Google Subtly Changes Its Advice for Ranking, Moves Away From Links to Quality of Sites
Google has made it known that it’s cracking down on link manipulation and poor user experiences by rolling out its Penguin and Panda algorithm updates. Now the search engine is making it clear in their advice to webmasters.
Search Engine Land highlights the subtle change in wording in Google’s Webmaster Help section regarding “Ranking.” The change, which was made on May 27, was spotted by Erik Baeumlisberger:
The change of “increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages” to “creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share” clearly marks a shift in focus that webmasters and marketers should know and be acting on by now. If not, this is a loud wake-up call.
It’s also another reason for companies to get familiar with what it takes to craft strong content that will compel readers to share it with others.
