Last night, Google announced an update to its algorithm that makes quality content necessary for sites that want good rankings. The search giant says it has already launched its refined algorithm, and this will impact 11.8 percent of searches.

Last night, Google announced an update to its algorithm that makes quality content necessary for sites that want good rankings. The search giant says it has already launched its refined algorithm, and this will impact 11.8 percent of searches.

The company's previous algorithmic change penalized sites for unoriginal content, but this update focuses on promoting quality content. Google explains that some sites will drop in ranking, while others will improve. In other words, marketers offering fresh, relevant content will benefit from this change, and others will need to boost the quality of their content marketing to maintain or gain rank position.

“It is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that's exactly what this change does,” says Google. The firm believes this is a “a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results.”

While Google says this update isn't in any way dictated by its recent Personal Blocklist extension for Chrome (which Brafton reported allows users to ban low-quality sites from personal results), the company says the revised algorithm addresses up to 84 percent of the low-quality issues users have reported via the extension.

With Google's new algorithm in mind, marketers will want to invest more heavily in fresh, unique content marketing services that can provide blogs, articles and landing pages of the highest editorial caliber. The search engine hints that future updates will further necessitate quality content, saying, “We're working on many more updates that we believe will substantially improve the quality of the pages in our results.” Brands will want to plan accordingly.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.