Google Algorithm Change Shifts More Power On Exact Match Domains?
- Posted by Jordan
- 17 February 2012
With the constant changing times that we live in, you would think that we would all be used to the curve balls that seem to be thrown in our direction but the recent change to the Google ranking algorithm seems to have left us all scratching our heads as the change seems to be taking a step back in time.
Webmasters woke up earlier this month to find that their site had either taken a huge leap through the search engine rankings positions or taken a large hit to their position following the shift in power that seems to go against everything that industry professional and indeed Google had indicated through the limited stream of information that they drip into the online communities, seemingly giving more power to exact match domains after many revealed that they believe that Google will become more independent in their relevance establishment of a website to specific search terms.
One of the biggest shake ups has been within the online gambling niche as small scale websites have found themselves thrust up the rankings by the change in power and can be now found outranking even some of the most authoritive brands online, sparking calls from the online community for the search giants to sort out their problem and quickly.
Exact match domains were generally thought to be losing their value over the past year following between the line indications that the search giants were leaning more towards making their own decision of what a website is related to when searching to return the most relevant results to a user search query, a move that would see branded terms becoming more influential over a period of time but that was not the case when the change rolled out this month.
The result of the change has seen large name brands lose their grip on the positions in which they seemed to dominate with smaller, lower quality sites being rewarded by the roll out for owning an exact match keyword domain, a move that clearly shows that Google are still no closer to being able to determine for themselves what a website is trying to present to their users.
It’s not just the online gambling niche that has seen the alteration in power either, with payday loans, general finance and many other sectors also seeing their ranking results being impregnated by sites that have been simply created as a means to make money rather than to deliver the best information for search users, something that Google consistently claim to be looking to target when returning possible destinations for the user to visit during their quest for their query.
Not only is this a showing of a lack of progression within the Google algorithm but the fact that there has been correction of the issues seems to show that the search engine results pages will stay like this until Google roll out their next move to eclipse the sites that simply don’t deserve to be seen.
Can Google honestly put their hand on their heart and reveal that they feel that they have made the search engine results better for their users with their latest move or are they likely to simply keep quiet within the noise being made by webmasters that clearly feel that they are being out ranked by sites that have no right to exist within the top 1000 results, let alone the top 3?
