Google must redress in order to reward businesses in 2008

Jonathan Bowers, January 3rd 2008, 11:25AM

Google seems to be coming under fire at the start of this year with suggestions that 2008 needs to be about refining search and rewarding the right websites. The Guardian's Jack Schofield suggests that some of the information we read on results pages is pure unnecessary fabrication, while the unofficial Google System Blog notes that the search engine's algorithms are changing to favour recent content rather than heavily linked websites.

Businesses that have invested in strong associated links and worked hard to create quality content about their products may find that newer sites refreshing information more regularly will knock them down the listings. With the emergence of many more resources, comments and review websites this challenge is a real threat.

With the possibility that Google does not reverse this trend in the near future, serious online businesses need to place January as a month of relevant and regular original content. Keep links as a close second however as Google may easily backtrack.

Tags: content, google
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Google's idea of 'content is king'

Jonathan Bowers, August 3rd 2007, 10:44AM

I searched for the words 'content is king' on Google today and the third result was a link to a page on the Microsoft website that lists Bill Gate's many articles and the publications they have appeared in. The phrase I Googled was not in evidence and so I cached the result and found the following response:

"These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: content king"

This throws up a debate about the way Google search is going. The Microsoft site is a true behemoth on the web so it is always going to rank well for a term but to rank well when the term does not appear on the page - will this satisfy the searcher? Ordinarily you would say no. However, if there are a high number of links into that page that actually have the words 'content king' embedded in the link, then this would suggest that public opinion directs the searcher to this page.

Further down the page is the line - 'content is king but linking is queen'. Are we seeing an innovation of the two - and is this a good thing for search?

Tags: content, linking, search_terms
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Blessed be the blog

Chris Norton, July 21st 2006, 10:37AM

A while ago the Web was in the grip of robots. Take two of the classic web searches (no, not those two, this is a family blog) - consumer electronics and celebrities. I'd be searching for a USB powered keyboard warmer and the latest pictures of Brian Blessed, and all I'd get was a hundred price comparison websites and some generic celeb-pic site with only a couple of fuzzy pics of Brian and a hundred links trying to sell me junk I didn't need, USB powered mouse-mat warmers? Useless!

These searches are bound to still have Google spit a lot of the old rubbish back at me, but nowadays the blogging explosion means that quite a lot of information on the web is now back to being produced by real, living, breathing people. Amidst the auto-generated pap, I'll typically be able to read someone slagging off the latest USB powered keyboard warmer (and saying that Apple are about to come out with one that'll revolutionise PC interface heating), and a few reviews of Brian Blessed's astonishing performance on Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes.

The web is being repopulated by real content, now that it's finally possible for totally non-technical types and geeks alike to get involved. As of this week, India can get involved too - now that the Indian government has lifted its recent blogging ban, that's another billion people to contribute some real content to our web. Now, considering I was lying in the last paragraph and can find hardly anything about Brian Blessed's astonishing performance on Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes, I'm hoping at least a few of the billion can get writing about this important matter. Real content! Let's go!

Tags: blogging, content, users, worldwideweb
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