Google Announces Another Round of Algorithm Changes

Last month Google let us take a peek behind the curtain of their search algorithm when they took the wraps off ten recent algorithm changes on their Inside Search blog. It was a surprising change from Google’s usually secretive ways that has now led to a monthly series due to overwhelming positive feedback

The search giant today detailed another 10 changes to the algorithm that have taken place in the last few weeks. The list of changes are even more substantial than the last round, including more comprehensive indexing, ‘parked domain’ classifiers, more versatile autocomplete predictions and better detection of original content.

From Google’s Inside Search post:

• Related query results refinements: Sometimes we fetch results for queries that are similar to the actual search you type. This change makes it less likely that these results will rank highly if the original query had a rare word that was dropped in the alternate query. For example, if you are searching for [rare red widgets], you might not be as interested in a page that only mentions “red widgets.”
• More comprehensive indexing: This change makes more long-tail documents available in our index, so they are more likely to rank for relevant queries.
• New “parked domain” classifier: This is a new algorithm for automatically detecting parked domains. Parked domains are placeholder sites that are seldom useful and often filled with ads. They typically don’t have valuable content for our users, so in most cases we prefer not to show them.
• More autocomplete predictions: With autocomplete, we try to strike a balance between coming up with flexible predictions and remaining true to your intentions. This change makes our prediction algorithm a little more flexible for certain queries, without losing your original intention.
• Fresher and more complete blog search results: We made a change to our blog search index to get coverage that is both fresher and more comprehensive.
• Original content: We added new signals to help us make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.
• Live results for Major League Soccer and the Canadian Football League: This change displays the latest scores & schedules from these leagues along with quick access to game recaps and box scores.
• Image result freshness: We made a change to how we determine image freshness for news queries. This will help us find the freshest images more often.
• Layout on tablets: We made some minor color and layout changes to improve usability on tablet devices.
• Top result selection code rewrite: This code handles extra processing on the top set of results. For example, it ensures that we don’t show too many results from one site (“host crowding”). We rewrote the code to make it easier to understand, simpler to maintain and more flexible for future extensions.

 

Over the last few months Google have been uncharacteristically transparent concerning its search algorithm, a stark change from the secrecy that surrounded Google’s secret search sauce for so long. Either way, Google’s newfound openness makes it easier to not only see where Google are making changes, but the kinds of assumptions Google derives about search behavior from its vast stores of search data.

Don’t forget to tune in to next weeks show for a detailed breakdown of each algorithm change. Click here to sign up for our newsletter and have the video sent straight to your inbox!

Jim

Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.