The quality over quantity battle wages on, and this time, Google’s Search Engineer Matt Cutts says quality online content wins. The search engine has approved, but not yet introduced, an update that will give quality SEO content prime positions in search results, even if it comes at the expense of diversity. This means it will be even more important for brands to rank well for their core keywords.
In the latest Google Webmaster Help video, Cutts sets out to explain why internet users sometimes receive multiple results from the same domain in search engine results pages. However, he ends up revealing that Google is on the cusp of rolling out a new algorithm update that will change SEO rankings. Unfortunately, small businesses may suffer at the hand of Google once again.
In the future, a website can dominate a cluster of results on the first page (Cutts says four), but then it won’t rank on the second, third or fourth pages. Brafton previously reported that Google planned to get rid of this kind of information display, but it looks to have gone a different route.
“We might still show multiple results from one domain if we think it’s a really good match for that query, but at least you hopefully won’t see that over and over and over again as you dig deeper in the search results,” Cutts said.
This release is part of an ongoing struggle to strike the perfect balance between quality and diversity. Google aims to serve internet users the best results without giving certain sites too much authority. Cutts announced the update after delivering a backstory that outlines the search engine’s evolution from a site that ranked solely on quality to its initial attempts to infuse diversity in to give SERPs the best mix.
Cutts’ announcement reminds marketers that SEO is an ongoing process. Google will continue to hone its technology, forcing publishers to deliver higher-quality web content that ranks well for their core keywords if they want to earn top search positions.
