0 Google tweaks search to punish 'low-quality' sites

Google has changed its secret search formula in the United States to be more discerning when it comes to which websites are worth recommending and which should sink in the rankings.

The move announced late Thursday was part of an ongoing duel between the search titan and low-quality websites that feature only content copied from elsewhere on the Internet or use techniques to trick their way high in results.

"Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them," Google principal engineer Matt Cutts and Google fellow Amit Singhal said in a blog post.

"But, in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking."

They said the search formula change affects 11.8 percent of search queries, dropping low-quality websites in results while elevating high-quality websites with original content such as research, analysis, or in-depth reports.

"We do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem," Cutts and Singhal wrote.

"Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that's exactly what this change does."

Google said that it has been working on the issue for more than a year and engineers spent several months crafting the algorithm change, which was implemented in the United States and will be rolled out elsewhere over time.

The change at the world's most popular search engine was a hot topic among website operators on Thursday, with some happy that Google knocked "content farms" down a few notches and others complaining of unfairly dropping in rank.

Content farms are in Google crosshairs because such websites are known to pack pages with copied or superficial material crafted to capitalize on attention-getting topics.

Such websites want to attract as many people as possible in hopes of making money off online advertising.

"They may have whacked eHow good, but they did it in part through a crude duplicate content filter," someone with the online name 'Content ed' said in a busy chat forum at webmasterworld.com.

"I'm seeing long established sites getting killed because they have been ripped-off, copied and rewritten/repurposed to the point that Google can't tell who was the original."

FULL STORY :  http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-google-tweaks-low-quality-sites.html

The above is in no way "the real goal"...."the real goal" is the control and censorship of information, information that google does not want you to know even existed.
THE "REAL" STORY IS HERE: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/02/new-google-algorithm-is-live-news.html