Google improving search yet again

Matt Cutts explaining Google Search

Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced

Google has made it blatantly clear they in an effort to improve search results they will start targeting scraper sites. Scraper sites are websites or webpages for that matter that essentially “scrape” or copy content from other sites. Sometimes these scraper sites produce higher keyword rankings than the websites they were scraped from.

Matt Cutts, from Google mentioned this when at SMX advanced in Seattle:

 

The search algorithm

Google’s search algorithm changes over 500 times per year in an effort to produce the best search results. Constantly, engineers and programmers are tweaking and making subtle changes(sometimes not so subtle- i.e. Panda) to the search algorithm. In fact Google just made a really cool video showing a bit of their process:

Google is asking you for help!

What? Yes, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Web Spam team Tweeted the other day that Google was looking for help in identifying scraper sites. He provided a shortlink to a URL.
Help report Scraper websites for Google screenshot

How can you help yourself and the search engines?

1) Use the standard authorship markup tag which you can read about here.
Essentially you need to provide the search engines a link to the author’s profile using the following code:

(use the real authors name of course)

2)Link your content to your Google Profile (prediction:this will be the preferred way for Google). There are a few easy steps to link your Google Profile to your content and vice/versa.

This large call to action may start to scare off some of the scraper sites out there that do nothing but frustrate you and me. So, as you’re producing content make sure you start to follow these guidelines to ensure YOU are getting credit for the content and not another website/author.

This will make Google happy.

Meet Joe Chura

Joe began his career on the Ford assembly line at age 20, reading his college textbooks seconds at a time in between building cars. Over the next decade Joe gained experience at many different levels in the automotive industry, including running Ford’s regional sales team and a stint as General Manager of two dealerships, where he increased internet sales by 300%. Combining his passion for computer programming and innovation, Joe co-founded Launch Digital Marketing (LDM) and Dealer Inspire (DI) to bring new retail technology and better online experiences to both car dealers and shoppers.