Google Update 2019

1. weren’t measuring what we needed to so what we ended up doing was defining an explicit quality
metric which got directly at the issue of quality it’s not the same as relevance …. and it enabled us to
develop quality related signals separate from relevant signals and really improve them independently so
when the metrics missed something what ranking engineers need to do is fix the rating guidelines… or
develop new metrics.” SMX West 2016 – How Google Works: A Google Ranking Engineer’s Story (VIDEO)
In short, it was too easy (for some) to manipulate Google’s rankings at the beginning of the decade. If
you had enough ‘domain authority’ you could use ‘thin content’ to rank for anything. This is the
definition of a ‘content farm’.
Web spammers often used ‘unnatural‘ backlinks to build fake ‘domain authority‘ to rank this ‘thin’
content. I know I did in the past.
So Google raised the bar.
Google decided to rank HIGH-QUALITY documents in its results and force those who wish to rank high to
invest in higher-quality content or a great customer experience that creates buzz and attracts editorial
links from reputable websites.
These high-quality signals are in some way based on Google being able to detect a certain amount of
attention and effort put into your site and Google monitoring over time how users interact with your
site. These type of quality signals are much harder to game than they were in 2011.
Essentially, the ‘agreement’ with Google is if you’re willing to add a lot of great content to your website
and create a buzz about your company, Google will rank you high above others who do not invest in this
endeavour.
QUOTE: “high quality content is something I’d focus on. I see lots and lots of SEO blogs talking about
user experience, which I think is a great thing to focus on as well. Because that essentially kind of
focuses on what we are trying to look at as well. We want to rank content that is useful for (Google
users) and if your content is really useful for them, then we want to rank it.” John Mueller, Google 2016
If you try to manipulate Google, it will penalise you for a period, and often until you fix the offending
issue – which we know can LAST YEARS.