Google announced they have made a significant change to their search algorithm to help improve relevancy of the search results by showing fresher results more often.
When I reported this at Search Engine Land, I said this changed the search results by about 35% from what it was before. While the Panda update had an impact of 12%, Google said this impacted about 35% of searches.
Danny spoke to Google later and they said overall, 35% of searches will be impacted by this algorithm but already 17.5% were impacted prior. They doubled it, so the change from yesterday to today is more like a 17.5% change, which is still very significant.
Here is what has changed:
- Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.
- Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it's implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you're searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you'll see the latest information.
- Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you're researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.
Google said this with the caffeine index makes for a much more relevant set of search results.
There is a lot of discussion on this, webmasters and SEOs are concerned. Right now, it is too early to tell, but I'll be tracking the forums and let you know what I find.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and HackerNews.
