10 Recent Changes to Improve Google Search

Google is constantly upgrading and improving the processes which drive their algorithms, evaluations and search rankings so that Google Search can continue to be the search engine of choice. Within the space of a single year, Google may make hundreds of changes in order to provide the best search results. Google recently released a list of just 10 changes to let customers get a peek into how the company is refining their methods.

1.   Get What you Want in the Language you Understand Best

*Queries in languages with limited Web content will now get translated responses

There is an amazing amount of information on the Web, but it isn’t readily available in every single language. Some languages (eg. Afrikaans, Swahili, Icelandic, Welsh) have precious little Web content representation. Consider Hindi – a language spoken by millions yet only one percent of Web content is available in Hindi. Google search wants to help eliminate the barriers language can cause when it comes to searching Web results. Now, when a user types in a query using a language that has limited Web content, the search will provide relevant English pages translated into the query language. This is a gold mine for marketers who bumped up against the language barrier when seeking to reach into limited language markets.

2.  Where’s the Beef?

* Searches will provide a greater amount of page-related content

Snippets are the few words which show up underneath search results to give users an idea of what they will find on the Web page and how that content relates to their search query. In the past, Google search has used headers or menu content in their snippets, but no more. From now on Google search users will receive more relevant search results with snippets that contain text from the actual Web page. No more frosting results – Google plans to serve up the meat of quality content.

3.  Get Better Page Titles from Your Searches

* Google will no longer be duplicating boilerplate anchors

When generating a page title Google used link anchor text, but it wasn’t providing truly relevant search results. Now, the company is moving away from the practice. Users can expect page titles that better reflect actual Web page content as a result. Site wide linking can also no longer be depended upon to drive search engine ranking.

4.  Brevity is the Soul of Wit and Russian Queries too

*Google will no longer give lengthy auto-complete predictions for Russian queries

This is already standard practice for Google in English – now Russian users will also avoid lengthy predictions

5.  Get a Better Look Under the Hood

*Rich software application snippets will be provided

For those who search software applications, Google now provides rich details such as reviews by users and cost in more of its snippets for applications.

6.  It’s the Pink Slip Baby, for a Signal in Image Search

* A signal within Image search has been retired

The signal getting the pink slip has to do with images from multiple Web documents.  The signal was deemed archaic.

7.  Freshness Counts

*The algorithm used to rank freshness of the Web content has been improved

This updated algorithm is expected to impact 35 percent of all searches and about 6-10 percent of searches in a significant and noticeable way.  Take note Webmasters – fresh content is a must.

8. It’s Official

*Google has improved its ability to detect which business or brand pages are actually the official pages

Keeping your search results relevant is important – you’ll get to the official site more often now.  Official sites will enjoy higher search ranking.

9.  How About a Date?

*Users making date-specific queries will now get the freshest results

Google search users can expect to access the most up-to-date information when they make date-designated searches

10.  It’s All Greek to Me

*Non-English users will find that the auto-complete function better handles non-Latin characters

Users searching in Arabic, Hebrew or Russian should notice improvement in query results

So, the question remains – has anything really changed in the Google world? In the simplest of terms, the focus is on producing quality pages that offer information users are searching for, gathering links that reflect quality content and driving user behavior while on your site. To truly draw clicks, provide the quality of information users want – pure and simple.