Blekko, a user-curated search engine, recently announced in its blog that it has upgraded its search crawler to provide users the most timely picture of the web. The company’s SEO tools will show users recent, more accurate and transparent data as a result of the improvements, which could make it a more appealing tool for both marketers and users. Of course, marketers should take this as a reminder to fuel their sites with fresh website content if they want to maintain visibility in light of Blekko’s update, which the company says is as much about “forgetting the old as finding the new.”
ScoutJet, Blekko’s search crawler, will relay data directly to the site’s SEO tools, which will allow marketers to make more informed decisions on their web campaigns. Blekko reported that it has seen increased traffic recently, which has made it a more valuable tool for those looking to boost their search presence.
Among the main benefits of the update is that users will see a more accurate picture of the web when they search for content and marketers can more easily assess their site’s standing. “We want to enable people to see the Internet the way a search engine sees it,” the company said in its announcement.
The change also works to make ScoutJet work closer to real-time, with Blekko explaining that top-ranked pages will br crawled every hour, and other high-quality pages will be checked weekly. It’s no Google Caffeine, but this give Blekko a more robust indexing system. More frequent indexing means greater detection of inbound links and duplicate text on a site, so marketers can spot any potential problems with their site faster.
There’s been a renewed emphasis on inbound among all search engines as the battle against webspam continues. While companies that use paid links will be negatively impacted by link scheme practices, low-quality sites linking to a business sometimes happens beyond a webmaster’s control. The rollout of Google Penguin means companies must monitor this and send link removal requests accordingly. Moreover, Brafton recently highlighted a new tool from Bing that will allow SEO marketers to disavow any links from low-quality sites they find. Google is reportedly working on a similar feature for marketers.
