A phantom no more, Google fesses up to new algorithm

There’s been a great deal of chatter and more than a few articles written in the past few days about Google’s “Phantom Update.” But until now, Google has remained silent.

As the story has gained steam on the Internet, now comes word straight from the search engine that it has changed the way it is assessing content quality.

Not only are the days of keyword stuffing gone, but this latest update only serves to prove what many of those in the public relations, social media and blogging arena have been saying for a while now – quality is king.

If you haven’t heard, Google has once again made changes to its core-ranking algorithm in terms of how it processes quality signals. As a result, many websites have reported a noted decrease in website traffic.

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HubPages, which provides a collection of hundreds of thousands of miniblogs – everything from art and design to technology – reported a big drop (22 percent) in Google traffic.

As far back as 2011, Google has said it was focusing on helping visitors to the Internet find high-quality sights. That’s when it released the “Panda” algorithm change.

Google even gave some guidance as to how information might be ranked higher asking a series of questions – which you can find here.

There’s a lot more techie-type of information being discussed that I won’t get into here, but the bottom line is that companies need to start paying closer attention to their website content by providing visitors with value and functionality.

Your website serves as a first introduction to potential customers and clients. Not only do you want to be found, but when you are found, you want to provide your visitors with something that will make them want to pick up the phone and call.

Susan R. Miller is founder of Garton-Miller Media, a full-service, South Florida based public relations firm. Susan is a former journalist with more than 30 years