Google’s ‘farmer update’ affects 11.8% of queries

Google has made a major upheaval to its search algorithm which will affect 11.8% of queries, as the company decisively acts against ‘content farms’ and other so-called low quality websites that it has decided are manipulating SEO tactics to secure higher-than-deserved rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

In a Google blog post, Google Fellow Amit Singhal and Principal Engineer Matt Cutts said this ‘farmer update’ extended from Google’s primary aim of giving ”people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible.”

Further, the blog entry explained: ”[Google] do have a responsibility to encourage a healthy web ecosystem. Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded.”

Google has stated previously that changes to its algorithm occur around 500 times per year, but announcements are rarely issued since the altered search results are very subtle. However, the significance of this algorithmic change is already deeply affecting several sites.

According to the digital marketing site Econsultancy, suite101.com, ezinearticles.com and associatedcontent.com are among the fifteen most affected sites. Associated Content was purchased by Yahoo for an alleged sum of $90 to $100m only less than a year ago.

A side-effect of the wide-ranging algorithmic change is that some innocent bystanders have been affected. One example is the web directory Mahalo, which immediately had to cut its staff by 10% after Google’s changes.