Google Update Shakes Up Rankings of Websites for Small and Large Businesses – SEO

Google’s recent update to it’s search engine ranking algorithm is designed to improve results for users, as they always try to do with their updates. Their business is to connect people with the information they seek as fast as possible by returning the most relevant results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of making your website as search-engine friendly as possible while providing signals to the search engines and their bots that indicate what your site is about. By putting keywords in the right places, providing plenty of relevant content about your products/services, and gaining links from trustworthy websites to your site, you can help get your site higher in the rankings.

Google’s always trying to fine-tune their search results and their latest update – Penguin 2.0 – is an attempt to reduce web spam in their results while strengthening quality sites and content. But as is often the case the rankings of many legitimate business sites were affected by the update. Searchmetrics released a list of the top losers from the update.

“My first analysis shows that many thin sites, sites with thin links and especially untrusted links face the problem,” says Searchmetrics founder and CTO Marcus Tober. “In addition, some small business sites were hit because they haven’t taken SEO serious enough.”.