality of the content, the links to it or something completely different.
- Update to personalisation signals – Google have updated their algorithm which personalises search results. Tip – If you are not using Google+ yet, time to get on board!
- Removal of ‘stale’ pages – Once again changes which favour fresh content, fewer stale pages will shown up in search results.
- Improve the date detection on Blogs and Forums – They have improved it, that’s it! If your blog or forum has seen ranking changes this could be involved.
- Expanded sitelinks for mobile devices – Google have recently launched expanded sitelinks for mobiles, we have an up and coming blog post on this subject soon. We will shout on Twitter/Facebook when it is online.
There you have it!