mediajunk

Over the weekend, Google once more tweaked its algorithm in what seasoned observers regard as a further concession on last November’s harsh Florida update. Florida saw massive changes to Google's search results and led to a torrent of complaints from irate webmasters, even in comments to Mediajunk. The chief complaint was that Google was unfairly penalizing legitimate sites, especially small “mom and pop” businesses, while letting some irrelevant and “spammy” results through. In 2004, Google has made two additional changes to its algorithm, though both are regarded as being “rollbacks” toward pre-Florida results. Google is believed to have taken one leap forward, followed by two modest steps back. On bulletin boards devoted to search engine watching, webmasters and site owners have expressed approval of what those two steps back. Many sites that disappeared from the listings in November are returning to their former positions, while spam and non-relevant sites are, for the most part, being kept out. In keeping with the tradition of naming Google's updates alphabetically, the 2004 changes have been dubbed Austin and Brandy respectively by the SEO community.