Google recently reported in their Webmaster Central Blog that in August 2010, they have adjusted their search algorithm “will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site.” Basically this means that keywords entered into the search engine that are very domain specific will list more results from the domain Google feels the searcher is looking for. This change will clearly benefit larger websites with a high PageRank and domain-specific names. More links to this site will show up on the first page. This also means that smaller sites with relevant content on the search terms will be pushed further down and in many situations, onto the second and third page of search results.
Google is clearly taking a stab at eliminating spam sites which is a good thing. However, it also severely affects legitimate sites with information the searcher could find valuable. Many small site owners are upset about this change and wonder why multiple links are “reserved” for the already highly ranked sites. Some go so far as to say this makes searching far less efficient when compared to Bing and other secondary search engines.
Many users question why anyone would want to see multiple search results from the same site. After all, can’t the web surfer simply click on a single site link and navigate within that particular domain to find additional information? Others argue that Google Sitelinks are used for the purpose of displaying other pages of large and established websites.
It is possible that Google has gone a bit too far to eliminate spam sites. This new change could affect a users search experience to the point where they seek out alternative search engines to find the information they are looking for.
Article first published as <a href=’http://technorati.com/technology/article/googles-questionable-new-ranking-algorithm-could/’>Google’s Questionable New Ranking Algorithm Could Open the Door For Bing</a> on Technorati.
