Google Update Commentary
According to Search Engine Land, a couple things happened at SMX West regarding Google Updates. The first was that Matt Cutts said there will be a very large Penguin Update in 2013. Cutts also said that there will be a Panda algorithm update on March 15.
Now on the other hand, Matt also announced at SMX West today that their Panda algorithm will soon be more integrated into their overall updates. So this means that updates will be less severe.
Here are a few comments I have on the future of Google Updates.
I am very happy to see that Google is considering taking a more gradual approach to their updates. Over the last couple years they seem to have been using the strategy of shoot first and ask questions later. I have seen many good people running ethically and morally sound businesses financially hurt due to these updates. This is really an issue of responsibility on Google’s part.
My hope is that this large update and the smaller updates are related. Possibly the large update is the process of putting the mechanism in place for the smaller updates. Google has been working hard on artificial intelligence and machine learning over the last decade. I would imagine this will play a much larger role in the future algorithm. It is just too much data for people to process in a quick enough fashion and AI solves this to a degree.
My hope is that the big updates that hurt so many small businesses were a necessary evil to get where we are now. If this is the case, maybe Google will ease up a little on the changes. Smaller and more gradual updates would be very welcome by Internet marketers I believe.
