15th November 2003 would probably go down in search engine history as an important milestone. It is the day Google implemented sweeping updates in its algorithm, (nicknamed - Google ‘Florida’ algo update), which threw several thousand high-ranking sites off their ranks. The entire SEO community is exhibiting unprecedented nervousness, even rage. While the feelings
"Google algorithm has stayed in the fore front and is one of the finest amongst all Search Engines. They will continue to make frequent and rampant changes to mimic human editors."
are mixed in various camps, one thing is certain that Google has ruffled quite many feathers. Although Google usually updates its algorithm every alternate month or so (with minor updates even monthly), the magnitude of changes this time was more than what webmasters and SEO community expected. The new changes have off-listed several thousand high-profile commercial sites that enjoyed a continued ranking. The change is sending shivers to several SEO businesses that are on the brink of closure if they are unable to understand how the changes take effect and how to get the clients ranked again. Considering Google commands almost 80% of search market share, moving focus to other engines does not seem to be an option.
The magnitude of algo changes has been rather severe this time. While the dust is still in the air, speculations are at large, on what the new algo is. As a company policy, Google does not comment on what their new updates do. There are no new guidelines on their site for webmasters or SEO community other than the same old narration of how ‘very good content’ would be rewarded and ‘unethical techniques’ would be penalized. Algos are always closely guarded secrets of search engines since any leak would mean an abuse of the system leading to contamination of their search results. Silence pays. Any comment, acceptance or a denial on the new algo behavior usually lets out parts of the algo secret.
In the absence of any official guidelines or comments from Google, our analysis is based on validations of various speculations, actual research, experience, knowledge of search engine behavior, trends and history. Some of our analysis and findings are covered in this article. Since the wide-ranging implications cannot be covered in one article, I’m intending to cover all the important aspects in a series of articles focusing on changes, speculations, myths and facts. This article would cover an overview of some important aspects and we would go into the depth of each in the next few articles.
