Google announced today that they made approx. 50 unique changes to their search algorithms in March. A lot of them are just small tweaks that help improve how they interpret pages & specific queries – not necessarily making a huge SEO impact.
That said, they have referenced several algorithm updates that should be noted:
- Freshness of content is more important – There are multiple references in the 50 updates to factors of detecting old/stale content and/or identifying fresh content.
- An additional update appears targeted at detecting blog/forum post dates more effectively.
- Anchor Text – The updates were vague, but anchor text is definitely something Google is looking at a lot more closely. Exact match, etc. gaming is hopefully going to be devalued.
- Site Quality – Again, referenced several times in the latest round of updates, Google continues to refine the algorithm to identify quality sites and reward them; and penalize poor quality sites simultaneously.
I’m really looking forward to learning more about the March updates and reporting on them further in the near future.
In the meantime, let me know if you have any hunches about what these blurry updates really imply. Leave your ideas/comments below.
