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In our monthly tradition, we are reporting on the March 2009 Google Search changes as seen via the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread. You can see the February report that we posted last month to catch up.
This month, one member feels Google is now weighing heavier on the keywords used in backlinks (anchor text) to determine page relevancy. Full member, jcmiras said:
Assuming you searched for "word1+word2+word3" (without quotes), usually, we thought that all of the pages that appear in the SERP should contain all of the keywords. However, there are pages in the result which contain only "word1" and "word2" but "word3" is not there, instead, it is on one of the pages that that particular page in the SERP is linking to.
WebmasterWorld's administrator, Tedster, said he has seen a recent spike in chatter about this in the forums and elsewhere.
Other news that happened recently and that is being discussed include stories that we posted within the past couple weeks. They include:
- Google Blog Search To Test New Link Command Features Next Week
- Google March 2009 PageRank Update or Glitch?
- February '09 Google Image Search Update?
Keep watching this space and the WebmasterWorld thread for updates.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Amol
03/31/2009 04:04 am
Yes , Google is now weighing heavier on the keywords used in backlinks.Also , the pagerank's importance also seems to have reduced. Because the google pagerank of my blog reduced while its traffic has increased :)
David
05/10/2009 03:49 am
So does this mean we need to focus on the quality of the backlink vs quantity?
No Name
08/20/2009 12:39 am
seems the page rank doesn't mean anything anymore. Its all weighing on anchor text in your links now.