Google Enhancements Place More Emphasis on Content

The latest improvements to Google’s algorithm place greater emphasis on quality content. Ori Allon, who was responsible for developing the breakthrough Orion algorithm blogs about the integration of new technology which results in a great enhancement of users search experience.

Relevant content has always attracted excellent search engine ranking. Content which is interesting, relevant and frequently updated ensures that web-pages are indexed and served in search engine results pages. Content is therefore every websites foremost SEO concern. Last week, the search engine leader Google announced two improvements to their search engine results pages, both of which place even more emphasis on relevant content.

The two improvements which have caused so much excitement in the Internet marketing industry include an expanded list of useful related searches and the addition of longer search result descriptions. Now, this may not sound like much to the average marketer or business owner but to Internet marketer's across the globe these seemingly minute details have great implications.

The announcement came from the desks of Google's Ori Allon, Technical Lead: Search Quality team and Ken Wilder: Snippets Team Engineer. Ori Allon, as a research student in Australia developed the Orion Search Engine which was considered "revolutionary" for its ability to deliver search results not only for a specific keyword but also for phrases related to the key search term. Google purchased the rights to the Algorithm from Ori Allon in 2006 before hiring him to work at their California headquarters.

In a 2005 Interview Allon was quoted as saying "By displaying results to other associated key words directly related to your search topic, you gain additional pertinent information that you might not have originally conceived, thus offering an expert search without having an expert's knowledge." At the time even Bill Gates agreed that Orion would have far reaching implications for search saying "We need to take the search way beyond how people think of it today. We believe that OrionTM will do that."

Related search results appear at the bottom of the search engine results page. According to Allon and Wilder, the technology deployed last week allows the search engine to "better understand concepts and associations related to your search". This is the height of intuitive web technology. It means that search results are now even more relevant to input queries serving up not only what you need to know but what you did not even know to ask for. The second search engine enhancement applies to longer search queries. The results returned for longer queries are now more detailed and include a longer description. Together, the two improvements are an indication of Google's strong focus on quality results.

With this move Google have once again placed themselves way ahead of the competition. I predict it will be a long time before other search engines catch up. In the mean time Google will continue to gain market share. Once again looking at this from an Internet marketer's point of view, my advice to companies whose businesses depend on the sales generated through Internet marketing is to invest in content and reap the long-term SEO benefits that it delivers.