Since January Google have been working on a new algorithm that aims to take action in some way against ‘content farms’. It seems common knowledge that Google does and should update the way the search engine works but evidently most updates are made to refine the process as opposed to a large change.

The new updated Google search engine is said to have a larger impact on websites that are deemed to be ‘shallow’ or have ‘low quality’ content. Both you and I can do this job as humans, but hearing this news has only made me wonder how on earth this will be measured. Currently the Unites States is the largest market for them and the new changes would affect 11.8% of the search results. Although this new change may be of interest, the question of how Google would do this for other countries specifically like the UK is still pending.

Now then, I did mention how Google will target poor quality information sites, however at the same time they are completely denying, the little devils, that it is aimed at these kind of sites, better known as either content farms or scraper sites. Back in the day the search engine had created an algorithm that would block web spam. Now it only seems natural that the modern day version of this would be sites that copies content directly. In other words, there are many different types of web spanners and the goal posts have shifted, and so Google must shift its posts to keep up to date.

One thing I have noticed is that the new updates are more likely to affect, again, low quality content websites, but this could also mean that Google could give rise to a new bunch of digital community bloggers. As geo-tagging (tagging where you are geographically either through twitter, facebook, foursquare or other such sites/apps) is being increasingly used it seems that there is an equal trend for mobile and community bloggers. This new Google update could allow for this new movement to be brought to the forefront and celebrated.

For many years Google has had a penalty on new sites or sites that acquire large amounts of links from other sites in a short time frame. The process, called sandbox, Is better described as a docking bay, however if done badly could become more like docking in a black hole.

The sandboxing process takes your site and then places it where it thinks you should be and new sites will show up for obscure searches such as the company/web site name but not show for other phrases that are site specific.
It doesn’t matter if the site is optimised for the search engines either. In fact, those who have optimised their sites can drive themselves crazy making change after change but to no positive avail.

Web sites who all of a sudden obtain hundreds or even thousands of links from other sites could be sent to the Google sandbox if it seems excessive and obviously done to aid Goole ranking.

If you are a new website, or fearfully dipped into the sandbox, most experts would probably say Google keeps you in that period for six to eight weeks, but with nothing ever confirmed by Google it has always been quite vague. In many ways having your website SEO friendly is something that should really be done when setting it up and along the way rather than paying to do this seasonally. All of the SEO may seen pointless when at first but after those initial sandbox months your website should have matured, a bit like waiting for premium whiskey to age, and be ready to rank reasonably, in a ever stabalised fashion. The worst case situtation would be to have an irratic website that climbs and falls from rankings, so the sandbox makes sure the you get served the right ranking the first time round.

There are many ways that other SEO experts like to sell their services but from what I can tell the aging process of your site is a much easier thing to describe than the sandbox process and Google would need to have a seperate process that would allow this aging process to happen, its just so happens that its been done so well (and secretly) that it all seems like part of the seamless search engine service they kindly provide.