It's the never-ending guessing game of what is acceptable or not in the eyes of Google. It's unfortunate, but the business world has to continually adjust to the whims and ideas of what the most popular search engine may or may not want. The latest update named "Panda" has yet again caused upheaval and distress with webmasters pulling out their hair wondering, “what's next?”

The problem has not just been Google's lack of transparency, but their unwillingness to even give the "Good Guys", as they put it, a push in the direction of knowing how to optimize their websites. Although Google definitely denies tweaking their algorithms to give their major advertisers the advantage in the search engine rankings, what is anyone to really know?

They give the corporate answer of everything they do is to help those sites that are providing the best information, the advantage in higher rankings.  However, what's anyone to think when there's no proof?

So what was this last update supposed to accomplish anyway?

It's purpose, like always, is to displace the low quality content farm sites with higher quality sites. The big problem is that Google's opinion of quality and usable content might not be what everyone thinks, in terms of receiving a higher search engine ranking.

Again, it comes back to giving the proof that they are truly changing things for the better interests of content on the web, versus their own agenda. We say this because some sites like e-how and suite 101 are still showing strong in search engine rankings, even though they are the typical model “content farm” sites on the web.

It just goes back to Google's position of what they profess to want to provide their users. However, it still looks like they pick and choose what's best, according to their own interests and then tell us something completely different.

What can businesses do to keep in the good graces of Google?

• Everything must go on and Google will continue to hold the keys. They really have the power to do whatever they want. It's important to continue to provide quality content on your website. It might not seem fair at times with what continues to happen. However, quality content will give you the best chance of prevailing in the long-term.
• If you want to survive in this often wacky online world, you have to know Google as well as they will let you. There's no escaping current knowledge on what Google is always doing and become as knowledgeable as possible on SEO according to Google. If you don't have the time to do it, then you better hire someone that can do it for you.

Updates and changes will continue to occur and it can seem hard at times to rely on any SEO strategy as a long-term answer to your website ranking. However, if you always have your focus on relevant quality content in combination with always trying to stay on top of the most current SEO information, you have the best opportunity of continuing to have the best success online.