I follow SitePro News. This is super e-newsletter. You can get the feed by clicking our post title. In the recent newsletter a very savvy author was speaking about the algorithm change on Google that just started this Thursday.
In the article, he mentions that Google has created a trust factor that is placing site’s with older domains preferentially above new domains. He also mentions changes in the weighting of PageRank shown on the green bar on the Google Toolbar or within the Google Sitemap control panel and also inbound links.
Clearly in the next several days we will continue to see a shakedown and mix up in the index. Are all of these changes good things? Well to scrap the PageRank indicator in the Google Toolbar is a good thing. PageRank has been an area that can be gamed by search engine optimizers and so to get rid of that I personally feel is a good thing. It appears that TrustRank may be the next big factor and this may be a better indicator of real value of a site and therefor a strong indicator of good organic search placement.
Although this newsletter is not online yet on the SitePro News site, when it is in the next several days, it is a must read. The title is “Google Algorithm Update Analysis” and is written by Dave Davies. You may not agree with everything that he has to say, but if you have been following the various Google patent disclosures over the last several months to one year, what he says makes sense based on the technology that Google has been actively patented.
From my viewpoint all of this information just reaffirms that excellent and unique content on your website is important. If you take time to create and build a great site, it should not stop when you launch, new content, a blog, an e-newsletter that are done on a regular basis build new content and authority over time.
There is no quick fix for great organic site placement on search engines, but once it is achieved, you have hit a tipping point and your business and market presence increases dramatically because of it. So specifically working to improve organic placement is crucial for all growing businesses.