Last week, Brafton reported that Google had updated its algorithm to reward sites for quality content. Some searchers are indicating they are pleased with the revised results, and Google executives say they will be tweaking the algorithm to ensure that specialty sites offering good content aren't penalized.
Earlier this week, Brafton covered a Sistrix report that indicated a number of notoriously low-quality sites, including faq.com and suite101.com, saw major declines in rankings. According to one searcher, eliminating these types of sites is a major improvement to the Google search experience.
Alex Madrigal, writing for The Atlantic, compared the results of a U.S. query impacted by the algorithmic update with the results of an Indian query not yet affected by the revamped algorithm.
Madrigal searched for the phrase “drywall dust.” He writes that the results for the search in India were sites that are “producing low-quality or aggregated content,” including About.com and Ask.com. On the other hand, he was happy to see that specialty sites made top listings in the updated U.S. Google results.
The No. 1 U.S. result for Madrigal’s query came from Paintsource.net. This site was started by a paint supply company. The page that comes up for the query “drywall dust” is an informational article about this health hazard as it relates to home construction projects. 
The article explains what drywall dust is, and it offers solutions for cleanup. Notably, it also links to related product pages for items that can be ordered via the site.
Paintsource.net offers industry-specific, search optimized articles to attract traffic, and it effectively and organically directs readers to relevant ecommerce pages. (Brafton discussed SEO and the purchase funnel in a recent blog post.) The site can serve as a model for content marketers on how to approach SEO: Google's new algorithm rewards keyword optimization combined with good writing that is relevant to your brand, and the result is satisfying for site visitors. Madrigal writes that the new algorithm yields “far superior results,” and trusted sites invite conversion.
Businesses that offer specialized news and information pages on their sites may expect to see their rankings continue to climb as Google further tweaks its algorithm. Wired magazine reports that Google acknowledges certain quality content sites have initially suffered from the algorithmic update, and the company is working to amend this error.
“We deeply care about the people who are generating high-quality content sites, which are the key to a healthy web ecosystem,” the source quotes Google Fellow Amit Singhal as saying. Singhal is aware that some sites have been “falsely” caught by the algorithm, and assures site owners that the Google team is going to “work harder to bring it closer to 100 percent” accuracy.
