Fresh Content Is Not King
Good content is king, not ‘fresh’ content or ‘chase the long tail’ content or ‘copied and rehashed’ content. No, just plain old good content. Why? Well, Google says so and anyone who ever access the web to try to find out something says so too… but mainly Google.
Which ever way you look at it the ‘Farmer’ or ‘Panda’ update from Google was coming from a long way off. Why? Well people thought they had found a loop hole in getting less than great content to rank well. You know the type of sites/pages? No? Well, have you ever looked for something like ‘get ketchup off of a carpet’ (beautifully worded I know, but intentionally worded for search)? If you have you could have some across a page like this…
How to get Ketchup off a Carpet
1. Ketchup is another name for tomato sauce and is used to complement many dishes.
2. Carpets are used on hard floors and come in a variety of different styles and colours.
3. Spilling ketchup on carpets can cause stains.
4. If you have split ketchup on your carpet and want to know ‘how to get ketchup off a carpet’ you should consult a specialist carpet cleaner.
Queue AdSense adverts…
Know what I mean? Did you think that Google would not deal with this type of site at some stage? There are other types of sites that Google have attacked on this recent update too, but they all mainly centre around ‘thin’ content or ‘content free’ content as I like to call it.
How have Google done it? Well, the update seems to be site specific and not page specific. This seems like a sensible first stab at this as it is a lot easier to create some rules that would apply to a domain with thin content rather than do this by page, which would lead to lots more work and a far deeper algorithm change. However, watch this space as it will come one day.
So, just to revise my initial words, ‘fresh’ content is king (update you website every minute of the day if you can) and ‘long tail’ content is king too (around 30% of Google searches every day are totally ‘new’ to Google). However, if it is not ‘good’ content then you are most defiantly on Google’s radar. Be warned…
